I agree. Not a joke. I’d never read the whole transcript before - thanks for posting! - and what struck me was how awkward that whole ending was compared to the rest of he conversation. (Well, that was halting in a whole other way). But what’s a fairly in depth conversation about Ukraine suddenly pivots at McCarthy’s surprisingly late arrival in the transcript. It’s like he came in and only heard the Russia part, and then sparks to Rohrabacher. Interesting also the conversation about Russian Psych Ops, where Ryan says we’re the only ones fighting it, and McCarthy, IIRC, says No we aren’t. No we aren’t.
Speaking of Rohrabacher, there’s also the weird bit about Ryan shutting down his travel privileges, I believe after that bizarre trip to see Assange. What was that all about? The official line was still that Wikileaks was not Russia linked, and putting Rohrabacher over there with Assange kind of blew that out of the water. Perhaps some special instructions from Vladimir to Julian he couldn’t risk the Ecuadorians deliverng un-examined? Or maybe Assange was the messenger?