White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky following his contentious Oval Office meeting with US President Donald Trump, saying Zelensky does not acknowledge the realities of the war and lacks gratitude for American aid.
A White House meeting on Friday between Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, and Zelensky escalated into a heated exchange, with Trump and Vance accusing Zelensky and Ukraine.
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“We are no longer going to just write blank checks to a war very far away without real lasting peace. And that’s what the president wants,” Leavitt said in an interview with Fox News.
Describing the meeting as “tense” and “bitter”, Leavitt said things unraveled quickly due to Zelensky’s unwillingness to recognize that Trump, whom she called a “peacemaker in chief”, has a different approach to US support for Ukraine.
“President Zelensky failed to recognize that he’s walking into the Oval Office with a new sheriff in town, and that sheriff is Donald Trump,” she said.
“[Trump] understands that the American people are sick and tired of footing the bill for this war to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars,” she added.
According to Leavitt, Trump was prepared to finalize an economic agreement that would have “ensured economic prosperity for the Ukrainian people and recouped American tax dollars.”
Ukraine Eyes Future Without US Support After Trump Clash
“It would have recouped the hundreds of billions of dollars that we funded towards this war. And it would have been good for the Ukrainian people as well,” she said.
However, Leavitt blamed Zelensky’s “rude and antagonistic” behavior for derailing the deal.
“Because of his rude and antagonistic ways, the deal blew up in his face,” she added. “President Trump wants peace. He remains committed to that, but President Zelensky either needs to change his attitude, or perhaps he can’t make a deal at all.”
When asked whether Trump was open to revisiting the minerals deal, Leavitt said the president remains committed to peace but emphasized that Zelensky’s approach to negotiations was a problem.
“Zelensky is not in the right mindset,” she said. “The minerals deal was an economic framework and the first step toward a peace deal. But Zelensky came into the Oval Office talking about security guarantees and what Europe wants to do.”
She emphasized that Trump had also been engaging with European leaders, noting that the presidents of France and the UK had visited the White House earlier in the week to discuss ways to end the war.
According to Leavitt, Trump remained committed to prioritizing American interests, and the proposed economic partnership was designed with that goal in mind.
She also pushed back against claims that the confrontation was a “setup” orchestrated by Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance to embarrass Zelensky.
“That’s absolutely not true,” she said. “President Trump was excited about this economic agreement. And it was President Zelensky who actually antagonized the vice president in front of the cameras and picked a fight with him.”
Leavitt told Fox News that the public confrontation only reinforced what Trump’s team had been dealing with behind closed doors in previous talks with Ukraine.
“They’ve been incredibly hard-headed,” she said. “In order to negotiate peace, both sides have to come to the table. Both sides have to talk. And in a good deal, usually both sides walk away a little unhappy. President Zelensky fails to recognize that.”
Asked about the abrupt cancellation of a planned lunch between the leaders, Leavitt confirmed it was Trump’s decision.
“The president enjoyed the lunch,” she quipped. “He figuratively and literally ate President Zelensky’s lunch.”
She added that Trump felt Zelensky was “not in a place to negotiate peace at this point in time.”
According to the Washington Post and the New York Times sources, the Trump administration is considering cutting off all remaining military aid to Ukraine, citing Zelensky’s remarks during their Oval Office meeting on Friday.
A senior administration official, speaking anonymously to WP, said the decision, if made, would affect billions of dollars’ worth of radars, vehicles, ammunition, and missiles awaiting shipment under the presidential drawdown authority.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio considers that Zelensky should apologize after his Oval Office meeting Trump and Vance devolved into a tense confrontation. He argued that Zelensky “turned this thing into the fiasco for him that it became” and should take responsibility.
Rubio also questioned whether Zelensky genuinely seeks peace in Ukraine’s war with Russia.
Zelensky firmly rejected the idea of stepping down after his tense Oval Office meeting with Trump, stating, “This decision can only be made by the people of Ukraine.”
While admitting regrets over the meeting’s outcome, he emphasized Ukraine’s willingness to sign a deal with the US, but only with security guarantees.
When asked if he owed Trump an apology, Zelensky replied, “No, I respect the president and the American people, but I don’t think we did anything wrong.”
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