Cook Report editor: Ukraine transcript won’t move ‘malleable voters’ on Trump

The founder and editor of the Cook Political Report said the much-anticipated partial transcript of President Trump’s conversation with the Ukrainian president released by the White House Wednesday “will not move malleable voters.”

Charlie Cook posted to Twitter, saying he was “underwhelmed” when reading the memo and did not expect it to change voters’ minds.

“After the build-up, it was not much more inappropriate said than we hear from him in a typical week,” Cook said. “This will not move malleable voters.”{mosads}

I don’t Tweet very much but reading transcript has moved me to comment. I was totally underwhelmed by the transcript. After the build-up, it was not much more inappropriate said than we hear from him in a typical week. This will not move malleable voters.

— Charlie Cook (@CharlieCookDC) September 25, 2019

The release marked as a “memorandum” by the administration detailed a conversation between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in which Trump asked Zelensky to “look into” Biden’s participation in the firing of a Ukrainian prosecutor. 

Multiple reports found Trump withheld military aid from Ukraine days before this conversation, sparking the question of whether the Biden investigation ask was a quid pro quo.

Reports of the phone call pushed Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to open an official impeachment inquiry on Trump on Tuesday.

The phone call is part of a larger whistleblower complaint that the Trump administration has thus far refused to release to Congress.