The hope of a U.S.-brokered peace deal between Russia and Ukraine has been dashed, at least temporarily, with the public breakdown Friday of talks between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House.
The original plan had been for the United States and Ukraine to sign an economic agreement as a precursor to continued U.S. support and a potential peace deal, with a table set up in the East Room for a press conference and the signing, but the Oval Office exchange between the men changed everything.
“The deal’s dead,” a White House official told the Washington Examiner.
Friday’s schedule started amicably enough, though Trump did remark on Zelensky arriving at the White House shortly after 11 a.m. wearing a long-sleeve henley T-shirt without a jacket. But less than three hours later, the White House had canceled the press conference, and Zelensky and the Ukrainian delegation had been told to leave the executive campus, with Trump saying he “can come back when he is ready for peace.”
Departing the White House for a weekend in Florida, Trump spoke again with reporters and repeated that Zelensky had “overplayed his hand.”
Trump suggested that Zelensky’s request for U.S. security guarantees would have dragged America into a “10-year war.”
“He’s gotta say, ‘I want to make peace,’” he said when asked what Zelensky must do to restart negotiations. “It’s time to stop the death.”
“That was not a man who wanted to make peace, and I’m only interested if he wants to stop the bloodshed,” Trump added before boarding Marine One for Mar-a-Lago.
Before Trump’s meeting with Zelensky, administration officials held their second sit down with their Russian counterparts on Thursday, this time in Turkey, as Washington tries to normalize diplomatic relations with Moscow, including access to banking and contracted services.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz, and Middle East special envoy Steve Witoff attended the first meeting earlier this month with Russia Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Saudi Arabia, with discussions including Ukraine and their own economic arrangement.
What the White House will not say, however, is what is next for both Ukraine and Russia.
“He feels President Zelensky is not in the right mindset to negotiate peace, and I think, frankly, that was reinforced with his comments [to Fox News’s Bret Baier] refusing to apologize for disrespecting the president and the American people,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the Washington Examiner of Trump.
Leavitt continued: “I’m not tracking anything in terms of next steps in the engagement with Putin and the Russians. The president has made it clear always that both sides need to talk equally, to bring both sides to the table to negotiate a deal. … In any good deal, whether it’s in business or in politics, both sides usually walk away a little bit unhappy, and unfortunately for Zelensky, I think he refuses to recognize the practical reality of this war.”
For his part, Zelensky canceled a speech at conservative foreign policy-orientated think tank, the Hudson Institute, and Ukraine House in Washington on Friday after Trump yelled at him during at televised White House meeting, but kept his appearance on Fox News.
During that interview, Zelensky did decline to apologize to Trump but contended he respected the president and Americans.
“I’m not sure we did something bad,” Zelensky said. “There are things where we have to understand the position of Ukraine and Ukrainians.”
After being criticized by Vice President JD Vance for not thanking Trump, the comment that started the end of the Oval Office engagement, Zelensky’s first public statement was one of gratitude.
“Thank you America, thank you for your support, thank you for this visit. Thank you @POTUS, Congress, and the American people,” he wrote on social media. “Ukraine needs just and lasting peace, and we are working exactly for that.”
According to a source familiar, both Trump and Vance “were caught off guard by Zelenksy’s antics” and had not intended for the interaction to become so acrimonious.
White House officials told the Washington Examiner that Trump took particular umbrage with Zelensky’s body language, which included “rolling his eyes” and shrugging his shoulders on multiple occasions, such as in response to Trump and Vance reiterating, for example, that Zelensky did not want a ceasefire and that Ukraine had taken foreign dignitaries on “propaganda tours” of the war.
“I think it’s disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office and try to litigate this in front of the American media,” Vance said.
After reporters were escorted out, the White House says that Trump then asked Zelensky and his aides to also leave the Oval Office. The Ukrainians were ushered into a separate room instead of being served lunch, as previously scheduled, where they implored White House staff for a reset.
Ultimately, Rubio and Waltz informed the Ukrainians they should leave the White House, but not until after Trump posted the following statement on social media.
“It’s amazing what comes out through emotion, and I have determined that President Zelenskyy is not ready for Peace if America is involved, because he feels our involvement gives him a big advantage in negotiations,” Trump wrote. “I don’t want advantage, I want PEACE. He disrespected the United States of America in its cherished Oval Office. He can come back when he is ready for Peace.”
Afterward, White House staffers ate the lunch that was prepared for Trump, Zelensky, and their respective entourages.
The spectacle in the Oval Office prompted an immediate response from across the political spectrum, with Trump allies promoting it as a demonstration of “America First.”
“He either needs to resign and send somebody over that we can do business with, or he needs to change,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told the Washington Examiner at the White House of Zelensky.
Graham, a Ukraine supporter who was in the West Wing for a separate meeting, used the opportunity provided by reporters waiting outside to defend Trump.
“Somebody asked me, am I embarrassed about Trump?” Graham said. “I have never been more proud of the president.”
Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN), Congress’s first and only Ukrainian-born member of Congress, scrutinized Zelensky for “doing a serious disservice to the Ukrainian people insulting the American president and the American people.”
“Just to appease Europeans and increase his low polling in Ukraine after he failed miserably to defend his country,” Spartz wrote on social media. “This is not a theater act but a real war.”
Meanwhile, Democrats and more Russia-skeptical Republicans condemned Trump and Vance, including Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), who represents a swing district in Nebraska.
“Some want to whitewash the truth, but we cannot ignore the truth,” Bacon wrote on social media. “Russia is at fault for this war. Slamming Zelensky at every step while cozying up to Putin is not my style.”
Abroad, NATO members similarly made their support known, including French President Emmanuel Macron, who was at the White House on Monday. Macron had intervened to organize Zelensky’s meeting after it became uncertain because of disagreement over the minerals deal.
“There is an aggressor: Russia. There is a victim: Ukraine,” he wrote on social media. “We were right to help Ukraine and sanction Russia three years ago — and to keep doing so. By ‘we,’ I mean the Americans, the Europeans, the Canadians, the Japanese, and many others. Thank you to all who have helped and continue to do so.”
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who was at the White House on Thursday, confirmed that a meeting with allies concerning an international peacekeeping mission was still on.
ZELENSKY SAYS HE DOES NOT OWE TRUMP AN APOLOGY FOR DRAMATIC OVAL OFFICE MEETING
“The Prime Minister has tonight spoken to both President Trump and President Zelensky,” No. 10 Downing St. wrote in a statement. “He retains his unwavering support for Ukraine and is playing his part to find a path forward to a lasting peace, based on sovereignty and security for Ukraine. The Prime Minister looks forward to hosting international leaders on Sunday, including President Zelensky.”
But the political and practical fallout from the Oval Office is already unfolding, from the U.S. reportedly terminating funding for Ukraine’s energy grid restoration project and senior officials promising to investigate fraud in U.S. aid provided to Ukraine to the Pentagon ordering Cyber Command to stop offensives targeting Russia.
