Volodymyr Zelenskyy challenges President Trump’s approach to Ukraine’s war, citing 25 Russian violations of past agreements and attacks on hospitals/schools, while demanding NATO-backed ceasefire terms. Trump counters with $350B U.S. aid, claims Putin respects him, and dismisses Zelenskyy’s pleas for visits or LNG deals, favoring "great television" over frontline diplomacy. Zelenskyy warns Ukraine’s fall risks NATO’s eastern flank, but Trump insists Europe must spend more, calling past leaders "incompetent." The Oval Office debate reveals stark contrasts: Zelenskyy’s urgency vs. Trump’s transactional stance, and a broader tension over democracy’s resilience—from Reagan’s idealism to Starmer’s alleged censorship—underscoring how global crises test its foundations. [Automatically generated summary]
This is also a massive victory for democracy and for freedom.
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One of the most notable meetings between President Trump and a foreign leader from earlier this year.
In February, this Oval Office meeting between President Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Vice President JD Vance and others grabbed headlines for its combative tone and abrupt end.
The confrontation occurred before a deal was supposed to be made between Ukraine and the United States, in which Ukraine would have given the U.S. critical rare earth minerals in exchange for some military help in pushing back against Russia's military invasion.
You've been the president, but he had, of course, not with you, but he had during those periods, he had conversations with our side.
And we had Normandy Ford format, you know, the France, Germany, Ukraine, and Russia.
And he broke them 25 times.
That's why we will never accept just ceasefire.
It will not work without security guarantees.
Security guarantees, maybe President is right about this document and other, but this document is not enough.
Strong army is enough, because he's soldiers afraid, Putin's soldiers afraid of our soldiers when we're strong enough.
If we are not strong enough, if we are empty, if our storage is empty, we can't defend our land.
Today, you know, he knows that we have me, all the world knows that we have meeting.
Yes, why he's using ballistic.
Putin today using ballistic on our hospitals, schools, and etc.
Ballistic.
So he knows that we are here and that President Trump is really have goodwill to stop this war.
And you hear now the president.
So why he's using.
So he doesn't want to stop.
He doesn't want.
But I hope that we will do it.
Really, we'll do it.
Security, when we speak about security guarantees, when the Europeans are ready for contingents, they need USA backstop.
If there will not be United States, we will not never have any contingents, strong contingents from the Europeans, because they don't want to divide alliance.
Connection between the United States, the main and strongest alliance, and Europeans.
This is crucial.
This is important.
That's what we want to speak about very much.
This is very important.
And air defense.
So, air defense, really, we have a big deficit with all these systems.
And we need to provide this.
We need it very much.
Otherwise, Putin will never stop and will go further and further.
He doesn't want.
He hates us.
You know?
It's not about me.
He hates Ukrainians.
He thinks that we are not a nation.
He thinks, and he shares these thoughts.
I think maybe with your team also, I don't know.
But with all the Europeans, in media, officially and not, he always said that there is no such country, such nation, such language, and such life like Ukrainian.
No.
He really doesn't respect all the Ukrainians and he wants to destroy us.
And you are right, Mr. President.
That's 2%.
This document, maybe other documents, it's a very good start, very good, but it will not enough to stop this person.
unidentified
Mr. President, under these circumstances, this is the rule of the world.
During all the centuries, all the history, this is the rule of the war.
Who began those pay?
This is the rule.
Putin began this war.
He has to pay all money for innovation.
He has to pay.
Of course, some Russian assets, what we have in Europe, about 300 billion, we can use them, we can use for innovation and buy military support from the United States also.
We can do it.
But it's not enough.
unidentified
It's not enough.
Do you think the trilateral 70% of the people?
I wouldn't know.
Wait, wait a sec.
I ask this question that you didn't like because I wanted to know if you want to position yourself in the middle between Russia and Ukraine or on the Ukraine side.
The Baltics, they got a lot of, it's a tough neighborhood too.
But we're committed.
We're going to be very committed.
We're committed to NATO.
But NATO has to step up, and the Europeans have to step up more than they have.
And I want to see them equalize, because they are in for far less than we're in, and they should be at least equal.
You understand that.
Why is the United States, we have an ocean in between, why is the United States in for so much more money and other things as Europe?
With that being said, and as you said, they've also been obviously very helpful.
But we have put in far more than they have.
And I think they should equalize.
unidentified
Mr. President, I'm very agreeing to.
About the agreement again today, what changed between the first time that Secretary Benson gave President Zelensky the agreement and today for the signing?
First of all, I want really to tell you, and I think that everybody understands that Ukraine, modern Ukrainians, nobody wants to stop this war.
But at the future, any negotiations, it's understandable that two are sides of the war, not Russia and the United States, because this is not the war between Russia and the United States.
This is war of Russia against Ukraine and Ukrainian people.
So these two sides will be anyway, will be at the negotiation and negotiation table.
Then of course United States, like the strongest partner of the Ukraine.
And of course Europe.
I think Europe is very important.
I want to speak about it with the President.
Yes, Europe is very important for us because we really defend Europe for today.
All Europeans really recognize that we are defending line and they have real life and our people are dying.
That's why they helped us.
And also it's about the NATO.
