From top: US President Donald Trump, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky; Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter
This afternoon.
The United States Department of Justice has released the transcript of the conversation between US President Donald Trump and his Ukraine counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky that was reported to include talks of investigating Joe Biden.
The release comes the day after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi authorised an impeachment inquiry into whether Trump pressured Ukraine to dig up dirt on a political rival, Democratic presidential candidate Biden.
US President Trump: Congratulations on a great victory. We all watched from the United States and you did a terrific job. The way you came from behind, somebody who wasn’t given much of a chance, and you ended up winning easily. It’s a fantastic achievement. Congratulations.
President Zelenskyy: You are absolutely right Mr. President. We did win big and we worked hard for this. We worked a lot but I would like to confess to you that I had an opportunity to learn from you. We used quite a few of your skills and knowledge and were able to use it as an example for our elections and yes it is true that these were unique elections. We were in a unique situation that we were able to achieve a unique success. I’m able to tell you the following; the first time, you called me to congratulate me when I won my presidential election, and the second time you are now calling me when my party won the parliamentary election. I think I should run more often so you can call me more often and we can talk over the phone more often.
Trump: [laughter] That’s a very good idea. I think your country is very happy about that.
President Zelenskyy: Well yes, to tell you the truth, we are trying to work hard because we wanted to drain the swamp here in our country. We brought in many many new people. Not the old politicians, not the typical politicians, because we want to have a new format and a new type of government. You are a great teacher for us and in that.
Trump: Well it’s 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. Germany does almost nothing for you. All they do is talk and I think it’s something that you should really ask them about. When I was speaking to Angela Merkel she talks Ukraine, but she doesn’t do anything. A lot of the European countries are the same way so I think it’s something you want to look at but the United States has be very very good to Ukraine. I wouldn’t say that it’s reciprocal necessarily because things are happening that are not good but the United States has been very very good to Ukraine.
President Zelenskyy: Yes you are absolutely right. Not only 100%, but actually 1000% and I can tell you the following; I did talk to Angela Merkel and I did meet with her. I also met and talked with Macron and I told them that they are not doing quite as much as they need to be doing on the issues with the sanctions. They are not enforcing the sanctions. They are not working as much as they should work for Ukraine. It turns out that even though logically, the European Union should be our biggest partner but technically the United States is a much bigger partner than the European Union and I’m very grateful to you for that because the United States is doing quite a lot for Ukraine. Much more than the European Union especially when we are talking about sanctions against the Russian Federation. I would also like to thank you for your great support in the area of defense. 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.
Trump: 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, they say Crowdstrike… I guess you have one of your wealthy people… The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you’re surrounding yourself with some of the same people. 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. 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.
President Zelenskyy: Yes it is very important for me and everything that you just mentioned earlier. For me as a President, it is very important and we are open for any future cooperation. We are ready to open a new page on cooperation in relations between the United States and Ukraine. For that purpose, I just recalled our ambassador from United States and he will be replaced by a very competent and very experienced ambassador who will work hard on making sure that our two nations are getting closer. I would also like and hope to see him having your trust and your confidence and have personal relations with you so we can cooperate even more so. I will personally tell you that one of my assistants spoke with Mr. Giuliani just recently and we are hoping very much that Mr. Giuliani will be able to travel to Ukraine and we will meet once he comes to Ukraine. I just wanted to assure you once again that you have nobody but friends around us. I will make sure that I surround myself with the best and most experienced people. I also wanted to tell you that we are friends. We are great friends and you Mr. President have friends in our country so we can continue our strategic partnership. I also plan to surround myself with great people and in addition to that investigation, I guarantee as the President of Ukraine that all the investigations will be done openly and candidly. That I can assure you.
Trump: “Good because I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that’s really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved. Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General. Rudy very much knows what’s happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great. The former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news so I just want to let you know that. The other thing, 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 whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that she stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it… It sounds horrible to me.
