traditions in the senate and the house where lawmakers make these hometown bets. it really is one of the things that's wonderful. >> brianna keilar is up next. have a great day. ♪ i'm brianna keilar live from cnn's washington headquarters. underway right now, more witnesses come forward as more evidence mounts that the president made very specific requests as he asked ukraine to investigate joe biden. the mystery edits, key parts of president trump's phone call with the ukrainian president do not appear in the transcript of the call. who cut them and why. plus, the nightmare reality of the wildfires in california grabbing everything you can in a matter of seconds before the flames hit. as congresswoman katie hill resigns after the release of nude photos of her and the

revelation she had a relationship with the campaign staffer. we start with breaking news on the ongoing impeachment investigation in the house. we have cnn national security reporter kylie atwood here to discuss this. manu, we are headed towards public testimony very soon. you are learning about an important witness who seems ready to take part. >> reporter: yeah. we are hearing that bill taylor, the top diplomat for ukraine is willing to testify publicly before the house impeachment committees. now, this comes after taylor went behind closed doors and had some of the most revealing testimony to date, someone who had raised concerns for some time about why security aid had been withheld for trying to

lobby for the release of the security aid to ukraine, later learning through ambassador to the european union that the president of the united states wanted a public declaration by the ukrainian government that there was an investigation into the president's political rivals, something that concerned him at the time. those are key parts of his testimony that he revealed behind closed doors. democrats are pushing to perhaps bring him in in an open session because they believe he is someone who is unimpeachable in his background, someone who's a detail note taker, has a meticulous memory and someone who could help shine a light to the american public about exactly what happened in this holdup of this ukraine aid and as part of the president's conduct in pushing for the investigations by the ukrainian government, something that could help the president politically. now, we are told that this invitation for his testimony has not gone out yet, but he is willing to do so publicly. that, of course, is significant because we are getting towards

the end of that closed door depositions that are happening today, the rest of this week likely into next week. then we will go into that first public phase. a lot of people expect that taylor could be the first witness. democrats are pushing for that prospect. >> kylie, you have also learned more about what was said in taylor's deposition. we haven't heard much about those nearly ten hours other than the opening statement. >> we're learning new details regarding what the top diplomat bill taylor told lawmakers behind closed doors. they are trying to pin him on quid pro quo. that is at the heart of this impeachment inquiry. so he was asked by chairman schiff essentially was the deal that zelensky is going to announce these investigations into biden in 2016 and in return he is going to get that security assistance and he's going to get that white house meeting. taylor said, yes, that is the deal that was on the table. then chairman schiff followed up

and said, isn't that the very definition of quid pro quo. that's when we had bill taylor say with a little bit of wit that i don't speak latin. he wouldn't answer if that was the definition of quid pro quo because he said he was there to tell the facts. he wasn't there to tell folks this was the legal definition of quid pro quo because he wanted to leave that up to the hama lawmakers. lawmakers want to get these folks coming with testimony to also make some declarative statements here. but bill taylor was one of the folks not willing to go that far. >> manu, there are two state department officials who are testifying today. what are you reporting th ining testimony? >> reporter: right now catherine croft who is the state department official testifying behind closed doors. we've seen her opening statement in which he raised concerns and talked about the fact that

security aid for ukraine had been withheld. she notes in that opening statement that the reason that was given was that the order came at the direction of the president, because mick mulvaney, the acting white house dhe chief of staff, placed an informal hold on that ukrainian aid. she also revealed there was a push to oursest marie yovanovit. according to her testimony, the lobbyist robert livingston had lobbied her to get rid, to push for the ouster of yovanovitch, calling yovanovitch an obama holdover. it's unclear why he did that. that's been a big question for lawmakers emerging from this. one democratic lawmaker jerry

