U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, U.S., before his departure to New York, November 2, 2019.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he would like Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to visit the White House, and expected the Ukrainian leader to take him up on such an invitation.

“I would certainly say I’d invite him,” Trump told reporters outside the White House before departing for New York. “I would love to have him come to the White House if he’d like to come, and I think he’d like to come.”

A July 25 phone call in which Trump asked Zelenskiy to investigate his political rival, Joe Biden, and Biden’s family, has spurred an impeachment inquiry by Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives.