The NPR Politics Podcast - White House Memorandum Shows Trump Asking Ukrainian President For 'A Favor'

Episode Date: September 26, 2019

President Trump told Ukraine's president that "a lot of people want to find out" about the activities of former Vice President Joe Biden's family in Ukraine and asked its leader to be in touch with lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General Bill Barr. This episode: political correspondent Asma Khalid, justice correspondent Ryan Lucas, Congressional correspondent Susan Davis, and national political correspondent Mara Liasson. Email the show at [e-mail]. Find and support your local public radio station at npr.org/stations.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the campaign. I'm Ryan Lucas. I cover the Justice Department. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And it is now 7.22 p.m. on Wednesday, September 24th. And we're all here because President Trump made his case to the American public about a phone call that he had with Ukraine's president in which he suggested the country work with the Justice Department to investigate President Trump made his case to the American public about a phone call that he had with Ukraine's president, in which he suggested the country work with the Justice Department to investigate a political opponent.

Because of that call, there's now a new wave of support for an impeachment investigation among Democrats. When they look at the information, it's a joke. Impeachment for that? When you have a wonderful meeting or you have a wonderful phone conversation? So, all right, it has been just about 24 hours since our last podcast, and everybody's been out reporting quite a bit. So just how's everyone doing? Good.

I feel great. I feel so chipper. I just had macaroni and cheese. I'm great. These are living history days. I mean, they're long days and they're hard, but these are moments when you realize that you are living and writing the first draft of history and it's still pretty cool. All right.

Let's really quick run down everything that happened today. And Ryan, why don't you start just real quick? So this started basically around 10 a.m. when the White House released this official record of the phone call between President Trump and the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. And in this transcript, we learned that the president did indeed ask his Ukrainian counterpart to look into the allegations that the president has raised against Joe Biden and his son Hunter. All right. And then what happened? Then Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky met on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, and they talked about this call. Then a couple hours later, Donald Trump held a press conference to address all of this. And over on Capitol Hill, lawmakers

on the intelligence committees in the House and Senate did ultimately receive the initial documents regarding the whistleblower complaint that sort of started this whole thing. So Ryan, let's start with that phone call. You went to the Justice Department to read an official account of that phone call this morning. What stood out to you? So of course, what we're all looking for is questions about former Vice President Joe Biden. But the way that this call is set up, it starts out as kind of common courtesies from both sides. President Trump then talks a lot about how much the U.S. is doing for Ukraine in terms of time, in terms of money, in terms of effort. And at one point he says, you know, I would like you to do us a favor, though. And he references

this conspiracy theory that he has about Hillary Clinton's server being in Ukraine. And then a bit further down in the call, he brings up Joe Biden and asks the Ukrainian president to look into Joe Biden and his son Hunter. But the point at which he does this is right after President Zaleski has talked about how he really wants to buy some more Javelin anti-tank missiles from the United States for defense purposes. And then the president says, I would like you to do us a favor, though. Although the question I have is the White House certainly, I mean, they released this willingly. They also are pre-gaming it to say nothing to see here, nothing to see here, talking down the documents. And as I read it, it expressly does seem to indicate that the president asks a foreign leader to investigate a potential political opponent. A couple of things. One, going into this, I was not expecting to see something this explicit.

And then as I went through the transcript, I saw it. I just kind of stopped for a minute and went, wow, he is actually explicitly telling the Ukrainian president to investigate a political rival. I would like you to do us a favor. I mean, it's not and it's a political rival. It's also he wants Zelensky to uncover what he thinks is the origin of the entire Russian witch hunt, which Zelensky that he should talk to Attorney General Bill Barr and the president's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, talk to them about this investigation. He should call them. They will call him and they will discuss how to get this done.

Now, why isn't Barr recused from deciding if these documents are going to be released? The Justice Department was asked about that today and their response was he's not recused. Now, what they have said, what they said on the record, what the Justice Department said was that the Attorney General has not talked to the president about Ukraine. The Attorney General has not talked to the Ukrainians about Joe Biden or any other matter. And that essentially, there's been no discussion of this whatsoever. And the Attorney General wasn't even aware of this phone call until several weeks after it happened. He's mentioned many times. He has mentioned, and the line from them is more or less,

just because you're mentioned doesn't mean that you have to recuse yourself from this matter. So let's talk about how the president is responding to this all, because he has been saying that it was suggested it was a quid pro quo, but it's, in his view, not such a thing. Yes. And Democrats say that the whole idea of a quid pro quo is a shiny object. That's a distraction from the real thing, which is that he used his office to pressure a foreign government to help him in his political campaign. But that is what he's been saying. And in a meeting that he had with the Ukrainian president on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly,

they both sat there and explained the context of this phone call and whether or not there was actually any pressure exerted by the president. We had, I think, good phone call. It was normal. We spoke about many things. And I think, and you read read it that nobody pushed it. Pushed me. Yes.

