On Wednesday morning, the White House released a rough transcript of a private July 25 call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. That conversation had been the subject of controversy days after a whistleblower’s complaint that Trump had made comments that were a possible violation of campaign finance law.

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The president suggested that the memo recording the call would exonerate him, describing it as “perfect” in a tweet before its release. His allies claimed there was nothing scandalous in the call; that the real scandal were the leaks about it. But when the document came out, it provoked a storm of outrage — particularly from Democrats who have already pledged to begin an impeachment inquiry.

In the readout of their private conversation, Trump asked his Ukrainian counterpart to work with the U.S. attorney general to investigate the conduct of Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden. He also asked for help in finding Hillary Clinton’s private email server in Ukraine and asserted that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation started in the country.

When Zelensky asked about buying U.S. missiles, Trump spoke of a favor he needed. “I would like you to do us a favor because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it,” the American president said. Later, Trump invited the Ukrainian leader to the White House.

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The conversation was startling to Trump’s rivals and legal observers. Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, said the call “reads like a classic mob shakedown.” Eli Honig, a former federal prosecutor and CNN legal analyst, claimed that if he saw the remarks in a regular criminal case he’d think: “Wow, I’m surprised they’re discussing this so openly and clearly.”

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard Trump’s private remarks to a world leader, nor the first time they’ve raised eyebrows. From the start of his presidency, accounts of Trump’s calls to world leaders have offered a window into his private thoughts — with some interesting differences with his public declarations.

“You cannot say that to the press,” Trump said repeatedly, according to a transcript of the Jan. 27 call with then-Mexican President ­Enrique Peña Nieto as he continued to make defiant statements. Trump, only days into office, was pressuring Peña Nieto to stop saying that Mexico would never pay for the wall, while admitting he knew that funding would come from other sources.

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He sparred with Australia’s Malcolm Turnbull in a call the next day, clashing over an agreement concerning refugees. “I have been making these calls all day and this is the most unpleasant call all day. Putin was a pleasant call. This is ridiculous,” Trump said during that call (transcripts of both calls were later leaked to The Washington Post).

Not all accounts of Trump’s private behavior are leaked by worried officials, however. Sometimes, his counterparts make the revelations themselves. Former British prime minister Theresa May told a chat show that Trump’s private advice on Brexit had been blunt. “He told me I should sue the E.U. — not go into negotiations,” according to May’s recollection.

In some cases, the comments are simply overheard. At the Group of Seven summit in Biarritz, France, this summer, Trump called out in search of Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi. “Where’s my favorite dictator?” the U.S. president said loud enough for several people to overhear, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

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Trump has reportedly told the same story about North Korea’s Kim Jong Un to world leaders so many times that it has damaged his standing with them. “The president, viewed from afar as a dangerous buffoon by his liberal critics, often elicits a similar response from other world leaders who deal with him up close,” BuzzFeed News’s Alberto Nardelli wrote of the reaction to Trump’s anecdote.

For any other politician, the accounts of any one of these private remarks might be damaging. But Trump appears to be different. Yes, the president may say shocking things in private conversations with world leaders — but he says shocking things in public, too. He contradicts positions he has previously taken in public, but guess what? He does that in public statements, too, often on Twitter.

He also frequently appears to publicly hint at his private intentions. In June, around the time that he was pushing Ukraine to investigate Biden’s son, he told ABC News in an interview that he would accept information about a rival from a foreign government.

The White House is adamant that Trump did nothing wrong in his phone call with Zelensky. In talking points that were mistakenly emailed to House Democrats, the Trump administration claimed there was no quid pro quo and “what the President actually talked about was entirely proper” and the whistleblower complaint “was handled absolutely by the book.”

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But Trump’s conversation with Zelensky has engulfed him in another scandal, and his private conversations with other world leaders may only provide more to come. The public is aware of only a fraction of Trump’s private conversations, and the administration has worked to keep some of his most sensitive ones, such as those with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, out of public view.

The release of private White House recordings of President Nixon helped turn public opinion against him during the Watergate scandal. If those tapes, which included racial slurs and paranoid rants, helped break down Nixon’s rational facade, accounts of Trump’s private conversations may do something just as revealing: Confirm that he was exactly who he appeared to be all along.