Page 1151 - Leverage News Today

Son. he was responding to questions about the ukraine call that triggered the whistle-blower complaint. here is what trump told reporters outside the white house. >> china should start an investigation into the bidens. because what happened in china is just about as bad as what happened with ukraine. >> all right, trump also said that all of his conversations with foreign leaders are appropriate. cnns david culver is in beijing. david, did the president there on the white house grounds just give...

Anger china when you want something from them. it is the opposite. if you want something, youve got to give them a reason to deal with the reason, the united states will take a tough line in hong kong. i dont we should have trade talks but most people do. if you want trade talks and an agreement with the chinese you have to hammer them on everything, not just trade. it is this mistaken notion that american policymakers have had for four decades. arthel: in terms of the actual trade talks, donald...

Details from the first eyewitness to testify before congress, former u.s. envoy to ukraine kurt volker. in his opening statement obtained by abc news, volker describes a president obsessed with a debunked conspiracy theory that ukraine, not russia, meddled in the 2016 election to help democrats. and volker handed over a trove of text messages that appear to show top u.s. officials dangling a potential white house visit as leverage to get ukraine to investigate trumps rivals. in one text, volker ...

Relationship. and were fighting over kmchina if you get mive me bogus dirt, will consider a deal that we can cut to satisfy you. and the chinese are not stupid. the chinese foreign minister said piously today that we would not interfere in the american political process, and you poor people go sort yourself out, but that says you better not say a thing about hong kong because that is our internal matter. that is some leverage already. but the real concern in my judgment is that the chinese under...

Say something. had you been on that trip, would you have said something? >> of course. i think what we have here is, among other things, a process failure. you talked about process in your question to peter at the beginning of the show. national security policy depends on a reliable process where a president is presented with options that have potential benefits and pitfalls. in this particular case, what surprised me about the texts most of all is this is not a whimsical comment by the presiden...

At the end of july with trump. the text messages all occurred between the end of july and throughout august preceding the president sending vice president pence to meet with zelensky on september 1 where he told the vice president, were not giving you the aide. were not giving you the assistance. all of this was occurring at the same time. so to suggest that vice president did not know about a quid pro quo or that the leverage was being used to get an investigation into biden would suggest that ...

Favors, its also using the power of the u.s. government, because there were two things in the case of the conversation with ukraine. one was ukraine wanted a meeting, a presidential-level meeting between their president and our president, and second, we had allocated security assistance to ukraine and it was being held up by the trump administration. in the words of bill taylor, there was a connection between holding up the security assistance and getting the political favor completed. and so th...

Were competing over the cyber realm and the south china sea, and he said china, if you give me bogus dirt, i will consider a deal that we can cut to satisfy you. and the chinese are not stupid. yes, the chinese foreign minister said piously today that we wouldnt interfere in the american political process, and you poor people go sort yourself out. but that says you better not say a damn thing about hong kong because that is our internal matter. there is some leverage already. but the real concer...

Up today. >> reporter: yeah, he wanted to separate those two today saying the trade talks with china had nothing to do with him saying yesterday that china should launch an investigation into joe biden, of course, his political rival. we should know when the president brought it up yesterday, it was unprompted. a reporter didnt ask him if he should investigate the bidens, he brought it up himself noting that the trade delegation will be in china for another round of trade talks. which is why he ...

Trumps body denied it, said "i spoke to the president. lets take this conversation offline." wonder why. and of course volkers strongest testimony may have been his immediate resignation after the whistle-blowers letter came out so he could testify today without the burden of executive privilege. and even today after the president postured about china, china reportedly followed up with a trump ally about whether he was serious. you see, when a president asks you to do something its not a mere su...