President Zelenskyy: I wanted to tell you about the prosecutor. First of all I understand and I’m knowledgeable about the situation. Since we have won the absolute majority in our Parliament, the next prosecutor general will be 100% my person, my candidate, who will be approved by the parliament and will start as a new prosecutor in September. He or she will look into the situation, specifically to the company that you mentioned in this issue. The issue of the investigation of the case is actually the issue of making sure to restore the honesty so we will take care of that and will work on the investigation of the case. On top of that, I would kindly ask you if you have any additional information that you can provide to us, it would be very helpful for the investigation to make sure that we administer justice in our country with regard to the Ambassador to the United States from Ukraine as far I as I recall her name was Ivanovich. It was great that you were the first one who told me that she was a bad ambassador because I agree with you 100%. Her attitude towards me was far from the best as she admired the previous President and she was on his side. She would not accept me as a new President well enough.”
Trump: Well, she’s going to go through some things. I will have Mr. Giuliani to give you a call and I am 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. I heard the prosecutor was treated very badly and he was a very fair prosecutor so good luck with everything. Your economy is going to get better and better I predict. You have a lot of assets. It’s a great country. I have many Ukrainian friends, their incredible people.
President Zelenskyy: I would like to tell you that I also have quite a few Ukrainian friends that live in the United States. Actually last time I traveled to the United States, I stayed in New York near Central Park and I stayed at the Trump Tower. I will talk to them and I hope to see them again in the future. I also wanted to thank you for your invitation to visit the United States, specifically Washington DC. On the other hand, I also want to ensure you that we will be very serious about the case and will work on the investigation. As to the economy, there is much potential for our two countries and one of the issues that is very important for Ukraine is energy independence. I believe we can be very successful and cooperating on energy independence with United States. We are already working on cooperation. We are buying American oil but I am very hopeful for a future meeting. We will have more time and more opportunities to discuss these opportunities and get to know each other better. I would like to thank you very much for your support.
Trump: Good. Well, thank you very much and I appreciate that. I will tell Rudy and Attorney General Barr to call. Thank you. Whenever you would like to come to the White House, feel free to call. Give us a date and we’ll work that out. I look forward to seeing you.
President Zelenskyy: Thank you very much. I would be very happy to come and would be happy to meet with you personally and get to know you better. I am looking forward to our meeting and I also would like to invite you to visit Ukraine and come to the city of Kyiv which is a beautiful city. We have a beautiful country which would welcome you. On the other hand, I believe that on September 1 we will be in Poland and we can meet in Poland hopefully. After that, it might be a very good idea for you to travel to Ukraine. We can either take my plane and go to Ukraine or we can take your plane, which is probably much better than mine.
Trump: Okay, we can work that out. I look forward to seeing you in Washington and maybe in Poland because I think we are going to be there at that time.
President Zelenskyy: Thank you very much Mr. President.
Trump: Congratulations on a fantastic job you’ve done. The whole world was watching. I’m not sure it was so much of an upset but congratulations.
President Zelendskyy: Thank you Mr. President bye-bye.
Pics: Getty/AP
Huckabee nails it:
https://twitter.com/SarahHuckabee/status/1176876718046502913
‘Oh and Paul Manafort says to say hi.’
Next up: Will Manafort turn on Biden? He was jailed for fraud (including dodgy Ukraine dealinge) committed prior to 2016, remember.
Oh my gosh, do you think Papadopoulous, Cohen, Lewandowski and Flynn will all turn on Biden too??!!??
You’ll find out soon enough.
Yes I expect we will.
Before either the fireworks start or everyone runs away screaming, may I suggest a story on the new UN climate report? Just in case we get hung up arguing about a teenager and forget that grown-ups have been talking about this for a very long time now.
‘—From 2006 to 2015, the ice melting from Greenland, Antarctica and the world’s mountain glaciers has accelerated. They are now losing 720 billion tons (653 billion metric tons) of ice a year.
—Arctic June snow cover has shrunk more than half since 1967, down nearly 1 million square miles (2.5 million square kilometers).
