Meghan McCain, an American commentator and a daughter of late Republican presidential candidate John McCain, said that Donald Trump should “definitely be investigated” following the allegation that he'd tried to pressure the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to look into Joe Biden’s activities in Ukraine in exchange for financial aid, but noted that she does not know whether the case should necessarily be carried out at the “impeachment level”.
“Statistically this [impeachment] polls very poorly in the middle of the country, especially swing states, around 28 per cent, so Democrats are going to have to win over Republicans on this one,” McCain said during Watch What Happens Live TV show on 25 September, after being asked about the recent attempts to impeach US president following the inquiry announced by the Democratic Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday.
“That being said, if President Trump did in fact try and bribe the Ukraine and the president of the Ukraine to try and get information on Joe Biden and his son, this is something, that obviously….maybe not at impeachment level… but should definitely be investigated.”
The View co-host and political commentator also avoided answering the question of whether she would vote for a Democrat in the 2020 presidential election, but noted that she and Joe Biden were “very close”.
“I love him dearly and I think he is truly a decent, wonderful human being who could be very healing for the country and I hope he stays true to the politician he has always been,” McCain said when replying to Andy Cohen’s question. During the show, John McCain’s daughter also discussed her recent spat with Pamela Anderson amid actress’s support for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
On 24 September the Democratic Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi announced what appears to be the most significant attempt by the House to impeach Donald Trump based on his phone conversation with the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on 25 July.
The transcript of the conversation released on 25 September showed that Donald Trump had discussed with the Ukrainian president the case of firing Viktor Shokin, a state prosecutor investigating the Burisma energy company, which is linked to Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden. Shokin was dismissed in 2016 when probing company’s illegal activities where Hunter Biden was serving on the board of directors, with Biden later admitting that he'd played a role in stopping the prosecution.
"I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that's really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved," Trump said during the conversation.
"The other thing, there's a lot of talk about [former Vice President Joe] Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it...It sounds horrible to me," the US president added.
According to the claims made by Democrats, the US president tried to pressure his Ukrainian counterpart to cooperate on an inquiry against Trump’s potential presidential rival Joe Biden, by allegedly attempting to freeze some $400 million in military assistance to Ukraine in the days before the Zelensky phone call. The impeachment inquiry was then initiated by Democrats based on claims that Trump’s behaviour has “undermined” the integrity of US elections and national security. Nevertheless, the transcript shows that financial aid was only brought up during the conversation to thank the US president for the US military support in the area of Ukraine’s national defence.
Following the release of the transcript, Donald Trump took to Twitter in order to ask the Democrats to "apologise" to him for the accusations and impeachment inquiry, which he early called a “disgraceful thing” and a “witch hunt”. Ukraine's president also publicly admitted that he was not “pushed” to conduct any activities during the conversation with Trump.
