President Donald Trump ripped Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday evening following the disastrous meeting that unfolded in the Oval Office earlier in the day.
“And we had a meeting today, as you know, with President Zelensky, and I would say it didn’t work out exactly great,” Trump said on the White House lawn before boarding Marine One. “From his standpoint, he very much overplayed his hand. We’re looking for peace.”
Trump said that he felt like Zelensky was trying to sign the United States up to get more involved in the war and that he would feel “emboldened” to keep fighting if that happened.
“I’m looking for peace,” he said. “We’re not looking to go into a 10-year war and play games. We want peace. And it was just my impression that if we do that, if we sign up, he’s looking for something that I’m not looking for. He’s looking to go on and fight, fight, fight. We’re looking to end the death. Two thousand died this week, soldiers, more than that, but 2,000 approximately people died this week, young Ukrainians and Russians.”
Trump repeatedly said that Zelensky was dealing with a “weak set of cards” and so he was not in a position to be making demands.
“I just want to get a deal done, and if the deal happens, good, but you can’t embolden somebody that does not have the cards, and all of a sudden that person says, ‘Oh, well, now I can keep fighting,'” Trump added. “We’re not going to keep fighting. We’re going to get the war done, or let them go and see what happens. Let them fight it out.”
The president said that his top goal was to stop the death that was unfolding from the war as hundreds of thousands are being killed.
He said that in order for Zelensky to be able to come back to the White House, he must want peace and not try to drag the United States further into the conflict.
“He says he wants to come back right now, but I can’t do that,” Trump said. “They should have an immediate ceasefire. That was the other thing he didn’t want to do, a ceasefire. A ceasefire could take place immediately. A contract, if you want to end the war, you sign up an agreement, that’s going to take a period of time. It takes time. I want it to end immediately. And I think if you had a ceasefire, it would be a ceasefire, a real one that would end it. But if he doesn’t want to do that, that’s fine.”
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