All of these proceedings his story impeachment inquiry into President Trump burst out into the open This is Special Coverage from n.p.r. News and I'm Audie Cornish and I'm Ari Shapiro acting u.s. Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor and diplomat George Kennan with the 1st to give public testimony today Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff lead the proceedings is this what Americans should now expect from their president. If this is not the teacher will conduct. On his ranking member Devon newness lead the Republican defense of the president the main performance in Russia hopes has ended and you've been cast in the low rent cranium sequel this hour we'll bring you key moments and analysis from day one of the public impeachment hearings but 1st this news. Live from n.p.r. News in Washington I'm Jenny Herbst the top u.s. Diplomat in Ukraine told the House Intelligence Committee today that he was worried that holding up u.s. Aid for Ukraine would cost the country lives in its war with Russia N.P.R.'s Cotterell has more on the public phase of the impeachment hearing William Taylor began his testimony with a lengthy opening statement laying out his concerns about the connection between American aid for Ukraine and President Trump demand that the country investigate his political rivals Taylor told lawmakers that on a day when he visited the front of Ukraine's ongoing war with Russia one of his staffers overheard President Trump on a phone call with European Union and baster Gordon song lead on the call Taylor says the staffer heard Trump ask about the status of those investigations following the call with President Trump the member of my staff asked investor Solomon what President Trump thought about Ukraine. That's a song responded that President front cares more about the investigations of Biden which Giuliani was pressing for Taylor told the House Intelligence Committee that he repeatedly raise concerns that tying military aid to political investigations was as he put it crazy Scott Petro n.p.r. News Washington the Trump administration may be backing away from plans to ban flavored vaporing products make Flarm or Blake Farmer of member station p.l.o.n. Reports agency officials testified to the Senate Health Committee today amid the mysterious outbreak of a being related long illnesses senators are pressing the f.d.a. As tobacco chief Mitch seller on why he hasn't followed through on the White House announcement in September to ban the sale of flavored babying products Zeller says the f.d.a. Has the authority to take such a step but he defers to the trumpet ministration I would prefer the committee to the White House if there are any questions about the this ongoing to liberate of process President Trump said in a tweet this week the administration is meeting with industry representatives to come up with a quote acceptable solution flavors have been seen as fueling the growth in teen vaporing but there are also some of the best sellers hundreds of Americans have been sickened in recent months with at least 39 deaths tied of a ping for n.p.r. News I'm Blake Farmer in Nashville the u.n. Refugee agency reports more than 300000 people mainly women and children forcibly displaced by conflict in eastern Democratic of Republic of Congo are living in dire conditions and exposed to human rights violations such line has more about 100 different armed groups are operating in North key join the cherry provinces many of been fighting the government in each other for decades the displaced is subject to extreme human rights violations on a daily basis by these armed men the un refugee agency says they are unprotected exposed to sexual exploitation and in desperate need of international aid. He says line reporting all straight into the day and mix territory the Dow up 92 points the Nasdaq down 3 s. And p. 500 up to this is n.p.r. Good evening it's 504 I'm Dave Winer with k.c.a.l. You news so the California Edison is waste a $36.00 Make that $360000000.00 settlement to compensate government agencies like Ventura County for costs and losses associated with $2.00 major wildfires The deal includes $23.00 public agencies in the region and includes compensation for Addison's role in the towers and Woolsey fires as well as the mosquito debris flow it calls for of enter a county to receive 20800000 dollars The city of Santa Barbara $6700000.00 and the City of 1000 Oaks $3400000.00 the settlement does not affect ongoing claims by individuals or business against Edison a south coast police department used a drone for the 1st time to help safely catch a man believed to be armed and dangerous Lancer Rosco has the story and unmanned eye in the sky help police find a man believed to be armed and hiding in the Ventura County neighborhood at night police were called to the 1800 block of more than 2 or road just before midnight last night by reports of a man with a gun arriving officers say the suspect ran into a nearby neighborhood the department's new unmanned aerial system unit responded a drone equipped with a thermal imaging unit was deployed which detected the man hiding in the backyard of a home officers used a loudspeaker on the drone calling for the man to come out of hiding. Without incident the 28 year old man was arrested for brandishing a weapon and being under the influence of drugs it was determine the weapon was a replica of a handgun on police were recently authorized by the Federal Aviation Administration to use a drone and this was its 1st deployment plants around c.l.u. Live House of Representatives passed a bill by a Ventura County legislator which bundles a number of measures intended to help female military veterans h r 3224 include steps such as improving accountability by the v.a. For its services for women and retrofitting facilities so they can fully accommodate the needs of female vets if the. Up funding for primary and emergency health care services for female veterans and expands access to counseling the bill was authored by Democratic Congresswoman Julia Brownley of Westlake Village California health officials are urging people to stop babying and using Eastlink arrest as a 4th death related to baby was reported in the state the Department of Health said today 161 people have been hospitalized for severe breathing problems lately it's 506 support for n.p.r. Comes from n.p.r. Stations and other contributors include f j c a foundation of donor advised funds working to maximize the Empacher of charitable giving and to create customized philanthropic solutions learn more at f.c.c. Dot org and the ne ek c. Foundation. It's special coverage from n.p.r. News I'm Audie Cornish and I'm Ari Shapiro it's a moment that's been anticipated for us but it will come to order Good morning everyone this is the 1st in a series of public hearings the committee will be holding as part of the house's impeachment inquiry hearings that haven't been seen in the country's since President Bill Clinton was impeached more than 2 decades ago the question is the same Did the president commit high crimes and misdemeanors the specifics are different a questionable phone call military aid to an ally and ultimately to President Trump try to use the power of his office to thwart a political opponent the witnesses in today's hearing 2 veterans of the u.s. Diplomatic corps George Kent deputy assistant secretary of state overseeing Ukraine policy today I peer before you once again under subpoena as a fact witness and sitting next to Kent his former boss the acting u.s. Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor I am not here to take one side or the other or to advocate for any particular outcome of these proceedings Democrats on the committee along with the staff lawyer Daniel Goldman try to lay out the case that the president engaged in a quid pro quo over military aid to Ukraine have you ever seen another example of foreign aid conditioned on the personal or political interests of the president of the United States is pressuring Ukraine to conduct what I believe you've called political investigations a part of u.s. Foreign policy it was your clear understanding was it not that the Ukrainians believed that they needed to announce these public investigations Meanwhile Republicans used parliamentary maneuvers to make a parliamentary inquiry Mr Chairman before we hear from the witnesses I had a parliamentary inquiry the chairman to get into space when we would vote on purpose as Mr Jordan seek recognition and along with their staff loyal Republicans tried to make the case that there was nothing amiss with President Trump's July 25th phone call or with how the White House handled the military aid. Ukraine never met the president that's correct 3 meetings ago was Alinsky didn't come out impeachment hearing today where we impeach presidents for treason or bribery or other high crimes where is the impeachable offense in that call American people see through all this they understand the facts support the president they understand this process is unfair and they see through the whole darn sham and that was just the beginning over the next hour we're going to talk you through today's events get you up to speed and we're going to do that with n.p.r. Congressional correspondent Susan Davis to start welcome to the studio hey they're an n.p.r. Diplomatic correspondent Michele Kelemen Welcome back nice to be here all right Sue to start how is this day supposed to differ from what came before right we've heard the term closed door over and over again and people are complaining about that so what was today supposed to do today was the start of the public phase of the impeachment investigation in which Democrats who are leading the investigation essentially want the public to know and to hear and to see all of the details of the investigation that to this point had been taking place behind closed doors just in case you're not going to read the hundreds of pages of testimony that have been rallies figure it out oh yeah radically thousands there are 2 fundamental facts of this case and the facts in this case are not in dispute that on July 25th the president had a phone call with the Ukrainian president and asked him to investigate initiate political investigations into including potentially a political rival Joe Biden It is also known and accepted fact that the administration took steps to withhold u.s. Congressionally approved military aid for Ukraine as a point of leverage to get those investigations to happen but that aide was ultimately released and no investigations did ultimately take place before we go further I want to bring in Michele Kelemen just to say who were our 2 witnesses and why do you think Democrats started with them well they were both figures who just know a lot about Ukraine and they say they importance of Ukraine in terms of u.s. Foreign policy so George can't. Had been in Kiev before he was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and you're Asian affairs and I get it right exactly and he was actually a deputy ambassador number 2 at the embassy previously he also has a lot of experience looking into corruption in the region and he talked about how you know supporting Ukraine has been part of u.s. Strategy really since the Berlin Wall came down 30 years ago a Europe whole free and it he says been the motto Bill Taylor it was the actual acting u.s. And passenger do a great of out of everyone on the list of names we hear he's the guy who actually supposed to be communicating with Ukraine right he's the top diplomat currently and he was brought back on that job this year but he had served also in Ukraine before he's a Vietnam War veteran someone with you know 50 years of being a public servant both of these men stressed that they are nonpartisan that they are coming to this interested in u.s. Security u.s. National security interests and what Ukraine meant so Taylor could talk about you know what the u.s. Security assistance means to you craniums to the soldiers that he's met there he said it's crucial to show that the u.s. Is a reliable partner and he pointed out that he supported the Trump administration's decision to provide javelin antitank missiles to Ukraine something the Obama administration did not do so as we condense these 5 hours of sometimes contentious sometimes detailed testimony into this one hour of recap and analysis I want to begin with the opening statement from the committee chairman and to after we listen to this excerpt from the statement I want you to explain to us what Democrats are trying to accomplish here this is Adam Schiff a Democrat of California. If we find that the president of states abused his power and invited foreign interference in our elections or if he sought to condition coerce extort or bribe an ally into conducting investigations to aid his reelection campaign and did so by withholding official acts a White House meeting or hundreds of millions of dollars of needed military aid must we simply get over it. Is this what Americans should expect from their president we have the chairman laying the table here explain what he's trying to do I think the use of his phrase Get over it the people here is important because he came back to this point which is the words of acting white house chief of staff