CNN's Kaitlan Collins was in the Oval Office for this meeting.
Kaitlan, it's hard to imagine a scenario in which this could have gone worse. This seems to be a dream come true for Vladimir Putin.
Well, it's not an overstatement for sure to say that it is one of the most astonishing moments that we have ever seen happen inside the Oval Office, between these world leaders essentially shouting at one another by the end of this, devolving into it points Trump and Vance berating Zelensky for saying that he was not being grateful enough for the aid that the United States has provided to Ukraine, and Zelensky arguing back that they do not understand Putin, essentially, that he will violate any agreement if the proper guarantees aren't in place.
That seemed to particularly incense Trump, as he was saying, don't tell us what we're going to feel. Zelensky has been arguing that Putin will not stop with Ukraine, that he will go on to other Eastern European nations, including Poland, as he made the argument there. And Trump was essentially pushing back on that and telling Zelensky that he had no cards and that he needed to make a deal.
And at one point, I think the most striking line from that, that could foreshadow what the rest of these talks are going to look like, what this press conference could look like, if we still see these world leaders come out where they were supposed to sign that deal, is the president said to Zelensky, you either make a deal or we are out.
Now, that comes after 40 minutes before this exchange happened, where the president was talking about how he wasn't ready to make security guarantees yet, he said the United States would still send some weaponry to Ukraine. Questions going back and forth about how a deal would hold, how a minerals deal would be carried out. All of that was essentially wiped away by those last ten minutes that were so incredibly heated.
They are in the Oval Office and essentially ended with Vance saying that this is not something that should be litigated in front of the press, but many press who were inside that room, Trump saying that he thought it was actually good that it was playing out. And I asked Trump as we were leaving, can the two of you still negotiate, given what we just watched, that left everyone else in the room silent? He told me, quote, we'll see.
But just to give you a sense of how much things broke down, look at this picture of the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States. She has been the ambassador to the U.S., I should note, since 2021, since before Russia invaded Ukraine. She had her head in her hands at one point when I looked around the room and was just looking at all of the officials here. Secretary of State Rubio, Treasury Secretary Bessent, the Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, the Commerce Secretary. They were all in the room. And the Ukrainian officials as well.
Watching this play out and raising real questions about what the two leaders here are going to be able to get done behind the scenes. This is the photo of the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States, as they were just shouting at one another between the three of them, and an incredibly remarkable moment.
Trump doesn't seem to think that the sting of Putin is going to reach the United States. He rejected the idea, emotionally rejected the idea that Zelensky was presenting, that there will be effects here in the United States, that it will be felt here. What did you think of that?
This started innocently enough, the same way the French and the British leaders came and pushed back gently on Trump. Zelensky had started giving a history lesson about how Putin first seized Crimea in 2014. Trump corrected and said 2015, he's like no, 2014, and then explained how they had signed two different peace deals with Putin, Minsk one and Minsk two, that Germany and France also signed to guarantee. And what he was trying to do was show Trump, you know, we have tried to do diplomacy before and it hasn't worked.
He was being very genteel and patient as he explained it, and it was Vance who took offense and started interjecting. And then it was Vance who warmed up to his subject, who then also interjected the, you're, I haven't heard you say thank you once. It was almost like he was bawling out one of his young kids and he warmed to his subject. And once it became that tone, Trump took that tone on and jumped into the attacks.
And I don't know how you get from that back to, look, you can't trust Putin. And here's why. I just, I can only imagine what it was like once they all went into a conference room and had to look at each other across the table.
Yeah. And what did you think as you were watching this, Jeff?
I mean, it's pretty shocking, but what I think really stands out to me is that this administration grossly overestimates its ability to bring about a deal. Completely agree with the point that you can't trust deals made with Russian President Putin. I take it a step further than that and say, as long as Russian troops are advancing in the east and he believes he's winning, you're not going to get a meaningful deal. By meaningful, I mean like some kind of lasting peace. So I don't even think they're going to get to the point where he violated the upper hand.
So why would he proceed in that regard, you mean?
Yes. None of his strategic objectives about changing the government in Ukraine and really controlling the strategic direction of Ukraine? None of that has changed. As long as he thinks he can do that by what he's doing right now, he's going to keep doing that. And the rest of the negotiations with him, that's just smoke and mirrors.
And my impression is that basically Trump's national security team, people like Mike Waltz, national security adviser, secretary of state, Marco Rubio, they're very traditionalist. They're anti-Russia. But like past Trump administration officials, they sold Trump on this deal through the lens of business, through the lens of making investments for U.S. companies possible, leveling the playing field with China because China has 70% of the rare earth minerals. And this would give the U.S. a jump on some of that.
But the whole idea was this was something to build on, sign this loose agreement, then that goodwill would make Zelensky look like the good guy who made Trump look good. And we would build on that from there. And now this all just got blown up, and you could see a lot of the messages that he had absorbed, that Trump had absorbed from his conversations with Putin just coming out the world. I don't know how you talk down from this.
What about just that glimmer of hope that Nick Paton Walsh alluded to, the idea that Donald Trump, as a negotiator, would respect someone that would hold a hard line against him, that Zelensky going in there and standing his ground? Even at one point, as cameras were being escorted out, smiling and giving a thumbs up for the cameras, sort of as if to show that he's not intimidated by the situation, that his country isn't on the line. Would that work to his advantage? Do you see that as a possibility?
I don't, and I think that I understand that, you know, Trump likes to be up against somebody that he respects. But what you're seeing is a real shift in U.S. foreign policy. We're stepping back for a moment where he respects Putin. He respects Xi Jinping and China, and those are the people he wants to deal with. Anybody else is just not an equal, right? And so, in some ways, the foreign policy that's emerging is actually very similar to Chinese and Russian foreign policy.
And that in the world you have a couple centers of gravity where the real power is, we'll work things out amongst us. And like all the rest of the country, it's just need to fall in line. I won't mess with your area. You don't mess with my area and we'll just sort ourselves out. And Zelensky doesn't rise to that level in Trump's eyes.
Meanwhile, watch his popularity ratings back home. They're going to soar. They're at 65, they're going to be higher. And European nations who were thinking about, oh, we got to go it alone after watching that spectacle. They're going to be like, okay, it's us and Ukraine. We cannot count on this White House.
Let's talk a little bit more about that with CNN chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour. Let's talk, Christiane, about how European leaders are going to view this moment.
