‘You don’t have the cards’: Trump, Zelenskyy clash over war
President Donald Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy got into a heated exchange during their meeting in the Oval Office.
WASHINGTON — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy knew President Donald Trump was irritated with him. He knew the U.S. president sympathized with Russia on aspects of the war.
But before he signed a minerals agreement that Trump badly wanted, Zelenskyy asked to visit the White House. He wanted the U.S. president to commit to future military support.
The conversation did not go his way. A stunning dispute between the leaders and Vice President JD Vance broke out. In the televised meeting, Trump said he was “gambling” with the lives of millions of people. Zelenskyy left without signing the deal.
Allies and critics alike say that Zelenskyy was baited into the argument. Now, Ukraine’s military alliance with the United States is in doubt.
“He’s looking for something that I’m not looking for. He’s looking to go on and fight, fight, fight,” Trump said later. “We’re looking to end the death.”
Trump said he was not interested in talking with Zelenskyy again unless the Ukrainian leader was ready to end the bloodshed. Zelenskyy said in an interview just before he left town that he wants peace, too. That’s why he came to United States.
“Americans are the best of our friends. Europeans are the best of our friends. Putin with Russia, they’re enemies, Zelenskyy told Fox News. “And it doesn’t mean that we don’t want peace. We just want to recognize the reality, the real situation.”
Yet, it has been clear since Trump’s administration began negotiating with Russia that the U.S. and Ukraine have different interpretations on what constitutes a fair and durable peace agreement. Ukraine wants all of its land back plus security guarantees and NATO membership. The U.S. has said NATO membership is off the table and suggested Russia will get to keep some of the territory it forcibly took.
The U.S. president has said frequently that he just wants the killing to stop. He has been reticent to explicitly promise Ukraine additional military support. What he did offer to back this week was a proposal that would put European peacekeepers on the ground in Ukraine.
He stopped short of saying the U.S. would come to their aid if peacekeepers came under attack. Such an assurance is viewed as a critical component of a potential deal by European countries and Ukraine. Trump has said the minerals deal that would put American workers on the ground in Ukraine is its own guarantee.
Zelenskyy admitted the meeting went poorly with Trump. However, the relationship with the U.S. can still be salvaged, he insisted in the interview on Fox News.
He said the leaders have “to be very honest” with one another in peace talks.
“I heard from President Trump a lot of time that he will stop the war, and I hope he will,” Zelenskyy added. “We need to pressure him with Europe, with all the partners. And I think this dialog had to be a little bit earlier to understand where we are.”
‘Don’t take the bait’
Zelenskyy met with a bipartisan group of senators on Capitol Hill before he met with Trump. The group included Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally and Ukraine backer who stood outside the White House after Zelenskyy departed and briefed the press.
Graham told reporters that he warned Zelenskyy at the breakfast, “Don’t take the bait.” But after what he saw in the Oval, he said Zelenskyy made it “almost impossible to sell to the American people that he’s a good investment” and may need to resign from office.
“I think the relationship between Ukraine and America is important, vitally important. But can Zelenskyy do a deal with the United States? After what I saw, I don’t know,” Graham, R-S.C., said.
Appearing on MSNBC, Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., who was also in the morning meeting, said the Oval Office brawl was a “complete and utter mess.” Kelly said the exchange was a “gift to Putin” that makes the U.S. look weak.
The negotiation should have taken place behind closed doors, he said. “We had a good meeting with the president. We talked about a lot of issues. We didn’t do it in front of cameras intentionally,” Kelly added.
Trump seemed to relish in the public nature of the spat.
“I think it’s good for the American people to see what’s going on. I think it’s very important. That’s why I kept this going so long. You have to be thankful,” he said.
Max Bergmann, the director of the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said it was a “nightmare” scenario that played out on camera.
“The whole posture of that meeting, I think, was to set up Ukraine as being totally unreasonable,” he said.
Without U.S. support, Europe will now need to do more to support Ukraine, the Obama-era State Department official said. “For the United States, I think what it also means is, in some ways, the end of the transatlantic alliance as we know it,” he added.
Rift opens between U.S. and Ukraine
Trump’s warmth to Russia has been chilling for U.S. allies, and they rallied behind Ukraine in the aftermath of Friday’s fight.
“Today, it became clear that the free world needs a new leader. It’s up to us, Europeans, to take this challenge,” said European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas.
Kallas said Europe would enhance its support for Ukraine so it could continue to fight back.
“There is one aggressor: Putin’s Russia. And a people who have been attacked: the Ukrainians. Faced with this situation and for the sake of our collective security, what’s needed is Europe. Now,” French minister of foreign affairs Jean-Noël Barrot also said.
Trump has repeatedly suggested that Ukraine invited the attack by pursuing NATO membership — an argument used as justification for the illegal land grab by Russia.
Ukraine restarted its bid for membership in the alliance in direct response to Russian President Vladimir Putin annexation of Crimea in 2014, when former U.S. President Barack Obama was in office.
“Nobody stopped him. He just occupied and took,” Zelenskyy said Friday in the Oval Office.
Zelenskyy was responding to a comment from Vance that better diplomacy could have prevented the war. A ceasefire didn’t stop Russia from launching a full-scale invasion into the country three years ago, Zelenskyy said. “What kind of diplomacy, JD, you are speaking about? What do you mean?”
Vance told him in response, “I think it’s disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office to try to litigate this in front of the American media.”
The argument spiraled from there.
Trump said later, as he left the White House for a weekend in Florida, that Zelenskyy “overplayed his hand.”
“Either we’re going to end it or let him fight it out, and if he fights it out, it’s not going to be pretty,” Trump said. “Because without us, he doesn’t win.”