Trump's Explosive Oval Office Meeting with Zelensky: A Diplomatic Disaster or Masterstroke?
2025-03-02 18:25:04.949
by Andrew Ismail in Politics
• Fallout from Oval Office meeting: The reverberations of Friday’s tense meeting between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — in which Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated the Ukrainian leader over Russia’s war on the country — are still being felt from Washington to Kyiv.• Global reaction: European leaders are holding an emergency summit Sunday in London to rally support for Ukraine as British Prime Minister Keir Starmer seeks to wrestle control of negotiations away from the US. Russian officials and state media have expressed glee at the highly public diplomatic breakdown. The White House, meanwhile, is making clear it views the showdown as an overwhelming win that underscores Trump’s “America first” leadership.• Trump’s domestic agenda: Meanwhile, the Trump administration is pursuing his top priorities at home, including shaking up the federal workforce with a new round of mass emails to government employees. Meanwhile, the American public’s view of Trump’s presidency and the direction he’s leading the country is more negative than positive just ahead of his first formal address to Congress, according to a new CNN poll.The White House is making clear it views Donald Trump’s Friday Oval Office showdown with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as an overwhelming win that underscores the US president’s “America first” leadership, dispatching top officials and allies to amplify Trump’s handling of the situation even as European leaders are expressing unified support for Ukraine.Trump often took aim at US aid for Ukraine on the campaign trail, reflecting waning support among Americans for Ukraine and Zelensky over the past three years of the war. Trump views the conflict through an economic lens, seeking to rebuild a partnership with Russia and recoup some of the financial support the US has provided to Ukraine.The president’s top lieutenants, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick — all of whom were in the Oval Office during the explosive meeting — appeared on news shows Sunday to offer praise to their boss and criticism of his Ukrainian counterpart.The efforts come as dozens of European leaders are gathering in London for what British Prime Minister Keir Starmer described as a “once-in-a-generation moment for the security of Europe,” a major show of support for Zelensky.Trump’s team, meanwhile, is doubling down, framing the contentious Friday meeting from a position of US strength, even as it has been met with glee by the Kremlin.Read more about about the Trump administration’s strategy here.When he steps onto the dais in the House chamber on Tuesday night, President Donald Trump will have another major platform to relay his second term priorities. For Democrats, the moment will present a fresh test of whether they can effectively counter Trump’s primetime programming.Democratic leadership chose a first-term senator elected in a battleground state Trump won in November to deliver the party’s official response. A Democratic senator whose name is often talked about for 2028 is among those skipping the address, predicting it will be a “MAGA pep rally.” And a protest movement organizing online has identified March 4th – the day of Trump’s speech – as its next day of action.The varying tactics of Democrats in Washington and across the country will be on display as Trump delivers his address to a joint session of Congress six weeks into a second term where he’s swiftly moved to remake the federal government and implement his foreign policy vision, at times unnerving US allies.While Democrats have rallied against Elon Musk and DOGE cuts, lawmakers in Washington have struggled to stop the president’s early actions or settle on a cohesive approach to push back on them. It comes amid an ongoing debate within the Democratic party about the best way to handle Trump’s second term and position Democrats for success in the 2026 midterms and 2028 presidential election – with some saying Democratic leaders aren’t doing enough.Heading into Tuesday’s speech, Democratic leaders – from Capitol Hill to the Democratic National Committee – are hoping to present a united front.Read how they plan to do that here.Former House Intelligence Committee Chair Rep. Mike Turner, historically an avid supporter of Ukraine and hardliner on Russia, called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s actions during his tense Oval Office meeting with President Donald Trump “inappropriate.”“Well, I mean, the first thing, obviously, is, you know, we have to realize why this is important and really what was at stake here. I mean, this is important because Ukraine is important. This is about the fight but between, you know, authoritarianism and freedom and democracy,” the Ohio Republican said on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” adding, “The second thing is, is really how inappropriate this was for Zelensky.”