and his associate were working for the old corrupt ukraine crayon dictator. part of what happens is manafort is essentially outed and trump is enraged by that. i think that s where the original animous against ukraine comes from. then he heard this conspiracy theory which was not the russians but the ukrainians who are to blame for interfering in the 2016 election and not to help him but actually to hurt him. uh-huh. he buy this is to the extent, as you say, is his number one ask to the ukrainian president. when you lay it out that way, it s clear. these statements that trump has been making have gone back and preceded even manafort being fired as campaign manager. during the summer of 2016, he was calling into question ukraine s territorial sovereignty and said maybe
crimea is part of russia and that was very worrying for ukrainians. of course ukrainians had a reason to be worried about a trump presidency because he was calling into question the very existence of their nation. pleasure having you on. thank you for having me. next on gps, hong kong protesters want real democracy. it s highly unlikely the chinese government will grant t are we in for a forever war between the two sides? one of the founders of the protests will talk to me when we come back. a wealth of perspective. a wealth of opportunities. that s the clarity you get from fidelity wealth management. straightforward advice, tailored recommendations, tax-efficient investing strategies, and a dedicated advisor to help you grow and protect your wealth. fidelity wealth management.
investigation into the allegations. that same day, the intelligence community inspector general notified the house and senate intelligence committees of the whistle-blower complaint. the next day, september 10th, house intelligence committees chairman adam schiff sent a letter to joseph mcguire, demanding he turn over the complaint and then on september 11th, aid to ukraine was unfrozen with no conditions. just imagine zelensky s dilemma. by the time i met with him in kyi investment, he knew the aid had been released but the backstory had not yet broken into public view. ukrainians i spoke about the release of the aid were delighted but a little surprised and unsure as to what happened. zelensky and his team were probably still trying to figure out whether they should do the interview. september 18th and 19th, the washington post broke the story wide open. the interview was called off.
president, zelensky. to help us understand more of the geopolitics, i want to bring in phil gordon, the assistant secretary of state for european and eurasia affairs. in that role, he was responsible for ukraine. phil, pleasure to have you on. can you tell us, to begin with, what do you make of the charge that, to put it as some republican congressmen did, obama gave ukraine blankets but trump gave them weapons. in other words at the end of the day, trump has been far more generous in his support for the ukrainians and their struggle against the russians than obama was? well, it is certainly true that the trump administration started supplying a degree of weaponry, javel. n anti-tank missiles that the obama administration wasn t supplying to ukraine. that s a fact. it was a policy call.
i think president obama s view was that ukraine could never fight its way out of this situation. and that escalating on behalf of the ukrainians would just lead the russians to escalate more and would we be prepared to if down that route? there are people, including vice president biden who were on the other side of that debate but ultimately in that sense, the trump administration provided more direct military support to ukraine. the issue now, however, is whether the trump administration then sought to use that leverage it was providing to ukraine for other purposes and was willing that s what the whole impeachment business is about, was willing to withdraw that support that it had started to give to ukraine for political purposes, notably the investigation of the vice president former vice president and his son. let s ta you can about that piece of it.