Donald Trump Cancels Press Conference With Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky After Oval Office Shouting Match — Update
UPDATED: TV news anchors were left stunned after Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky got into a tense Oval Office exchange, with the president at points shouting at the Ukrainian leader.
The purpose of Zelensky’s visit was to sign a mineral rights deal at the White House, but it comes amid talks between the U.S. and Moscow to settle the three-year-old war between Russia and Ukraine. Trump has previously berated Zelensky as a “dictator,” but has had little if any criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
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That deal is now off, as is a joint press conference that was planned following the meeting. Zelensky left the White House grounds at about 1:40 p.m. ET.
Trump wrote on Truth Social that Zelensky “disrespected the United States of America in its cherished Oval Office. He can come back when he is ready for peace.”
During the moments captured by pool reporters and photographers, Trump berated Zelensky, in an exchange that seemed to have been triggered by Vice President JD Vance suggesting that the Ukrainian leader was being “disrespectful” for “litigating in front of the media,” and that he had not thanked the president.
Zelensky tried to make the case that the U.S. had a lot at stake, as the risk is that Russia would make further incursions into eastern Europe. But Trump stopped him and said, “Don’t tell us what we are going to feel.”
“You’re not really in a good position right now,” Trump said. “You’re gambling with World War III.”
“You don’t have the cards right now,” Trump shouted at Zelensky, as the president then veered into other gripes, like the Russian collusion investigation and Hunter Biden laptop, suggesting that Putin was falsely accused and had been a bit of a victim during the scandals.
“Putin went through a hell of a lot with me,” Trump said.
At one point, one member of the press asked Zelensky if he owned a suit, suggesting that it was disrespectful to the Oval Office. But just last week, Elon Musk appeared with Trump in the Oval Office not only without a suit, but wearing a cap indoors.
Zelensky tried to make the case that Putin could not be trusted, noting that he broke a previous ceasefire following the Russian invasion of Crimea.
Later, Zelensky wrote on X, “Thank you America, thank you for your support, thank you for this visit. Thank you POTUS, Congress and the American people. Ukraine needs just and lasting peace, and we are working exactly for that.”
The 15-minute exchange was run across the TV news networks, ending with Trump telling reporters, “I think we’ve seen enough. What do you think? This is going to be great television.”
After CNN ran the video, Christiane Amanpour said, “Never in the history of modern diplomacy — war, peace whatever — have I ever, ever, ever seen anything like it.”
Anchor Dana Bash said, “This was a head-on collision.”
The White House earlier this week took control of deciding which members of the White House would be allowed in the Oval Office pool, ending decades in which the White House Correspondents’ Association handled those logistics. Today, the pool included a reporter for two Trump-supporting outlets, One America News Network and The Federalist. Per Andrew Feinberg, correspondent for The Independent, a correspondent for the official Russian news service TASS also was in the Oval Office, but was later escorted out.
The aftermath of the exchange focused on the impact on any further U.S. support for Ukraine.
Liz Cheney wrote on X following the meeting, “Generations of American patriots, from our revolution onward, have fought for the principles Zelenskyy is risking his life to defend. But today, Donald Trump and JD Vance attacked Zelenskyy and pressured him to surrender the freedom of his people to the KGB war criminal who invaded Ukraine. History will remember this day— when an American President and Vice President abandoned all we stand for.”
https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1895540802262126924
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