US President Donald Trump said Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky “overplayed his hand” Friday during their extraordinary Oval Office clash, accusing his visitor of wanting to drag out conflict with Russia.
“I want a ceasefire now,” Trump told reporters while departing the White House for his Florida estate, saying he wanted fighting in Ukraine to end “immediately.”
The US president accused Zelensky of “looking for something that I’m not looking for.”
“He’s looking to go on and fight, fight, fight.”
Trump added that Russian President Vladimir Putin — whom he said Friday he had “spoken (to) on numerous occasions” — also “wants to end it.”
The Oval Office face-off came after Trump said Ukraine will have to make “compromises” in a truce with Russia, which has occupied swaths of Ukraine, destroying cities and towns along the way.
Zelensky responded, referring to Putin, that there should be “no compromises with a killer on our territory.”
The session soon devolved into Trump and Vice President JD Vance loudly berating Zelensky in front of US and international media outlets, with Vance calling the Ukrainian “disrespectful.”
