Telephone Conversation with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine
Source: Office of the Press Secretary
CAUTION: A Memorandum of a Telephone Conversation.· (TELCON) is not a verbatim transcript of a discussion. The text in this document records the notes and recollections of Situation Room Duty "Officers and-NSC policy staff assigned t_o listen.and memorialize the conversation in written form as the conversation takes place. A number of factors can affect 'the accuracy of the record, including poor telecommunications connections and variations in accent and/or interpretation. The word "inaudible" is used to indicate portions of a conversation that the notetaker was unable to hear.
MEMORANDUM OF TELEPHONE CONVERSATION
Subject: (C) Telephone Conversation with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine
Participants: President Zelenskyy of . Ukraine
Notetakers: The White House Situation·Room
July 25, 2019, 9:03 - 9:33 a.m. EDT
Residence
The President: Congratulations on a great victory. We all watched from the United States and you did a terrific.job. The way.you came from behind, -somebody who wasn't given much of a change, and you ended up winning easily. It's a fantastic achievement. Congratulations.
President Zelenskyy: You· are absolutely right Mr. Presideht.• We did win big and we worked hard for _this. We worked a lot but I would like to confess to you that I had an opportunity to learn from you. We used quite a few of your skills and knowledge and were able to use .it as an example for our elections -and.yes it is-true that these were unique elections. We were in a·unique situation· that we· were able to achieve a unique success. I'm able to tell you the following; the first time, you· called me to congratulate me .when I won my presidential election, and the second time you are now calling me when my party won the parliamentary election. I think I should run more often so you can call me more often and we can talk over the phone more often.
The President: [laughter] That's a very good idea. I think your country is very happy about that.
President Zelenskyy: Well yes, to tell you the truth, we are trying to work hard because we wanted to drain the swamp here in our country. We brought in many many new people. Not the old politicians, not the typical politicians, because we want to have a new format and a new type of government .. You are a great teacher for us and in that.
The President: Well it's·very nice of you .to say that. I will say that we do ·a lot for Ukraine. We spend a lot . of effort and a lot.of time. Much more than the European countries are doing and they should be helping.you more than.they are. Germany does almost nothing for you. All they do is talk and I think it's something that you should ·really ask them about. When I.was·speaking to Angela Merkel she talks Ukraine, but she ·doesn't do·anything. A lot of the European countries are the. same way· so I think it's.something you want to look at but the United States has been very ·very good to Ukraine. I wouldn't say that it's reciprocal necessarily because things are happening that are not good but the United States has been very very good to Ukraine.
President Zelenskyy: Yes you are·absolutely right. Not only 100%, but actually 1000% arid I can tell you the following; I did talk to Angela Merkel and I did meet.with her. I also met and talked with Macron . and I told them that they are not doing quite as much as they need to be doing·on the issues with the sanctions. They are not enforcing the sanctions. They are not working as much as they should work for Ukraine. It turns out that even though logically, the European Union should be our biggest· partner but technically the United States is a much bigger partner than.the European Union and- I'm very grateful to you for that because the United States is doing quite a· lot for
Ukraine. Much more than the Eurropean Union especially when we are talking about sanctions against the Russia,Federation. I would also·like to thank you·for.your great support in the area of defense. . We. are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps. specifically we are almost ready to buy more Javelins from the United· States for defense purposes.
The· President: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike ... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has.it. There are a lot. of things that went on, the :whole situation .. I think you are surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance-, but they. say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it's very important that you do it if that's possible.
President Zelenskyy: Yes it is. very important for me and everything that you just mentioned earlier. For me as a President,-· it is very important and we are open for any future cooperation. We are ready to· open a new page on cooperation in relations between the United· States and Ukraine.· For that purpose, I just recalled our.ambassador from United States and he will be replaced by a very competent and very experienced ambassador who wtll work hard on making sure that our two nations are getting closer. I would also like and hope to see
him having your trust and y9ur .confidence and _ have personal relations·with you so we can cooperate even more so. I wili personally tell you that one· of my assistants· spoke with Mr. Giuliani just.recently and we are hoping very much that Mr. Giuliani will be able to travel to Ukraine and. we will meet once he comes to Ukraine. I just wanted to assure you once again that you have nobody but friends around-us. I will make sure that I surround myself with the best and most experienced people. I also wanted to tell you that we are friends. We are great friends and you Mr. President have. friends in our country so we can continue our strategic·partnership. I also plan to surround
· myself with great people ·and in addition to that investigation, I guarantee as the President of Ukraine that all the investigations.will be done openly and candidly. That I can assure you.