“Zelensky came to sign a minerals deal with the United States and it was inappropriate for him to publicly ask for security guarantees during the meeting, while defending Trump’s handling of Ukraine,” Turner said.“You got to hear President Trump. I mean, he engaged by saying people are dying. We need to stop the dying. We can’t have we can’t go into World War III and imploring him to, let’s go forward with the peace negotiations, and then we’ll determine what security arrangements need to be made around the peace negotiations,” he said.Turner said Zelensky was putting “the cart before the horse” and he was very confident in Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s ability to get a peace negotiation done.“I believe that Zelensky needs to trust him, and he needs to not have this precondition of American security guarantees, which are not coming,” he said.A proposed investment deal to secure access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals is not currently on the table, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday, following Friday’s tense Oval Office meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and President Donald Trump last week.“I don’t know what President Zelensky was thinking — we had President of France Emmanuel Macron in on Monday, great meeting; we had Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday, fantastic meeting. They were all on board the arc of the peace agreement,” Bessent, who was in the Oval Office for Friday’s meeting, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”“All President Zelensky had to do was come in and sign this economic agreement and again, show no daylight, no daylight between Ukrainian people and the American people, and he chose to blow that up.”Pressed in a follow-up exchange on whether the deal was still on the table, he added, “Not at present.”After Friday’s explosive meeting, Trump said in a Truth Social post that Zelensky could come back to the White House “when he is ready for peace.”“I think we have to see if President Zelensky wants to proceed — what’s the use in having an economic agreement that’s going to be rendered moot if he wants the fighting to continue? President Trump wants a peace deal,” Bessent said.On Friday, Zelensky said Ukraine would like to see an end to the war, but expressed concern that Russian President Vladimir Putin was likely to break a ceasefire if any economic agreement between the Ukraine and the US didn’t come with security assurances.“We need more than just that. A ceasefire without security guarantees is dangerous for Ukraine. We’ve been fighting for three years, and Ukrainian people need to know that America is on our side,” Zelensky said.Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard claimed a “divergence” exists between the values that President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance are fighting for and those of many European countries coming to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s defense, arguing those who criticize Trump’s efforts “are not committed to peace.”“What we should pay attention to here in the United States of America is the American people, so many people across the country, celebrating the strong leadership that President Trump and Vice President Vance demonstrated in the Oval Office, something we have not seen over the last four years of the Biden administration,” Gabbard said on “Fox News Sunday.”“I think those who are criticizing his efforts in this way are showing that they are not committed to peace, and in the case of many of those European countries, that they’re not committed to the cause and values of freedom, even though they speak of this,” Gabbard continued.Gabbard named Germany, the UK and the “tossing out of the elections in Romania” as examples, suggesting that European countries are more interested in helping Zelensky continue the war, rather than end it.Gabbard also pointed to “the canceling of elections in Ukraine.” Since Russia invaded in 2022, Ukraine has been under martial law, which prohibits elections.Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he regrets voting to confirm Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this year amid the escalating tension between the United States and Ukraine.“I regret that vote, because as a member of the Senate, Secretary Rubio was somebody who stood up for American values, American principles,” the Maryland senator said on “Fox News Sunday.” “He acknowledged that Russia was the aggressor against Ukraine, he realized that it wasn’t Zelensky who was the dictator, and now he’s simply taking his directions for the State Department from Elon Musk and essentially parroting the President’s position.”Van Hollen said President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance showed a “despicable display of bullying” toward Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during the fiery meeting.“This was a total disaster for those of us who believe in American foreign policy where we respect our allies and our friends and we stand up for democracy and freedom around the world,” Van Hollen said.Trump’s mineral deal — which was scheduled to be signed after the meeting with Zelensky — was “extortion, pure and simple,” Van Hollen said.