- Marie Yovanovitch told Insider that Trump's actions toward Zelenskyy were "absolutely appalling."
- She was referring to his pressure campaign against Ukraine and infamous July 2019 phone call with Zelenskyy.
- His statements signaled to Putin and other strongmen that Trump "can be manipulated," Yovanovitch added.
Former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch told Insider that then President Donald Trump's behavior with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was "absolutely appalling."
She was referring, in particular, to Trump's conduct as he was carrying out a months-long pressure campaign to strongarm Zelenskyy into launching politically motivated investigations targeting the Bidens ahead of the 2020 US election. While doing so, Trump withheld nearly $400 million in vital military aid to Ukraine and dangled a White House meeting that Zelenskyy desperately wanted.
Yovanovitch pointed to the infamous July 2019 phone call between Trump and Zelenskyy that was the catalyst for his first impeachment in 2019.
It was "very clear that the President of the United States was trading his office for a personal or political favor, rather than working in our national security interest to help strengthen a partner country," Yovanovitch told Insider. "This was our official US policy. He was holding up security assistance that Congress had voted for, and pressuring Zelenskyy, a new and untried president, to 'do us a favor, though.'"
It was "absolutely appalling," she said of Trump's behavior. Yovanovitch added that his statements and actions sent a message to Russian leader Vladimir Putin and other strongmen, as well as "bad actors in the private sector," that "we can probably cut deals with this guy."
These individuals likely believed that "if we give him something he wants for himself, we can probably get something in return," and "some of these issues that we care about" but "haven't been able to get traction on are negotiable because we can manipulate this president."
Yovanovitch also addressed Trump's claim that if he were still president, Putin never would have launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
"I don't know if that's true or not, but what I would say is that Putin was getting everything he needed from President Trump," she told Insider. She pointed specifically to Trump's "disparagement" and "manipulation" of Ukraine — like, for instance, his false claim that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 US election.
Other former Trump administration officials, like former national security advisor John Bolton, have also said that had Trump been reelected in 2020, he likely would have pulled the US out of NATO.
"So instead of seeing what you're seeing on your screens today — the alliance strong and true and united — I think you would have seen something very different," Yovanovitch said, adding that a Trump reelection "would really be a death blow to the alliance, an alliance that has kept us safer and more prosperous and more free since its inception."