DISCLAIMER: This article was first published in February 2025
It was a meeting likely to be remembered as one of the most significant of the second Trump Administration: President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance hosted Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of war-torn Ukraine, at the White House. It soon became clear that the meeting was an ambush, with the president and vice president bashing their Ukrainian counterpart as ungrateful. MAGA fans received this positively and less so by almost everyone else.
Kaitlan Collins, who is also the network’s chief White House correspondent and a CNN host, was present for the confrontation. On X, she shared what happened following this extraordinary meeting.
Collins reported that the American and Ukrainian delegations retreated to separate rooms after the meeting broke up. After Trump huddled with Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and others, they determined that Zelensky was “not in a place to negotiate.” Then it was decided that the Ukrainian delegation would be ejected from the White House altogether, without signing the minerals agreement that was the supposed purpose of the meeting. The food they were to eat remained “on carts in a nearby hallway.”
Here’s what happened inside the White House after the Oval Office shouting match:
Trump huddled with his key advisers immediately afterward inside the Oval.
According to a White House official, Trump consulted Vance, Rubio, Bessent, etc. That was when Trump decided that…
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) February 28, 2025
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“The Ukrainians were holding nearby in a separate room. (That’s standard for foreign leader visits.) Typically they reconvene for lunch. But the Ukrainians would not be dining at the White House. As the prepared food sat nearby on carts in a hallway, the Ukrainians were instructed to leave.”
Fox News subsequently reported that White House press staffers were invited to eat the lunch to be served to the Ukrainians.
NEW: The White House is having press staffers eat President Zelensky’s lunch after he was kicked out of the Oval Office, according to Fox News.
“Zelensky, we’re told, was begging to stay…”
“The lunch that they were supposed to have is sitting right outside the hallway, and… pic.twitter.com/5I8Lc8sKBi
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) February 28, 2025
While still in Washington, Zelensky remains scheduled to sit for an interview on Friday night with Fox News’s Bret Baier, with the Fox host confirming on X that the sitdown is still on.
Photo courtesy of the Political Tribune media library.
