Today as Trump departed for the NATO meeting he intimated that no more proof of his innocence of wrong-doing was that President Zelensky said there was no quid quo pro. Did he really say that?
I don’t think so.
This is the very last part of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Time Magazine interview:
Time: When did you first sense that there was a connection between Trump’s decision to block military aid to Ukraine this summer and the two investigations that Trump and his allies were asking for? Can you clarify this issue of the quid pro quo?
Zelensky: Look, I never talked to the President from the position of a quid pro quo. That’s not my thing. … I don’t want us to look like beggars. But you have to understand. We’re at war. If you’re our strategic partner, then you can’t go blocking anything for us. I think that’s just about fairness. It’s not about a quid pro quo. It just goes without saying.
Let’s break it down. My interpretation is in italics.
I never talked to the President from the position of a quid pro quo.
What exactly does he mean by “a position” as applied to “a quid pro quo?” This is not only an awkwardly phrased sentence but it applies to the position he thought he personally was in. It doesn’t demonstrate that Trump was demanding a this for that.
That’s not my thing. … I don’t want us to look like beggars.
These two phrases are related. He isn’t say merely that engaging in quid pro quo’s isn't something he does as a matter of course. As Mike Mulvaney of all people has said, such deals are common in politics. What Mulvaney doesn't say is the when the quid is military aid and a White House meeting and the quo is getting dirt on a political opponent, that is not common, let alone okay.
But you have to understand. We’re at war.
Here Zelensky is backing off his original denial of a quid pro quo by essentially rationalizing having understand what Trump was asking in the context of the desperate need of Ukraine to get military aide as soon as possible.
If you’re our strategic partner, then you can’t go blocking anything for us.
This is a direct jab at Trump. He is saying that you can’t black anything for a strategic partner. A quid pro quo is exactly that.
I think that’s just about fairness. It’s not about a quid pro quo. It just goes without saying.
This is a further emphasis that fairness dictates in Zelensky’s mind it was unfathomable that what Trump had asked was a quid quo pro quo. After all that would be unfair. “It just goes without saying,” are the final words in the interview. Unfortunately it doesn’t just go without saying. Trump didn’t ask for a quid pro quo, he demanded a quid pro quo from a nation which had it not come to light after the whistleblower compliant Zelensky would have had to given it.
This was also reported in the New York Post.
“I did not speak with US President Trump in those terms: you give me this, I give you that,” Zelensky told German magazine Der Spiegel in an interview published Monday.
“As for the United States, I do not want us to act like beggars. But you have to realize that we are at war,” Zelensky told the publication. “And if you are our strategic partner then you should not block any help. It’s about fairness for me. It’s not about a quid pro quo, it’s just a story in itself.”
“I do not have to convince him. I told him at our meeting that I do not want him to have such a picture of our country. And that he should just come here and see how we live, and above all, what we are for people,” Zelensky said. “It seemed to me that he heard me. At least he said at the meeting: Yes, I see, they are young, new people.”
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Zelensky, in an interview in October, said he was unaware that the military aid was suspended when he spoke to Trump in July.
“There was no blackmail. I had no idea the military aid was held up,” he said at a news conference.
Once again you can see how Zelensky frames his words. He is walking a political tightrope without a net. He may be a former comedian, but he knows that the person who is controlling the tightrope is a vindictive unstable president.
It is a rhetorical question to ask if Trump would lie to benefit himself.
We have to ask the question as to whether Zelensky would lie to save his country.