First, the most tragic. We learned democratic congressman Elijah Cummings passed away overnight. A passionate leader, a gifted orator, a champion of transparency. Cummings was respected, even loved by members on both sides of the aisle. His office says he passed away early this morning of complications from longstanding health challenges. Cummings had been in and out of the hospital. He did play a key role in the impeachment inquiry of trump. He was first elected in 1996. Congressman Elijah Cummings of maryland, just 68 years old. And well talk more about that. But this. Just moments ago, Vice President pence arrived in ankara, turkey. He is there along with secretary of state mike pompeo to try to broker a ceasefire to the fighting that began in syria when President Trump withdrew u. S. Troops. Any moment now, we can see the Vice President meeting with turkeys president. And then less than two hours from now, back here in the u. S. , Gordon Sondland, the Eu Ambassador at the center, now one of the key figures in the impeachment inquiry will appear before three house committees, including oversight. His scheduled testimony last week was blocked by the state department. According to the Washington Post, sondland is expected to say there was a quid pro quo with ukraine, but he did not believe a corrupt one. As we said, a lot of news. Well get to all of it. Joining us now, chief Political Correspondent dana bash, Jeffrey Toobin and chief White House Correspondent jim acosta. Well start with the loss of chairman Elijah Cummings. Son of a share cropper, beloved on both sides of the aisle and respected as well. Dana bash, you have perhaps the most vivid example of that this morning. Explain. Thats right. Mark meadows, who are viewers probably know as a very staunch republican, very close ally of President Trump, well, he also, according to cummings own words was one of cummings best friends. Very, very different politically. Very close personally. And meadows said to me this morning, quote, i am dlae heartbroken, truly heartbroken. I have no other words to express the loss. Again, a staunch republican talking about a very prominent democrat who is investigating meadows close ally. And i think theres so much that says, but, i think just if we can take a moment, as divisive as this town is, there are relationships, personal relationships across the aisle. And meadows and cummings and the way that he is expressing or having difficulty expressing his sorrow for cummings loss even amid the turmoil politically thats going on here, i think is very important to talk about. We just had Debbie Wasserman schultz on who was crying through your interview with her and expressing what a loss and what a shining light he was. What a beacon for so many across the aisle and as democrats. And just waking up this morning to this sudden news for many of us. Well have much more on the loss of congressman cummings later in the program. Lets turn to something that he was very interested in. And that is the impeachment inquiry. Debbie Wasserman Schultz told us he would want the hearings to go on today. And they are. They are going on today. Every day has had breaking news in terms of that. Its the ambassador to the eu. U. N. Ambassador Gordon Sondland. Hes an interesting person because his appearance was blocked, jim, last week, and now hes coming back. They have all sorts of questions for him because hes the person in those Text Messages with bill taylor with the infamous call me when things seemed to be getting too hot in terms of questions about this quid pro quo. Whenever youre exchanging texts and they say call me it typically means you dont want to continue to have that conversation via text. And the ambassador will have a lot to answer for when he goes behind closed doors. All you have to do is look at what phiona hill, the top russia adviser to the president was saying behind closed doors earlier this week according to our reporting. She was describing john bolton as referring to the scheming going on between Mick Mulvaney and ambassador sondland as a, quote, drug deal and saying what Rudy Giuliani is doing is like a hand grenade thats going to blow everybody up. Well have to get to the bottom of that. Lawmakers want to ask about not just what fiona hill was testifying, but why was Gordon Sondland talking to the president as he was texting with bill taylor about this socalled quid pro quo . According to the Washington Post and some other outlets, including cnn doing some reporting on all of this, sondland has said, well, it was a quid pro quo but not a corrupt quid pro quo. That flies in the face of what the president has been saying. That there was no quid pro quo. Soliciting foreign help in an election is against the law. And if we get to the end of this process and theres evidence of that, my guess is youre going to see articles of impeachment brought forward. I talked to a source in the middle of some of this testimony earlier this week who said this is a pivotal week in this investigation. The evidence of the president soliciting foreign help for an election is in the transcript of the call where he says, hey, go look into the bidens. Talk to Rudy Giuliani. There was all of this maneuvering going on up until this phone call. For the president to say it was a perfect phone call, nothing nefarious there, it was no pressure. It sounds like there was a pressure operation going on before that phone call. Gordon sondland will testify to that. This is cnns reporting. The Washington Post saying hell say there was a quid pro quo. Not a corrupt one. Cnn is reporting about the meeting Gordon Sondland was trying to set up here. If you wanted to get this meeting with zelensky you can abandon that or work through Rudy Giuliani. Describing