“It was Zelensky’s idea originally to include some kind of deal on minerals to provide for reconstruction, but what happened was that idea got transformed originally into an idea where it was really extortion, it was like, ‘Give us half of this stuff for what we’ve already done,’” Van Hollen said.Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Sunday he expects Canada and Mexico will be hit with tariffs on Tuesday, but the level will be fluid, though he praised both countries for their respective efforts on border security.“(President Donald Trump is) sort of thinking about, right now, how exactly he wants to play with Mexico and Canada, and that is a fluid situation. There are going to be tariffs on Tuesday on Mexico and Canada. Exactly what they are, we’re going to leave that for the president and his team to negotiate. And obviously I’m talking to him all the time to discuss what that’s going to be on Tuesday,” Lutnick said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo.He also indicated that additional 10% tariffs on China remain on the table for Tuesday.“Both Mexico and Canada have done a reasonable job on the border. They’re both working hard on the border. … But the fentanyl continues to come into this country and continues to murder our people, and the ingredients are made in China. They’re sent to Mexico and Canada, and then they come and attack our country, and that’s got to end,” he said.Pressed on whether there might be tariffs on Mexico and Canada at a lower rate, Lutnick suggested that was a distinct possibility.CNN has reported Mexico, China and Canada are America’s top three trading partners. Simultaneous tariffs on all three nations could lead to soaring prices for American consumers, especially at a time when inflation is already heating up.Republican Sen. James Lankford called Russia President Vladimir Putin a thug and defended President Donald Trump’s commitment to Ukraine after Friday’s contentious Oval Office meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.“No, we’re not turning our back on Ukraine, nor should we. Putin is a murderous KGB thug that murders his political enemies and is a dictator there. … We’ve seen his aggression. Countries around him have seen that,” Lankford said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”Lankford did not comment directly on the tension in the meeting between Zelensky and Trump, which resulted in Trump berating Zelensky — a scene lauded by the Kremlin.But Lankford argued Trump only wants a resolution to the fighting — though he said he understands why Zelensky does not trust Putin to abide by any agreement.“What I hear President Trump saying over and over again is we need to get to a stop in fighting, find some resolution. I understand Zelensky is rightfully concerned that Putin has violated every single agreement he’s ever signed, and that he can’t be trusted,” he said.Lankford said he did not agree with senators who’ve suggested Zelensky should resign and said he is simply seeking security guarantees.“I think they understand each other and that obviously there are differences, where Zelensky wants more in the way of some kind of security guarantees. The United States is not willing to be able to put troops on the ground,” he said.President Donald Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz indicated US support for new leadership in Ukraine following Friday’s Oval Office showdown with President Volodymyr Zelensky.“We need a leader that can deal with us, eventually deal with the Russians and end this war,” Waltz told Dana Bash on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday. “And if it becomes apparent that President Zelensky’s either personal motivations or political motivations are divergent from ending the fighting in this country, then I think we have a real issue on our hands.”Waltz said that the Ukrainian leader needs to make it clear “publicly and privately” that he is “ready to go to peace.”Waltz also offered new insight into potential concessions during negotiations for a deal between Russia and Ukraine.“What I’m saying is this war needs to end, and that’s going to take concessions on territory. That’s going to take Russian concessions on security guarantees. That’s going to take all sides coming to the table. And we are working very hard to drive those negotiations forward,” he said.Pressed by Bash for specifics on those concessions for Russia, he said, “This will clearly be some type of territorial concession for security guarantees going forward,” pointing to “European-led security guarantees,” including the UK and France’s boots on the ground.US security guarantees, he added, are “to be negotiated.”A little more than half of Americans say they personally support Ukraine in its conflict with Russia, but few believe President Donald Trump is on the same side, according to a CBS/YouGov poll released Sunday and conducted prior to the Oval Office meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday.We’ve broken down the key findings from the poll for you here:The survey puts Trump’s overall approval rating at 51%, with 49% disapproving. That’s a slight downtick from his standing in CBS’ early February polling, but it remains higher than other recent polls – including the CNN survey released Sunday, as well as February polls from Reuters/Ipsos, Washington Post/Ipsos, Quinnipiac University and Gallup – that show Trump’s approval rating underwater.Secretary of State Marco Rubio repeatedly stressed that the United States’ goal is getting Russia to the negotiating table, arguing that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky derailed that effort in the Oval Office on Friday by talking about the need for security guarantees, challenging Vice President JD Vance and trying to “Ukraine-splain” history.