Zelensky's Path Back to White House Faces Big Hurdles (hint, first impeachment)
WASHINGTON—Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky took half steps over the weekend to repair the damage done in an Oval Office blowout, expressing gratitude to the U.S., and President Trump personally, for military aid over the years. But Zelensky offered no apology, a portent sign of the difficult road ahead for him in Washington. The public meltdown was sparked by the Ukrainian president’s aggressive pursuit of military aid in an Oval Office meeting. It was also fueled by personal tensions that date back to a phone call in 2019 between the leaders that sparked Trump’s first impeachment.
(snip)
Trump has long harbored suspicions of Ukraine’s political establishment. He has promoted an unsubstantiated theory that the Democratic National Committee was hacked in 2016 not by Russia but by a server located in Ukraine, a theory also spread by Moscow. Trump’s early dealings with Zelensky, meanwhile, only buttressed his belief the Ukrainian president was also aligned against him personally. After Zelensky was elected president of Ukraine in 2019, Trump began pressing the new Ukrainian leader to declare an investigation into his Democratic rivals there.
In Trump’s first lengthy phone call with Zelensky, he pressed the Ukrainian president for an investigation into Hunter Biden, the son of Joe Biden—an expected political rival in the 2020 presidential election. The call led to Trump’s first impeachment, and may have contributed to his defeat in the 2020 election. The Ukrainian leader kept his distance from Trump after he left the White House, but he made contact again during the U.S. presidential campaign last year and quickly committed a faux pas. Republicans criticized him for appearing with Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor at a factory in the state that made shells for Ukraine, a visit that GOP officials said was partisan.
(snip)
Vance also brought up Zelensky’s visit to the plant in Pennsylvania, accusing him of campaigning there for Democrats, and Trump joined his vice president in accusing Zelensky of being ungrateful. Trump then said that Putin respected him and that the two of them bonded in part because they had together fought off false allegations from Democrats that they had colluded to rig the 2016 elections.
(snip)
Trump suggested that their common trial-by-fire, litigated by Democrats, made him closer to the Russian president than he could be with Zelensky. “Let me tell you, Putin went through a hell of a lot with me,” Trump said, raising his voice at a reporter who asked a final question during Friday’s tense meeting with Zelensky. “He went through a phony witch hunt where they used him and Russia, Russia, Russia.” “It was a Democrat scam,” he said. “And he had to go through that.”
https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trumps-strained-affairs-with-zelensky-stretch-back-to-a-single-phone-call-25dab7ad?st=knLEdq&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
free
= new reply since forum marked as read
