Ned Price

Even after a day of engagement with the Europeans yesterday at the White House, President Trump hasn't moved off that Russian position.

He continues to advocate for it to this very hour.

Look, there's been a lot of fawning coverage of what happened at the White House yesterday.

And if you grade on a curve, if you grade on the Trump curve, yes, it was a good meeting in the sense that President Zelensky was welcomed back to the White House.

President Trump said nice things to him.

He said nice things back to President Trump.

President Zelensky wasn't thrown out on the street after 45 minutes.

In fact, he was there for several hours.

Several other European leaders were there.

They fawned over President Trump.

So in that sense, again, the imagery was good.

It was certainly, when it comes to Ukraine, far better than what happened at the end of February.

And if that's what we have to choose from, either February or yesterday, I'll take yesterday.

I'll take yesterday any day.

But when you, just as you said, take a step back and think about the facts.

President Trump went into the meeting yesterday, coming off his meeting with President Putin in Alaska on Friday, embracing President Putin's proposal for a so-called peace agreement, rejecting the idea that the war, that the shooting needs to stop first in the form of a ceasefire, something that Europe and Ukraine have been unanimous and consistent in saying.

And then at the end of the day, backing off what he had said previously, that there would be this trilateral between Zelensky, Putin and himself, that where at least President Zelensky would have some backup when it comes to meeting with the nuclear armed neighbor that is Putin.

in the process of invading him and killing his citizens.

And by the end of the day, even that was off the table.

And it was sort of over to you, Volodymyr, to work with Putin, the guy who is every single day killing your citizens, to arrange this meeting.