Trump Releases Transcript of Call with Ukrainian President
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We ran the numbers: There are 9546 news articles covering this topic. 45% (4305) are left leaning, 43% (4119) center, 12% (1122) right leaning.
On Wednesday, the Trump administration released a rough transcript of President Trump’s July conservation with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.
The transcript showed that Trump repeatedly pressed the Ukrainian leader to investigate Joe Biden, the current Democratic front-runner in the presidential race, and his son Hunter. The release of the transcript comes after Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced the launch of an impeachment inquiry and demanded that the whistleblower complaint be given to Congress.
Initially, the transcript seems to have deepened the partisanship in Washington. Democratic lawmakers view the allegations against the president as “credible and deeply disturbing” while Republicans have “largely downplayed the complaint.” With the implication that the transcript details Trump’s abuse of office, coverage of the story has mostly originated from the left and center of the political system.
A left-leaning article from the New York Times largely summarized the key takeaways following the release of the transcript of the Trump-Zelensky phone call. While listing six separate takeaways, the NYT places the most importance on the allegation that Trump pressed Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Trump’s alleged request for Ukraine to investigate the Bidens comes despite comments from Ukraine’s top prosecutor in May that “there was no evidence of wrongdoing by the Bidens to investigate.”
Centrist sources like NPR mostly published copies of the released transcript, alongside comments that the transcript was not verbatim, in order to let readers generate their own conclusions from the information presented. However, NPR did report that the transcript of the Trump-Zelensky phone call is the “center of a controversy over whether Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, a potential election rival.”
A rIght-leaning article from Fox News mostly focuses on President Trump’s attempt to turn the public’s focus to the actions of several Democratic senators in Ukraine months before his call with Zelensky. Trump asserts that Sens. Robert Menendez, Dick Durbin, and Patrick Leahy pressed Ukraine’s top prosecutor to continue investigations that were deemed “crucial” to the Russia probe headed by then-Special Counsel Robert Mueller and “by Democrats’ current logic, seemingly implied that their support for U.S. aid to Ukraine was at stake,” Fox News reports.
From the right
President turns tables on Biden amid impeachment push; claims Dems threatened Ukraine
Fox News