—Arctic sea ice in September, the annual low point, is down almost 13% per decade since 1979. This year’s low, reported Monday, tied for the second-lowest on record.
—Marine animals are likely to decrease 15%, and catches by fisheries in general are expected to decline 21% to 24%, by the end of century because of climate change.
“Climate change is already irreversible,” French climate scientist Valérie Masson-Delmotte, a report lead author, said at a news conference in Monaco, where the document was released. “Due to the heat uptake in the ocean, we can’t go back.”’
https://www.apnews.com/7fd1d533c53d46629c842d201145ab73
500 hundred scientists just wrote to the UN declaring the Climate Emergency to be non-existent.
I doubt care about facts that contradict the dogma devised by criminals to fleece you though. You’d rather change the subject away from the impeachment nothing burger.
Source please. Otherwise it’s your usual bullpoopery in effect. Nice new name, again.
Was it written in sharpie?
English, actually.
http://tundratabloids.com/2019/09/24/500-climate-scientists-write-to-un-there-is-no-climate-emergency/
There are 14 names on that. I picked the first and last (I picked one other as well but he appears to be a YouTuber):
‘Augustinus Johannes “Guus” Berkhout (born 1940) is a Dutch engineer. He has worked for Shell in the oil- and gas industry’
‘Viscount Monckton of Brenchley (born 14 February 1952) is a British public speaker and hereditary peer. He is known for his work as a journalist, Conservative political advisor, UKIP political candidate, and for his invention of the mathematical puzzle Eternity.’
Hmm. A Viscount, no less.
Spock thinks your full of poo, Nigel.
https://youtu.be/ei-_SXLMMfo
Between the two of you, I see our finest minds have been working on this.
Now now Nidgie
Don’t be all judgie and elitist
Lads will start t’ think you’re a bitta’ve knob
Think I can just about get myself to mosey on down through this here valley of tears without the benefit of their good opinion, V.
Here’s a fact (not an opinion) for you Nigel: Climate Changes – it has been changing for 4.5 billion years or so. It’s too late to stop it now.
Well in my opinion the real climate change is the friends we made along the way.
Yeah but Greta says.
is 500 hundred their scientific term?
“Climate change is already irreversible,” French climate scientist Valérie Masson-Delmotte, a report lead author, said at a news conference in Monaco, where the document was released. “Due to the heat uptake in the ocean, we can’t go back.”
I have to agree. There looks like no way back and no real appetite to control current or future emissions.
Climate Change, ultimately, comes down to the the impact on people and human civilization. Every nation needs food security, energy security, military security, or they fail as nations. As some populated regions become less hospitable and other regions become more attractive in the medium to long term, this means mass population movements, over the course of the next 100 years and longer. And that has always historically meant war.
The US military is preparing for the national security challenges that would go with climate change: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/as-white-house-questions-climate-change-us-military-is-planning-for-it/2019/04/08/78142546-57c0-11e9-814f-e2f46684196e_story.html?noredirect=on
The Insurance Industry is also changing how it approaches its business: https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a27180829/global-warming-is-already-costing-the-insurance-industry-historic-amounts/
I can’t imagine two more conservative, hard nosed, results orientated and risk averse organisations than the military and insurance companies. I’m sure they are doing their own homework rather than solely relying on “dogma devised by criminals”.
I suggest reading “The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers” by Paul Kennedy to understand the interplay between population, geography, climate, industrialization and food production, and how that shaped how nations succeeded or failed in the past. It was published back in 1987, but its still pertinent today.
The only positive is that for the first time that we actually know we are going through a climate shift rather than getting surprised by it, which is a unique situation; earlier examples on a local scale contributed to human civilizations failing, eg the Late Bronze Age collapse.
Why does every nation need “military security”??
Perhaps I should have said, “militarily secure”, as in being able to protect the nation state, or part of an alliance that provides or enhances that protection.
Climate Changes.