“We’re trying to get Putin to a negotiating table,” Rubio said on ABC This Week. “Everyone knows the history here, the back and forth. We understand that. We all understand that. But the question now is, can we get them to a table to negotiate? That’s our goal. Don’t do anything to disrupt that. And that’s what Zelensky did, unfortunately, is he found every opportunity to try to ‘Ukraine-splain’ on every issue.”“Then he confronts the vice president when the vice president says, ‘The goal here is diplomacy,’ he immediately jumps in, and challenges the vice president, ‘Well, what kind of diplomacy?’” Rubio continued.Rubio claimed that Trump is the only person “who has any chance” of bringing Putin to the negotiating table to see what it would take to end the war.“Maybe their claims are what they want, their demands will be unreasonable. We don’t know, but we have to bring them to the table. You’re not going to bring them to the table if you’re calling them names or you’re being antagonistic,” Rubio said.ABC’s George Stephanopoulos pressed Rubio, asking, “Why is it OK to call Zelensky a dictator, but not, as you say, call Putin names?”“We’ve spent three years calling Vladimir Putin names. That’s not the point. The point that we’re at now is we’re trying to get the man to a table,” Rubio said. “I would ask everybody this if there are no negotiations, what is the alternative?”“No one here is claiming Vladimir Putin is going to get the Nobel Peace Prize this year, or that he should be the Man of the Year of the humanitarian association,” Rubio added. “We need to figure out, is there a way to get them to stop the war and the only way you’re going to do that is to get Russians engaged in negotiations.”Rubio said that he has not any contact with Zelensky since Friday’s Oval Office meeting but did not answer for Trump.Rubio called security guarantees “deterrence” and said that “everybody understands” that safeguards must be put in place, but the first step is engaging with Russia “to see if it’s even possible.”“It’s been explained crystal clear to the Ukrainians and the Europeans and everyone else who wants to know for weeks now, for weeks now, and the only thing they were told is, do not do things to derail it. And sadly, President Zelensky, you know, couldn’t contain himself in that regard. I hope this could all be reset. I hope he comes to the realization that we’re actually trying to help his country here, before it suffers thousands of more casualties,” Rubio said.Asked what concessions he expects Russia to make, Rubio said, “Why would I say that on a news broadcast? That’s what negotiations are about.”While the Trump administration and Elon Musk are now mandating that federal employees file weekly reports on their activities, certain agencies are giving somewhat different guidance to their staff, as they did in response to the initial demand a week ago.Federal workers received a second “What did you do last week?” email on Friday from the Office of Personnel Management directing them to reply with five bullet points about their accomplishments and to CC their managers.But the State Department told its staff that it will take care of the request. At the Department of Homeland Security, leaders instructed employees to submit a list of their work accomplishments but said the information will remain internal to the agency. The Pentagon advised civilian staffers to reply but likewise noted that the responses will be kept within the Department of Defense, rather than going to OPM.Friday’s OPM email followed a similar one the previous weekend demanding the nation’s more than 2 million federal employees send the office a list of their accomplishments, with Musk threatening that those who didn’t comply could lose their jobs. The directive sent shock waves through the workforce, and agencies scrambled to determine how to respond, with many departments dealing with national security advising staff not to answer.Hours before the deadline, OPM provided guidance that replying to the email was voluntary. One million employees ultimately complied, the White House said last week.Unlike the initial demand, the latest OPM email noted that workers whose activities are classified or sensitive can write, “All of my activities are sensitive.”Musk, who called the first email a “pulse check” to make sure the federal government is not being defrauded by people claiming the identities of dead or fake workers, posted on X Saturday that employees must respond to the latest demand but acknowledged that some information should not be disclosed.