‘Meet The Press’ And ‘This Week’ See Trump Officials Say No Ukraine Transcripts Will Be Released
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Trump administration officials appearing on two Sunday morning political talk shows said that a transcript of a controversial phone call between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would not be released.
The July call between the two leaders has been the subject of an alleged whistleblower report. The whistleblower alleged that Trump pressured Zelensky to investigate Hunter Biden, the son of former VP and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. Trump has denied the rumors and said that the conversation was a “perfectly fine and routine conversation.”
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But proving Trump’s contention via a transcript release will not happen, according to two senior officials.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told This Week host Martha Raddatz that “we don’t release transcripts very often. It’s the–it’s the rare case. Those are private conversations between world leaders and it wouldn’t be appropriate to do so except in the most extreme circumstances.”
“There’s no evidence that that would be appropriate here at this point,” he added.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin made the same point on NBC’s Meet The Press.
“I think it would be highly inappropriate to release a transcript of a call between two world leaders,” Mnuchin said to Meet The Press host Chuck Todd.
Mnuchin said that the president’s calls with foreign leaders are “confidential discussions and that’s a difficult precedent.” Mnuchin added that world leaders “expect that they are kept confidential.”
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