Zelenskiy Smiles as Entire EU Summit Laughs at Trump

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy knows how to get the European Union laughing—at Donald Trump.

EU leaders met in Brussels for the conclusion of the European Council summit Friday, where they closed ranks around Ukraine in its ongoing war with Vladimir Putin’s Russia. During one press conference, Zelenskiy was asked if he felt Trump was making him a “scapegoat” before America’s November midterm elections.

“President Trump is facing pretty difficult midterm elections. His personal popularity is very low, diesel prices in the U.S. are very high, and the war that he started in the Middle East is not going the way he wants it,” the Sky News reporter asked. “Do you think you are being treated as a scapegoat for his own problems?”

Zelenskiy took a long pause, glanced at the papers on his podium, and then looked up, smiling. The whole room laughed.

“This is my answer,” Zelenskiy said.

It is painfully obvious to anyone paying attention that Zelenskiy is being scapegoated for Trump’s disastrous second-term record. Only two days ago, SpaceX throttled Ukraine’s access to the Starlink satellite internet network with no warning. On Friday, The Telegraph reported that Elon Musk went to the White House to specifically discuss the cuts ahead of time. “The reality is that they were both in it,” one source said of Musk’s and Trump’s plan.

Trump has also recently ramped up his public criticism of Zelenskiy and Ukraine, specifically for continuing to attack Russian oil refineries after the U.S. lifted sanctions on Russian oil in a misguided attempt to bring down diesel prices before the midterms.

Judging by the laughter in Brussels, however, Trump is not fooling most of our allies. Ukraine is no more responsible for high gas prices in the U.S. than the empty seats at the president’s rallies or the blue momentum building in deep-red states. Look in the mirror, grandpa.

Katie Zacharia’s tenure as White House press secretary only lasted five days before President Trump fired her Friday, breaking the record for shortest duration in the role.

Anthony Scaramucci, who only served for 11 days as White House communications director, had a charitable take on the firing, posting on X, “Records are made to be broken. But I take no pleasure in other people’s pain,” in response to a post about Zacharia’s dismissal.

Unlike Scaramucci, who was fired for criticizing multiple Trump administration officials in a New Yorker interview, Zacharia was fired for a disastrous first press briefing, misrepresenting her credentials as a lawyer when she hasn’t passed a bar exam, and bombing an interview with pro-Trump pundit Sean Hannity on Fox News. White House staff were even trading scathing insults of her over text messages.

Scaramucci lasted long enough to get hilariously parodied on SNL by Bill Hader in 2017, but it remains to be seen whether Zacharia will have Scarlett Johansson playing her as she had hoped. She still faces a bar complaint in the state of California that could become criminal charges, and the media is dissecting her husband Tyler’s work history for a North Korean firm. Trump’s political career has been known for train wrecks, but Zacharia might be the biggest one of all.

Katie Zacharia has been fired as White House press secretary after less than one week on the job, The New York Times reported Friday, citing three anonymous sources. She hosted one 14-minute press briefing, took 3 questions, and will go down in history as the press secretary with the shortest tenure to date.

Fox News also reported that Zacharia would be “transitioning out” of the job, though it’s unclear what exactly that means.

Zacharia has faced intense media scrutiny and blowback this week regarding her bogus legal credentials, train-wreck first press briefing, and a disastrous appearance on Fox News’s Hannity where she tried to defend calling herself a “lawyer” but not an “attorney.”

The news of her exit comes shortly after President Donald Trump told reporters that the media was treating Zacharia “nastily” but admitted he had suggested she “reconsider” the position.

“I said, ‘Katie, you don’t have do this if you don’t wanna.’ She said, ‘This is a lot tougher.’ I said, ‘Welcome to the world of Trump.’”

“Katie, do you need this? I don’t think you need this,” the president said he told her.

“I said to her, honestly if I were you, I’d reconsider. You think about it, but I would reconsider.”

CNN White House reporter Kaitlan Collins reported that Trump was “embarrassed by the coverage of Zacharia’s briefing and when he polled other aides about her, Zacharia had few allies willing to stand up for her or defend her performance.”