connolly said he wants to speak with livingston as part of this to understand why he got involved as well. overall the larger concern being raised here backs up what other people have been saying. there was this outside effort to push ukrainian policy outside of normal diplomatic efforts. >> i want to bring in carrie cordero. she's a former counsel to the assistant -- >> attorney general for national security. >> then it went past that part. laura coates is a former federal prosecutor. so as we're looking at this opening up now soon it seems like what will be a public event where everyone, not just these democrats and republicans on these three committees will get to see this happen. why is that so important? what do you expect the effect of that to be? and why is it significant that

you have people like bill taylor who are saying i'm going to be a part of this? >> i think it's really important what the house has done this week in terms of laying out the rules for how they're going to take the investigation that chairman schiff and his colleagues have been doing behind closed doors and how they're going to communicate that to the house judiciary committee which is the rightful place to be launching the impeachment investigation. they're going to identify which of the witnesses they've been interviewing behind closed doors, which of those would be appropriate to have in public. i hope they narrow it down to a small few, bill taylor probably being one of those, who have key information to be able to provide to the public. i don't think it matters that he isn't willing to say there isn't a quid pro quo. that really isn't his position to do. he's there to layout the facts. it's going to be up to the lawmakers to assess the facts. >> we heard yesterday, we had a republican on the show and he basically said he wants the

house to start from scratch and they want to do all of this in public. i mean, it sounds like if that's not what's going to happen, of course there's going to be some arguments that this isn't fully transparent. >> well, look back at the nixon era where you had things happening behind closed doors as you would in a grand jury proceeding and you have things that come out to the life. if you have repetitive testimony to say there was an actual recording device in the oval office, did that in public. the fact that it's redundant does not mean it takes any steam of out their engines. before this even goes to the senate, it has to go before in a public way for the american people to come on board as well and decide what they would like to do. there's nothing lost by having it both public and private other than the fact that national security interests, which is what this is all about, is behind closed doors. having to have that initial

first draft to say what's classified, what's sensitive, we do not want to have any of these key figures who are involved in diplomacy blurting out information for the cameras to hear. it was prudent to do so and now they're doing it again. >> these public hearings could include lieutenant colonel vinman, who testified that he tried to correct the transcript of that july phone call between president trump and president zelensky because it was missing some key information. this is the passage first reported bid the "new york times." president zelensky says he or she will look into the situation. vinman says the company was mentioned by name in the actual call. this is significant because this is the company where hunter biden was on the board. also omitted from the transcript, president trump mentioning tapes of joe biden.

as you watch this informtion come out, i mean, what did you think about how significant this is? >> our reporting is that this information was excluded from the transcript. so when vinman went to review it which is his role as deck tirec for ukrainian on the nsc and suggested these changes be made, they weren't made. the question is who is the person that said to him, no, we're not going to add that. traditionally the way the process works is the folks who were on the call and have their own notes, their notes are taken into consideration when they're looking over the transcript of the call that is being compiled and then again stored. we know this one specifically was put on a separate storage that was a little bit more secretive. so the question is who told him that he couldn't make those additions, and exactly is there anyone else that heard these things that he says were said on

that call. because we know there are a lot of other national security folks on the call. one of them is tim morrison, who is going to be up before the committees tomorrow for testimony. >> laura, how significant is this and what does this do to the president's argument that this was a perfect call? >> there's that phrase of guilt by omission. the notion of perfect i believe has been blown out of the water at this point in time. what was imperfect was the attempt to try to make this go away, the attempt to put it on separate servers, have ellipses. congress is trying to say we'd like to ill lum nate this issue and have people decide about this notion. it's a concerted effort to shield the public from information. they had a singular focus on the bidens, not america.