Yes, between, like the President said, you have big, nice ocean.
Yes, between us.
But if we will not stay, Russia will go further to Baltics and to Poland, by the way.
But first to the Baltics.
It's understandable for them because they've been in the USSR.
You know, they've been one of the republics of the USSR, and Putin wants to bring them back to his empire.
It's a fact.
And when he will go there, if we will not stay, you will fight.
You're American soldiers.
It doesn't matter.
Do you have ocean or not?
Your soldiers will fight.
unidentified
Mr. President, would you be willing to visit Ukraine, Libyke or Odessa, which is going to be a 30-year-old Lexi?
And there's real concern that American speech, which is online, could fall into the hands of British or any country's jurisdiction.
And so this is a point the Vice President made of Munich and I think it's a very compelling one that unites us with Europe as much as anything else is these shared values and one of them being free speech.
unidentified
And so if Americans are threatened by it, we're going to need to take action in that regard.
We spoke about this in detail with the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, and others at lunch yesterday.
And I know that Secretary of Commerce Lutnik followed up in private meetings last night.
This is really important.
We believe Americans have the right to speak their mind.
Even if we in this room disagree with them, they have the right to speak their mind in the public square area, which is often online these days.
And we're going to defend that right as it pertains to American companies and American citizens vigorously if we have to.
I do think that under the President's leadership we're going to find common ground with our friends in the UK on this question, but it remains to be seen.
The principle that will guide us is we believe in free speech in this country and we'll fight for it for American citizens.
unidentified
Mr. President, on the deal, is there any other oil and gas component for the deal?
On the minerals deal, Mr. President, some of those minerals are in the east of Ukraine, not far from the front lines and in areas that Russia has occupied.
unidentified
Will you direct President Putin to withdraw his forces from those areas if there's U.S. interests?
Yeah, they ought to focus on CNN, on survival, not asking me these ridiculous questions.
Focus on surviving, because CNN's got such low ratings, I don't think they're going to survive.
Let's go.
unidentified
I already mentioned Poland.
Poland was under Russian control for decades after the Second World War.
When I was a kid, I looked at the United States not only as a most powerful country, the richest country in the world, the country that has great music, great movies, great muscle cars, but also as a force for good.
And now I'm talking with my friends in Poland, and they are worried that you align yourself too much with Putin.
So look, for four years in the United States of America, we had a president who stood up at press conferences and talked tough about Vladimir Putin.
And then Putin invaded Ukraine and destroyed a significant chunk of the country.
The path to peace and the path to prosperity is maybe engaging in diplomacy.
We tried the pathway of Joe Biden of thumping our chest and pretending that the President of the United States' words mattered more than the President of the United States' actions.
What makes America a good country is America engaging in diplomacy.
So he occupied our parts, big parts of Ukraine, parts of East and Crimea.
So he occupied it on 2014.
So during a lot of years, I'm not speaking about Joe Biden, but those times was Obama, then President Obama, then President Trump, then President Biden, now President Trump, and God bless, now President Trump will stop him.
I have been to I've actually watched and seen the stories and I know what happens is you bring people, you bring them on a propaganda tour, Mr. President.
Do you disagree that you've had problems bringing people in your military?
And do you think that it's respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to prevent the destruction of your country?
Except that there are disagreements, and let's go litigate those disagreements rather than trying to fight it out in the American media when you're wrong.
We'll see what we can do about putting that together.
unidentified
Thank you.
Guys, let's go.
Guys, come on.
We'll see.
All right, guys, guys, come on, please.
Hey, guys, come on, please.
Guys, come on.
Let's move.
NBC News and others are reporting that the Supreme Court has denied President Trump's request to send National Guard troops into Illinois.
The administration argued that the Guard was needed to help protect immigration agents in the Chicago area, something that local leaders strongly objected to.
TNBC article goes on to say the decision marks a rare defeat for the president at the Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority.
By rejecting the president's premise, the court at least provisionally rejected the Trump administration's view that the situation on the ground is so chaotic that it justifies invoking a federal law that allows the president to deploy National Guard troops into federal service in extreme situations.
This Friday, on a special edition of Ceasefire, host Dasha Burns features key moments from Ceasefire's inaugural season, highlighting moments of friendship and humor, respectful disagreement.
The thing that I appreciated about Rahm is while we differed, particularly after he led the charge for the Democrats to defeat the Republican majority in 2006, I always felt like...
We ought to just commit ourselves to love and justice, not hatred and revenge.
unidentified
One of the wonderful things that I've been able to experience with my very dear brother, Robert George, is that I love the brother when he's right.
I love him when he's wrong.
I love him when he's wrestling in his quest for truth.
Watch our special bipartisan moments from the season of Ceasefire this Friday at 7 p.m. Eastern, only on C-SPAN.
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Our look at notable meetings this year between President Trump and foreign leaders continues with a February Oval Office meeting between the President and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
This was the first of two visits to the U.S. for the British leader this year, and one of many times they discussed the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
This meeting happened the day before President Zelensky's meeting with President Trump in Washington to sign a deal in which Ukraine would give the U.S. a large amount of its minerals in exchange for possible security guarantees against Russia.
Mr. Trump, what have you in common with, Mr. Keistama?