Transcripts For CNNW New Day With Alisyn Camerota And John B

With four key witnesses set to testify and a day that could bring some of the most contentious moments yet. This morning well hear from two Top National Security officials who heard the july 25th phone call between President Trump and the president of ukraine, and they both say they were troubled by it. Also, both witnesses have been attacked already by President Trump and his allies. Will the president resist. Now republicans are expected to mount an aggressive line of questioning with one in particular, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman. And former special envoy to ukraine kurt volker, they will testify. They released two transcripts of two other key witnesses. David holmes, the u. S. Diplomat in ukraine. Hes the person who overheard President Trump asking ambassador sondland about the investigation into joe biden during that loud cell phone call in a kyiv restaurant. He told lawmakers he was stunned by that call. Hed never seen anything like it he said. A source tells cnn serl republicans were shaken by what holmes had to say. All of this as cnn learns that mr. Trump has considered dismissing aides who testified against him. Suzanne malveaux is live on capitol hill with our top story. Reporter good morning, alisyn. At this very moment Capitol Police are huddled inside that room as they get ready for a security sweep. We are three hours away from those four witnesses testifying, key witnesses, all of this following late last night when new transcripts release damning testimony, new testimony that poke major holes in trump and his allies arguments. Four key witnesses will take the stand today starting with Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman and Jennifer Williams who both listened in on the july 25th phone call between President Trump and ukraines president. Vindman testified last month that he raised concerns to the Top National Security council lawyer within hours of the call. As a former air force pilot, air force officer i know that just because youre in the military doesnt mean youre beyond reproach or question. You have to be held responsible for the comments youve made and we think well be able to do that. Williams, a state Department Employee detailed to Vice President mike pences told impeachment investigators trumps request for specific investigations struck her as unusual and inappropriate. Former special envoy for ukraine kurt volker will testify this afternoon with tim morrison, the former top russia adviser on the National Security council. Volker told investigators he was unaware of a quid pro quo, but he said he was troubled by the rough transcript of the call. Morrison who was on the july 25th call has said ambassador to the eu Gordon Sondland said the military aid was conditioned on publicly opening certain investigations. This is shocking behavior of the president. These witnesses have served their country both as military leaders, as leaders in the Foreign Service. They are incredible patriots. According to new transcripts, david hoemlmes testified behind closed doors last week that he overheard a phone call between trump and sondland where the president asked the ambassador about whether ukraine was going to agree to carry out the investigations he wanted. Holmes says the conversation was so loud that he could hear it. Holmes told investigators ive never seen anything like this. Holmes reveals that he reported the phone call to his superior at the embassy and even mentioned it briefly to friends soon after. I thought he was an excellent witness. Frankly his revelation was jaw dropping. Holmes also testified that it was clear to him that ukrainian officials, quote, gradually came to understand that they were being asked to do something in exchange for the meeting and a Security Assistance hold being lifted. A republican source tells cnn that several members of the gop were privately shaken by his closed door testimony. David hale, the highest ranking state Department Employee to testify so far, saying after hearing that the aid to ukraine was halted, hale said he wanted clarity on who ordered the freezing. He testified it took him two days to get an answer before omb stated on the record that it was the president through chief of staff mulvaney. Reporter first round will be vindman and williams to testify. That will be at 9 00. Theyll be side be side, a democratic aide telling me the format is the same as last week because they felt it was very effective. It maximizes on momentum, allows the process to go as quickly as possible. It also allows them to tell a story that compliments one another putting together a piece of the puzzle that forwards the case for impeachment. It promises to be a very interesting day. Thank you very much for the preview. The public will hear from two witnesses with direct knowledge. Well break down what they are expected to say next. Early gum disease, and killing up to 99. 9 of germs. Try listerine®. Need Stocking Stuffers . Try listerine® ready tabs™. Itheres my career. s more to me than hiv. Need Stocking Stuffers . My cause. And creating my dream home. Im a work in progress. So much goes into who i am. Hiv medicine is one part of it. Prescription dovato is for adults who are starting hiv1 treatment and who arent resistant to either of the medicines dolutegravir or lamivudine. Dovato has 2 medicines in 1 pill to help you reach and then stay undetectable. So your hiv can be controlled with fewer medicines while taking dovato. You can take dovato anytime of day with food or without. Dont take dovato if youre allergic to any of its ingredients or if you take dofetilide. If you have hepatitis b, it can change during treatment with dovato and become harder to treat. 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This is cnns special coverage of the impeachment inquiry. Four witnesses will take the stand today in the house hearing room including Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, who has said he was alarmed by President Trumps request for ukraine to investigate the bidens. Both of the witnesses this morning vindman and Jennifer Williams, an aide to Vice President mike pence, they say they listened to the call and they were troubled by it, that it was inappropriate. I want to bring in cnn Senior Global Affairs analyst, bianee a go golodryga. Both were on the phone call listening between President Trump and president zelensky and both have testified they thought it was inappropriate. Ill read you sections. Vindman says i do not think it was proper to demand that a Foreign Government investigate a u. S. Citizen and i was worried about the u. S. Governments support of ukraine. Jennifer williams, i will say it struck me as unusual and inappropriate. And vindman from initially hearing that phone call was alarmed and remember, he went to the lawyer at the nsc to express his alarm about that. He told his brother about that as well. He has a background. Hes from ukraine as a ukraine expert, and remember he had been there for the meeting at the white house with sondland and others from ukraine where sondland said he was talking about investigates and bolton said i dont want to be part of this drug deal. So fiona hill, whatever republicans are going to say about vindman today, i guarantee what were going to hear from fiona hill on thursday to back up the credibility of vindman will make this an ab berration. She stands up for vindman. She was alarmed and he was alarmed by what they heard from this phone call