House Minority Whip Steve Scalise debated ABC's "This Week" host George Stephanopoulos Sunday morning about whether it is wrong for the president to solicit investigations into political opponents from foreign governments.



"That’s not what was happening on the phone call" with the Ukrainian president, Scalise insisted repeatedly.





The ABC host asked: "The transcript clearly shows the president was asking [the] Ukrainian president to investigate his political opponents. Do you think that was appropriate?"



"It wasn’t, first of all, about political opponents," Scalise said. "The law requires President Trump, or any president, when they’re sending foreign aid to another country, to first ensure that that country’s rooting out corruption. He and Zelensky were talking about that on the phone call."



"You think it’s appropriate for the president to ask the Ukrainians or the Chinese, which he’s also done in public, to investigate his domestic political opponents?" Stephanopoulos asked again.



"He was not talking about the 2020 election or political opponents," Scalise said. "He was talking about corruption relating to the 2016 election."