On the heels of news that the whistleblower complaint reportedly centers on President Trump and Ukraine, the President denied reports that he may have had a “dicey” call with a foreign leader, but urged “someone” to “look into Joe Biden.”
Speaking to reporters on Friday morning, Trump wouldn’t answer questions about whether he discussed Biden during a call with the Ukrainian president-elect in July, before adding that he thinks Biden is worth looking into.
“It doesn’t matter what I discuss, but I will say this. Somebody ought to look into Joe Biden’s statement because it was disgraceful where he talked about billions of dollars that he’s not giving to a certain country unless a certain prosecutor is taken off the case,” he said. “So somebody ought to look into that. And you wouldn’t because he’s a Democrat. And the fake news doesn’t look into things like that.”
Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani mentioned the same unsubstantiated claim on CNN Thursday evening about Biden.
“It’s a disgrace,” the President added. “But I had a great conversation with numerous people, I don’t even know exactly who you’re talking about, but I had a great conversation with numerous people, numerous leaders, and I always look for the conversation that’s going to help the United States the most. That’s very important.”
Trump said he didn’t know who the “partisan” whistleblower was and denied knowing whether his July call with Ukrainian President Zelensky was at the center of the whistleblower complaint that’s put Congress and the director of national intelligence at odds this week.
Trump urges "someone" to look into Joe Biden pic.twitter.com/YqYg1ENbAs
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) September 20, 2019
The remarks to the media echo Trump’s earlier negations. On Friday morning the President returned to his ritualistic denials on Twitter, blaming the “Radical Left Democrats and their Fake News Media partners” for the story.
In a tweet thread, Trump questioned why just one “highly partisan” whistleblower complained about the call when “so many other people” who knew about it thought it was a “respectful conversation.”
….statement. Strange that with so many other people hearing or knowing of the perfectly fine and respectful conversation, that they would not have also come forward. Do you know the reason why they did not? Because there was nothing said wrong, it was pitch perfect!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 20, 2019
When news broke Wednesday night that Trump was at the center of the potentially explosive whistleblower complaint, Trump denied that he’d said anything problematic on a call with a foreign leader.
It is still largely unclear what is contained in the whistleblower complaint, which Acting Director of National Intelligence Jeffrey Maguire has refused to hand over to members of the House Intelligence Committee. It is known that the complaint involves a “promise” that Trump reportedly made during a phone call with a foreign leader. The complaint also involves a series of actions, not just one isolated phone call and it also involves Ukraine, but it is unclear how. Many speculate the complaint is related to a phone call that Trump had with the president-elect of Ukraine two and a half weeks before the complaint was filed.
