Over lunch at the White House, Mr. Trump, working to defend himself and shore up his support among Republicans in the face of an existential threat to his presidency, showed a group of senators a reconstructed transcript of a congratulatory phone conversation he had in April with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. He has promised repeatedly to release the document publicly, in part to counter the notion that he ever pressured Mr. Zelensky.
“He just shuffled it across the table,” Senator Kevin Cramer, Republican of North Dakota, who attended the lunch, told reporters afterward, calling the conversation “a very nice, congratulatory call.”
The president referred to the transcript repeatedly during the lunch, which also included Senators Ted Cruz of Texas, Mike Crapo of Idaho, Mike Enzi of Wyoming and Steve Daines of Montana. Then Mr. Trump offered the senators the opportunity to read the document themselves, Mr. Cramer said.
“It said ‘Congratulations, you ran a great campaign.’ ‘Oh, thank you, Mr. President, look forward to working with you,’ ” Mr. Cramer said.
Mr. Trump tried to draw attention to the call the day after the House Intelligence Committee convened the House’s first public impeachment hearing in two decades on Wednesday with testimony from William B. Taylor Jr., the top American diplomat in Ukraine, and George P. Kent, a senior State Department official responsible for policy toward the country.
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/14/us/politics/pelosi-impeachment-bribery.html
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