President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy quickly turned into a near-shouting match Friday, in which Trump and Vance accused Zelenskyy of being ungrateful for the U.S.’s support.
US President Donald Trump and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky meet in the Oval Office of the ... [+]
The three leaders met while Zelenskyy was in the U.S. to sign a minerals deal in which Ukraine would agree to send 50% of the proceeds from its state-owned mineral resources to a jointly owned fund—part of Trump’s often-contentious gambit to push Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin to reach a peace deal.
The men were answering questions from reporters in the Oval Office when the meeting appeared to unravel, however, as Zelenskyy argued Putin was unreliable in his deals prior to 2022, and Vance accused Zelenskyy of trying to “litigate this in front of the American media.”
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TRUMP (after a reporter asks if he’s too “aligned” with Putin): If I didn’t align myself with both of them, you’d never have a deal. You want me to say really terrible things about Putin, and then say, ‘Hi Vladimir, how are we doing on the deal?’ That doesn’t work that way. I’m not aligned with Putin, I’m not aligned with anybody, I’m aligned with the United States of America and for the good of the world. I’m aligned with the world and I wanna get this thing over with. You see the hatred he’s got for Putin, it’s very tough for me to make a deal with that kind of hate. He’s got tremendous hatred, and I understand that, but I can tell you the other side isn’t exactly in love with him either. So, it’s not a question of alignment, I have—I’m aligned with the world. I want to get the thing sett—I’m aligned with Europe, I want to see if we can get this thing done. You want me to be tough? I can be tougher than any human being you’ve ever seen, I’d be so tough, but you’re never going to get a deal that way, so that’s the way it goes. Alright, one more question…
VANCE: Hey, I want to respond to this. So, look, for four years the United States of America, we had a president who stood up at press conferences and talked tough about Vladimir Putin, and then Putin invaded Ukraine and destroyed a significant chunk of the country. The path to peace and the path to prosperity is maybe engaging in diplomacy. We tried the pathway of Joe Biden, of thumping our chest and pretending that the President of the United States’ words mattered more than the President of the United States’ actions. What makes America a good country is America engaging in diplomacy. That’s what President Trump is doing.
ZELENSKYY: Can I ask you?
VANCE: Sure.
ZELENSKYY: Yeah?
VANCE: Yeah.
ZELENSKYY: Okay, he occupied our parts, big parts of Ukraine, part of East and Crimea, so he occupied it in 2014. So, during a lot of years, I’m not speaking about just Biden, but those time was … President Obama, then President Trump, then President Biden, now President Trump and, god bless, now President Trump will stop him. But during 2014, nobody stopped him. He just occupied and took. He killed people, you know? What the contact line—
TRUMP: 2015.
ZELENSKYY: 2014.
VANCE: 2014 to 2015.
TRUMP: Oh, 2014.
ZELENSKYY: Yeah, yeah, yeah, so.
TRUMP: I was not here.
ZELENSKYY: Yeah, but…
VANCE: That’s exactly right.
ZELENSKYY: Yes, but during 2014 til 2022, the situation the same that people have been dying on the contact line. Nobody stopped him. You know that we had conversations with him, a lot of conversations, multilateral conversations. And we signed with him, me, like a new president in 2019, I signed with him the deal. I signed with him, Macron and Merkel, we signed ceasefire. Ceasefire, all of them told me that he will never go, we signed with him a gas contract … Yes, but after that he broke the ceasefire, he killed our people and he didn’t exchange prisoners. We signed the exchange of prisoners, but he didn’t do it. What kind of diplomacy, JD, you are speaking about? What do you mean?
VANCE: I’m talking about the kind of diplomacy that’s going to end the destruction of your country.
ZELENSKYY: Yes, but if you—
VANCE: Mr. President, Mr. President, with respect I think it’s disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office and try to litigate this in front of the American media. Right now, you guys are going around and forcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems. You should be thanking the president for trying to bring an end to this conflict.
ZELENSKYY: Have you ever been to Ukraine that you see what problems we have?
VANCE: I have been to—
ZELENSKYY: Come once.
VANCE: I have actually watched and seen the stories and I know what happens is you bring people, you bring them on a propaganda tour, Mr. President. Do you disagree that you’ve had problems bringing people into your military?
ZELENSKYY: We have problems—
VANCE: And do you think that it’s respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to prevent the destruction of your country?
ZELENSKYY: A lot of questions. Let’s start from the beginning.
VANCE: Sure.
ZELENSKYY: First of all, during the war, everybody has problems. Even you, but you have nice ocean and don’t feel now, but you’ll feel it in the future. God bless, god bless—
TRUMP: You don’t know that. You don’t know—don’t tell us what we’re gonna feel. We’re trying to solve a problem. Don’t tell us what we’re gonna feel.
ZELENSKYY: I’m not telling you, I’m answering on the question—
TRUMP: Because you’re in no position to dictate that.
VANCE: That’s exactly what you’re doing.
TRUMP: You’re in no position to dictate what we’re gonna feel, we’re going to feel very good. We’re going to feel very good and very strong—
ZELENSKYY: You will feel influence—
TRUMP: You’re right now not in a very good position. You’ve allowed yourself to be in a very bad position and he happens to be right about it.
ZELESKYY: From the very beginning of the war—
TRUMP: You’re not in a good position. You don’t have the cards right now. With us, you start having cards.
ZELENSKYY: I’m not playing cards. [INAUDIBLE] Mr. President, [INAUDIBLE].