and that they brought this up to the lawyer. The lawyer, of course, we know said that nobody else should know about this. Vindman is also the person who heard other things in the call than was reflected ultimately in that transcript. He heard burisma, and that wasnt reflected in the transcript. Hes vital. This will be a fascinating moment of television. I think hell also sit there in his uniform as a military man, and i think that gives him a sense of nonpartisanship that hes not out to get anyone. Hes just telling people you know, the interesting thing, i think people listening might say, oh, they were troubled by it. That doesnt seem like such a big deal, but now that both of these witnesses have seen the scope of everyone elses testimony and are clued in on this pretty massive effort using back channels to get these investigations started in ukraine, i think that could be i think their testimony could be even more interesting than their depositions. And the one commonality youre going to see from all of these witnesses is what we saw last week as well laying out the significance of having a strong u. S. Support for ukraine right now and what that means for russia if we dont support ukraine, and we saw that from yovanovitch, we saw that from taylor and kent last week. Its what youre going to see from all of these witnesses when theyre going to be asked why is it so important that ukraine receive that aid, why was it so important that zelensky have a meeting with President Trump and it lays out the narrative for the American People as to why u. S. Foreign policy, u. S. National security was on the line because it countered the president s actions counters what our traditional National Security policy was when it comes to ukraine. Rudy giuliani tweeted late last week, you know, wheres the crime . Wheres the victim . There doesnt have to be a crime and the victim was ukraine, and our policy, and our efforts to stem russian influence in ukraine and around the world. So weve seen some aggressive moments from republicans on the committee leading up to today. I think it will all pale in comparison to what you will see in a couple of hours. Republicans are gearing up for a fight. They are gearing up to go after colonel vindman. They did it on this show weeks ago. They did it last night. Theyre starting to question whether or not his Foreign Policy goals were different than President Trumps, and then ron johnson, the senator whos been involved with ukraine policy and involved with this whole situationi situation wrote a letter to the house where he said a significant number of burkts have never accepted President Trump as legit maimate and resed his style. Americans did not elect President Trump knowing that hes an expert on ukraine Foreign Policy or russian Foreign Policy as well. You have advisers there to help guide you. This happens in every single administration. What doesnt make sense from johnsons letter is listen, if the president has a different view of Foreign Policy on ukraine, if he doesnt care about ukraine as we heard from some of the testimony, let him come out and say that to the american public. Let him say, listen, i dont think we should give them that aid. I think it would benefit us if we had closer ties to russia. Let him come out to the public and say that. It makes zero sense that ron johnson is casting aspersions because hes saying some irregularities were taking place in terms of traditional u. S. Foreign policy and what the president was proposing and then a few paragraphs down ron johnson says he too was trying to convince the president of what was in the u. S. s National Best interests, and that went against where the president was taking this investigation. You know, i think its actually a little bit more pernicious what ron johnson is doing because hes throwing this out there. Maybe hes a never trumper is basically the sub text of this is what hes saying about colonel vindman. Hes saying thats possible. Hes not presenting any evidence of that. Hes just throwing it out there to besmirch. The whole argument that the president gets to set Foreign Policy, the democrats arent arguing there. The democrats are arguing youre not allowed to use the Foreign Policy to promote your own political interests. Thats the public testimony thats coming up in a few hours. Overnight there was some of the closed door testimony, the transcripts released that were incredibly revealing, and cnn has learned that republicans are shaken by the testimony of the man youre looking at right there. Well tell you why next. You wouldnt do only half of your daily routine so why treat your mouth any differently . Listerine® completes the job by preventing plaque, early gum disease, and killing up to 99. 9 of germs. Try listerine®. Need Stocking Stuffers . Try listerine® ready tabs™. 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Breaking overnight house investigators releasing new transcripts from two witnesses who will testify later this week. One is david holmes, hes that senior diplomat at the u. S. Embassy in ukraine who overheard President Trump asking ambassador sondland about the investigations into the bidens on that loud cell phone call. He told lawmakers, quote, ive never seen anything like this. Someone calling the president from a mobile phone at a restaurant and then having a conversation of this level of candor, colorful language. Theres just so much about the call that was so remarkable that i remember it vividly. Back with us, Bianna Golodryga and joe lockhart. Yeah, i guess youd remember Something Like that if you were in an outdoor cafe and overhearing the president of the United States loudly issuing instructions about the investigations are going to happen, right . When you work in the Foreign Service and youre a diplomat, im sure youre prepared for many circumstances, this not being one of them. Im sure the russians were surprised too when they intercepted the phone call. The take fwrae this is that the president clearly, the day after that phone call, the president clearly wanted an investigation into the bidens, and the president could care less about ukraine, so that defeats the republicans narrative that he was just so interest instead corruption overall in general, and he was skeptical about ukraines past history with corruption, and he wanted to make sure they did away with it before this money went through. You hear it loud and clear as many others did at this restaurant, that the president cared about one thing and one thing only. And cnns reporting, joe, is that republicans were shaken by this closed door testimony. So its no surprise that democrats scheduled david holmes to go public on thursday, but why do you think republicans were shaken by this . Because one of their major arguments was no one could tie this directly to the president. Nobody who was going to testify ever heard the president say anything beyond the transcript or the rough transcript of that phone call, and this is, you know, the simple fact that the president took the call early in the morning, its not easy for a diplomat to get through to the president. Except for Gordon Sondland. Hey, girl, im in a restaurant in ukraine. Yeah. Hey, girl. The point is that shows the president s state of mind. He was fixated with this. He wanted to know, okay, ive had this call. What are they doing . What are they doing . And that is what has republicans shaken . It just destroys all their arguments that he wasnt part of this. It also shows how close, what access Gordon Sondland had to the presi