Trump called his conversation with the Ukrainian President “perfect”, noting that they will “make a determination about how to release it, releasing it, saying what we said,” hours after suggesting he had discussed Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden during the call.
“The problem is, when you’re speaking to foreign leaders, you don’t want foreign leaders to feel that they shouldn’t be speaking openly,” Trump added. “And the same thing with an American president. You want them to be able to express themselves without knowing that every single word was going to be going out and going out all over the world.”
The US president said he would consider releasing details from the call, adding, “But you have to be a little bit shy about doing that.” Trump went on to say he knows a lot of people are listening to his phone calls, including “intelligence people,” but with his permission to do so.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on ABC’s “This Week” earlier Sunday that releasing the contents of the call would not be appropriate “except in the most extreme circumstances.”
Trump’s statement came after a Friday report by The Wall Street Journal suggesting that Trump had urged Ukrainian President Zelensky to investigate Hunter Biden, the former vice president's son. According to the report, Trump wanted to probe whether the corruption allegations against Hunter, who was on the board of directors of a large Ukrainian oil company, were true.
Trump's latest tweet pertains to an incident surrounding Joe Biden dating back to 2016, when the then-vice president threatened to suppress loans to Ukraine unless the country’s prosecutor general investigating corruption allegations against his family was fired. At the time, the prosecutor general’s office was probing a Ukrainian oligarch who owned the company where Hunter Biden held a high-ranking position.