>> the committee is expected to pass their rules for these public hearings. among these rules is a man plan designate 45 minutes at least for the chairman and the top ranking member on the committee or for their counsel. we're expecting this is going to happen before the questions. it seems likely that we will see committee lawyers doing questions at the beginning. in the lewandowski hearings it was one of the more effective ways, maybe the only effective part of that hearing. what do you think of this? >> i think there's pretty wide understanding when you watch these hearings that the 5-minute increments by members is not the most effective way to gather information. barry burke, one of the lawyers on the judiciary committee who did part of the interviewing of corey lewandowski in his hearing, that was a more effective part than when the members were interviewing him.

i think this will be more substantive. the important part is that the republicans are now on notice that that's the way it's going to happen, because in one of the judiciary committee hearings, the vice chairman collins said that he didn't know and they weren't prepared to be able to have staff do interviewing. now it's all out there. the way this is going to happen is out there. republicans and democrats have an opportunity to prepare for these hearings. >> thank you so much. carrie, laura and kylie, i appreciate it. next i'll be speaking live with a congressman who got into a shouting match with his colleague as a key witness testified in these impeachment inquiry hearings. plus, a stark moment as the president's pick for ambassador to moscow condemned president trump for asking foreign powers to investigate his rivals. and breaking in california, wind gusts have not hit hurricane force as the wildfires get closer to the reagan library. air dry channels

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impeachment opponents are now taking aim at the legal team representing the whistleblower whose red flag prompted the impeachment inquiry. at least one death threat against the attorneys has been formally investigated. joining me now from capitol hill is california congressman eric

swalwell. he is a democrat on both the house intelligence committee and the house judiciary chit teommi. i want to read a tweet that we saw that you put out on the whistleblower. you said, quote, the whistleblower pulled a fire alarm. first responders showed up and saw smoke, flames and donald trump holding a gas can with matches. does it matter who pulled the fire alarm? i see the point you're making. but in fairness, if a suspected crime had occurred in the course of a fire, wouldn't investiga s investigators want to investigate who pulled the fire alarm? >> the whistleblower has a right to anonymity. that is law that republicans and democrats have respected. unless the whistleblower can add additional relevant evidence, we don't believe there's a reason to pierce thatonymity that

the whistleblower is entitled to. it could chill future whistleblowers from coming forward. >> are you sure they can't add something additional? >> you know, i have seen the whistleblower complaint and the other witnesses interviewed. i know my republican colleagues have as well. i would challenge them to tell me beyond pulling that fire alarm what has not been corroborated by the witnesses we have interviewed. if that's the case, isn't it more important to protect somebody's life especially knowing the way the president has characterized the whistleblower as a spy. we should take the whistleblower and his or her life and their family's life very seriously. >> clearly the life of the whistleblower is very important. i don't think anyone would disagree with that. but at the same point, isn't the complaint sort of tantamount to

reading the opening statement of another witness but not being able to question them? >> again, because we have corroborated everything the whistleblower has alleged, having the whistleblower testify would put the whistleblower's life in serious jeopardy. so the question is, is that person's life worth moless than being redundant. our position right now is that it's not. >> i understand what you're saying. there are a number of people who also have come forward and are being public and are being named. i do want to move on and ask you about whether you think the white house knows who the whistleblower is. >> of course i'm worried about what it would mean for the whistleblower, but i don't want to speculate because i just don't know. >> one of the things we reportedly heard from the lieutenant colonel yesterday

alexander vinman testified there were omissions in the summary of this phone call with the president and the president of ukraine. the president's mention of the biden tapes was taken out. the company as it was called that hunter biden was on the board of. if the white house omitted parts of the call from the transcript, is that significant to you? >> what is significant to us is the president's conduct. so if any omissions occurred at the direction of the president or his agents like mick mulvaney or ambassador sondland or rudy giuliani, of course that would be more relevant. what is also important, of course, is what was the state of mind of president zelensky, what knowledge did he have ahead of time about what the deliverables were for president trump. we believe that the confession in this call record is a gross abuse of power and that if all the president did was ask

president zelensky to investigate his political opponents, that would be an abuse of power. but that's not what we did. he did that by also leveraging $391 million in your taxpayer dollars as well as a white house visit which was critically important to the ukrainians. >> bill taylor says he's willing to come back and appear in a public hearing. how important would his public testimony be for democrats making their case to the american people? >> he was an excellent witness, a military veteran, served in vietnam. it is people like him and a willingness like that that is heartening frankly for me as you've seen others defy congressional subpoenas. for him to be willing to come and put himself under oath before the cameras, take the questioning by both sides, i think that shows how much is at stake and how much respect he still has for a coequal branch of government and its investigation. i hope it's a signal for others who will also participate.