what sondland may say on thursday. They came to understand what rudy wanted was a Public Statement by zelensky to look at burisma, Hunter Bidens company, and the server that deals with the Conspiracy Theory about crowd strike. There was something that would be conceded by zelensky if he wanted to meet with the president , hence a quid pro quo. Thats right. What makes sondland so important, he had a relationship with donald trump. He is not a government bureaucrat. He is a hotel owner from the Pacific Northwest who gave a Million Dollars to the trump inauguration. He had not been a particularly close trump supporter in the year leading up to the election. But he became one in a very selfconscious way, it appears, to get an ambassadorship. He got one. And there were at least some phone calls between sondland and the president. And what makes his testimony so important is that he is someone who can testify about what the president said about the relationship with ukraine. Since were in an impeachment investigation, what comes out of the president s mouth is so important. Obviously, we have the partial transcript that was released earlier that many people regard as a smoking gun. But sondland can also testify about what trump was saying in realti realtime. Thats important in unfolding how this story developed. All of this is happening on such a busy week on so many other levels. Obviously, whats happening in syria as we just saw the Vice President has just landed in attempt to broker some sort of ceasefire that many people believe the president began by giving the greenlight to erdogan. And then this letter that was released by the white house from the president to erdogan and the language in it that just struck so many people as unusual coming from a president. And then this iconic photograph that both President Trump and nancy pelosi have released. This was nancy pelosi standing up to well, i dont know if thats the right word. Confronting the president about the things he had said in this meeting. Our reporting is that in this white house meeting, ill take you through a few. The president bragged about his nasty letter to erdogan. We may have a chance to read some portions of that. He called general mattis the most overrated general. He said fewer than 100 isis prisoners had escaped and theyre the least dangerous ones. The important thing there is the secretary of defense wouldnt confirm it. He wouldnt confirm they were the least dangerous. How do we know the least daern dangerous ones. And he called nancy pelosi a third rate politician. And thats when, i think the moment where you see her standing up. I think its the moment where she says, why do all roads with you lead back to putin . What a day, dana. What a day. I mean, this is if we were watching a tv show about a presidency, we would roll our eyes and say, yeah, right. You can probably say that about every five minutes of this presidency. But this really caps it because its climactic. And that picture, the fact that the white house, that the president wanted that out because that makes it look bad for nancy pelosi, i mean, i guess she, like many politicians, are kind of a rorschach test. But its hard to see how that picture shows anything other than her literally and figuratively standing up to the president , particularly after what we now are told from people on both sides of the aisle who were in that room happened where the president was, again to use his room, rude to her. And that was all the talk im told on the floor of the senate when members of congress came back. And, again, the whole reason for this blowup is because the president got his head handed to him with a major and very important vote yesterday. In the house of representatives where the majority of his fellow republicans rebuked him on his decision in syria and what it has done to the u. S. Allies there in the fight against isis, the kurds, as weve been talking about. That is at the core of all of this behavior. Jeffrey, can i tie this together a little bit with the impeachment inquiry . Because the president lost on the floor of the house yesterday, 21, on the syria vote. And it also seems hes losing a little bit in the process here on impeachment. The white house is trying to stonewall. Theyre trying to utilize the strategy with the Mueller Investigation and the congressional inquiries. But the wall is crumbling because all these people theyve tried to keep from testifying or hoping wouldnt testify are. And they are telling a story. This is really extraordinary. The white House CounselPat Cipallone wrote this letter last week, although we seem to work in dog years in it seems like a long time ago, but only last week this eightage letter saying no one in the administration is going to participate in this kangaroo court. Youll not get any witnesses or documents. What weve seen this week is that quite a few representatives of the trump administration, mostly career people, but not all. Sondland is a political appointee. What the democrats are doing is they are slapping these individuals with subpoenas. And they are going to they are deal with the question of, am i going to listen to the white House Counsel or am i going to listen to my own personal lawyers who say you have got a subpoena, pal. You better show up. And what these witnesses are doing is, by and large, showing up. And they are building a case that certainly looks like it is heading towards impeachment at this point. But that letter, that eightpage letter which many of us thought was a complete shutdown, has turned out not to be. And that is very much benefiting this investigation. Very notable and very important day. Obviously, well continue to follow all of the developments. Thank you, guys. We were just talking