for a second term. [fiona] in the summer of 2019, president trump was already thinking about his re-election. and he had surmised that the most likely contender was going to be the former vice president, joe biden. joe biden is not playing with a full deck. this is not somebody you can have as your president. he was latching on to anything that he absolutely could to try to use it to get re-elected, and he was trying to hobble the competition. word of a whistleblower inside the trump administration. the issue, a phone call between the president and a foreign leader and what president trump may have promised. [kristen] the washington post first reporting that an intelligence official was so bothered by a promise president trump made to a former leader, that he filed a formal complaint. it became clear that this call involved trump and the recently installed president of ukraine, volodymyr zelensky, and that it had to do with american military aid to ukraine, which had been at war with r
to ukraine, which had been at war with russia. but the pressure was on trump to release the transcript of the call. that call was perfect. as we all learned, when the decision was taken to release the transcript, it was anything but perfect. in fact, what trump was doing was asking president volodymyr zelensky to do him a personal political favor. [peter] the whistleblower complained that, according to the washington post , president trump pressured the ukrainian president to investigate hunter biden. hunter biden was indeed on the board of a ukrainian company for no apparent reason other than he was the son of a politician. instead of defending an ally, ukraine, which is in the fight of its life, the president was holding back that aid until the ukrainians would investigate the biden family. [robin] president trump basically wanted to politically blackmail president zelensky. it was one of the crassest diplomatic overtures by any president, and, of course, led to his impeachment. the
from seven countries. we re building that wall. the justice department has just announced a special counsel to lead a new investigation into russian influence in the election and whether there was coordination with members of the trump campaign. president putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today. president trump becoming the fourth american president to face the prospect of impeachment. it feels as if, culturally, we re in a cold civil war. [theme music]