President Donald Trump continued his harsh criticism of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday, arguing that Zelensky should not attend meetings between the United States and Russia as the Trump administration works to carve out a peace deal.
Trump told Brian Kilmeade on Fox News radio that he is “sick” of watching Zelensky negotiate with “no cards” after Russia invaded Ukraine in February of 2022. The president ramped up criticism of Zelensky this week, calling him a “dictator” and saying the Ukrainian president “should have never started” the war.
During his interview with Kilmeade on Friday, Trump acknowledged that Russia sparked the war by attacking Ukraine, but the president did not back down on his criticism of Zelensky.
“I’ve been watching for years, and I’ve been watching him negotiate with no cards,” Trump said, according to The Hill. “He has no cards. And you get sick of it.”
“So, I don’t think he’s very important to be at meetings, to be honest with you,” he added. “He makes it very hard to make deals.”
Later on Friday, Trump told a group of governors at the White House that he’s had “very good talks” with Russian President Vladimir Putin, but “not such good talks with Ukraine.”
Earlier this week, U.S. officials, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, met with Russian officials in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to discuss paths to peace with Ukraine. Zelensky expressed frustration over being excluded from the talks, prompting Trump to blast Zelensky for failing to make a deal with Russia over the past three years.
“I hear they’re upset about not having a seat. Well, they’ve had a seat for three years,” Trump said. “And a long time before that. This could have been settled very easily. A half-baked negotiator could have settled this years ago.”
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The president also suggested that Zelensky is struggling from dismal approval ratings among the Ukrainian people and urged him to hold an election. Zelensky responded, saying the president “is trapped” in a Russian “disinformation bubble.”
During an interview with independent journalist Katherine Herridge, Rubio explained some of Trump’s frustrations with the Ukrainian leader and said that Ukraine needs to show “some level of gratitude.”
“We care about [Ukraine] because it has implications for our allies and ultimately for the world,” Rubio said. “But there should be some level of gratitude here about this, and when you don’t see it and you see him out there accusing the president of living in a world of disinformation, that’s highly — very counterproductive. I don’t need to explain to you or anybody else, Donald Trump — President Trump’s not the kind of person that’s going to sit there and take that, he was very transparent. He’s going to tell you exactly how he feels, and he sent a message that he’s not going to get gamed here.”