You can’t stop it, not even with all the virtue signalling you can muster.
“Militarily secure..”
That’s just a rehash of what you said previously.
Care to elaborate on that statement?
No, I don’t care to elaborate but I’ll try to answer any question you might have.
As to the other comment on virtue signalling – I’m honestly baffled. What?
Fantastical Bog, you are missing the point. Climate has changed throughout time, but for most of that time, humans did not exist.
A thousand years ago there was about 300m humans on earth; now we have 7.7b humans. Over the last 1000 years the earths climate has been relatively stable, varying between the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age; you could even make the same argument over the last 10000 years.
Now humans are changing the climate, at what looks like an unprecedented pace – from the perspective and needs of humans (the Earth doesn’t care), and we have an unprecedented total human population who depend on a climate status quo.
We are causing it, which is bad. We know a lot about it, which is good. But we probably can’t adapt our economies, political and food systems to cope, fast enough, which is bad. Some (very large) populations are going to badly effected; those kind of stresses have historically resulted in revolutions, population movements, war. The more extreme the effects of CC, the more stress will be put on human societies.
Saying there’s a always been climate change is like saying, when murder rates go up, that there’s always been murder, so what; its not a constructive response.
“Now humans are changing the climate, at what looks like an unprecedented pace”
Any evidence for this claim?
Or is it like those Polar Bear scare stories – completely fabricated to scare children and slow-thinking adults?
I’m not debating the evidence with you; we’re all beyond that. I’m more interested in understanding the human impacts.
What an unpleasant little lapdog. I will buy your Javelins, your oil (!, Ukraine is supposed to be a major producer, why buy Yankee oil) and stay at your hotel.
Trump must have been really impressed/laughed his ass off laughing at this
“After that, it might be a very good idea for you to travel to Ukraine. We can either take my plane and go to Ukraine or we can take your plane, which is probably much better than mine”
“take my plane”?
Ukraine is an unbelievable economic basket case.
Paying tax isn’t either compulsory or mandatory, only optional for most self employed.
And everybody I’ve met there is self employed, either their primary source or secondary sources of income.
The only tax you can not avoid is the local police chief tax.
They make the Greeks look like tax compliant gods!
Sean Quinn was a fan
I’d hope – but couldn’t be confident- that Varadkar wouldn’t be as deferential and craven in conversation with Trump.
Balpoor is an idiot.
Trump will figuratively eat him for breakfast.
Shannon? No problem, you can base more permanent personnel there.
Data retention by Facebook, Google, Amazon for surveillance by the USA? No problem, we’re building cloud centres as quick as we can.
Support for your geopolitical positions on Venezuela, Russia, Iran? No problem, we’ll back you to the hilt.
I think Leo and his government have already demonstrated how deferential they are. We don’t need the transcripts.
What on earth was Trump thinking by releasing this?
Zelenskyy: “…..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.”
Trump: “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, they say Crowdstrike…”
FFS. My 9 year old is cleverer than this.
Any half-competent politician would do this via back channels.
Its not that Trump is corrupt or a liar – you can say that about almost all politicians; it’s that he is completely incompetent at corruption. Even Nixon was better than this.
Or, alternatively, he’s a completely open and honest man and the inference of corruption is dirty minds thinking he’s like them? Or people who are desperately trying to be proven right (hi Nigel?)
It’s a trap – the Impeachment trap. Check what happens if it ever goes to trial, how Trump can legally defend himself.
The Dim Dems are snookered. Watch them squirm
All the screaching is to hide how corrupt Joe Biden and his family are.
^__^
If Biden goes down, so does Barry.
Funny this is Creepy Joe Biden couldn’t help bragging about using his influence to get the Ukrainian prosecutor that was investigating his son removed from office.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCF9My1vBP4&t=1m18s
All the screaming is because Trump’s strategy to create a scandal about Biden and the DNC for the election just blew up in his face. It’ll be ironic if Warren gets the nomination in the end and they’re left with just howling ‘Pocahontas!’ 24/7 after all this effort.
