the reluctance to have a white house meeting has a benefit to russia? i think it could be looked that way, yes, looked at that way. i m going to speak very briefly about code. when the when mike cohen was asked you suggest the president sometimes communicates his wishes indirectly, for example, you say, quote, mr. president did not tell me to directly lie to congress. that s not how he operates. it would be different, he said he doesn t give you questions, he doesn t give you orders. he speaks in code. and i understand the code because i ve been around him for a decade. so do you think that the president was speaking in code when he would talk about wanting investigations? i don t. i can t characterize how the president was speaking.
perhaps he was on these text messages, he does not remember that. let s go to the first one on august 9th. there s an exchange between ambassador volker and you where you are discussingu setting up- we ll try to bring it up in a second, but i ll summarize it for i you, you re discussing setting up a white house meeting here it is and you say, morrison ready to get dates as soon as g yermak confirms. ambassador volker says, excellent, howr did you sway h? you dsaid, not sure i did, i think potus really wants the deliverable. what did you mean there? the commitment to do the investigations. andth how did you know that e president wanted the deliverable? i don t recall. i may have had a conversation with him or i may have heard it from someone else. but i don t recall. again, without all these records. s e
but he was a big fan of the investigations? apparently so. and, in fact, mr. holmes said that you that you said that president trump only cares about the, quote, big stuff that benefits himself. is that something that you would have said at the time? i don t think i would have said that. i would have honestly said that he was not a big fan of ukraine and he wants the investigations that we have been talking about for quite some time to move forward. that s what i would have said. because that s the fact. mr. holmes also remembers that you told him in giving an example of the big stuff, the biden investigation that rudy giuliani was pushing. do you recall that? i don t. i recall burisma, not biden. but do you recall saying at least referring to an investigation that rudy giuliani was pushing? is that something that you likely would have said?
going to do them, or it, and that president zelensky will do anything you ask him to do. is that an accurate recitation of what happened there? it could have been words to that effect. i don t remember my exact response. but you don t have any reason to dispute mr. holmes recollection, correct? i won t dispute it, but again, i don t recall. after you hung up with the president, mr. holmes testified about a conversation that you and he had, where he says that you told mr. holmes that the president does not care about ukraine, but the president used the more colorful language, including a four-letter word that you just referenced to, you ve just referenced. do you recall saying that to mr. holmes? again, i don t recall any exact words, but clearly the president beginning on may 23rd, when we met with him in the oval office, was not a big fan.
the white house cannot locate it. but i m pretty sure i had the call on that day. whether it was the 9th or the 8th, you had this call, it was extremely memorable, right? it was. and you ve been very honest, and we re not trying to give you a hard time on all the times you don t recall, we re just trying to say a lot of important events that happened that the committee has asked you about, and you ve honestly said i don t recall. but the call with president trump on september 9th or the 8th, you recall it vividly, right? i recall it vividly because it was keyed by the sort of frantic emails from ambassador taylor. i again, prior to that call had all kinds of theories as to why things weren t moving, why there was no white house meeting, why there was no aid, why there was no this, why there was no that and i was tired of going around in circles, frankly, so i made the call and asked as i said the open-ended