about that white house meeting. That remarkable picture. Democrats say the president had a meltdown. We will speak to one senator who was there in the room and says he has concerns about the president s behavior. Next. Were reporters from the new york times. This melting pot of impacted species. Everywhere is going to get touched by climate change. Thand find inspiration who win new places. Ct. Leading them to discover were woven together by the moments we share. Everything you need, all in one place. Expedia. vo the big dogs. The old dogs. The deaf, blind, the different. Subaru presents the underdogs. These shelter dogs still love unconditionally. Theyre just hoping to find their human, who does too. To help, subaru is establishing National Make a dogs day to ask you to please consider adopting an underdog, or do something extraspecial for your dog. Heres the thing about managing for your business. S when youve got public clouds, and private clouds, and hybrid clouds things can get a bit cloudy for you. But now, theres the Dell Technologies cloud, powered by vmware. A single hub for a consistent operating experience across all your clouds. That should clear things up. So this morning, democrats accuse President Trump of having a feltdown during this white house meeting that was meant to be about the crisis in syria. Instead, democrats say it quickly devolved with the president calling nancy pelosi a third grade politician. Joining me is senator bob menendez of new jersey. He was in that meeting at the white house. Senator, what happened . What turned . When did this meeting go south . From my perspective, the meeting started off with the president walking in and slamming down his files on the table suggesting that this was a meeting he agreed to, but we had asked for. No one had asked for the meeting. I got an invitation from the white house. It wasnt at my solicitation or the speakers or the democratic leader of the senate. And it was belligerent from the getgo. And when you have the president of the United States who is supposed to bring our country together, particularly in times of challenges, call the speaker a third rate politician, suggests that democrats who support the kurds because they have fought for us and the kurds, according to him, are communists so democrats should be happy with that. In essence calling us all communists. And when, in fact, you have someone who belittled general mattis as too weak. And then goes on to not show a grasp and understanding of what has been unleashed by his decision. Particularly as it relates to the potential reconstitution of isis and iran getting a land bridge to attack our ally, the state of israel and handing russia a major role. Thats worrisome. So the speaker was restrained until he continued to belittle her and democrats in general. And as the third in line to the presidency and speaker of the house, i dont think she should have had to take that type of abuse. You said overnight, quote, i did not see a person in control. You just told me it was worrisome. What do you mean by that . Well, its the president of the United States who is the commander in chief. Its the president of the United States who holds the code to the Nuclear Weapons of this country. Its the president of the United States that has to get other leaders in the world to join us in common cause. I did not see a person who was of the temperament and had a grasp of the issues that would ultimately show a sense of feeling there was a person totally in control. And what i saw yesterday, i have not seen in 27 years in serving under four different president s. What do you mean . I saw a person you know, i was here when george bush was the president. You know, we didnt always agree, but he was always agreeable. He was someone who would listen. It wasnt combative in tones when you engaged with him. You know, it was someone who, you know, at the end of the day, you might disagree with him, but you felt there was a sense of calm and steadiness at the white house. Are you suggesting you have questions about mental capacity is the word people toss around. Are you concerned hes not up to the job at this moment . I dont know about mental capacity. Im not an expert to determine that. I am simply saying that someone who is the commander in chief needs to bring our country together in common cause and acts the way he acts is not something that i want to see in the president of the United States. And when we challenge him, what is your strategy on isis, what guarantees do you have that the 10,000 isis fighters that have been detained by the kurds are not going to get released in the course of these events, how are you going to stop iran from coming in to syria which is already there fighting on behalf of assad for some time to get an attack point against israel. What are you going to get from russia in this regard . When there are virtually no answers to that other than dont worry, then i worry. And i know you pushed him on just that fact. Liz cheney reportedly from wyoming, republican member of congress noted the al qaeda terrorists and 9 11 came from 7,000 miles away. So the idea this isnt happening on our border may not be applicable. And apparently, the president handed out copies or asked, i think it was kevin mccarthy, the republican leader of the house to pass out copies of this letter the president said he sent to president erdogan last week. Let me read an excerpt of this. Lets work out a deal. You dont want to be responsible for slaughtering thousands of people, and i dont want to be responsible for destroying the turkish economy, and i will. Dont be a tough guy. Dont be a fool. Then the president says, i will call you later. The president wanted this handed out. He thought this would bolster