Parnas comments came after he had already claimed that, despite Trump's public claims to the contrary, the president was intimately aware of Parnas and Giuliani's shadow foreign policy conduct in Ukraine. Parnas also dismissed the president's claim that his request to Zelensky to probe the gas company Burisma was motivated by a broader concern for rooting out corruption: "It was all about Joe Biden, Hunter Biden."

"It's been reported as far as we understand from public reporting that you conveyed to [senior Zelensky aide Sergey] Schafer the exact quid pro quo that you wanted Zelensky to announce investigations into Joe Biden or military aid would not be released to Ukraine. Is that accurate?" Maddow asked.