but actually, it s maybe somewhere in the middle. again, maybe unsatisfying, but it s clearly important. as jim pointed out, you have the campaign manager telling columnist, you know who has hustled as we are and into the country. yeah. like really fast. and he s basically this is how we see things, and in july, august of 2016, my guess is that there was not so much focus in the media about the importance of pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin. right? the ones that ended up flipping for trump. and so, to hear that from the inside would be quite valuable for a russian government that is dead set on sabotaging crimea. crimea, right? all of that is important, and lo and behold, where do we see some of the focal points of the russian sabotage? i m not trying to build a conspiracy. no. but i m just saying, if you
and yet the twice impeached, disgraced ex president continues to flippantly claim, with no evidence whatsoever, that if he were the president, ukraine would be just fine. on the day russia invaded ukraine, trump released this gem. quote, if i were in office, this deadly situation in ukraine would never have happened. to think, if only trump were still our president, there will be peace in ukraine. it is laughable on the face of it, but thanks to an exhaustive and riveting piece of reporting in the new york times, we have reason to believe that trump was once again, saying the quiet part out loud. jim ruttenberg of the time was reviewed hundreds of pages of documents, interviewed nearly 50 people in the u.s. and ukraine, and spent four hours building paul manafort investigation that unearthed a missing puzzle piece linking the 2016 russian election interference to russia s invasion of ukraine today. back in 2016, konstantin
the democratic nomination, paul manafort, president trump s then candidate, his campaign manager, is receiving this message from this constant and kilimnik, saying i need to talk to you. he is literally writing this in moscow. and i have to come and talk to in person, and they arrange this meeting at, this famous cigar bar in 666 fifth avenue, owned by happens, jared kushner s family. and they meet their, a few nights later, to discuss this plan, the so-called mario plan that talks about basically granting what manafort himself would confirm to mr. weisman, granted putin backdoor control over the most important industrial region of ukraine. and jim, what is established through the special counsel investigation is a united mission. and i think a lot of us in this country got wrapped around connecting the docks and
mind these things up, it does show the significance of this piece of the puzzle that jim has highlighted. i think that the sort of enduring story is that there is money unanswered questions about trump and his affinity for putin, and putin, and what he wanted and what he got from trumpists there still hasn t finances from the time s extraordinary coverage. jim, thanks for writing the piece, thanks for taking the time to talk to us about it. mark, thanks for being here in walking us through it. really grateful to both of you. thank you. when we come back, it was, as we ve been discussing, at the heart of trump s first impeachment. that so-called perfect phone call between donald trump and ukrainian players didn t zelenskyy. next, we talk to people who are on the call. we ll be right back with that. back with that. for fast sore throat relief, try vicks vapocool drops with two times more menthol per drop , and the powerful rush of vicks vapors for fast-acting relief you can feel. v
trump campaign, manafort was saying things that perhaps other students. that the path for trump to win was going to be through these working class, blue collar voters in states that were traditionally, or at least recently, in a ball i m s column. in pennsylvania, he saw it happening in wisconsin, michigan. so these two conversations are happening at the same session. jim, let me ask you about the manafort prosecution. and there is a point, if i don t remember this accurately, correct me, but it manafort cooperates and then an cooperate. is there anything that you learn that sort of sinks up the timeline about where the cooperation ends and. the un-flipping on trump begins? did they not probe, it is clear that they didn t get to the clinic product, right, they didn t have the exchange of the polling data for the mariupol plan as part of the manafort prosecution, right? well, the first trial that