schema:text
| - Zelenskyy said, "You think that if you will speak very loudly about the war [between Ukraine and Russia], you can ..." before Trump cut him off. We do not know what Zelenskyy was planning to say in the rest of his sentence before he was interrupted.
After Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was publicly berated by U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance in a February 2025 Oval Office meeting, snippets of their interaction were shared widely on social media.
A number of posts claimed
We looked closely at the footage as well as transcripts of their meeting, which was televised. At no point did Zelenskyy make the above statement.
We compared transcripts from PBS, The Associated Press, and The New York Times and found no examples of Zelenskyy saying the above phrase in any recording online. However, Zelenskyy did make an incomplete remark that sounded like the above phrase.
A video of the complete meeting can be seen here. At the 44:32 mark, Vance began to sternly criticize Zelenskyy by asking him to offer "words of appreciation" to the U.S., to which Zelenskyy said, "You think that if you will speak very loudly about the war, you can [...]." Trump then interrupted him.
We have reproduced a transcript of the moment below:
VANCE: Offer some words of appreciation for the United States of America and the president who's trying to save your country.
ZELENSKYY: Please. You think that if you will speak very loudly about the war, you can…
TRUMP: He's not speaking loudly. He's not speaking loudly. Your country is in big trouble.
ZELENSKYY: Can I answer —
TRUMP: No, no. You've done a lot of talking. Your country is in big trouble.
ZELENSKYY: I know. I know.
While Zelenskyy did note the volume with which Vance talked to him, he did not complete the thought. Thus, the claim that he made an argument about logic is not true.
Soon after the meeting, Trump suspended military aid to Ukraine even as Zelenskyy said he would come to the negotiating table in his country's war with Russia. During his address to Congress on March 4, 2025, Trump said, "Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer. Nobody wants peace more than the Ukrainians."
|