Mike Pence is finding out there is plenty of room under that bus he’s suddenly sharing with Rudy.
We already have this transcript*, which is very bad. If Hillary Clinton herself is the whistleblower, and all she had access to was this transcript, then… so what? We have the transcript now. That’s the BEST CASE for Trump, that absolutely nothing else comes out about this transgression except this one transcript.
Anything else that comes up from this whistleblower report will either be neutral or worse. Nothing is going to make it better.
*Yes, I know everyone is losing their shit over calling it a transcript. It’s just shorthand at this point, get over it.
I saw the part about “No direct mention of funding” but that’s just because, out of morbid curiosity, I womdered what Faux had to say. I see that as recently as his insane, heavy breathed news conference Trump hisself is still going with “no quid pro quo”. He must not have checked in with Faux in the last few hours.
Amazing.
It’s like someone saying “I can’t hear you!!” with their fingers in their ears going “lalalalalalala”
I mean, it’s actually quite a comical thing to read. “All I’ve seen is the ridiculous speculative talking points being spewed out by Republican Media”, so you must be wrong.
Partisan motives = “standing up for the country and the constitution”
I’m very curious about why Trump at his rambling press conference, for seemingly no reason, brought up that the press should be looking into Pence’s discussions with the Ukrainian president. I mean, that kinda seemed like a threat to Pence.
Yep. Who cares who the whistleblower is and if they were politically motivated? We have the phone call “transcript” and even if it’s redacted, it still doesn’t paint a good picture for Trump.
Regarding the second point: well spotted. That’s exactly what some Republican mook was trying to shovel out a few minutes ago on NPR. “Hunter Biden was getting up to $50,000/month!” (“up to” since no one, at the moment, seems able to cough up the actual figure)
I think Trump is suspicious of EVERYone at this point. Everyone goes under the bus.
Oh, and politico’snumber of Democrats in favor of impeachment enquiry is up to 216 as of this moment. Unsurprising.
That’s one opinion. Personally, I found the “transcript” of the call did not live up to the hype that the dems and media were building it up with. The reporting earlier this week was:
Let’s start with the easier of the two. Let’s do some basic counting. How many times did Trump ask Zelensky on that call to look into the Bidens and their connections in the Ukraine? Was it 8 or was the reporting on that incorrect?
Now, the one that I suspect you’ll dispute more heavily: Did President Trump make a “promise” or quid pro quo in the “transcript”? If you think so, please show your work.
How about I don’t give 2 shits about previous reporting and take the transcript at face value?
It’s bad.
Your talking point is out of date.
It’d be amazing, if it weren’t so predictable, that the latest WH talking point, loyally parroted by even his supporters on this board, is the utterly absurd ‘Asking a foreign government to investigate your political rivals is okay because…’
Read the article linked in post #336, then feel free to come back and outline where you think the author is wrong.
Here it is again, so you don’t even have to scroll back:
Trump set up the call by saying that the US is really Ukraine’s only hope, because everyone else in Europe is so stingy.
Zelinsky says he wants more Javelin missiles.
Trump says he needs a favor to look into Hillary Clinton’s email server in Ukraine, or whatever that nonsense is.
If you can’t understand that trend of the conversation, then perhaps you think that the Mafia really does stay up late worrying that something bad might happen to someone’s fruit stand.
Immediately followed by by Trump saying “…so I think it’s something you want to look at but the United States
has been 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.” (my ellipsis)
“In my defense your honor, the horse head was a gift.”
a) This number of 8 was from the whistle blower complaint, which may include additional contacts than just this one transcript. That suggests to me that there are more shoes waiting to fall.
b) Zelensky makes repeated references to previous contacts with the Trump administration regarding the Biden business. It’s pretty clear that this wasn’t at all a surprise to him. The Quid Pro quo set up had probably already been made clear before this phone call. All this phone call was was Zelensky signing on the dotted line.
“So I hope you realize that my company does a lot of business with you. We’ve been very good to you in the past year, right?”
“And I know that you’re familiar with my biggest competitor. I don’t like them. I think their Vice President is having an affair. Just what I heard, you know?..”
“Hey, this is a really nice business you’ve got going here. Really nice. Good for you.”
“Oh, it sure would be good if someone were to dig up a little dirt on my competitor. Really help my business out ya know? I could afford to make more orders then eh? ha ha ha ha!”
" Ya, nice little business here. Did you hear about bob’s company? Big fire. It was really bad. Don’t think he’ll recover. What a shame.
“Ok nice talking to you. I look forward to some good news in the near future, right?”
For it to be quid pro quo, Trump has to say exactly this:
“I am withholding the military funds to the Ukraine authorized to Congress. To receive these funds, you will have to do a personal favor to me and investigate my political opponent. If you do not do so, you will not receive these funds. But if you comply with what I ask, you will receive these funds. This is an arrangement that is legally known as quid pro quo. Do you accept?”
Anything short of that, and it’s just Trump asking for a favor.
What’s sad is that if Trump literally said that, first you’d be confused that he strung a few coherent sentences together, but then his support would probably only drop 1-2% anyway.