Of course he did not say “Investigate Joe Biden or ELSE” In international affairs, threats need to be more subtle.
If I remember my history at the time of the phone call our President was delaying or withholding hundreds of millions of Ukraine defense aid dollars which had already been approved by Congress. You think Zelensky did not recognize a threat even if it was expressed as asking for a favor?
That’s ridiculous in my opinion. What Biden said about withholding the billion dollars was way worse and showed a quid pro quo. Trump’s words were in passing and quite innocent in contrast.
That being said I think Trump really blew the messaging war during that first impeachment. Most people had no idea what he was even referring to because the networks would not play Biden’s words. We were few of the people who ever knew what Biden actually said and that is the Trump team’s fault. I emailed him multiple times begging him to just put it in a commercial so that people could be exposed to the truth but it was not to be.