“The President has made it clear that this is mandatory for the executive branch,” Musk wrote.House Speaker Mike Johnson staunchly defended President Donald Trump’s tense White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday and called his Republican colleague Sen. Lisa Murkowski “plainly wrong” for accusing the president of embracing Russian President Vladimir Putin over US allies.“The person who walked away from the table yesterday was President Zelensky. I mean, look, I’ve been involved in a lot of bilateral meetings like this with heads of state and dignitaries. There’s a certain protocol to these events. But for him to act as he did was rather shocking to everyone,” Johnson said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday, adding that Zelensky “interrupted and berated his hosts at a very perilous time for his country.”Zelensky should have been “anxious” to enter into the mineral agreement, which Johnson said would have been a “win, win” for both countries, as higher economic stakes in Ukraine would have given the US further incentive to help defend the country.“We would have created an economic partnership with Ukraine at a time when it needs to be reemerging, and that would have been a great thing, and I don’t understand why President Zelensky would not accept that gratefully,” he said, adding, “I think it’s a big mistake, and I hope he changes his mind.”Johnson said he believes Trump is restoring President Ronald Reagan’s “peace through strength” foreign policy doctrine, saying Trump “is a strong hand to return to the White House in a very perilous time on the world stage. We have to bring about an end to this war in Ukraine.”Democratic Senator Chris Murphy said Sunday that President Donald Trump and his entire team are “pretending as if Ukraine started this war” to help align themselves with Russia.“It is absolutely shameful what is happening right now. The White House has become an arm of the Kremlin,” Murphy told CNN’s Dana Bash on State of the Union.“There are still facts in this world and the fact is this: Vladimir Putin is a brutal dictator. Russia started this war. And the entire pretext for that meeting yesterday was an attempt to rewrite history in order to sign a deal with Putin that hands Putin Ukraine,” Murphy said.The Democratic senator also claimed that Trump was aligning himself with “despots all around the world because that makes it easier for him to transform America into a kleptocratic oligarchy where Elon Musk and Donald Trump rule and steal from the American people.”Separately, Murphy was asked about his decision to skip Trump’s joint address to Congress on Tuesday. He described the speech as a “farce” and a “MAGA pep rally.” While he said it was up to Democrats to make a decision on whether they’d attend the speech, he said he was making a case to them to “fight every single day.”“Republicans flood the zone. Democrats have to flood the zone. They flood the zone with lies. We flood the zone with truth. We are going to stop this billionaire takeover of government. We are going to stop their destruction of democracy,” he said on CNN.Trump adviser Jason Miller offered a preview of President Donald Trump’s upcoming address to a joint session of Congress, suggesting that the president is planning to highlight accomplishments so far but also look ahead to next steps.“What comes next is so critical,” Miller said during a Sunday appearance on Fox News. He pointed to efforts to tackle inflation by cutting federal spending, the proposed tax bill, and funding for the border, as well as “making sure that we continue to bring peace and stability around the world, but we have to do it with respect and strength.”Trump is also expected to look ahead, Miller said, to “making sure we get to Mars, winning the AI race against China, … (and) making sure we have a Marshall Plan for the next generation.”The president will connect those topics, he said, “with people in their everyday lives.”“President Trump has this unique ability to speak directly to the American people and let them know in a transparent and accountable way how he is helping them,” Miller said.Campaigning in Pennsylvania last September, JD Vance seemed to strike at an unlikely political foe: the besieged president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, who’d spent most of the previous two years being hailed by Western leaders as a hero.“You know what I wish Zelensky would do when he comes to the United States of America?” Vance asked his rally audience. “Say thank you to the people of Pennsylvania and everybody else.”The crowd in Pennsylvania responded with hearty cheers. The future vice president had struck a nerve.Five months later, the moment seems prescient. A perceived lack of gratitude on the part of Zelensky is precisely what Vance seized on Friday, this time in the Oval Office, setting off an explosive rupture in ties between Washington and Kyiv and charting an unknown course for the future of the conflict.In reality, Zelensky has repeatedly thanked the United States and its leaders for supporting Ukraine.Yet for Vance, sitting on the gold brocade couch across from Zelensky, the moment thrust him to the forefront of an administration in which he had so far been relegated to supporting player. It amounted to a sudden real-life manifestation of Vance’s combative online persona, one that was quickly embraced by President Donald Trump’s team.