Donald Trump’s Fictional Account of the 2019 Ukraine Call with Volodymyr Zelensky
Former President Donald Trump regaled his Ohio campaign rally audience on Saturday with an entirely fictional story about how he had supposedly outmaneuvered his Democratic opponents by releasing what he claimed to be a damning tape of his 2019 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. This tale, which has no basis in reality, was a revised version of Trump’s previous false narratives about the call that led to his first impeachment.
Speaking at the event, Trump asserted that he had allowed Democrats to make increasingly outrageous claims regarding the conversation’s content before eventually unveiling what he described as a conclusive recording. He then alleged that, upon hearing this “tape,” Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) became incensed and exclaimed to her team, “What the hell did you get me into? You hear this call? He didn’t do any of this stuff!”
The former president continued by claiming that Pelosi was informed, “Let’s just pretend he did and keep going forward.” He maintained that after Democrats fabricated the narrative and subsequently listened to this supposed recording, they were left crestfallen.
However, Facts First: Trump’s story is a complete fabrication. No such tape of the call was ever released. Pelosi could not have been deceived by her allies following a listening of the call because she never heard it—as of nearly five years later, there is still no known US recording of the conversation. Instead, the White House released a rough written transcript of the call, which corroborated rather than contradicted the whistleblower’s primary allegations. Pelosi spokesperson Aaron Bennett denounced Trump’s story as “fact-free nonsense.”
It is important to note that presidential phone calls with foreign leaders are usually not recorded by the American side. Instead, they are documented through a combination of software and officials who listen in. Retired Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, one of the officers privy to Trump’s call with Zelensky during his tenure as the top Ukraine expert at the White House National Security Council and later a crucial witness in the impeachment inquiry, confirmed to News Finder on Sunday that there is “no recording” of the call. Vindman also refuted Trump’s account, stating, “He’s lying.”
Trump’s newest story is a more elaborate retelling of his false claims from the 2019 impeachment saga. In those earlier stories, Trump tried to rewrite history by claiming that he had bested Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), a leading figure in the impeachment effort, by releasing the rough transcript of the call with Zelensky after Schiff had allegedly mischaracterized what Trump had said. Yet, this narrative was flawed as well—because in reality, Trump released the rough transcript before Schiff delivered his exaggerated portrayal of the call at a congressional hearing.
In both instances, Trump’s claims about Pelosi’s reactions were unfounded. After the rough transcript was made public, Pelosi issued a harsh statement accusing Trump of “lawlessness” and attempting to manipulate other countries for political gain. A Pelosi spokesperson also dismissed Trump’s account of her supposed thoughts, branding it “complete fiction.”
Despite these inaccuracies, Trump repeated the “tape” version of his story at the Ohio rally while again lambasting Schiff, who is now running for a US Senate seat in California.