President Trump has repeatedly insisted that his problematic July 25 phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was "perfect," and he genuinely "did not believe his conversation with the Ukrainian president was problematic," The Washington Post reports, citing multiple Trump confidantes. But after reading the notes from the call, "many of his senior advisers weren't nearly as confident," and "they warned him that sharing it might not be exculpatory."

Trump decided to release the reconstructed transcript anyway, and before its release Wednesday midmorning, about a dozen Republican lawmakers got a sneak-peak at the White House. Trump, in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, called in to the meeting, in which the Trump aides and GOP lawmakers discussed the transcript and how to respond to its release. Attendees said Trump was "generally in a good mood," though "skittish about some of the details," the Post reports. "At one point, the group began joking with the president that 'this was one of his better' phone calls with foreign leaders, an attendee said."

In fact, two people close to Trump told The New York Times that "the transcript matched what they knew of his dealings on the phone with world leaders," and one former senior adviser "called it the typical playbook: Engage in flattery, discuss mutual cooperation, and bring up a favor that then could be delegated to another person on Mr. Trump's team." What kind of favors? The official didn't say.

Trump himself has "sought to present a business-as-usual image," but his "mood went from feisty to self-pitying to deflated on Wednesday," and at a Manhattan fundraiser Wednesday night, "Trump gamely told jokes and tried to seem lighthearted," the Times reports. "The president had had little chance to catch up with his media coverage at the United Nations, but aides said they were bracing for the president to react angrily when he finally saw some of it after the fundraiser." Peter Weber