Trump Set to Take His Anti-Zelenskiy Tantrum One Step Further

Donald Trump is scheduled to speak with several Cabinet members Monday regarding Ukraine policy and the possibility of ending military assistance to the beleaguered Eastern European nation.

That could include withholding equipment, such as ammunition and radars, as well as limiting the amount of intelligence shared with the Ukrainian military, according to a U.S. official who spoke with The Washington Post.

The meeting will involve Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, and special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, the last of whom met with Russian officials last month regarding a potential peace deal.

During a White House press conference earlier Monday, Trump repeatedly ducked reporters’ questions as to whether his administration’s actions had aligned U.S. policy with Moscow. Rather than saying “no,” Trump went on a breathy rant claiming that the war never would have happened if he was in office at the onset of the conflict.

“I wanna see it end fast. I don’t want to see this go on for years and years. Now, President Zelenskiy supposedly made a statement today in AP—I’m not a big fan of AP, so maybe it was an incorrect statement—but he said he thinks the war is gonna go on for a long time, uh, and he better not be right about that, that’s all I’m saying,” Trump said.

Russian forces crossed the Ukrainian border on February 24, 2022, which Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to justify by falsely claiming that he needed to protect civilians in eastern Ukraine. The U.S. and Russia opened discussions at a meeting in Saudi Arabia last month, seeking a conclusion to the three-year war, but the assembly conspicuously excluded Ukrainian leadership.

When asked whether he had discussed the ending of military aid to Ukraine, however, Trump said that “things” were happening “as we speak.”

“I haven’t even talked about that right now,” Trump told reporters. “I mean, right now, we’ll see what happens. A lot of things are happening right now, literally as we speak.”

On Friday, Trump and JD Vance overtly showed where their loyalties lie: Seated in front of the press in the White House, the pair refused to let Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy speak, allowed a conservative reporter to mock Zelenskiy’s wartime attire, and effectively leveraged the critical meeting for measly political gain by defending Putin at the cost of denigrating former American officials. And in doing so, they challenged America’s strongest alliances while ceding the world stage to its adversaries.

Donald Trump buffered while trying desperately to talk around a direct question Monday about aligning U.S. foreign policy with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s designs for Ukraine. 

During a press conference, Trump was asked whether he was “considering canceling military aid to Ukraine” after his disastrous meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy Friday. 

Trump and Vice President JD Vance put on an outrageous display berating the wartime president for failing to prostrate before them as they demanded he pay the U.S. back for aid, imploding negotiations with Ukraine to the delight of the Kremlin.  

The president was also asked to respond to concerns that he was moving the “U.S. worldview in alignment with Moscow.”

In response, Trump rattled off a list of everything that “would have never happened” if he’d won the presidential election four years ago. 

Trump’s nonanswer, which veered further and further off-topic, included the October 7 massacre, “Israel,” inflation, the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, and China possessing the Bagram Air Base (the Taliban has denied that China controls the former U.S. base). Finally, he circled back to Ukraine—but only to complain, not to actually answer the question. 

“I wanna see it end fast. I don’t want to see this go on for years and years. Now, President Zelenskiy supposedly made a statement today in AP—I’m not a big fan of AP, so maybe it was an incorrect statement—but he said he thinks the war is gonna go on for a long time, uh and he better not be right about that, that’s all I’m saying,” Trump said.

Zelenskiy was quoted Monday saying that peace with Russia “is still very, very far away,” following his talk with the U.S. president. Trump called the quote “the worst statement that could have been made,” in a post on Truth Social.

Trump was also asked whether Americans should be disturbed that Kremlin officials said his foreign policy was “largely in line” with Russia’s vision.

“Well, I’ll tell you what, I think it takes two to tango,” Trump replied. “And you’re gonna have to make a deal with Russia, and you’re gonna have to make a deal with Ukraine. You’re gonna have to have the, uhhhh, assent and you’re gonna have to have the consent from the European nations, ’cause I think that’s important—and from us. I think everybody has to get into a room, so to speak, and we have to make a deal. And the deal could be made very fast. It should not be that hard a deal to make. It could be made very fast.” 

Trump previously claimed that he could resolve the war within 24 hours of entering the White House. 

Then the president pivoted to continue whining about Zelenskiy: “Now maybe somebody doesn’t want to make a deal, and if somebody doesn’t want to make a deal, I think that person won’t be around very long. That person will not be listened to very long. Because I believe that Russia wants to make a deal. I believe certainly the people of Ukraine want to make a deal—they’ve suffered more than anybody else. We talk about suffering, they suffered.”

“But if you think about it, under President Bush they got Georgia, right? Russia got Georgia. Under President Obama they got a nice big submarine base, a nice big chunk of land where they have their submarines. You know that, right? Crimea,” Trump said, inhaling heavily. 

It’s worth remembering that Trump had been a cheerleader for Putin following Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014, claiming that Crimeans “would rather be with Russia.” 

“Under President Trump they got nothing. And under President O’Biden they tried to get the whole thing,” Trump said, garbling his predecessor’s name. “They tried to get the whole big, uh, big Ukraine. The whole thing. If I didn’t get in here, they would have gotten the whole thing.”

Trump’s support for the foreign dictator emboldened Russia, and his lack of support for Zelenskiy weakened the country, making way for Russia to launch its ground offensive in 2022.

With Trump in office, Russia wouldn’t walk away empty-handed. 