Plenty of scanal with Fauxchantus too:
http://www.elliswashingtonreport.com/2017/12/10/exposed-senator-elizabeth-warrens-cfpb-slush-fund-stole-5-billion-from-us-taxpayers/
‘Breaking News Global on 6 Dec. 2017 had a stunning but expected report that will probably end the expectations of a second senatorial term for Elizabeth Warren, the Democrat Senator from Massachusetts and to send her political career into ignominious flames of defeat.’
Oh yeah, that seems to be happening all right.
Perhaps. Lets look at what is said.
Zelensky brings up military aid that’s being withheld. Immediately, Trump changes the subject to something he wants.
He wants a favor involving Crowdstrike and a server. Why is that important? Crowdstrike is the company that the DNC hired to investigate the Russian hacking of their email server in the 2016 campaign. Trump then suggests that somehow Ukraine had something to do with launching the Mueller investigation.
We also know that right about this exact time, Trump ordered the attorney general, the one that he appointed pretty much explicitly to protect him from investigation, to look into the origins of the Mueller investigation, which Trump frequently asserted was a Democratic hit job. (You know, one that was started by a Republican deputy attorney general, carried out by a registered Republican…)
So, what is Trump looking for here? Dirt on the DNC and Mueller to discredit the whole investigation into him and use in the upcoming election.
Trump then goes on to ask for Ukraine to talk to his personal attorney in digging up dirt on Biden, who at the time was far and away the front runner in the polls. Trump suggests that Biden improperly stopped a Ukrainian investigation and tells Zelensky “a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great.”
This is the President of the United States asking to get his personal attorney involved in a foreign investigation for the explicit purpose of digging up dirt on a campaign opponent. Right after President Zelensky brings up military aid, that Trump was withholding.
That’s the definition of extortion. Isn’t it?
Trump then continues to tell Zelensky to expect a call from again his personal attorney. Not the State Department. Not the U.S. ambassador to the Ukraine. Not anyone who would be expected to handle an international investigation. His personal attorney.
Multiple times. Not just one casual mention. Multiple times. Talk to my attorney. And my attorney general. I’ll tell them to expect your call.
Who just got up on television over the last few days (present time) and admitted that he was in contact with the Ukraine for the purpose of investigating Biden.
The President can’t send his personal attorney to act as part of foreign policy; hell, that alone is at best shady as hell and at worst, illegal.
Giuliani claims the State Department sent him on a “mission,” to which the State Department spokesperson said “”Mr. Giuliani is a private citizen and acts in a personal capacity as a lawyer for President Trump. He does not speak on behalf of the U.S. Government,” and when Secretary of State Pompeo was questioned about it on the Sunday morning politics shows, he got flustered and tried to change the subject, I would assume because he knows that’s wildly improper.
Adding all that together with the reports that Trump held up military aid to the Ukraine in a manner so haphazard through Mick Mulvaney that almost nobody else in the government knew what was going on, then releasing it sometime after that call with Zelensky.
This is honest?
If the situation was reversed and this was President Hilary Clinton saying the very same words, how would you feel about it? Would you think its honest?
Thanks for putting this up. It shows how dissociated the media and the Democrats are that they deem this appropriate grounds for impeachment.
How can any President do their job with this nonsense going on? And isn’t Hillary Clinton the worst loser in history… always popping up to offer her alternative presidential addresses. Hill lives in her own reality.
Is this whole thing for real or is it scripted? It couldn’t make the Dems look worse if they tried.
Trump’s only motivation in wanting Biden investigated is the 2020 election. This is Trump using his position as President to ask a foreign leader to help him with the election.
No, I don’t care to elaborate but I’ll try to answer any question you might have.
As to the other comment on virtue signalling – I’m honestly baffled. What?
Link to a pdf of the whistleblower report (haven’t looked at it yet, though.)
https://t.co/sAjcf9g5Qx?amp=1