Last updated on July 18th, 2023 at 11:52 am
Donald Trump is floating the predictably stupid idea of reading the “transcript” of his Ukraine call on live television – Rachel Maddow-style – but that proposal is already dead on arrival a day after it first surfaced.
As James Pindell of The Boston Globe said on Saturday, “This would be a very bad thing for him because it would lead, obviously, to a lot of coverage before and after that event, reminding the American people what was potentially in this transcript.”
“If he ever actually does it, I will be shocked,” he added.
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Video:
Trump has no real plans to read the Ukraine call transcript on live TV. Like everything else he does, it was a stunt. #ctl #p2 pic.twitter.com/reDf7wCy8z
— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) November 2, 2019
Pindell said:
He’s not pursuing that at all. This would be a very bad thing for him because it would lead, obviously, to a lot of coverage before and after that event, reminding the American people what was potentially in this transcript. Of course, it’s not a transcript. It’s a detailed summary. There are a lot of words left out, as we learned earlier this week about some of the contents that was apparently left out. But it was obviously a very showy thing. It’s a smart political play, trying to reiterate that, don’t worry about reading the transcript or the detailed summary. What’s in it is totally fine. I’m willing to even read it on national television. If he ever actually does it, I will be shocked.
Like everything else he does, this was a cheap political stunt
When Donald Trump is desperate, he resorts to cheap political stunts to change the subject or rally his MAGA base behind him.
But even he recognizes that reading the White House summary of his call with Ukraine – one from which the administration scrubbed the most damaging lines – would be a disaster for him.
It would be a reminder to the American people that he – not a whistleblower or deep state spy – has already incriminated himself and admitted, via the transcript he released, to extorting a foreign power for damaging information on Joe Biden.
Like most of Donald Trump’s cheap and desperate reality TV stunts, this one crashed and burned within a single news cycle.
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Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
