Phone call between Trump and Zelensky, days after Kyiv's snap election
A retrospective on the 25 July 2019 call between the US and Ukrainian presidents, held four days after Servant of the People won the parliamentary vote.
What did the presidents of the United States and Ukraine discuss on 25 July 2019, just four days after Ukrainians voted in a snap parliamentary election?
According to a White House transcript, U.S. President Donald J. Trump spoke by phone with the president of Ukraine on that day. The conversation included discussion of Joe Biden's son, Biden being a U.S. presidential candidate. Trump asked the Ukrainian president to "look into it", as the transcript recorded.
The election that preceded the call
The call came shortly after Ukrainian citizens voted on 21 July 2019 for new members of the Verkhovna Rada. The vote followed the dissolution of parliament by President Volodymyr Zelensky in May. As background, the elections had originally been scheduled for the end of October and were brought forward after Zelensky dissolved parliament on 21 May 2019, during his inauguration.
The result was a comfortable win for Zelensky's party, Servant of the People, which took most of the seats. Five parties cleared the threshold to enter the Rada: Servant of the People, Opposition Platform – For Life, European Solidarity, the Batkivshchyna union and Holos. In addition, 199 deputies were elected under the majoritarian system in single-member constituencies.
The final tally, reported later, gave Servant of the People an outright majority with 254 seats.
A single day in context
The two sets of events sat close together on the calendar: a parliamentary vote that gave the president's party control of the legislature on 21 July 2019, and a phone conversation on 25 July 2019 in which the U.S. president raised the subject of a political rival's son. The transcript of that call was released by the White House.