“It smacks of an ambush, that JD Vance knew what he was doing,” Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who met earlier Friday with Zelensky, said after the explosive Oval Office meeting.Read more about how Vance hit out at Ukraine and why here.The American public’s view of Donald Trump’s presidency and the direction he’s leading the country is more negative than positive just ahead of his first formal address to Congress since returning to office, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS.The survey finds that across three basic measures of Trump’s performance on the job – his approval rating, whether he has the right priorities and whether his policies are taking the country in the right direction – the negative side outpaces the positive.Overall, 52% disapprove of Trump’s performance in office, with 48% approving, about the same as in a CNN poll in mid-February. The poll was completed before Friday’s angry exchange in the Oval Office between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and does not reflect public opinion on that event.Trump continues to be broadly popular with Republicans (90% of whom approve of his handling of the job) and unpopular among Democrats (90% disapprove), while disapproval among independents is approaching 6 in 10: 41% approve and 59% disapprove. Earlier in February, a similar 43% of independents approved and 56% disapproved.Read more about the poll’s findings here.UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer says he will be working with Ukraine, France and “possibly one or two others” on a plan to stop the fighting in Ukraine that they will then present to the US.Starmer was speaking to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg ahead of a crucial summit of European and other world leaders on Ukraine.He described the plan as a “step in the right direction.”On the furious exchange in the Oval Office during which US President Donald Trump berated Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, Starmer said, “Nobody wants to see that,” but he added that he is convinced Trump wants to see a lasting peace in Ukraine.After a tense meeting between American leaders and Ukrainian President Voldoymyr Zelensky on Friday that sent shockwaves around the world, European leaders are holding an emergency meeting in London to show support for Ukraine.Here’s what different countries are saying as the meeting takes place:Italy: Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has said it is “very, very important that we avoid the risk that the West divides” over the war in Ukraine, after arriving at Downing Street for Sunday’s summit in London. Meloni met with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Sunday morning, telling him during a brief on-camera discussion: “It is very, very important to talk to each other, to coordinate.”UK: The UK’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that European countries have “stood up” in the last three years on Ukraine but that the continent needs to be “more agile” speaking to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday.Europe, already rattled by US President Donald Trump’s overtures to Russia, quickly rallied around Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the fallout from a heated exchange that cut Zelensky’s White House visit short on Friday.Zelensky was in the United Kingdom on Saturday, holding friendly meetings with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Today, Starmer and Zelensky are meeting with leaders from across Europe, including the heads of the European Union and NATO, for an emergency summit in London.The summit comes amid a widening rift between Washington and its traditional European allies, with other Western leaders feeling they’ve been sidelined by Trump’s outreach to Russian President Vladimir Putin and hostilitiy toward Zelensky. The European Union’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas said in a statement reacting to the Trump-Zelensky meeting that it’s “clear that the free world needs a new leader.”Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a key Trump ally in Europe, has called for an additional summit between the US and European nations, saying division on the war in Ukraine makes the West weaker.The summit’s stated goals: In a statement Saturday, Starmer laid out three key objectives that he said European leaders would strive toward in today’s meetings.• “Strengthening Ukraine’s position now – including ongoing military support and increased economic pressure on Russia”• “The need for a strong lasting deal that delivers a permanent peace in Ukraine and ensures that Ukraine is able to deter and defend against future Russian attack”• “Next steps on planning for strong security guarantees”
