There are a few tweets that point this out: “is/was a friend of mine” and “is/was about to get ready”...
Listen to it again, start at about 19 seconds:
https://twitter.com/KarluskaP/status/1277435470369218560
He says "Thats John John, who is a friend of mine. No was!
Then he said: He was getting ready, was willing to sell George Magazine..."