STABLE GENIUS: Trump Proposes Live Televised ‘Fireside Chat’ Reading Transcript Of Ukraine Phone Call

President Trump insists that he did nothing wrong and believes that if Americans listened to a reading of the transcript, they’d agree with him.

In an interview with The Washington Examiner, President Trump reiterated that he was not going to cooperate with the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry. He floated the idea of having a televised “fireside chat” to read the transcript of the telephone call between himself and Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine which is the source of the latest push for impeachment. He believes that if the transcript was read to Americans, they’d see the situation from his perspective.

“This is over a phone call that is a good call,” Trump, sitting behind the Resolute Desk, said in an interview with the Washington Examiner. “At some point, I’m going to sit down, perhaps as a fireside chat on live television, and I will read the transcript of the call, because people have to hear it. When you read it, it’s a straight call.”

The transcript seems to show that there wasn’t a clear-cut case of quid pro quo by withholding aid to Ukraine unless they agreed to dig up dirt on Joe Biden and his son.

That said, the transcript is sort of a litmus test about how you view President Trump. If you think that it completely exonerates him and what he asked for was an investigation into corruption in general, in a country that was rife with corruption, that’s what you see. If you think that it shows a Machiavellian manipulation of a foreign ally reliant on aid to get oppo research on a 2020 political opponent, you can read that into it, too — albeit not without ignoring key facts like the Ukrainians didn’t know that the money was being held back until quite some time later.

Trump spoke at a key moment in his presidency, with the Democrats preparing for a new, public phase in their effort to impeach Trump. Hours earlier, a bitterly divided House of Representatives had endorsed the impeachment inquiry, setting out rules for a process that is almost certain to overshadow much of the 2020 election.

But even after the vote, the president said he had no intention of taking part in the proceedings. Asked whether he would cooperate with the impeachment proceedings by honoring document requests and subpoenas, Trump responded: “You are setting a terrible precedent for other presidents,” he said.

Speaking of other presidents, Trump said that it’s clear that this is different from the actions of the other presidents that faced impeachment.

“Everybody knows I did nothing wrong,” he said. “Bill Clinton did things wrong; Richard Nixon did things wrong. I won’t go back to [Andrew] Johnson because that was a little before my time,” he said. “But they did things wrong. I did nothing wrong.”

The fireside chat idea isn’t a bad one, actually.

It would allow him to bypass the Media(D) just like he does on Twitter.

Of course, there would be constant commentary afterward and the inevitable anti-Trump Media(D) spin, but the core of his message would be out there and available to the American people. (Just like it is for the Charlottesville “Fine People Hoax” comments.)

President Trump has been counseled to convene a “War Room” (as Bill Clinton did) to combat the impeachment and to shift the focus from the Democrats’ abnormal process to the substance of the complaint. He has rejected that out of hand because he insists that he has done nothing wrong, and was, in fact, doing his due diligence by ensuring that American aid wasn’t going to a corrupt nation.

Ultimately, he said he would not have done anything illegal on a call made from the White House with so many people listening in.

“I got stenographers and all these other people on the line,” he said. “I am going to make a statement that is illegal or bad? Who would do a thing like that?”

And he said repeatedly that reviewing aid to a country with a reputation for corruption, such as Ukraine, was the responsible thing to do.

“We are giving them money, we are giving them weapons,” he said. “We have an obligation to look at corruption.”

Source: Washington Examiner

This seems totally reasonable.

What do you think? Is this a good idea or nah?