That Oval Office Meeting—The Other 40 Minutes
The public breakdown of Trump’s meeting with Zelenskyy deserved the attention it got, but let’s not forget the rest of their encounter
By Sam Kazman
If you watched it being live-streamed, the Feb. 28 meeting between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office was incredibly dramatic—a discussion between these two larger-than-life figures, aimed at setting the stage for a momentous agreement, unexpectedly spiraled into a heated failure. As a result, there was no pre-signing lunch and there was no deal; instead, Zelenskyy was abruptly shown the door and flew back to Europe much sooner than expected.
Even if you didn’t watch the meeting in real time, the video clips that repeatedly aired on the news were gripping. Trump ended the meeting by predicting that it would make for great television. That pronouncement would turn out to be something rare for Trump—an understatement.
In the wake of this diplomatic collapse, there were countless explanations for what had gone wrong. The agreement they were to sign was supposed to give the U.S. valuable mineral rights in Ukraine. According to many Republicans, Zelenskyy was wrong to push for security guarantees, something that was far beyond the meeting’s agenda, and he was disrespectful and ungrateful. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) argued that Zelenskyy either needs to show “gratitude, or someone else needs to lead the country to do that.” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) claimed Zelenskyy “had been disrespectful, and I don’t know if we can ever do business with Zelenskyy again.”
But others thought Zelenskyy had been treated unfairly; here was the leader of a beleaguered country, speaking in what was for him a foreign tongue, outnumbered by Trump’s high-level entourage. And this all took place against the backdrop of Trump’s breathtakingly false statement, just weeks before, that Ukraine had started the war with Russia. Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) compared Trump’s behavior to that of a “two-bit mob boss.”
Practically all of this controversy involved the last nine minutes of what was a 49-minute meeting. But the rest of the meeting had some pretty noteworthy moments of its own.
Video of the full meeting, accompanied by a rough transcript, can be viewed on C-SPAN’s website. In some cases the transcript and video don’t exactly match; when that happens for a quotation I use, I rely on the video. Quotations are followed by approximate time markers for when they start.
‘Thank You So Much, Mr. President’
At the opening of the meeting, Zelenskyy expressly thanks Trump three times and tells him that “really you helped us”: at 3:00, 4:39 and 7:32. Normally, statements like these are insignificant. But one of the main charges that Vice President J.D. Vance (seated near Trump) made when the meeting became heated was that Zelenskyy was ungrateful to the U.S: “Have you said thank you once in this entire meeting? Have you said thank you?” (44:11)
But Zelenskyy had said exactly that—several times, in fact—when the meeting first started. Why didn’t his expressions of gratitude register with Vance? Were they phrased incorrectly or not spoken loudly enough? Or was Vance simply so angry that he resorted to a sharp but incorrect accusation?
Putin’s Agony
When Trump started taking questions from reporters in the room, he was asked when he last saw Vladimir Putin: “A couple of days ago. … My whole life is deals. I’ve known him for a long time. I have dealt with him for a long time. He had to suffer through the Russia hoax—Russia, Russia, Russia. It was a hoax. It was all Biden. It was nothing to do with him. He had to suffer through that.” (33:53)
This came up again at the end of the meeting as well, when Trump angrily explained why Russia could be trusted with a new ceasefire agreement despite having broken them in the past: “They broke it with Biden because they didn’t respect him. They did not respect Obama. They respect me. Putin went through a hell of a lot with me. He went through your phony witch hunt. They used him and Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia. That was a phony Hunter Biden, Joe Biden scam. … He had to go through that. He did go through that.” (47:32)
Trump may well have suffered during that episode, but I wonder whether Putin actually suffered. Regardless, Trump’s repeated concern for the supposedly hurt feelings of this modern-day tyrant is strange, to put it mildly. Perhaps Trump thinks that portraying the two of them as brothers-in-arms is a good negotiating tactic: “You want me to say really terrible things about Putin and then say ‘Hi, Vladimir, how are we doing on the deal?’” (39:03) Or perhaps Trump really does feel for him—in which case we may have a problem.
I Won’t Talk about Odessa
At another point, Trump was asked whether he’d be willing to visit Ukraine, especially Kyiv or Odessa. Trump responded: “I don’t want to talk about Odessa. Let’s not talk about Odessa. I want to talk about making a deal, getting peace. We don’t have to talk about Odessa.” (32:49)
But why was Odessa off-limits? The city’s location as a warm-water port and its long history make it strategically and culturally important to both Ukraine and Russia. It has suffered repeated Russian missile attacks, including one just a month before the meeting. Did Trump decide that mentioning it would add to Putin’s suffering?
I Won the Election Big Time
Early in the meeting, Trump brought up the importance of his election for averting a third world war: “This was headed in the wrong direction. If this election were lost, if we didn’t win this election, we won it by a lot; it was a mandate. We won every swing state, we won the popular vote by millions and millions of votes, we won everything. The districts, you look at the areas of red, take a look at a map. This was a big mandate.” (18:04)
Yes, the size of Trump’s victory was notable. This is something Trump has stated on countless occasions in nearly identical terms, as in his Joint Address to Congress in early March. But it’s a strange statement to make, in such repetitious detail, at an Oval Office meeting with a foreign leader who didn’t need to be impressed with how many states Trump carried. It’s as if a button labeled “election” was pushed in Trump’s brain and a pre-recorded message went on.
I’ve Stopped Many Wars
A few minutes later, Trump brought up his accomplishments as a peacemaker: “I’ve stopped wars; I’ve stopped many wars. People will tell you I’ve stopped wars nobody ever heard of. I stopped wars before they ever started. … I could give you a lot of nations that would tell you right now they were probably going to war. I could tell you right now there is a nation thinking about going to war on something nobody in this room has ever heard about. Two smaller nations but still big. And I think I stopped it.” (30:22)
This is an intriguing assertion. Trump gives no specifics, nor does he excuse that omission by claiming it’s classified information. To the contrary, he says that he, other people and other nations could all corroborate it. But as far as I can tell, no one has yet offered a single supporting detail. Trump may have reduced tensions in certain parts of the world for some periods of time, such as when he visited North Korea in 2019. But that’s a far cry from having stopped a war, and North Korea became as belligerent as ever soon after.
Roughly 10 minutes later, the meeting started to quickly blow up. Perhaps this stemmed from Zelenskyy’s attempts to lecture Trump or his occasional crossed-arm body language; perhaps it was caused by Vance’s aggressive interruptions (almost as if he wanted to goad Trump into anger) coupled with Trump’s own thin skin. Perhaps some of those in attendance were hoping for exactly this sort of outcome. Whatever the case, Trump was on the mark when he said, at the very end of the meeting: “This is going to be great television.” (49:13)
Whether it will be great history, on the other hand, is still an open question.
Sam Kazman is former general counsel of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free-market public interest organization in Washington, D.C.