Today, Explained - The "transcript"

Episode Date: September 25, 2019

The White House released a record of President Trump’s conversation with President Zelensky, then went on the defensive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today has been a heck of a week for President Trump. This morning, the White House released what looks a whole lot like a transcript of President Donald Trump's July 25th conversation with Ukrainian President Zelensky. Then, the president had a bonkers press conference from the U.N. with Zelensky in which he tried to put the attention back on the Bidens, but also Hillary Clinton. Do you believe that there's emails from Hillary Clinton, do you believe that the emails from Hillary Clinton, do you believe that they are in Ukraine? Do you think this whole thing... I think they could be. Give me the 30,000 that she deleted.

Yes. Yeah, I think they could very well. Boy, that was a nice question. I like that question. Then the whistleblower complaint was delivered to Congress around the same time President Trump did another press conference from the U.N., this time with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary Mnuchin of the Treasury. We were going to do this anyway, but I've informed them, all of the House members,

that I fully support transparency on the so-called whistleblower information, even though it was supposedly secondhand information, which is sort of interesting. Let's start with the transcript. It's got that Courier New typeface. It's got line breaks every time it goes from Trump to Zelensky. It's got a red unclassified stamp on every page. But this is not really a transcript. This is a memorandum of telephone conversation. These are notes on what was said. Andrew Prokop, Box, welcome back for the three-peat. First things first, how accurate are these notes? We don't know exactly, but there is a note on the bottom of the first page, which makes clear that this is not a verbatim transcript of a discussion. The text is

notes and recollections of situation room duty officers and NSC policy staff assigned to listen and memorialize the conversation in written form. So, I mean, I don't think you can necessarily say that this transcript was 100% accurate or mostly accurate, but clearly there's a lot there even just working off what we have. So there's a lot of boring diplomatic ingratiating going on in here. Shout outs to the Trump hotels. What, if anything, in this document is significant? So there was some chatter in advance of the release of this document that it was going to end up being a little underwhelming. Then it came out, and I think the widespread reaction among a lot of people was that it was actually quite bad and arguably worse than it was actually expected.

The document makes clear that Trump asked the Ukrainian president to investigate whether Vice President Biden helped push out the Ukrainian prosecutor general because a Ukrainian company that his son Hunter was on the board of was under investigation. That's completely uncorroborated. Experts have said it doesn't really match up or make sense with what was happening in the country at the time. But Trump brought it up and said, according to the document, that if you could look into it, it sounds horrible to me. And he mentioned that specifically. So the Biden allegation is for sure backed up by this. One thing that is a little, that takes a little bit more interpretation is the question of whether Trump was dangling or withholding military aid to Ukraine

because of this. It's not like they get into the numbers explicitly or anything like that, right? No, Trump does not say this is a quid pro quo. I am withholding $400 million in aid. And if you don't start these investigations, you won't get the aid. And so Trump himself has, this has been his line defending himself since the document came out. There was no explicit quid pro quo. However, there is a very difficult to miss implicit quid pro quo. Basically, Trump broaches the topic first. He says, Well, it is very nice of you to say that.

I will say that we do a lot for Ukraine. We spend a lot of effort and a lot of time, much more than the European countries are doing. And they should be helping you more than they are. He says, Germany does almost nothing for you. This is a way to talk about the money, essentially, the military aid that the U.S. government has been giving Ukraine to help them in its conflict with Russia. And then he goes on. I wouldn't say that it's reciprocal necessarily because things are happening that are not good. So there's something that makes him unhappy about the U.S.-Ukraine relationship right now.

And then President Zelensky talks about how... We are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps. Specifically, we are almost ready to buy more javelins from the United States for defense purposes. And that's referring to missiles or military hardware, right? Yes. So then right after this reference to javelins, Trump cuts in and says, I would like you to do us a favor, though, because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine.