The White House instructed the State and Treasury departments Monday to draft a plan lifting U.S. sanctions on Russian individuals and entities, including oligarchs, who Trump recently claimed “are very nice people.” It wasn’t immediately clear what the U.S. would receive in return for sanctions relief. And earlier this month, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth suggested that Kyiv should abandon hopes of restoring its illegally seized territory from Russia.

A leading spokesperson in the Department of Health and Human Services announced his resignation Monday after stark disagreements with Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over how to manage the growing measles outbreak.

Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Thomas Corry resigned effective immediately on Friday only two weeks after starting the job, he posted on LinkedIn, wishing his colleagues in the department “the best and great success.” Corry reportedly butted heads with Kennedy and Kennedy’s principal deputy chief of staff, Stefanie Spear, over how to manage the department, according to Politico.

Specifically, Corry was not happy with Kennedy’s initial response to Texas’s growing measles outbreak, which has infected at least 146 people and caused the first measles death in the United States in 10 years. Last week, Kennedy said during a Cabinet meeting that measles outbreaks were not unusual, despite the fact that measles had been declared eliminated in 2000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Since then, Kennedy said that HHS was helping health officials in Texas respond to the outbreak and spoke approvingly of the measles vaccine, but has still stopped short of calling for everyone to get vaccinated, writing Sunday in a Fox News op-ed that “the decision to vaccinate is a personal one.”

“Parents play a pivotal role in safeguarding their children’s health,” he wrote. “All parents should consult with their healthcare providers to understand their options to get the [measles, mumps, and rubella] vaccine.

Corry is a Trump administration veteran, having served during the president’s first term as senior adviser and communications director at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, so his resignation so soon into Trump’s second term is sure to arouse suspicion. Kennedy has long had a reputation for being anti-vaccine, although he tried to deny his previous comments during his confirmation hearings.

Since his confirmation to lead HHS, Kennedy’s actions have not been reassuring. He has paused multiple vaccine developments in the department and on his first day fired critical employees, including members of the CDC who respond to outbreaks. Only a couple of years after a global Covid-19 pandemic, Kennedy is applying the wrong lessons and is not proving himself to be up to managing the country’s public health.

In a move to further castigate the Ukrainian president, Trump reportedly wants Volodymyr Zelenskiy to formally apologize for his behavior before any rare earths deal goes forward.

“I have been told by a senior official here that nothing’s gonna happen with this minerals deal until Zelenskiy goes in front of cameras and makes an explicit public apology for the way that he behaved himself in the Oval Office,” said Fox’s Peter Doocy on Monday.

This is more fallout from the disastrous meeting that Zelenskiy, Trump, and Vice President JD Vance had on Friday, in which the president and his sidekick berated the weary Zelenskiy to his face, chiding the Ukrainian president for not respecting them enough and not appearing gracious enough while he deals with Russia’s unprompted assault—which Trump also blames him for. Trump later kicked him out.

Trump has been particularly obsessed with these minerals in the past weeks, making a deal a prerequisite for any further aid to Ukraine. Now it’s looking like the U.S. will waltz in and seize control—with the Kremlin’s help.

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is once again reorganizing its wall of hunting trophies from supposedly slain government contracts. This time, it has quietly removed five of its seven largest kills from last week, erasing $4 billion in supposed savings.

The New York Times reported Monday that the night before, DOGE erased or altered 1,000 claimed savings, or roughly 40 percent of entries into its “wall of receipts,” which has previously proven to be exaggerated or fraudulent. That appears to have been the case with the contracts that were removed Sunday.

The removals included the site’s biggest trophy, a canceled contract with Centennial Technologies for technical support for the IRS, which was supposedly worth $1.9 billion. Although DOGE had bragged about the “incredible job” the U.S. Treasury had done in identifying the waste, the Times reported earlier last month that the contract had actually been canceled in November, during the Biden administration. On Sunday, it disappeared from the wall.

Another vanished entry claimed $133 million in savings from canceling a contract between USAID and development firm Chemonics International in Libya, but a LinkedIn post revealed that the contract had ended last year.

In some cases, it seems that DOGE didn’t even earn its biggest hunting trophies. Other entries were removed due to obvious accounting mistakes that appeared to be the product of human error.

One claimed $149 million in savings from a canceled contract to provide administrative support to the Department of Health and Human Services. But DOGE’s website linked to the wrong contract, which didn’t list the correct company, purpose, or value.

Even after the latest round of deletions, errors still persisted on the site. DOGE still claimed that it had saved $106 million by canceling two contracts for administrative support to the U.S. Coast Guard—but in reality, those contracts were completed during the Bush administration.

This isn’t the first time that this has happened. DOGE’s website, which was once meant to showcase the organization’s major victories, has turned into a hall of humiliation, subject to constant reorganization and worthy of extreme doubt. The latest massive deletion has yet to be acknowledged by DOGE.

Just last week, DOGE deleted the top five highest savings from its website, after various news outlets documented the multiple errors in its accounting, including a $232 million cut to the Social Security Administration that was actually only $560,000, an $8 billion cut at Immigration and Customs Enforcement that was worth about $8 million, and three supposedly $655 million cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development that amounted to only $18 million.

Despite the rescission of some of the group’s largest cuts, the website now boasts to have saved $105 billion, as a “combination of asset sales, contract/lease cancellations and renegotiations, fraud and improper payment deletion, grant cancellations, interest savings, programmatic changes, regulatory savings, and workforce reductions.”