After the whistleblower complaint became known in September 2019, House speaker Nancy Pelosi initiated a formal impeachment inquiry on September 24. The Trump administration subsequently released a memorandum of the July 25 phone call, confirming that after Zelensky mentioned purchasing American anti-tank missiles, Trump asked Zelensky to investigate and to discuss these matters with Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr. According to the testimony of multiple administration officials and former officials, the events were part of a broader effort to further Trump's personal interests by giving him an advantage in the upcoming presidential election.
In August 2019, a whistleblower filed a complaint with the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community about a July 25 phone call between Trump and President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, during which Trump had pressured Zelensky to investigate CrowdStrike and Democratic presidential primary candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter, adding that the White House had attempted to "lock down" the call records in a cover-up. The whistleblower further stated that the call was part of a wider pressure campaign by Giuliani and the Trump administration which may have included withholding financial aid from Ukraine in July 2019 and canceling Vice President Pence's May 2019 Ukraine trip. Trump later confirmed having withheld military aid from Ukraine and offered contradicting reasons for the decision.
More InfoIn a Rose Garden speech on June 1, 2020, President Trump said he would deploy the U.S. military to stop violence if a city or state refused to do so, and declared himself the ally of peaceful protestors, following the police killing of George Floyd. While he was speaking, federal law enforcement officials used batons, rubber bullets, pepper spray projectiles, stun grenades, and smoke to remove a largely peaceful crowd from Lafayette Square, outside the White House. The removal had been ordered by Attorney General William Barr. Trump then walked to St. John's Episcopal Church where the night before a small fire had been set in the basement nursery of its parish house. He posed for photographs holding a Bible, with Cabinet members and other officials later joining him in photos. Trump, who had attended services at the church three times since taking office, did not enter the church or inspect the damage to the basement.
More InfoA second Trump–Kim summit in Hanoi in February 2019, was terminated abruptly without an agreement; both countries blamed each other and offered differing accounts of the negotiations. On June 30, 2019, Trump, Kim, and South Korean President Moon Jae-in held brief talks in the Korean Demilitarized Zone, marking the first time a sitting U.S. president had set foot on North Korean soil. Trump and Kim agreed to resume negotiations. Bilateral talks began in Stockholm in October 2019, but broke down after one day. As of May 2020, North Korea has shown no indication that it is willing to unilaterally denuclearize.
More InfoFor months, Trump refused to wear a face mask at press conferences and most public events, contrary to his own administration's April 2020 guidance that Americans should wear masks in public. By June, Trump had stated that masks were a "double-edged sword", ridiculed Biden for wearing one, continually emphasized that mask-wearing was optional, and suggested that wearing a mask is a political statement against him personally. Trump first wore a face mask in public in July 2020, at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. In late spring and early summer, with infections and death counts continuing to rise, he adopted a strategy of shifting the blame for his administration's failure to the states.
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