The President: Good because I· heard you had a prosecutor who· was very·good and he was shut down and that's really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved. Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor bf New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General· Rudy very much knows what's happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great. The former ambassador from the United States, the woman., was bad news and the people she was dealing with in .the Ukraine were bad news so I just want to let you know that The other thing, There's a lot of. talk about Biden's son, that Eiden stopped the
prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you ·can look into it ... It sounds horrible to me.
President Zelenskyy: I wanted to tell ·you about the prosecutor. First off I understand and I'm knowledgeable .about the situation. Since we have won· the absolute majority in our Parliament; the next prosecutor .general will be 100%_ my person, my candidate, who will be approved, by the parliament and will start. a new prosecutor in September. He or she will look into the situation, specifically to the company that you mentioned in :this issue. The issue of the investigation of the case is actually the issue of making sure to restore the honesty so we will take care of.that and will work on the investigation of the case. On top of that, I would kindly ask you if you have
any additional information that you can provide ·to µs, it would_ be very helpful · for the investigation t·o make· sure that we administer justice in our country with regard to the Ambassador to the United States from Ukraine as far as I recall her name was Ivanovicli. It was great that you were the first one. who told me that she was a bad ambassador because I agree·with you 100%. Her attitude to.wards me was far from the best as she admired the previous President and she was on his· side. She would not accept me as a new President· well enough.
The President: Well,·she' s going to go through some things. I will. have Mr. Giuliani.give you a call and I am. also going to have.Attorney General Barr call and we will get to· the bottom of it. I'm sure you will figure it out. I heard the prosecutor was treated very badly and he was a very fair prosecutor so good luck with everything. Your. economy is going to get better and better I predict. You have a lot· of assets. It's a great country. I have many Ukrainian friends, their incredible ·people.
President Zelenskyy: I would like to tell you that I also have.quite a few·Ukrain1an friends that live in the United·States. ·Actually last time I traveled to the United States, I stayed in New York near Central Park and I stayed at the Trump Tower. I will talk to them and I hope to see them· again in the future. I also wanted to thank you .for your invitation to visit the United States, specifically Washington DC. On ,the other hand, I also wanted to assure you that we will. be very serious about.the case and will work on the investigation. As to.the economy, there is much potential for our two countries and one of· the ·issues. that is very important for Ukraine is· energy independence. I believe we can be very successful. and cooperating on energy independence with United States. We -are already working on cooperation. We are buying American oil but I am very hopeful for- ·a future meeting. We will have more time and more opportunities to discuss these opportunities· and get to know each other better. I would like to thank you very much for your support
The President: Good. Well., thank you very much and I appreciate that. I will tell Rudy and Attorney General Barr to call. Thank you. Whenever you would like -to come to the White House,. feel ·free to call. ·Give us a date and we'll work that out. I ·1ook forward to seeing you.
President ·zelenskyy: Thank ·you very much. I would be very happy to come and would be happy to meet with you personally and get to know. you better. I am looking forward to our meeting arid I would also would like to invite you to visit Ukraine and come to the city of Kyiv which is a beautiful city. We have a beautiful country Which would welcome you. On the other hand, I believe that on September we will be in Poland and we can meet in Poland hopefully. After that,· it might be a very good idea for you to.travel to Ukraine. We can either take my plane and go to Ukraine or we can take your plane, which is probably much better than mine.
The President: Okay,. ·we can work that ·out. I look forward to seeing you in Washington and maybe in· Poland because I think we are going to be there at that tlme .
President Zelenskyy: Thank you very much Mr. President.
The President:· Congratulations on· a fantastic job you've done-. The whole world was watching. I'm not sure it was so much of an upset but congratulations.
President Zelenskyy: Thank you Mr. President bye-bye .
Read more: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Unclassified09.2019.pdf
= new reply since forum marked as read
There are White House stenographers who silently listen in and make hand-written notes in realtime. Later they compare notes because no single person gets the entire conversation, completely and without errors. That's why the "transcription" is such a joke, and it can be so easily massaged and rewritten to make it look like something else.
In this case, it looks like Chump trying to save his own butt, and he's doing it in a way that makes himself out to be the hero.
Every chance he got he said flattering things to tRumpolini, including just happening to mention he stayed at tRump Tower in NYC. Laying it on thick.
Are we sure that this wasn’t from tRump’s notes he scribbled out on a Burger King napkin??
