ABC News White House correspondent joins ‘The View’ to explain Trump-Ukraine story: ‘This is significant’
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It was a big day for corporate synergy on ABC News’ “The View” Monday when the network’s chief White House correspondent, Jonathan Karl, joined the daytime gabfest to explain the controversy over a phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
For days, Democrats have seized on allegations that Trump pressured Zelensky to investigate 2020 hopeful Joe Biden’s family dealings – using military aid as leverage – and cited the reports to revive calls for the president's impeachment.
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“Thank goodness Jonathan Karl is here,” co-host Whoopi Goldberg said after airing video of Trump’s explanation of the call. “What just happened?”
Karl then explained that Trump admitted he talked about Biden directly with the Ukrainian president in July during a time that the United States was withholding aid money that Congress had already approved.
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“We don’t know, was he pressuring?… was he suggesting?, we don’t know any of that,” Karl said before citing a Wall Street Journal report that Trump urged Zelensky to investigate Biden and his son.
Karl then said there are people on Trump’s team urging him to release the transcript of the now-infamous phone call. Karl also said that if Joe Biden's son, Hunter, weren’t politically connected then he probably wouldn’t have been in a position to profit from business dealings in Ukraine with energy company Burisma Holdings as a member of its board.
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“Hunter Biden, as far as I know, doesn’t have a lot of experience with Ukraine, I think if his name were Hunter Smith he probably wouldn’t have been getting paid,” Karl said.
Co-host Meghan McCain then pointed out that reporters act like “the end of the world is coming” on a regular basis and asked Karl why this latest story was any different.
“I think that this is significant and this is a little bit different and very easy to understand. You have what the president himself has already acknowledged, which is even if there was no quid pro quo, even if he wasn’t holding that aid over the head of the president of Ukraine, merely bringing up your political opponent in a conversation with a newly elected president, any president of a foreign country, is going to be seen as problematic,” Karl said.
Fox News’ Ronn Blitzer contributed to this report.