“The main reason he rushed to select her after growing irritated with how long the process was taking to replace Karoline Leavitt was because he wanted more people defending him on TV,” Collins added. “When she failed to do so in a sufficient way with Sean Hannity, Trump said he knew she needed to go.”

Zacharia has spent much of her five days as press secretary attempting to justify calling herself a “lawyer,” despite never having passed the bar exam. She may face investigation in the state of California for purportedly calling herself a “lawyer” without a license after a bar complaint was filed Wednesday.

“Records are made to be broken. But I take no pleasure in other people’s pain,” ex–Trump communications director Antony Scaramucci wrote on X following Zacharia’s termination. Scaramucci stood behind the White House briefing room podium in Trump’s first term for a then-record 11 days, from July 21 to July 31, 2017. Zacharia lasted about 0.4 percent of that time.

Before the news of her firing, reporters asked the president if Zacharia would remain in his administration. “In some form, but maybe a more pleasant form,” he said.

“I just want her to be happy,” he added.

This story has been updated.

Canadians may be extremely divided, but there is one thing they can all agree on: They don’t like Donald Trump.

Ahead of a referendum vote that could potentially put Alberta on the path toward independence, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney urged province residents at a rally in Calgary Thursday night to remain united in the face of pressure from foreign actors.

“The world has become more dangerous and divided,” Carney said. “Some outside our borders are working to break us so they can own us.”

Carney’s biggest moment of the night was when he spoke about fast-tracking the Pacific Link pipeline, formerly the West Coast Pipeline, connecting oil-rich Alberta to British Columbia.

The prime minister promised that the pipeline would reduce Canada’s dependence on the United States—and the crowd exploded into cheers.

“Careful, they might think that’s election interference. A little touchy,” Carney joked, as the audience laughed and cheered. “We’re not. We’re getting on with it. We are getting on with it.”

It was a major jab—one that is sure to get under Trump’s skin. As it stands, his rallies are more likely to devolve into fistfights than standing ovations.

Since Trump launched his trade war against America’s closest neighbor—leveling tariffs of up to 50 percent on hundreds of goods—relations have been icy, and keep getting icier. The White House has issued a torrent of threats, including promises to use “economic force” to annex Canada, and hints at other more direct methods, such as forced annexation. But Carney has already begun looking to expand the country’s trade partnerships in Europe.

Republican Representative Andy Harris is defending his threat to have a student journalist arrested following a disastrous debate earlier this week. 

Baltimore TV station Fox 45 asked the Maryland congressman about how he flipped out at Capital News Service reporter Cat Murphy, a student at the University of Maryland, for filming him answering questions from reporters, even though other reporters were filming him too. Harris doubled down on the way he treated Murphy.

“Look the bottom line is, it’s not very newsworthy that the liberal media badgers a conservative politician. What was newsworthy is that I actually pushed back against it,” Harris said to Fox’s Mikenzie Frost. “She actually started by criticizing the way that press gaggle was being conducted. That’s not the role of a journalist, and what I did in the end is just say, ‘Look, this is all done’ and just left.” 

Frost pointed out that Harris left out some details about threatening to have Murphy arrested over a false interpretation of Maryland’s two-party consent law on recordings. 

“Oh, there is clearly a need for two-party consent, but it would have applied to everyone. That’s why, in the end, I just left everyone and their cameras and left the room,” Harris replied. When Frost asked if Harris thought he owed Murphy an apology, he said if she called him, he’d tell her that her failure to ask for his permission was what bothered him.  

“She criticized the way I was conducting the news conference. She’s a journalism student, I think she should realize that’s not really your purpose, that’s not your purpose to attempt to run a press conference,” Harris said, adding that “she was telling me how to do my job” and continuing to blame the liberal media for “badgering a conservative politician.” 

It’s pretty clear that Harris, who has been in office since 2011, is out of touch with his constituents and his state’s own recording laws. The press gaggle around him was a public event with multiple journalists recording it, which means the two-party consent law doesn’t apply. Threatening to have any journalist arrested, let alone a college student, is a sign that he doesn’t respect the right to a free press and can’t handle any pushback. It’s obvious why Harris hasn’t held an in-person town hall since 2023.