Former Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) blasted President Trump for his “shameful display” throughout Friday’s assembly with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the White Home, claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin “must be overjoyed” with its end result.
“It would’ve been a show of strength for the President of the United States to bring the elected leader of Ukraine to the Oval Office and engage with him in a dignified way,” Pelosi stated in a Friday publish on X. “However you’d by no means know that after President Trump’s shameful show. Putin should be overjoyed with at this time’s theatrics.
“Following the U.S. vote in alignment with Russia at the United Nations this week, a disturbing pattern has emerged that is contrary to America’s longstanding support of democracy around the world,” Pelosi, a vocal Trump critic, stated on Friday, referencing the U.S. vote towards a U.N. decision to sentence Russia because the aggressor within the battle with Ukraine.
The Friday assembly between Trump and Zelensky was initially cordial, but it surely derailed rapidly. The president and Vice President Vance accused the war-time chief of being ungrateful for the help the U.S. has supplied to Ukraine and stated that he lacked substantial leverage in negotiations for a peace settlement.
Zelensky questioned Vance’s declare that an settlement could possibly be struck with Putin to finish the three-year battle in Japanese Europe.
Ukraine’s president then pointed to Putin’s refusal to trade prisoners, steady assault on Ukrainian territories and going again on earlier ceasefires.
“I think it’s disrespectful for you to come to the Oval Office to try to litigate this in front of the American media,” Vance informed Zelensky. “Right now, you guys are going around and forcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems, you should be thanking the president for trying to bring an end to his conflict.”
Kyiv’s chief then warned that the U.S. didn’t really feel the devastation of the battle in Japanese Europe due to the gap however stated that may change sooner or later, a response that ignited a powerful rebuttal from the U.S. president.
“Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel because you’re in no position… to dictate what we’re going to feel,” Trump stated on Friday. “We’re going to feel very good and very strong. You’re right now, not in a very good position.”
Trump then acknowledged that Ukraine doesn’t have “the cards right now. With us, you start having cards,” including that the war-time president is “gambling with the lives of millions of people, you’re gambling with World War III… and what you’re doing is very disrespectful to the country, this country, that’s backed you far more than a lot of people said they should have.”
Following the assembly, Trump stated that Zelensky was not able to strike a peace deal.
“It’s amazing what comes out through emotion, and I have determined that President Zelenskyy is not ready for Peace if America is involved, because he feels our involvement gives him a big advantage in negotiations,” Trump wrote Friday on Reality Social after the assembly. “I don’t want advantage, I want PEACE. He disrespected the United States of America in its cherished Oval Office. He can come back when he is ready for Peace.”
Zelensky, who departed the White Home after the contentious huddle, thanked Trump for the assembly on the White Home and reiterated that Ukraine “needs just and lasting peace, and we are working exactly for that.”
