‘You just added another word’: Republican house leader Kevin McCarthy appears to learn about Trump’s damning quote in TV interview
Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader in the house of representatives, appeared to learn about the most controversial part of Donald Trump’s call with Volodymyr Zelensky during a television interview.
The 54-year-old was interviewed for CBS’ 60 Minutes programme by Scott Pelley, who read out parts of the White House summary of the call during the exchange.
He focused on a point where Mr Zelensky, the Ukranian leader, discussed a defence deal.
“We are ready to continue to cooperate for the next specifically we are almost ready to buy more Javelins [missiles] from the United States for defence purposes,” Mr Zelensky said during the call.
The US president replied: “I would like you to do us a favour though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it.
“I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike ... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it.”
“You just added another word,” Mr McCarthy said during the interview, appearing to refer to the word “though”.
“No,” Scott Pelley said. “It’s in the transcript.”
“You said ‘I’d like you to do [me] a favour though’?” Mr McCarthy said, with apparent surprise.
“Yes, it’s in the White House transcript,” Mr Pelley said.
The controversial exchange in the phone call refers to CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity company which investigated the hacking of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said the president did nothing impeachable. “I see two leaders having admiration, not intimidation,” he tells Scott Pelley about President Trump’s phone call with President Zelensky https://t.co/68FhBmgQsJpic.twitter.com/sKrdQSalfh
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) September 30, 2019
CrowdStrike was one of three firms that led US intelligence officials to conclude Russian intelligence had hacked the DNC, former FBI Director James Comey told Congress in January 2017.
Mr Trump appears to have been talking of an unfounded conspiracy theory, which alleges that Ukraine stole the DNC emails and framed Russia for the hack.
Democrats have alleged that the word “though” is damning for the president.
They believe the word shows Mr Trump asking for a favour from a foreign power, in order to assist with his re-election campaign.
Mr McCarthy went on to defend the president’s remarks, despite his surprise about the call.
“Why would we move forward with impeachment? There’s not something that you have to defend here,” he said.
“The president did nothing in this phone call that’s impeachable.”
