Trump, Ukraine and impeachment
The Briefing Room
BBC
4.8 • 731 Ratings
🗓️ 3 October 2019
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What's the Trump impeachment inquiry about? The White House is in damage limitation mode following a whistleblower complaint that revealed details about a phone call between President Trump and Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky. The whistleblower expressed an 'urgent concern' that Mr Trump had used his office to pressure a foreign power to damage a political rival and leading Democratic presidential candidate, Joe Biden.
Now the Democrats have launched a formal impeachment inquiry into what went on. Where might this end up and what does it mean for American politics?
David Aaronovitch is briefed on the wider context to this story and how the case will likely be built both for and against Donald Trump. He also asks how significant this moment is likely to be in US history?
GUESTS:
Josh Gerstein, Senior Legal Affairs Contributor, Politico Jonah Fisher, BBC correspondent in Kiev Leslie Vinjamuri, Head of US and Americas programme at Chatham House Elaine Kamarck, Senior Fellow in the Governance Studies program at the Brookings Institution Amy Jeffress, former federal prosecutor and partner at Arnold and Porter law firm
Producer: Serena Tarling Editor: Jasper Corbett
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:09.0 | Welcome to the briefing room with me, David O'Ronovich. |
| 0:12.0 | Picture a windowless bunker crammed with reference books, charts, maps, screens and widgets, |
| 0:18.0 | where you and I are joined by the world's leading experts who, in the next |
| 0:22.5 | half hour, can tell us what it is necessary to understand about a burning issue of the day. |
| 0:28.8 | Today, they'll brief us about President Trump, Ukraine and impeachment. What's it all about? |
| 0:35.4 | And where might it end up? And if you enjoy this podcast, you might enjoy this week's profile podcast on President Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani. |
| 0:45.6 | You need to know it, we do it. |
| 0:48.4 | Then we put it all on BBC Sounds. sounds. This week, President Trump hosted the President of Finland. At the subsequent |
| 1:03.9 | press conference, US journalists were keen to ask about the case which has led to an impeachment |
| 1:09.5 | inquiry by the Speaker of the U.S. House |
| 1:12.0 | of Representatives, a line of questioning which led to this. |
| 1:17.4 | Go ahead, ask a question. |
| 1:18.5 | The question, sir, was what did you want President Zelensky to do about Vice President |
| 1:22.7 | Biden and his son, Hunter? |
| 1:25.4 | Are you talking to me? |
| 1:27.0 | Yeah, it was just a follow-up of what I just asked you, sir. |
| 1:29.3 | Listen, you ready? |
| 1:30.3 | We have the President of Finland. |
| 1:32.3 | Ask him a question. |
| 1:33.3 | I have one for him. |
| 1:34.3 | I just wanted to follow up on the one that I asked you, which was what did you want? |
... |
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