>> the house is voting tomorrow on an impeachment rules resolution. i spoke to tom reed yesterday. he thinks that spoke espeaker p will not have the votes for tomorrow. >> we'll have the votes for tomorrow. we're moving to a public phase. i want to address some of the criticism out there about this. any investigation has to start with a closed investigation so that you can keep the facts close. if we had done this publicly, i think it would have been fair to say aren't you jumping to conclusions that you're already having public hearings before you know that something impeachable occurred. this signals that we believe there has been a reason to move forward publicly because of what we have seen in the closed door depositions. those depositions will become public. the republicans will have a right to bring questions to the witnesses, to ask witnesses to be brought forward and also for our staffers to conduct the hearings not in the typical five

minutes on each side time blocks, but in a longer manner so it's more informative for the public. >> congressman eric swalwell thank you for joining us. the president's pick for ambassador to moscow has condemned the act of asking foreign powers to investigate political rivals. plus, breaking in california, a wildfire is getting dangerously close to the reagan library. cnn is there live next. $9.95 at my age? $9.95? no way. $9.95? that's impossible. hi, i'm jonathan, a manager here at colonial penn life insurance company, to tell you it is possible. if you're age 50 to 85,

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we have breaking news out of california where winds are gusting above hurricane force as several fast-moving wildfires burn across the state. right now more than 26 million people are under red flag warnings. this morning a new fire in simi valley forced the reagan presidential library near los angeles to evacuate wait. tell us what you're seeing. >> reporter: we're obviously right here in front of the reagan library. statue of the president on horse

back here. interesting that when they dedicated this building, they hosted firefighters who saved this place from a threatening wildfire like this. the reagans' own malibu ranch burned back in the day. the folks at the museum say they've never seen anything like this. get a load of this valley. when we arrived about 90 minutes ago, it was burning on the far ridge line. in just that short amount of time, these 60 mile an hour santa ana gusts pushed this thing. fire crews just pulled out of there because they have neighborhoods below us that are now in danger. you can see these hot spots kicking back up just within the last few minutes since cal fire pulled out of here. it's really astounding the speed and unpredictability of these santa ana gusts.

cal fire has never managed to contain this kind of fire in the history of the state. all they can do is wait for the weather to shift. this one was about 15 acres when we started. now it's in the hundreds of acres and headed toward more residential areas here. the library itself, they believe is pretty safe. obviously crews wouldn't have pulled back. it's fireproof, it's earthquake proof. what's interesting is that every yar they bring in herds of goats to eat the vegetation. look at this moon scape. it's reminiscent of the fire in malibu just last year when we saw so much of calabasas and that area burn. there's still the getty fire to worry about in the hills of los angeles. we heard of another fire outbreak in riverside county. that's not to mention all the

fires that are still raging up north in northern california as pacific gas and electric has those rolling blackouts out of fear of another electrical spark here. we're going to follow this one. it feels like the library and museum are safe for now. so we're going to follow this one to simi valley and check on the ranchers. so much livestock in this area they're evacuating as well. >> i want to go to omar jimenez nals s also in simi valley. >> reporter: we are in sight of the ronald reagan presidential library. just over this clearing you can see how scorched this earth has been leading up to that library. we were actually just on the other side of that a little bit earlier today. the flames came in so quickly

that we along with the fire department had to move. this is along the guardrails of the road leading up to the library, all of them scorched with fire that spills over coming up from the valley below. i want to show you how active this secene is. wind obviously very much a factor. up on this hillside you see all these cre below. crews have walked up in person. that spot that is smoldering was just in flames just a few moments ago. fire personnel up there working at that fire, digging it out as they do, trying to make sure it doesn't get whipped up by some of these very intense winds. this is a fire that just two hours ago we were speaking to ventura county fire department was at about 200 acres. in just those two hours, up to 1300 acres. this is part of why officials

