alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. Ambassador Sondland added that President Zelensky would "do anything" President Trump asked of him. After the call, Ambassador Sondland told David Holmes, Counselor for Political Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, that President Trump "did not give a shit about Ukraine" and that he only cared about the "big stuff" that benefited his personal interests, like the "Biden investigation."
President Trump's Call with President Zelensky on July 25, 2019
On July 25, 2019, President Zelensky finally had a long-awaited phone call with Ukraine's most important international partner: The President of the United States. It had been over three months since the two leaders first spoke. Despite a warm but largely non-substantive call on April 21, President Trump had since declined President Zelensky's invitation to attend his inauguration and directed Vice President Mike Pence not to attend either.569 Ukrainian efforts to set a date for a promised Oval Office meeting with President Trump were stalled. As Mr. Holmes explained, following the April 21 call:
President Zelensky's team immediately began pressing to set a date for that visit. President Zelensky and senior members of his team made clear that they wanted President Zelensky's first overseas trip to be to Washington, to send a strong signal of American support, and requested a call with President Trump as soon as possible.570
Before scheduling the July 25 call or a White House visit, President Trump met on June 28 with Russian President Vladimir Putin—whose armed forces were engaged in a war of attrition against U.S.-backed Ukrainian forces—on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan.571 During their meeting, President Trump and President Putin shared a joke about Russia's meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.572
On July 25, President Trump joined the call with President Zelensky from the Executive Residence at the White House, away from a small group of senior national security aides who would normally join him in the Oval Office for a conversation with a foreign head of state. President Trump and President Zelensky began to speak at 9:03 a.m. Washington time—4:03 p.m. in Kyiv. According to Tim Morrison, the newly-installed Senior Director for Europe and Russia on the NSC, President Zelensky spoke in Ukrainian and occasionally in "chopped English."573 Translators interpreted the call on both sides.574 American aides listening to the call from the White House Situation Room hoped that what was said over the next 30 minutes would provide President Zelensky with the strong U.S. endorsement he needed in order to successfully negotiate an end to the five-year-old war with Russia that had killed over 13,000 Ukrainian soldiers and to advance President Zelensky's ambitious anti-corruption initiatives in Ukraine.575
The Trump Administration's subject-matter experts, NSC Director for Ukraine Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and Mr. Morrison, were both on the call.576 They had prepared talking points for President Trump and were taking detailed notes of what both leaders said, so that they could promptly implement any agreed-upon actions.577 They were joined by Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, National Security Advisor to the Vice President, and Jennifer Williams, Special Advisor to the Vice President for Europe and Russia. Assistant to the President Robert Blair, a
99
