When Trump called newly-elected Zelensky to congratulate him on his victory, Zelensky made clear how badly he wanted Trump to attend his inauguration in Ukraine.

In a rough transcript of their April conversation released by the White House minutes before the impeachment hearing began, Zelensky calls Trump “a great example” and says, “I know how busy you are, but if it’s possible for you to come to the inauguration ceremony, that would be a great, great thing for you to do to be with us on that day.”

Trump promised to look into it and send a “great representative” if he couldn’t attend.

Initially that person was going to be Vice President Pence, but then he canceled and Energy Secretary Rick Perry led the delegation instead.

“Words cannot describe our country, so it would be best for you to see it yourself,” Zelensky pressed. “So, if you can come, that would be great. So, again, I invite you to come.”

Trump then said he’d like to invite Zelensky to the White House. A meeting with Trump was allegedly conditioned on Zelensky publicly announcing investigations in the Bidens.

Zelensky thanked him for the invitation and again said, “And I think that it will still be great if you could come and be with us on this very important day of our inauguration … So, it will be absolutely fantastic if you could come and be with us on that day.”

During his opening statement, Rep. Devin Nunes, the top Republican of the Intelligence Committee, read the entire rough transcript into the record.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) tweeted in solidarity with Yovanovitch, noting that as a longtime diplomat she’d been “an anti-corruption crusader” – an apparent dig at Trump allies’ defense that he was trying to root out corruption in Ukraine by requesting investigations into the Bidens.

“Today, we hear from one of our most respected diplomats, who spent her career as an anti-corruption crusader,” Pelosi tweeted. “She was viciously smeared by Trump’s allies, removed from her post, then threatened by the President on his ‘perfect” call’.”

Just as the hearing was scheduled to get underway, the White House released the rough transcript of an April call between Trump and Zelensky.

That call took place a few months before the July call — in which Trump pressed Zelensky for investigations that could benefit him politically at a time when U.S. military aid was being withheld from Ukraine — that has been central to the impeachment inquiry.

Witnesses in the impeachment probe familiar with the first call have described it as relatively innocuous

Minutes before the second public impeachment hearing was scheduled to begin, Trump tweeted an attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), saying she should focus on her San Francisco district rather than his impeachment.

“Nervous Nancy Pelosi, who should be home cleaning up the dangerous & disgusting Slum she is making of her District in San Francisco, where even the filth pouring into the Pacific Ocean is rapidly becoming an environmental hazard, is getting NOTHING DONE. She is a Do Nothing Democrat as Speaker, and will hopefully not be in that position very long,” Trump tweeted.

Trump also lashed out at Pelosi because the House has not yet approved trade legislation he is seeking. Pelosi indicated Thursday that passage would come soon.

At the same news conference, Pelosi suggested the House could charge Trump with bribery when it brings up articles of impeachment.

Yovanovitch has arrived in advance of her scheduled 9 a.m. open testimony at the Longworth House Office Building on Capitol Hill.

On a day of expected drama on Capitol Hill, Trump has only one event on his public schedule.

According to the White House, Trump will deliver remarks “on honesty and transparency in healthcare prices” at 2 p.m. in the Roosevelt Room.

Yovanovitch is scheduled to appear at an open hearing of the House Intelligence Committee beginning at 9 a.m.

She was recalled from her post in May after facing an onslaught of attacks from right-wing media. With encouragement from Giuliani — but with no evidence — conspiracy theorists painted her as an enemy of the president who used her power to covertly undermine him and assist Democrats.

In an Oct. 11 closed-door deposition, Yovanovitch said that she remained worried that she would be a target of retaliation by Trump, who referred to her in a July 25 phone call with Zelensky as “bad news” and someone who was “going to go through some things.”

House investigators also expect to hear in a closed-door session starting around 3 p.m. Friday from Holmes. He is an embassy staffer referred to Wednesday in testimony by William B. Taylor Jr., acting ambassador to Ukraine.

Holmes is one of two people believed to have overheard a July phone call in which Trump was said to have asked U.S. ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland about “the investigations” sought from Ukraine into Trump’s political rivals.

Trump has told reporters that he has no recollection of the call.

It remains unclear when the White House might release a transcript of a call between Trump and Zelensky that took place in April, shortly after Zelensky had been elected president.

That’s a few months before the July call that has been central to the impeachment inquiry in which Trump pressed Zelensky for investigations that could benefit him politically at a time when U.S. military aid was being withheld from Ukraine.

Witnesses in the impeachment probe familiar with the first call have described it as relatively innocuous.

Trump has pledged to release the transcript by the end of the week. He first suggested it would be released Tuesday and then Thursday. It hadn’t been released by Friday morning.

As the historic public impeachment hearings kicked off Wednesday with televised testimony that threatens Trump’s tenure in office, more than 13 million people tuned into broadcast and news networks while an untold number streamed the event online.

For some critics, however, the opening day of the hearings came up short. It “lacked the pizazz necessary to capture public attention,” according to an NBC News analysis. “Unlike the best reality TV shows — not to mention the Trump presidency itself — fireworks and explosive moments were scarce,” Reuters reported. One Fox News commentator called it “a tepid bore.”

These assessments did not sit well with Comedy Central host Trevor Noah.

“Impeachment is like a family reunion,” Noah said Thursday night on his show. “If it’s sexy, something has gone horribly wrong.”

Noah wasn’t the only one Thursday to attack coverage that focused more on the hearing’s entertainment value than the substance.

Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel sought to play down the significance of Yovanovitch’s planned testimony on Friday, noting that she had already been removed from her position by the time of Trump’s July call with Zelensky.

“So the first hearing we heard witnesses who had hearsay of hearsay of hearsay, and now we’re going to hear from somebody who wasn’t even there when the call took place,” McDaniel said during an appearance on Fox News’s “Fox & Friends.” “I mean, it is so ridiculous. Democrats are grasping at straws.”

McDaniel said Republican members of the Intelligence Committee should ask Yovanovitch what she knows about Hunter Biden’s service on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, while his father was vice president. That is among the issues Trump pressed Zelensky to investigate.

Trump seized late Thursday night on comments by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko to demand that Democrats apologize to the nation for the impeachment inquiry, which Trump claimed on Twitter “IS NOW DEAD!”

Prystaiko was quoted by the Interfax Ukraine news agency as saying his conversations with Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, did not include explicit mention linking U.S. military aid with possible investigations of the Bidens.

Prystaiko, however, commented only on his direct interactions with Sondland, and not other U.S. officials.

“Democrats must apologize to USA,” Trump said in tweets sent shortly before midnight, adding: “THE FAKE IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY IS NOW DEAD!”

His tweets followed a campaign rally in Louisiana at which he mocked two career diplomats who testified publicly Wednesday about their concerns regarding Trump’s actions toward Ukraine.

“How about when they asked these two Never Trumpers, ‘What exactly do you impeach him for?’ They went like, ‘What?’” Trump said.

Several times during Wednesday’s public hearing, one of the two, acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine William B. Taylor Jr., said he was there to present information he had and not to weigh in on whether to impeach Trump.

In his Washington Post column, Fareed Zakaria explained the back story of how Zelensky planned to announce the investigations sought by Trump on his CNN show. The interview eventually was canceled.

“His team apparently concluded that since he was planning an interview with me anyway, that would be the forum in which he would make the announcement, though neither he nor any of his team ever gave us any inkling that this was their plan,” Zakaria wrote. “However, after my meeting with him in Kyiv, my team began to discuss potential logistics of the interview with his team — time and place.”

Read Zakaria’s column here.