A meeting between President Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on Friday turned into an angry shouting match at the Oval Office. At times cross talk made some comments difficult to understand. Here are key excerpts from the heated exchange.
Trump (responding to a reporter): I’m not aligned with Putin. I’m not aligned with anybody. I’m aligned with the United States of America. And for the good of the world. I’m aligned with the world. And I want to get this thing over with. You see the hatred he’s got for Putin. It’s very tough for me to make a deal with that kind of hate. He’s got tremendous hatred. And I understand that. But I can tell you the other side isn’t exactly in love with him either.
So it’s not a question of alignment. I’m aligned with the world. I want to get the thing set. I’m aligned with Europe. I want to see if we can get this thing done. You want me to be tough? I can be tougher than any human being you’ve ever seen. I’d be so tough. But you’re never going to get a deal that way. So that’s the way it goes.
Vice President JD Vance: I will respond to this. 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. That’s what President Trump is doing.
Zelensky: Yeah. OK. He occupied it, our parts. Big parts of Ukraine. Part of east and Crimea. So he occupied it on 2014. So during a lot of years, I’m not speaking about just Biden. But those times was Obama, then President Obama, then President Trump, then President Biden, now the President Trump. And God bless: Now President Trump will stop him. But during 2014, nobody stopped him. He just occupied and took. He killed people.