A hot mic caught President Donald Trump’s orders to staff right after the car-crash meeting with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office.
Mr Trump instructed his aides to take the Ukrainian delegation to the Roosevelt Room down the hall, where they were informed the president wanted Mr Zelensky to leave the White House.
‘You’re right, maybe we should (INAUDIBLE). Let’s have a little something….’ the president said to an unidentified aide as the press was clearing out of the room.
‘Would you bring them to the Roosevelt Room?’ the president then asked.
Mr Trump kicked Mr Zelensky out of the White House and cancelled the signing of a minerals deal after he felt ‘disrespected’ by the Ukrainian leader’s ‘tone’ during Friday’s meeting.
The meeting devolved into a shouting match as vice-president JD Vance repeatedly demanded Mr Zelensky thank the president for the US’s support in the war with Russia.
In the aftermath the diplomatic crisis, Mr Trump has paused US assistance to Ukraine as he seeks to pressure Mr Zelensky to engage in negotiations to end the war with Russia, which invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
A hot mic tea revealed president Donald Trump’s words before he kicked Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenksy out of the White House on Friday
Mr Trump instructed his aides to take the Ukrainian delegation to the Roosevelt Room following the shouting match in the Oval Office
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Mr Trump earlier on Monday slammed Mr Zelensky for suggesting that the end of the war likely ‘is still very, very far away’.
Mr Zelensky had suggested it would take time to come to an agreement to end the war as he tried to offer a positive take on the US-Ukraine relationship in the aftermath of last week’s White House meeting.
Mr Zelensky later took to social media in an effort to further explain his thinking.
He did not directly refer to Mr Trump’s comments, but underscored that it ‘is very important that we try to make our diplomacy really substantive to end this war the soonest possible.’
‘We need real peace and Ukrainians want it most because the war ruins our cities and towns,’ Mr Zelensky added. ‘We lose our people. We need to stop the war and to guarantee security.’
Mr Trump administration and Ukrainian officials had been expected to sign off on a deal during Mr Zelensky’s visit last week that would have given the US access to Ukraine’s critical minerals in part to pay back the US for aid it has sent Kyiv since the start of the war. The White House had billed such a pact as a way to tighten US-Ukrainian relations in the long term.
Democrats said the pausing of aid to Ukraine was dangerous and ill-advised – Democratic representative Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania, who is co-chair of the Congressional EU Caucus, said the decision ‘is reckless, indefensible, and a direct threat to our national security’.
A White House official said Mr Trump is focused on reaching a peace deal and wants Mr Zelensky ‘committed’ to that goal. The official added that the US was ‘pausing and reviewing’ its aid to ‘ensure that it is contributing to a solution,’ according to the Associated Press.
The order will remain in effect until Mr Trump determines that Ukraine has demonstrated a commitment to peace negotiations with Russia, the official said.
The halting of military aid comes some five years after Mr Trump held up congressionally authorized assistance to Ukraine as he sought to pressure Mr Zelensky to launch an investigation into Joe Biden, then a Democratic presidential candidate. The moment led to Trump’s first impeachment.
In the leadup to the 2024 election, Mr Trump vowed a quick end to the war in Ukraine, even once boasting that he could bring a halt to the fighting in one day. He has shown increasing frustration with Mr Zelensky over the war while simultaneously expressing confidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he has long admired, can be trusted to keep the peace if a truce is reached.
Germania Rodriguez Poleo is the host of Daily Mail’s podcast Welcome to MAGALand, bringing you all the latest news and gossip from the Trump administration. Listen wherever you get your podcasts now.