upgraded from just a red flag warning to an extreme red flag warning, highlighting just how dangerous and just how explosive the fire potential was given the conditions of the humidity, the wind and of course the temperature. crews are taking no chances, attacking this from the air. wea we've been seeing planes from cal fire assisting and l.a. county as well trying to get this under control. when you put this in perspective, this is the third major fire to hit ventura county in just the past three years. in the president's first pentagon briefing a former aide to defense secretary jim mattis said the president was like a, quote, squirrel in traffic. he joins me to explain more. plus, i'll speak live with the family of a british teen killed in a crash involving a u.s. diplomat's wife. the family says they are suing

the trump administration.

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president trump's pick to be the next ambassador to russia is in the spotlight with the ukraine scandal and impeachment questions taking center stage. current deputy secretary of

state john sullivan is testifying before the senate foreign relations committee. democratic senator bob menendez asked why the u.s. senator to ukraine was recalled. >> so you would agree that she served the department of state and represented the united states capably and admirably. >> i told her so. >> yet you were the one who told ambassador yovanovitch that she was being recalled early, correct? >> i did. >> in your view, was there any basis to recall ambassador yovanovitch early? >> yes there was. the president had lost confidence in her. >> you were aware there were individuals outside of the state department seeking to smear ambassador yovanovitch? >> i was. >> seeking to remove her? >> i was. >> did you know mr. giuliani was one of those people? >> i believed he was, yes. >> he also testified he didn't think soliciting investigations

into a domestic political opponent would be in accord with u.s. values. that speaks to the heart of the impeachment inquiry and where it stands right now. for almost two years general james mattis served as president trump's secretary of defense. a new book paints a chaotic scene and how it led to the eventual resignation of general mattis. the book is called "holding the line line." guy snodgrass is the author and he's here with us now. there are many interesting parts to this book, but one in particular is the president's first briefing at the pentagon about six months into his tenure. it really seems like the pentagon was all abuzz trying to get this ready, showing him, really briefing him on the state of u.s. forces in the world. and there's a particular part

where knowing of course that he's concerned about the economic piece of this, general mattis actually said and explained that japan was footing the bill to move u.s. troops from okinawa to guam. the president's reaction was surprising to you all. he wanted to know basically why the u.s. was paying for any of it. tell me more. >> when you're in that type of scenario, you want a president to walk into that room and be laser focused on national security, on what's best for the american public and of course strengthening our alliances and partnerships around the world. for him to walk in with a scowl on his face automatically dismissing anything that secretary mattis or tillerson was going to share with him about america's place in this world and the importance of our military and what we do abroad was very disruptive it was disappointed to see that. we need a president who's laser focused on national security. >> is it possible for you to square a president who talks a lot about the military and rebuilding the military and then

a president that you describe in your book who largely does not see a place for the military other countries. >> we wanted to share with the president that america gets a great return on investment capital. when you send a few troops overseas, you get a lot in return for doing that, not least of which is the fact that america has an important place on the world stage. people need to be able to trust that america is a partner of choice. we're seeing that today with what's happening with the ad hoc and sporadic syria withdrawal. that's what this book does. it brings the reader inside the room for those types of decision making. when you realize president trump is more fixated on undermining his predecessor and putting medals on his own chest, it's one of those things where, again, that's not where his focus should be. >> did you think that general mattis was able to convince him -- i mean, in the end general mattis resigned because the president said he was pulling troops out of syria.

then we saw the president didn't really make good on that until somewhat recently as he's moved them from northern syria. did you see general mattis having a positive impact in convincing the president to go against his own nature and more with the prevailing ideas about what was right among the national security community? >> there's no doubt that mattis is a patriot. he served for four decades in the marine corps and as a general and as secretary of defense. when you think about the service he played maybe the first six months to a year in the administration, the president relied more heavily on those national security experts. unfortunately, the president has certainly relied more on his confidence and his misplaced confidence than he had on his own competence. that's dangerous. >> thank you so much. we can check out your new book "holding the line". a former trump campaign advisor who was jailed for lying to the fbi is running for congress in the swing district just vacated by katie hill.

