In what has to be one of the most uncomfortable political moments ever caught on camera, Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky did a brief joint appearance on Wednesday afternoon followed by a session of questions and answers. During the entire appearance, Zelensky was obviously extremely uncomfortable, while Trump took the opportunity to complain repeatedly about President Obama and, almost unbelievably, to go into an extended rant about the most critical issue of the day … Hillary Clinton’s emails.
Asked whether he had felt pressured by Trump during their July phone call, Zelensky made it clear that he didn’t want to be at the center of U.S. politics. Instead, he said, “I think you read everything. I think you read text. … We had a good phone call. We talked about many things. You read it.”
No sooner had Zelensky paused than Trump chimed in, “In other words, no pressure.”
Trump then went on to bash President Obama for not helping Ukraine, ignoring the fact that Obama authorized $1 billion in military aid to the country. And then Trump fielded a question from the press about whether he really believed that Hillary Clinton’s emails could be in Ukraine. Incredibly, Trump’s answer to this was yes. He followed this up by spending the longest section of the Q&A rehashing his claims about Clinton deleting “30,000 emails,” repeating debunked claims that were not true in 2016 and haven’t gotten any truer. That the “transcript” released by the White House included Trump asking about a nonexistent “missing server” and asking the Ukrainian president to investigate an American company seemed incredible, but clearly Trump’s obsession with “But Her Emails” has not diminished one whit. In fact, it’s been extended into an incredible series of conspiracy theories that dip into Pizzagate/QAnon territory. And he’s basing foreign policy on these claims.
Before he got into a series of lengthy claims about Joe Biden, Trump created what was clearly the most uncomfortable, most impossible, most painful moment for Zelensky. Trump repeatedly treated the Russian invasion of Ukraine as something that was an issue that Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin needed to get together and work out.
At multiple points in the brief appearance, Trump treated what was happening in Ukraine as if it was a business disagreement between Zelensky and Putin rather than Russian forces killing Ukrainians in Ukraine. Trump made a point of saying that Crimea was invaded before he took office, but when Zelensky made a stab at soliciting support, Trump stopped well short of saying he would do anything to see Russia out of the region. Instead he kept suggesting that it would be great if Zelensky and Putin would just get together and sort things out—a proposition that made Zelensky appear on the verge of strangling.
When Trump finally got around to talking about Biden, he went all-in on claims that Hunter Biden took “millions” from Ukraine and “billions” from China. "When Biden's son walks away with millions of dollars from Ukraine,” said Trump. “that's corruption." As expected, Trump repeated every aspect of the scandal that has been long debunked, including having Hunter Biden “flying in on Air Force Two” to collect a check. Trump also ladled on praise of Rudy Giuliani and his role in promoting these lies.
Not content with bashing Obama, rehashing Clinton email claims, and repeating false statements about Biden, Trump also saved some bile for Nancy Pelosi. Trump denied that he had called Pelosi on Tuesday in an attempt to head off the impeachment inquiry. Instead, he said that as far as he was concerned, Pelosi is “no longer the speaker of the House.”
Turning to Zelensky at one point, Trump said, “We have corruption also. We have a lot of corruption in our government.” Rating: absolutely true.