So then he gets into a conspiracy theory that's been on the right, that the DNC was not actually hacked by Russian intelligence officers, that perhaps they were hacked by Ukrainians. The heart of this conspiracy theory is that the DNC used a company called CrowdStrike that made this finding that Russia did the hack. And so Trump's allies, including Rudy Giuliani, have been circulating the theory that, you know, actually Russia was framed. It might have been Ukraine that did the hacking, which is – there's no evidence for this at all and tons of evidence to the contrary. Mueller released an indictment of Russian intelligence officers involved in the hacking. It laid out a very detailed case of exactly how that hacking happened. So it's total nonsense.

But Trump is requesting as this favor that the Ukrainian president investigate it. And then he goes on. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance. But they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it's very important that you do it,

if that's possible. He's speaking the day after Mueller testified that he calls it an incompetent performance, but a lot of it started with Ukraine. He said, whatever you can do, it's very important that you do it if that's possible. Zelensky talks for a bit. He basically says that, you know, he is going to work hard on this issue. And then Trump then says that's good.

He mentions Giuliani and he says that you should talk to Rudy. And Giuliani here is his personal lawyer, the personal lawyer for the president of the United States. And Trump is telling the Ukrainian president to talk to him. And why? It's because... There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution. And a lot of people want to find out about that.

So we don't have an explicit quid pro quo. What we do have is the Ukrainian president, Zelensky, bringing up aid that he will be purchasing. Trump immediately pivoting to investigations involving his opponents and also throwing to his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. But then what we also get is a lot of mentions of Attorney General William Barr. Yes. So Trump tells Zelensky in regards to the DNC server issue. I would like to have the attorney general call you or your people, and I would like you to get to the bottom of it.

He says that you should talk to Rudy Giuliani, his personal lawyer. But then he also says, Whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great. And then he mentions later on again, I will have Mr. Giuliani give you a call. And I'm also going to have Attorney General Barr call. And we will get to the bottom of it. I'm sure you will figure it out.

So he's switching back and forth between telling Zelensky to talk to his personal lawyer, telling Zelensky to talk to the attorney general related to investigations of Biden, related to investigations of how the Russia investigation got started and Mueller and the DNC server. And it's just extremely clear that this is what Trump wants. The question of aid has been discussed beforehand. And then there's this aspect of the involvement of Barr in the Justice Department as well, which we hadn't known about previously. And it sort of reminds me of this moment during Barr's testimony before the Senate about the Mueller report in which Kamala Harris asked him point blank. Attorney General Barr, has the president or anyone at the White House ever asked or suggested that you open an investigation of anyone? And Barr really hems and

haws. I wouldn't, I wouldn't. Yes or no? Could you repeat that question? I will repeat it. And seems to sort of dance around the question, and he never really answers it. Seems you would remember something like that and be able to tell us. Yeah, but I'm trying to grapple with the word suggest. I mean, there have been discussions of matters out there that they have not asked me to open an investigation. Perhaps they've suggested. I don't know. I wouldn't say suggest. Hinted?

I don't know. It's an even more incredible moment now that we have this document. And Barr's role in this whole situation deserves a lot of scrutiny here because this was all kicked off by a whistleblower complaint being withheld from Congress, even though the inspector general for the intelligence community wanted to turn it over. It was withheld in part because the Justice Department objected to it. So this is Bill Barr's Justice Department stepping in in a situation that involves Bill Barr's name being brought up and saying, oh, Congress doesn't need to know about this, which doesn't look great.

