AS Michael Tomasky points out on Dailybeast, the document released by Teamtrump is not really a transcript of the conversation between Trump and Zelensky. It is, I’ve read, a summary of notes taken by White House officials listening in on the call. The document indicates that the conversation lasted 30 minutes, and they have come up with a 1992-word version of it. Were they speaking that slowly? A summary that is a verbatim record is a failed summary. Or, if the document is to be regarded as a transcription of the conversation, it is a very partial, and therefore selective, transcription. Were the White House officials taking the conversation down in shorthand? Or was their “transcription” based on a recording of the conversation? The latter seems more likely, for I’m sure that a conversation between heads of state would be recorded entire on both ends. In any case, the editors managed to squeeze thirty minutes into less than 1992 words that convey not very much of real substance. If this is at all a true version of the conversation between these two leaders, then taxpayers of the U.S. and of Ukraine should make Trump and Zelensky pay for the call themselves.

This document is not an authentic account of the conversation between the two heads of state, but a doctored version put together from meaningless remarks of Zelensky and statements of Trump that stop just short of “you give me the dirt and I’ll give you the money.” 

The portrait of Trump in the transcript seems true-to-life: impolite, a braggart, unable to refrain from re-living past real or imagined slights, and unable to see the difference between himself and the United States. If the portrait of Zelensky that emerges is true-to-life, then heaven help Ukraine! But I suspect that Zelensky’s smarmy gratitude, unbounded admiration, and whole-hearted agreement with Trump are White House confections.