In other words, no pressure. What else is he going to say in that situation? Sitting next to the president of the United States again, beyond Trump, the U.S. is an absolutely necessary ally in the survival of Ukraine. I mean, he is he is no political incentive to create further discord with an administration that has already shown that it has been willing to withhold necessary military aid for it to defend itself. And a president who has shown that he is at times more sympathetic to Vladimir Putin, who just took a big chunk out of Ukraine,

than he is to Ukraine's desire to get the Crimea back. As a matter of fact, that came up where he said something like, gee, you can help us with that. And Donald Trump said, I hope you and Putin work out your issues. It's also worth reminding people why military aid is something that Ukraine is in need of. And that's because there is an armed conflict going on in the eastern part of the country where the Ukrainian government is fighting Russian-backed militants. And essentially, there's a large swath of eastern Ukraine that is not under government control. And this war is still going on right now. So during these press conferences, it was really also the first chance, the first opportunity that the president had to respond to

increasing calls for impeachment, for his impeachment from Democrats. How did he talk about that? Well, certainly he said that it was completely unfounded. It's a witch hunt. At one point, he said that impeachment is good for me. My numbers have already gone up. In the past, he's been he has been a lot more swaggering when he talks about impeachment being good for him. But overall, he was not his usual swaggery self, I thought today. He was, especially in his solo press conference. He was very subdued. Especially in the press conference with Mnuchin and Pompeo, he was very subdued. And the Democrats did this hoax during the United Nations week. It was perfect,

because this way, it takes away from these tremendous achievements that we're taking care of doing, that we're involved in, in New York City at the United Nations. So that was all planned. Like everything else, it was all planned. And the witch hunt continues. So the whistleblower complaint, that itself, my understanding is it was seen or a portion of it was seen this afternoon by some members of Congress. So we still don't know any details about what is in this complaint. What we do know is that the DNI did send to Congress and members who reviewed it said it wasn't the entirety of the documents related to the complaint, but that it was relevant documents related to the whistleblower complaint that was reviewed by all Republicans and Democrats on the House and Senate intelligence committees. And I spoke to many of those lawmakers coming out of the meeting in which they reviewed the documents. They would not talk about the substance because they are still considered classified.

They're pushing to get this information declassified so the public can see it for themselves. But House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, among other Democrats, said it validates their concerns. It was described as deeply disturbing, raises a lot more questions than it answers, and also suggests that there is a lot more witnesses that they would like to call before Congress to get more information. OK, we're going to take a quick break. And when we get back, we'll talk about what this all means for both congressional Democrats and Republicans. Support for this podcast and the following message come from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, developing solutions to support strong families and communities

to help ensure a brighter future for America's children. More information is available at aecf.org. An incident in Nashville that shocked the Latino community. A computer designed to control the entire Chilean economy. A Martian invasion in Ecuador. Radio Ambulante is back with a brand new season. NPR's Spanish language podcast will take you around Latin America to show you the fascinating, strange, and compelling stories of the region. Subscribe and listen every Tuesday. And we're back. So now that this official account of the phone call that President Trump had with the president of Ukraine has been made public. So how are folks in Congress responding to all of this?

I mean, on Capitol Hill, I would say the response to the notes of the transcript is much what you would expect. Right. It really solidified the perspectives on two sides. There, of course, have been some criticism of the transcript is much what you would expect, right? It really solidified the perspectives on two sides. There, of course, have been some criticism of the president, but from usual suspects, people like Utah Senator Mitt Romney, but he's been a regular critic of the president. No cracks in the wall of support from places that you would start to think, uh-oh, the president's in trouble here in his own party. A lot of rhetorical support from Republicans. The minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, tried to put forward a resolution on the floor today criticizing Nancy Pelosi for politicizing the impeachment process. Obviously, that failed

because Democrats control the House. On the other end, I would say that the results of this have really unified the Democratic Party behind this strategy of an impeachment investigation. You now have virtually all House Democrats in support of the investigation. That does not necessarily mean that they will are ultimately a yes if they move forward on articles of impeachment. But they had been long divided over whether even calling something an impeachment investigation was smart politics. We are past that moment. Even Democrats in the most vulnerable districts have been very forthcoming today saying, I don't care about the political risks. It's what I'm willing to take. And the Republicans, the ones that I heard, were either downplaying it, saying it was a nothing

burger, trying to focus attention on Joe Biden and his son. Nobody was saying it was perfectly fine for him to encourage the head of a foreign country to dig up dirt on his rival. Nobody defended that. People said it wasn't impeachable. I wasn't telling him to do it. Right. But nobody defended that. No, the actions itself they didn't defend. But I think what you're right in that they have really tried to downplay the significance of it in that sort of what's everybody getting so mad about, much ado about, nothing.