Why would the White House release this document? Did they have to release it or did they choose to release it because they thought it looked great? I think they are panicking a little bit. Some people think that Trump wants impeachment, that it would be good for him. But the reactions that we're seeing do seem to suggest that they are not thrilled with what has been happening in the House of Representatives this week. He really wants to try to do something, something big to push back against it. And I don't know whether they somehow completely misinterpreted how the release of this document would play or whether they thought, well, it's going to get out eventually. Let's just rip off the Band-Aid, get it out there now, and then the news cycle will move on to other things next week. But it doesn't look like that's going to happen, right? How are

Democrats reacting to this so-called transcript, this document the White House released today? The notes of the call reflect a conversation far more damning than I or many others had imagined. Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Democrat from California, said that it is shocking at another level that the White House would release these notes and felt that somehow this would help the president's case or cause. Because what those notes reflect is a classic mafia-like shakedown of a foreign leader. We do a lot for Ukraine. There's not much reciprocity. I have a favor to ask. Investigate my opponent. My people will be in touch. Nice country you've got there. It would be a shame if something favor to ask. Investigate my opponent. My people will be in touch. Nice country you've

got there. It would be a shame if something happened to her. So that's basically representative of the Democratic reaction here, which they're saying this is really, really bad. It's an abuse of power. It's an effort to interfere with the 2020 election. The document does not get Trump off the hook in any way, shape or form. It, in fact, confirms a lot of what has been speculated and alleged so far. And how about Republicans in the Senate? Are they still mostly defending the president here? Mostly, yes. Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted, wow, impeachment over this? What a nothing, parentheses, non quid pro quo, burger. From my point of view, to impeach any president over a phone call like this would be insane. The line that he's taking is the same line that Trump prefers, which is that there was

no explicit quid pro quo. And Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in the Senate said that, Mr. President, we know that House Democrats have been indulging their impeachment obsession for nearly three years now. A never ending impeachment parade in search of a rationale. And pretty much the only person who has spoken out with a bit more concern in the Senate is Mitt Romney of Utah. He reiterated today that if the president of the United States asks or presses the leader of a foreign country to carry out an investigation of a political nature, that's troubling. And all of this is happening on a day where the president had a pre-existing

press conference with Ukrainian President Zelensky at the UN? Yes, it took place as scheduled this afternoon. President Zelensky, have you felt any pressure from President Trump to investigate Joe Biden and Hunter Biden? I think you read everything. I'm sorry, but I don't want to be involved to democratic open elections of USA. No, you heard that we had, I think, good phone call. It was normal. We spoke about many things. And you read it that nobody pushed me. Yes.

In other words, no pressure. And is the president chiefly sticking to his already established line on this, which is that? The letter was a great letter, meaning the letter revealing the call that was done at the insistence of myself and other people that read it. It was a friendly letter. There was no pressure. The way you had that built up, that call, it was going to be the call from hell. It turned out to be a nothing call other than a lot of people said, I never knew you could be so nice. You know, everything was above board.

And, well, yeah, people should look into corruption if Biden did something corrupt. Yeah, as usual, pay no attention to that quid pro quo behind the curtain. They've argued that there's Trump and Zelensky both said that there's nothing really to see here, no scandal. In spite of that, the story is still developing at breakneck speed. The whistleblower complaint has been turned into Congress. What comes next? The debate that's going on among Democrats in the House right now is do they keep their impeachment inquiry just about this particular scandal about Trump trying to pressure the president of Ukraine to investigate Biden? Or do they make it a broader impeachment inquiry, which would focus on a lot of

different topics? And the argument in favor of the first one is that it's cleaner, it makes for a more comprehensible public case. This is clearly the issue that the moderates in the party have cared about most. And also, it would be quicker, they could like drill down, focus on one thing. And they're hoping to come to some sort of decision on whether to impeach or not by the end of this year. But there are also some Democratic critics, activists, advocates, some members of Congress who say, no, Trump's misconduct and impeachable offenses are far broader than just this one incident. And so that's currently the divide. And has something changed today because of this transcript? Trump's conduct overall, including the use of the Justice Department in this saga,

definitely seems to throw more fuel on the fire for the impeachment inquiry and further investigations of what exactly happened here. Okay. Andrew Prokop is a senior political correspondent at Vox. I'm Sean Ramos-Furham. This is Ukraine Explained. See you tomorrow. How's your health?

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