President Donald Trump is facing an official inquiry into impeachment, which could lead to a removal from office by a Senate vote, but no matter what happens to Trump, MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow has crowned an unlikely victor in the situation – Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In an appearance on Andrea Mitchell Reports, the MSNBC anchor told her colleague that President Trump’s actions with Ukraine have given Putin the upper hand on Ukraine and its new president.
Anchor Andrea Mitchell asked Maddow about the situation and said that Ukraine’s new President, Volodymyr Zelensky, who began his term as president of Ukraine in May of this year, was elected largely on campaign promises of getting rid of corruption and standing up to Putin. Mitchell claimed that Zelensky was undermined by Putin when she said that Trump withheld weapons from the Eastern European nation while engaging “who knows who from the State Department” in his dealings with Ukraine.
Mitchell said that Zelensky had no leverage against the Russian president. Maddow agreed.
“Putin is coming out of this very very well,” Maddow said just after 1 p.m. on MSNBC. “Whatever happens to Trump in this impeachment inquiry, Putin is coming out great in part because Trump cut the legs out of this new Ukrainian president.”
Maddow continued, bringing up the Russian occupation of Crimea in the eastern portion of the nation. Maddow also mentioned a deal negotiated earlier this week to end Russian involvement on — what Maddow described as — Putin’s terms. The MSNBC anchor said that she was surprised the Putin-Zelensky deal wasn’t front-page news in the United States.
“The only reason Ukraine is in a position to have to do that is because Trump has cut this guy’s legs out from under him,” the MSNBC host said. “We’re focused on the call because that’s what Trump is going to be impeached for… but thing thing Trump did out in the open with reporters after that call is he said: ‘yeah I think Zelensky is gonna do a deal with Putin, then he can come here to the White House.’”
. @maddow : “Whatever happens to Trump with this impeachment inquiry, Putin is coming out great in part because Trump cut the legs out from this new Ukrainian president.” pic.twitter.com/qgmgngxkyX
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) October 3, 2019
The saga began in September when reports surfaced that suggested a whistleblower had sounded the alarm about a call the president had with a foreign leader, which turned out to be a July call with the Ukrainian president. According to the official whistleblower complaint, filed August 12 and released publicly last week, the president requested that Zelensky investigate previously debunked conspiracy theories into both Russian interference in the 2016 election and Trump’s potential 2020 rival, former Vice President Joe Biden.
A summarized transcript of the call the White House released, also last week, seemed to support many of the whistleblower’s claims, though the president has maintained he did nothing wrong during the July conversation.
As The Inquisitr reported earlier Thursday, the president seemed to take things a step further when he publicly called on Ukraine to investigate Biden during an exchange with reporters. The president reportedly also called on China to investigate Biden.
“What happened in China is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine,” the president said, without any evidence, The Inquisitr reported.