Following Trump's lead, his allies lash out at Ukraine's Zelenskyy and
suggest he may need to resign
[March 03, 2025]
By JONATHAN J. COOPER
PHOENIX (AP) — President Donald Trump's senior aides and allies lashed
out at Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy from Washington as he
attended a European summit Sunday in London to rally international
support for his military's fight against the Russian invasion.
Following Trump's lead, White House officials and Republicans in
Congress used news show appearances to demand that Zelenskyy display
more gratitude for U.S. support and an openness to potential war-ending
concessions to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Some suggested
Zelenskyy should consider resigning even as Ukrainians rally around him.
But they offered little clarity as to what Zelenskyy and Ukraine could
do after Friday's Oval Office meeting in which Trump and Vice President
JD Vance berated him before canceling the signature of an economic
agreement between Washington and Kyiv. The dispute leaves the future of
that relationship in question, as well as the prospects for ending a
conflict that began when the Kremlin invaded in February 2022.
White House national security adviser Mike Waltz, who while in Congress
went to Ukraine during the first year of the war to meet Zelenskyy and
once compared him to wartime British Prime Minister Winston Churchill,
said Zelenskyy's behavior at the White House was “incredibly
disrespectful.”
Asked about that Churchill-Zelenskyy comparison, Waltz noted that
Churchill was voted out of office in the final months of World War II.
Churchill “was a man for a moment, but he did not then transition
England into the next phase,” Waltz said. “And it’s unclear whether
President Zelenskyy, particularly after what we saw Friday, is ready to
transition to Ukraine to an end to this war and to negotiate and have to
compromise.”
Waltz said a negotiated end to the war would involve territorial
concessions from Ukraine as well as “Russian concessions on security
guarantees," but he did not offer any more details about what Moscow
would have to do.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., echoed the suggestion that Zelenskyy
may need to step aside.
“Either he needs to come to his senses and come back to the table in
gratitude, or someone else needs to lead the country to do that,”
Johnson said. "I mean, it’s up to the Ukrainians to figure that out. But
I can tell you that we are reexerting peace through strength.”
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Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy departs after a meeting with
President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington, Friday,
Feb. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Trump's director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, said the
contentious meeting has led to “a huge rift in the relationship” and
she took issue with Zelenskyy telling Fox News afterward that he did
not think he did anything wrong.
“There’s going to have to be a rebuilding of any kind of interest in
good faith negotiations, I think, before President Trump is going to
be willing to reengage on this,” she said.
The coordinated campaign of pressure from Washington played out as
Zelenskyy and European leaders came to terms with Trump's overhaul
of U.S. foreign policy. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the
United Kingdom would use 1.6 billion pounds ($2 billion) in export
financing to supply 5,000 air defense missiles for Ukraine.
Support for Zelenskyy among congressional Republicans has been scant
after the Oval Office meeting. But Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, one
of the few GOP lawmakers willing to break with Trump publicly,
criticized the Republican president's stance toward the Ukrainians.
“I know foreign policy is not for the faint of heart, but right now,
I am sick to my stomach as the administration appears to be walking
away from our allies and embracing Putin, a threat to democracy and
U.S. values around the world," Murkowski wrote on X on Saturday.
Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said it was inappropriate for senators
to call for Zelenskyy to leave office and predicted that such a move
would “spiral Ukraine into chaos right now.”
Others were more vocal in support of Zelenskyy.
Millions of Americans “are embarrassed, are ashamed," said Sen.
Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
“Our job is to defend the 250-year tradition that we have of being
the democratic leader of the world, not turn our backs on a
struggling country that is trying to do the right thing,” Sanders
said.
Waltz appeared on CNN's “State of the Union,'' Johnson, Sanders and
Lankford were on NBC's ”Meet the Press," and Gabbard spoke on “Fox
News Sunday”
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