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nearly three months after a teenager was killed in a head-on crash in england lawyers for his family are suing the trump administration and the woman responsible. anne sacoolas wife of a u.s. diplomat was driving on the wrong side of the road. she left the country three weeks later and claimed immunity. the family is seeking justice. joining us now harry dunn's stepsister. thank you for joining us. i want to start with you. you instructed lawyers in the u.s. to sue the trump administration for misconduct and cover-up. explain why the family is taking this legal action. >> yes. there's two things. first of all, i think anybody agrees with us that mrs. sacoolas needs to go back to the

uk and face the music for what she did. there can be no argument there. brianna, this turned into a much bigger thing where you have the united states government behaving lawlessly flouting the diplomatic immunity laws and conventions and saying to its greatest ally we're going to pull any american citizen back who committed what is a serious crime, albeit accidental, and there's nothing you can do about it. had i say, willful, mindless, lawless behavior and misconduct that's exactly what we mean, and unless this family draw as line in the sand and takes this action, where is it going leave us all in the international community? the global village we all live in? >> lorna, can you tell me a little about how your family is doing as you're trying to keep this case in the public eye? >> yes. we as a family, we're suffering. our grieving process hasn't even begun to start yet.

we thought after the funeral there may be some closure and the police would carry on with their investigation, and it would be a clear-cut case. however, that hasn't been the case. we're now having to fight justice for harry. it may be that the public, managing okay and tears don't seem to be flowing on the telelike they were in the beginning but behind the cameras it's a very different story. >> what do you think the accountability process, lorna, for mrs. sacoolas should be? what would accountability look like for you that you think is appropriate? >> so we need her to come back to the uk. she was on the wrong side of the road, it was on uk soil and there's lots of unanswered questions we need to know as a family that she can answer, and only her, she can answer those. we're not wanting her behind bars. that isn't what we want. you know, i'm a mum myself and

she's a mother of three and we don't want to take that role away from her, but she needs to come back and admit what happened and answer our questions that we have. >> two weeks ago the dunn parents met actually with the president in the oval office. they described the meeting as a stunt, because they were told that mrs. sacoolas was there in the other room. they hadn't known she would be there and were asked on the spot if they'd like to meet with her and they declined. tell us more about this meeting, because you also described it as an ambush. >> it was an ambush. it was crazy. so we were in new york. in the morning, doing various things. going on various shows, and midmorning i got a phone call from the white house, inviting us down to washington as soon as we possibly, we could get there. >> what was the tone like? >> very friendly. you know? very, very inviting and very friendly. just, if we were free to make

our way down and didn't say. >> 30 seconds left. what was the tone like when you got there? >> completely sinister and intimidating and oppressive and scary, frankly. >> you found it scary? >> i found it scary. you see the signs of me. imagine what the poor parents were feeling? completely befuddled and confused. >> thank you so much. lorna, appreciate you coming on and talking to us about this whole thinking of your family. >> thank you. more on breaking news. sources telling cnn a key state department witness is willing to testify in public about an alleged quid pro quo involving the president. i suffered with psoriasis for so long.

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>> announcer: this is cnn breaking news. you are watching cnn, i'm brooke baldwin. thank you for being with me. live here today from the nation's capital as democrats get ready to push their impeachment eaimpeach me ment further against president trump. this could begin by the way before thanksgiving. bill taylor america's top diplomat in ukraine. his tem last week of a quid pro quo between president trump and his counterpart in ukraine reverberated according to sources among lawmakers. bring you up to speed from today. witnesses christian andersen and katherine croft did the same job as ukraine negotiations. cost took over the job from