White House controversy: Vance says Trump wanted public conversation with Zelenskyy
Pravda Ukraine
US Vice President JD Vance has stated that US President Donald Trump felt little respect from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, which is why he insisted that their conversation on 28 February take place not in private, but in front of cameras.
Source: The Hill; interview with Vance by Sean Hannity on Fox News
Quote from Vance: “For the first 25 or 30 minutes, [Trump] tried to bend over backwards to be gracious and kind to Zelenskyy, even when Zelenskyy was kind of needling him…[and] saying things that I thought were untrue.”
Details: Vance added that the meeting “really went off the rails” during one of his own responses, which, as he said, “really set Zelenskyy off”.
“What I tried to do originally was try to defuse the situation a little bit. We are having this meeting, there are 100 television cameras here. As we kept on going back and forth, I tried again to say, ‘Well, maybe we should have this conversation in private’. And the president was like, ‘Nope, actually, I don’t want to have it in private anymore. I want to have this actual conversation in public for the American people to see.’ And I do think that there was just a certain sense of – there was a lack of respect, there was a certain sense of entitlement,” Vance said.
Details: The Hill noted that this interview, recorded earlier on Monday, 3 March, aired shortly after the news emerged that Trump had ordered a suspension of US aid to Ukraine in its war against Russia.
Background:
- On 28 February, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his US counterpart Donald Trump, as well as US Vice President JD Vance, argued in the White House in front of television cameras and in raised voices about the war in Ukraine.
- Before that, Trump stated during the meeting with Zelenskyy that he is “for both Ukraine and Russia”.
- Trump said that the Ukrainian president had “disrespected” the United States and that Zelenskyy was “not ready for peace”.
- Zelenskyy left the White House ahead of schedule.
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