Trump Canceled Interview for Unscheduled Putin Call, Filmmaker Says

New details have emerged regarding what exactly British documentarian Alex Holder witnessed while filming an in-depth documentary about the Trump family. In an exclusive interview with Politico, Holder revealed that while traveling with the president on Air Force One just before the 2020 election, their scheduled interview was canceled in order for the president to talk on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“The chief of staff sort of came over and said that the interview couldn’t happen today because the president was on the phone,” Holder told Politico. “And I believe, if I remember correctly, that he said that he was on the phone to the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, which is why the interview had to be postponed.”

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Politico points out that the date and time of the call coincided with Putin publicly criticizing Trump for making unfounded claims about Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine, although it’s unclear what the two leaders discussed. The U.S. and Russia were also trying to negotiate a nuclear accord at the time.

Holder was subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 committee on Tuesday and asked to turn over any “raw footage” filmed by him or his team on Jan. 6, 2021, interviews from September 2020 through the present with President Trump, his adult children, Jared Kushner, and Vice President Mike Pence, as well as footage in Holder’s possession “pertaining to discussions of election fraud or election integrity surrounding the November 2020 presidential election.”

The trove of film is expected to give investigators an inside look into the reaction and actions of the Trump family on and after Jan. 6, as Holder was actively working on the project at the time and continued gathering material from the family months after the Capitol attack.

Holder agreed to cooperate with the committee’s request, sat for a closed-door interview on Thursday, and could testify publicly when hearings resume in July. The full documentary series, titled Unprecedented, will be released on Discovery+ this summer.

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