Foreign Affairs Issue Launch with Former Vice President Joe Biden
Do I think theyāreāI think the Donbas has potential to be able to be solved, but it takes two things. One of those things is missing now. And that is Iām desperately concerned about the backsliding on the part of Kiev in terms of corruption. They madeāI mean, Iāll give you one concrete example. I wasānot I, but it just happened to be that was the assignment I got. I got all the good ones. And so I got Ukraine. And I remember going over, convincing our team, our leaders toāconvincing that we should be providing for loan guarantees. And I went over, I guess, the 12th, 13th time to Kiev. And I was supposed to announce that there was another billion-dollar loan guarantee. And I had gotten a commitment from Poroshenko and from Yatsenyuk that they would take action against the state prosecutor. And they didnāt.
So they said they hadāthey were walking out to a press conference. I said, nah, Iām not going toāor, weāre not going to give you the billion dollars. They said, you have no authority. Youāre not the president. The president saidāI said, call him. (Laughter.) I said, Iām telling you, youāre not getting the billion dollars. I said, youāre not getting the billion. Iām going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: Iām leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, youāre not getting the money. Well, son of a *****. (Laughter.) He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.
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