Mick Mulvaney in a press conference weeks ago in which he essentially also conceded that the White House did take these actions the White House has taken the position as have their allies in Congress that the president has not done anything that would merit an impeachable offense so what Adam Schiff and Democrats are trying to do again the facts are not under dispute Democrats need to make the case that those actions were in fact an abuse of power and an abuse of power that merits the recommendation to remove him from office which is essentially what impeachment is and so much of the conversation seemed to center around what was the wrong doing if Ukraine ultimately got its money and the Bidens were not investigated what's the harm Yeah I mean the Republican defense has been sort of multi-pronged but that's a key part of it in which they say maybe the president had these requests but none of those things happened how do you remove someone from office at the end result didn't fundamentally happen I also think Republicans are trying to make the point that you know Democrats just want to impeach Donald Trump they were just looking for something and they're This is the best they can do throughout the last couple weeks we've heard the term shadow diplomacy but today it came out in another way I think it was irregular channels what were the diplomats describing why did they consider it unusual Well Bill Taylor so he you know he's supposed to be the president Ambassador in Ukraine representing the administration's policy he said he took the job because Secretary of State might say I was short him that the u.s. Supports Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression and that's what his goal was going to be in the meantime there's you know some other folks that are on the sidelines here so President Trump is talking to his private lawyer Rudy Giuliani. And Giuliani has very specific interests in Ukraine and he's been talking to you Ukrainian prosecutors about various things. There's also another figure named Gordon Sunland he's the u.s. Ambassador to the European Union he was he says in a meeting with with President Trump early on that Trump said you know talk to talk to Rudy talk to Rudy if you want me to have a meeting with this new Ukrainian leader so it was clear to Sunland it was clear to the then u.s. Envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker that they needed to work with Giuliani This is the irregular channel that we're talking about and you know Taylor said initially it was fine because Sunland had you know he was able to pick up the phone and call President Trump which he couldn't do speaking of phone calls William Taylor also said in what is considered a revelation from today that there was a phone call between the u.s. Ambassador to the e.u. Gordon Saun who you just mentioned and President Trump Here's how he described it following that meeting in the presence of my staff at a restaurant besar saw him and called President from and told him of his meetings and. The member of my staff could hear President Trump on the phone asking Ambassador Solomon about the investigations as a whole present from the Ukrainians were ready to move forward. Following the call with President Trump the member of my staff asked investors on what President Trump thought about Ukraine. As a song and respond to the president from cares more about the investigations of by which Giuliani was pressing for the voice of embassador William Taylor's who Davis why is this significant moment well it's new and it's news we didn't know this prior to this hearing we also have since found out it was not under didn't come up in the testimony but that staffer is a gentleman named David Holmes who is now scheduled to testify in a closer deposition as part of this impeachment inquiry on Friday broadly it's important because much of the defense of the president has gone to the point that people are testifying on hearsay that these people did not have direct communication with the president they couldn't know what was in his head that is something that Republicans used against Taylor and can to say you never heard from the president directly on any of this and intent is key to any right and you're trying to get into motive is key that Taylor is saying he did have a staffer who heard the president directly and it does put the president more directly squarely in the middle of this action to pressure the investigations for personal political reasons that accusation that the witnesses are just relying on hearsay came up again and again often from Congressman Jim Jordan Republican of Ohio I want to play a cut of him reading from an addendum from Pastor Gordon some testimony he also in this mentions Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney Let's listen to Jordan care for me one more time about her tale recalls Mr Morrison told a bastard Taylor that I told Mr Morris and I conveyed this message to Mr Yarmuth on September 1st 21000 and connects the vice president his visit to Warsaw and a meeting with presents Alinsky. We've got 6 people having 4 conversations in one sentence and you just told me this is where you got your clear understanding. Which I mean even though you had 3 opportunities with President Alinsky for him to tell you you know what we're going to do these investigations you get the aid didn't tell you 3 different times never makes an announcement never tweets about it never does a see an interview. Yes you were on the call were you present you did listen in present presidencies call I did you never talk with any I never did you never met the president that's correct 3 meetings it was a let's get income and 2 of those they had never heard about as far as I know the president was no reason for president never made an announcement this is what I can't believe you're their star witness a preview of what's to come when we talk more about the testimony we heard today in the House impeachment inquiry n.p.r. Susan Davis thanks so much You're welcome Michel Kellerman Stay with us you're listening to n.p.r. . Dimas $519.00 You're listening to k.c.a.l. You n.p.r. For the California coast and Dave Meyer check of traffic right now north Bell want to want to when he drive a Newbury Park about a multihull collision there it's in the clearing stages though they did call for an ambulance earlier I want to one this is the last will see this road in Santa Barbara go to 2 vehicle collision there with an ambulance responding another problem the 1000 Oaks area just popped up on northbound want to one of the Linn road off ramp there we have a disabled vehicle northbound 23 can turn you slo