with and strengthen with as it was fending off russian-backed separatists in the east. according to your reporting, the efforts by putin and orban were actually anticipated by national security officials. i mean how did it go from, you know, folks in the trump white house, the national security team, you know, being concerned that putin and orban were going to be whispering in the president s ear about this to the point where they actually that actually happened? that s right. there was a very contentious decision over whether or not to invite viktor orban to washington to have a meeting with president trump. this is something that gives a lot of credibility to leaders and a lot of u.s. officials saw the hungarian prime minister as someone who was part of a sort of right-wing populist movement in europe that is sort of antithetical to some western values, not helpful towards the fight to support ukraine against russia, that s for sure. and they opposed that position,
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perceptions of ukraine to the dismay of some of his advisers. quoting now from the washington post, quote, over time, you just see a wearing down of defenses, a former white house official said, describing the struggle to contest the influence of giuliani, putin, and orban. and just pause a minute to consider the implications. the leader of the one country that no president before this one has fully trusted was telling this president not to trust ukraine, a country that russia seeks to dominate. joining us now is john hudson, who shares a byline on the story. john, what exactly happened in these conversations between president trump, putin, and orban? and i understand at least one of the conversations with orban was face to face in the white house, and there wasn t anyone else present. is that right? that s right. u.s. officials described to the post an alarming sort of evolution in president trump s view of zelensky and ukrainian officials in general. now, it started out a little
the second circuit sided with us against president trump. other suits are going forward. he is just wrong about the emoluments clause. he has sought to use his presidency to enrich himself and his family. he s getting emoluments in the trump tower istanbul as he s allowing the turkish army to slaughter our allies, our kurdish allies in syria. the list of conflicts of interest for this president goes on and on. it has tragic consequences. he needs to be impeached. when he says that, you know, he would have given his hotel at cost or for free, i mean theoretically it s his kids who are running the hotel and making all the decisions, and he has no communication with his kids or his family about the hotel. i don t know how they have time to run a global business that is of the scale that the president claims it is when they re constantly tweeting and apparently watching television and doing speaking engagements and going on fox news.
of course. trump was very much open to it, as he is open to many world leaders that are not necessarily allies with the united states. and so ultimately trump s desire to meet with this person, who has been one of the most prominent backers of trump in europe, a continent that hasn t been necessarily warm to the president, he got that meeting. and in that meeting, orban, who is a skeptic of ukraine, some of that historical, some of that personal with the ukrainian president zelensky, again reinforced a view of ukraine that is corrupt and not favorable to president trump. thus further reinforcing these negative views the president has. i also want to be clear about this. in the report, you say there s no indication that vice president biden came up in the president s conversations with either putin or orban. it would make sense for president trump, who has now asked not only ukraine to look into the bidens but also china,