[CROSSTALK]
TRUMP: Right now you’re—you’re playing cards, you’re playing cards—you’re gambling with the lives of millions of people. You’re gambling with World War III. You’re gambling with World War III. And what you’re doing is very disrespectful to the country, this country. It’s backed you far more than a lot of people said they should have.
VANCE: Have you said ‘thank you’ once this entire time?
ZELENSKYY: A lot of times.
VANCE: No, in this—
ZELENSKYY: Even today. Even today—
VANCE: No, in this entire meeting. You went to Pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition in October. Offer some words of appreciation for the United States of America and the president who’s trying to save your country.
ZELENSKYY: Please, you think that if you will speak very loudly about the war—
TRUMP: He’s not speaking loudly. He’s not speaking loudly. Your country’s in big trouble.
ZELENSKYY: Can I? Can I answer?—
TRUMP: Wait a minute. No, no. You’ve done a lot of talking. Your country is in big trouble.
ZELENSKYY: I know. I know.
TRUMP: You’re not winning, you're not winning this. You have a damn good chance of coming out okay because of us.
ZELENSKYY: Mr. President, we are staying in our country, staying strong. From the very beginning of the war we have been alone and we are thankful. I said thanks in this cabinet, [INAUDIBLE], I said thanks—
TRUMP: You haven’t been alone. You haven’t been alone. We gave you—through this stupid president—$350 billion—
ZELENSKYY: You voted for your president.
TRUMP: We gave you military equipment and your men are brave but they had to use our military—if you didn’t have our military equipment, if you didn’t have our military equipment, this war would have been over in two weeks.
ZELENSKYY: In three days, I heard it from Putin, in three days—
TRUMP: Maybe less.
ZELENSKYY: In two weeks, of course—
TRUMP: It’s going to be a very hard thing to do business like this, I tell you.
VANCE: Just say thank you.
ZELENSKYY: I said a lot of times, thank you to American people—
VANCE: Accept that there are disagreements and let’s go litigate those disagreements rather than trying to fight it out in the American media when you’re wrong. We know that you’re wrong.
TRUMP: But you see, 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—
ZELENSKYY: I’m thankful—
TRUMP: You don’t have the cards. You’re buried there, your people are dying, you’re running low on soldiers—listen. You’re running low on soldiers, it would be a damn good thing. Then you tell us: ‘I don’t want a ceasefire, I don’t want a ceasefire, I want to go, and I want this—.’ Look, if you could get a ceasefire right now, I tell you you’d take it so the bullets stop flying and your men stop getting killed.
ZELENSKYY: Of course, of course we want to stop the war.
TRUMP: But you’re saying you don’t want a ceasefire—
ZELENSKYY: What I said to you—
TRUMP: I want a ceasefire. Because you get a ceasefire faster than an agreement.
ZELENSKYY: With guarantees. Ask our people about ceasefire, what they think. It doesn’t matter for you what—
TRUMP: That wasn’t with me. That wasn’t with me.
[CROSSTALK]
TRUMP: That was with a guy named Biden who is not a smart person—That was with Obama.
ZELENSKYY: That was your president. It was your president—
TRUMP: Excuse me, that was with Obama who gave you sheets, and I gave you javelins.
ZELENSKYY: Yes.
TRUMP: I gave you the javelins to take out all those tanks. Obama gave you sheets. In fact, the statement is: Obama gave sheets and Trump gave javelins. You gotta be more thankful. Because let me tell you, you don’t have the cards. With us, you have the cards. But without us, you don’t have any cards.
REPORTER: One more question…
TRUMP: It's going to be a tough deal to make. Because attitudes have to change.
REPORTER: What if Russia breaks ceasefire? What if Russia breaks [INAUDIBLE]?
TRUMP: What are you saying?
VANCE: She’s asking, ‘what if Russia breaks the ceasefire?’
TRUMP: Well what if they—what if anything! What if a bomb drops on your head right now? Okay? What if they broke it? I don’t know. They broke it with Biden because Biden, they didn’t respect him, they didn’t respect Obama. They respect me. Let me tell you, Putin went through a hell of a lot with me. He went through a phony witch hunt where they used him and Russia—Russia, Russia, Russia, you ever hear of that deal? That was a phony—that was a phony Hunter Biden, Joe Biden scam. Hillary Clinton, shifty Adam Schiff, it was a Democrat scam. And he had to go through that. And he did go through it and we didn’t end up in a war. He went through it, he was accused of all that stuff—he had nothing to do with it. It came out of Hunter Biden’s bathroom. It came out of Hunter Biden’s bedroom. It was disgusting. And then they said, ‘Oh, oh, the laptop from hell was made by Russia.’ The 51 agents, the whole thing was a scam, and he had to put up with that. He was being accused of all that stuff. All I can say is this: He might’ve broken deals with Obama, and Bush, and he might’ve broken them with Biden. He did, maybe, maybe he didn’t—I don’t know what happened. But he didn’t break them with me. He wants to make a deal. I don’t know if he can make a deal.
TRUMP: The problem is I’ve empowered you [looks at Zelenskyy] to be a tough guy. And I don’t think you’d be a tough guy without the United States. And your people are very brave.
ZELENSKYY: Thank you.
TRUMP: But you’re either going to make a deal, or we’re out. And if we’re out, you’ll fight it out. I don’t think it’s going to be pretty, but you’ll fight it out. But you don’t have the cards. But once we sign that deal, you’re in a much better position. But you’re not acting at all thankful, and that’s not a nice thing. I’ll be honest, that’s not a nice thing.
TRUMP: Alright, I think we’ve seen enough, what do you think? This is going to be great television, I will say that.