Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison with Donald Trump, September 2019 (John Minchillo/AP)
I spoke with Monocle 24’s Tom Edwards on Tuesday about the revelation of Donald Trump pressing foreign leaders to protect him and to damage his political rivals.
The discussion reviews Trump’s call to Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, seeking cooperation with Attorney General William Barr’s inquiry targeting the FBI and the Trump-Russia investigation.
We link the revelation to the developing story of the pressure of Trump and his attorney Rudy Giuliani on Ukraine, seeking an investigation of 2020 Presidential candidate Joe Biden and promoting the conspiracy theory covering up Russian interference in the 2016 US election.
Listen from 32:48:
The phone call with the Ukraine President has been a catalyst.
The Mueller Report found Trump campaign links with the Russians and evidence of Trump’s obstruction of justice, but there was no focal event. But with Ukraine, Trump is asking a foreign leader, “I want you to investigate my political rival in the US elections.”
The second aspect that has shifted the needle is that information damaging to Trump are coming from within the White House, from multiple officials, not from outside.
