NEW YORK — Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, met with Donald Trump in person on Friday. Tensions between the two were rising because of Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s attack and the U.S. presidential election.
Trump told Fox News, “We both want this to end and we both want a fair deal to be made.” He was talking about the fighting between Russia and Ukraine while standing next to Zelensky after they had met for 40 minutes. “The president wants it to end as soon as possible.” It’s important to him that the deal is fair.
Zelensky said that the war shouldn’t have started and that Russian President Vladimir Putin needs to be held accountable. He also said that the families of those who died should be able to breathe easy. Zelensky said, “We need to do everything we can to get him to end this war.” “He is on our land.” That is the most important thing to know. He is now on our land.
The meeting took place right before the U.S. election, which is a very important time in the war between Russia and Ukraine. The way Trump and his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, have dealt with Ukraine is very different. To keep good ties with the US, Zelensky has worked hard to do so. The US is his country’s main source of weapons and money for the war. In the event that Trump were to win, however, that support might not last.
Trump has talked up his relationship with Putin and called Putin “pretty smart” for invading Ukraine. For months, Trump has criticized U.S. support for Ukraine and called Zelensky a “salesman” for trying to get Washington to give his military weapons and money to help it fight Moscow. Democrats in Congress started the impeachment process after Trump asked Zelensky to “favor” them by looking into Joe Biden, who is now president, and Biden’s son Hunter, who was on the board of a Ukrainian gas business. Trump brought up impeachment for the first time on Friday.
When Trump asked for the “favor,” he was withholding $400 million in military help from Ukraine because it was fighting separatists backed by Russia on its eastern border. Later, a Senate led by Republicans found him not guilty of impeachment charges.
“He could have put on a show and been cute,” Trump said. “He didn’t do that.” His words were, “President Trump did nothing wrong at all.” It was very clear what he said.
At the start of the impeachment process in Congress in October 2019, Zelensky told reporters that Trump was not trying to “blackmail” him. He also told reporters, “I don’t want to get involved in the elections in any way.” In this way, he was trying to stay out of U.S. politics, both in public and in private.
But later, the Associated Press claimed that U.S. officials knew Zelensky was under pressure from the Trump administration to look into Biden, even before his phone call with Trump about the “favor.” Zelensky denied this.
Even though Zelensky’s office said something was planned for Friday, it almost didn’t happen. This is because the Ukrainian leader is in the U.N. General Assembly making his final pitch to friends.
In an interview with the New Yorker that came out earlier this week, Zelensky made it sound like Trump doesn’t understand the conflict and makes it too easy to understand. The leader of Ukraine said that Sen. J.D. Vance, Trump’s running mate from Ohio, was “too radical” and had basically called for Ukraine to “make a sacrifice” by “giving up its territories.”
This week, Trump said bad things about Zelensky and Ukraine twice. He said that Ukraine was “demolished” and its people were “dead” in a speech in North Carolina on Wednesday.
Trump said, “Any deal, even the worst deal, would have been better than what we have now.” “It would have been better if they made a bad deal.” They might have given up a little, and for another 2,000 years, everyone would be alive, every building would be built, and every tower would be old.
On the other hand, Harris agreed with Zelensky on Thursday when he said that Trump’s demands that Ukraine quickly make a peace deal did not amount to “proposals for peace [but] proposals for surrender.”
Trump said on Thursday that he was not calling for a surrender.
Trump was getting ready for the meeting on Friday when a reporter asked him if Ukraine could win the war. He said, “Sure.” They were able to.
He said this about Zelensky: “We get along great.” I also get along well with President Putin, which you already know. And I think we’ll be able to settle it very quickly if we win.
Trump said something, and Zelensky replied, “I hope we have more good relations between us.”
Trump said, “But, you know, it takes two to tango,” before going on to the next question.
