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What Next | Daily News and Analysis

The Ukraine Scandal Was in Plain Sight

What Next | Daily News and Analysis

Slate

News, Daily News, News Commentary, Politics

4.62.3K Ratings

🗓️ 2 October 2019

⏱️ 23 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the late spring and early summer of 2019 there were these stories. Stories that ran in the New York Times and BuzzFeed News about Rudy Giuliani and his backchannel campaign to get Ukraine’s help securing Donald Trump’s re-election. Though not easy reads these articles are undoubtedly the first draft of what Washington can’t stop talking about now, the Ukraine Scandal. So, what made the whistleblower’s version of the story stick? Guest: Eric Umansky, Deputy Managing Editor at ProPublica and Editor of the Trump, Inc. podcast. Slate Plus members get bonus segments and ad-free podcast feeds. Sign up now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

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bit of salty language. Okay, here's the show. Eric Umanski is an editor of ProPublica,

0:43.0

works on the Trump Inc podcast with WNYC. And back in the summer, he started noticing

0:48.5

these stories in the New York Times, in Buzzfeed. Stories about Rudy Giuliani pushing to get

0:54.8

Ukraine's help securing Donald Trump's reelection. I remember reading it honestly and looking

1:00.6

at it. I mean, just like my honest thing, I was like, wait, on the one hand, I had this

1:04.1

internal voice being like, wait, this is a big deal because it's, I think it's the

1:09.0

president's lawyer subordinate foreign policy for political interests. I think, but not

1:17.5

everybody is saying that so like, I'm I'm missing something here. And like, oh, look, there's

1:22.2

another tab. There's another story. I got to go to that. Okay. And you are an investigative

1:27.6

editor. How long have you been doing this? I've been doing it a long time. When Eric says

1:32.2

he's been doing this a long time, he means 20 plus years. And still, he'd look at these

1:38.1

stories and think, in Trump's Washington, is this a big deal? But this early reporting,

1:44.8

it was undoubtedly the first draft of the story we all can't stop talking about now.

1:49.6

The story of a president who seems to be enlisting a foreign government to interfere in domestic

1:53.9

politics. Looking back, it's hard not to wonder what made the whistleblowers version of

...

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