There's nothing to see here has been sort of the Republican response. I don't know if that will hold. There's obviously a lot more details to come out. But as of right now, the party is very much behind the president. Has that been the case in both the House and Senate? For the most part, still, yes. I think there has been slightly more openness to saying this merits an investigation or we should see the whistleblower complaint from people that, again, have in the past been willing to criticize the president on other matters. People like Susan Collins of Maine, who is also on the Intelligence Committee. Cory Gardner, a Republican from Colorado, said this does merit an investigation.

Who's up for. Who's also up for reelection. So a lot of the critics of the president have been people that have their own political purposes for doing so. What struck me doing reporting today was how no one knows what the political endgame of this is going to be. There is a kind of consensus among many Democrats and Republicans that the politics of this might not be great for Democrats. There are some liberal Democrats who think it think the politics of this will be good just to get moderate Republicans in the Senate on the record defending Donald Trump. But what strikes me is that the reason Nancy Pelosi ended up here is not because she's done

some careful strategic political analysis of why this is good for Democrats. It's because, A, her moderates broke, and she needed to be in front of them, not scrambling to catch up with them. And B, he kind of forced her hand. If she is going to represent the Article I branch of government and not totally emasculate it, she has to respond to this and exercise her oversight authority and her impeachment authority, because otherwise, she's saying that this kind of behavior is perfectly okay. So in some way, she's doing something that's not politically advantageous for her. No. And that's what makes this so interesting,

because usually in this town, we're used to people cynically calculating the political benefit to them. But that's not the case here. I agree. And I also think critical players in this are the freshmen, right? The freshman lawmakers who are the majority makers of the 2018 election. Part of the reason why Pelosi was, you know, holding the door on impeachment is she's trying to protect these vulnerable Democrats. You know, the speaker or any party leader's number one job is to hold the majority. If you don't have that, what's the point? And that's a very tactical point from Nancy Pelosi. Is there some way that Nancy Pelosi can land the impeachment plane somewhere other than on the Senate tarmac? Is there censure? Is there some out? Is this just heading for the Senate?

Is that where we're going? There's no off-ramp. There's no way to say we're seven months or eight months from an election. Let's let the people decide this. Are we on a train that's unstoppable? Well, there's still so many unknowns. We haven't seen the whistleblower complaint. We don't know if there's more detail. So I don't I don't want to be too predictive. But I think when you ask Democrats that question today, we are much clearly on a path towards some kind of a vote on an article of impeachment than we were yesterday. Doesn't mean it's going to happen, but we're closer to that path. And if the House does approve an article of impeachment, there's no off ramp then. It does absolutely goes to the Senate. That's constitutional. There's no way around it. I have talked to many Democrats who have asked

that question. Could it be a censure? Could it be a reprimand? And I just think they're too far gone. I don't think that there is now the Democratic Party is at a point that there's no walking this back now on their end. In for a penny, in for a pound. This is an impeachment investigation. You either bring articles of impeachment or you don't. There's no happy middle. So, Mara, what is President Trump's best defense against all this, against the impeachment allegations? Well, his best defense is that there he says there was no quid pro quo. In other words, he never mentioned withholding aid until Zelensky did what he wanted him to do. That just does not appear in the transcript that the White House offered. And politically, when you talk to

people who are Trump supporters, they think that impeachment is a winner for them politically, that it's going to cause their base to be enraged and that it's going to backfire on the Democrats because he will not be removed from office. So a lot has happened and it seems like we're on track to be dropping a podcast every day because this story doesn't seem to be ending anytime soon. So Ryan, what's happening tomorrow? Well, tomorrow we have the acting director of national intelligence, Joseph McGuire, testifying on Capitol Hill, starting 9 a.m. in the morning with the House Intelligence Committee, which has really been pushing this case with a whistleblower. And he's also going to talk to the Senate Intelligence Committee on the other side of the building. But what that means for

sure is that this is going to be front and center for the next 24 hours, if not beyond that, for sure. All right. Well, that means we'll be back again in your feeds tomorrow with another podcast, and I'm sure a lot more. You can check that out in your podcast feed. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the presidential campaign. I'm Ryan Lucas. I cover the Justice Department. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. And I'm Mara Liason, National Political Correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.