P.M. Edition for Feb. 28. What started as a polite meeting between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky grew contentious and ended abruptly. WSJ national security correspondent Michael R. Gordon tells us what that means for both countries. Plus, Trump is expected to sign an executive order making English the official language of the U.S. We hear from WSJ White House reporter Meridith McGraw about what this means on a practical level. And reporter Drew FitzGerald discusses how venture-backed companies see an opening for contracts with the Pentagon. Finally, a new generation of instant coffee passes the snob test. Alex Ossola hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What happened at the Trump-Zelensky meeting?
A meeting between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky turns contentious.
You're gambling with the lives of millions of people. You're gambling with World War III. You're gambling with World War III. And what you're doing is very disrespectful to the country, this country.
Plus, English is expected to become the official language of the U.S. And how the new focus for the Defense Department may be creating an opening for military tech startups. It's Friday, February 28th. I'm Alex Sosola for The Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today.
Chapter 2: Why did the Trump-Zelensky meeting turn contentious?
A meeting between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was cut short today after the two leaders got into a combative exchange. The session occurred shortly after Zelensky arrived at the White House, and Trump brought reporters into the Oval Office for what is typically a brief greeting.
But after a half hour of generally polite discussion, the tone of the session grew contentious.
Your country is in big trouble. I know. You're not winning. You're not winning this. You have a damn good chance of coming out okay because of us.
Mr. President, we are staying in our country, staying strong from the very beginning of the war. We've been alone, and we are thankful. I said thanks in this cabinet. You haven't been alone. We gave you, through this stupid president, $350 billion. You voted for your president.
We gave you military equipment. And you men are brave, but they had to use our military. If you didn't have our military equipment, if you didn't have our military equipment, this war would have been over in two weeks.
In three days. I heard it from Putin. In three days. This is something new. Maybe less. In two weeks. Of course, yes.
It's going to be a very hard thing to do business like this. I tell you this.
Shortly after the exchange, the visit ended without the scheduled press conference or the signing of a mineral rights deal. I'm joined now by WSJ national security correspondent Michael Gordon. Michael, let's talk about what we just heard. Where does that leave us?
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Chapter 3: What are the implications of the Trump-Zelensky fallout for Ukraine?
Well, the significance of what happened today in the Oval Office is really quite striking. Throughout my decades of covering various negotiations with the Russians, I've A big lesson is that it's vital that the West be unified and pushing back on Russian aggression and pushing back on Russia's demands and negotiations.
And what we saw in the Oval Office was a conspicuous display of disunity, not only between Ukraine and the Trump administration, but really implicitly Ukraine's European backers in the Trump administration.
What happened this week was there was a concerted effort by the Europeans to try to pull President Trump away from Russian positions and talking points that he seemingly appeared to embrace a week or two ago and persuade him to support a plan in which there would be a peacekeeping force to secure any kind of settlement in Ukraine. President Macron was here on Monday.
The British Prime Minister, Starmer, was here on Thursday. Last weekend, the Polish president was here. And what was supposed to have happened, according to the script, is Zelensky would come in. Reset relations with the Trump administration, which had been a big test. Make his appeal for security guarantees and sign an agreement on the sharing of proceeds from Ukraine's minerals.
And this would solidify the West's position vis-a-vis the Russians. And what we saw was a diplomatic debacle.
Where does this leave Ukraine?
Well, it's a fast-moving situation. Just an hour or two after Zelensky was essentially kicked out of the White House, he's written a somewhat conciliatory tweet, and it's still possible some of the distrust between the two sides might be partially repaired. But it leaves a lot of things in flux. Is the United States going to continue Providing military support to Ukraine.
How are they going to approach negotiations with the Russians if there's such disarray between the Ukrainian and American positions? What about the European plan to have what they call a reassurance force? All of that is now up in the air.
And the Trump administration has shown a penchant to adjust its position rather quickly based on its sense of transactional diplomacy, what kind of deals can be cut, what kind of economic benefits can be obtained. I mean, threats are made on tariffs, threats are withdrawn on tariffs. Zelensky's evicted from the White House. Perhaps there'll be a future meeting.
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Chapter 4: How might the U.S. language policy change under Trump?
At a basic level, there are two types of companies that are seeking to do business with the Pentagon. And one is the old guard of large defense contractors. They're often called the primes that are the biggest and do business directly with the Department of Defense. And they sell very advanced weapons systems, airplanes, everything that you might see in the U.S. military.
And the second group is loosely linked medley of startups. and larger companies like Anduril, Palantir, and SpaceX that all have their roots in venture capital financing. And that crop of defense tech companies really sees a big opportunity now with all the upheaval happening at the Pentagon and with their newfound influence within the Trump administration.
What drives the shift in the Pentagon's focus that provides openings to these companies?
Some of the bigger companies that are looking to get into defense tech are already in that business, seeing opportunity because of the ties that they have had to the Trump campaign and now have within the Trump administration. And at the same time, there's been huge upheaval and purges happening within the upper ranks of the DOD.
And Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a memo just this month that told the department to look for areas where different programs could look for cost savings of up to 8% over five years. to more efficiently use the Pentagon's resources. And some things are areas that newer defense tech companies are looking to grow their business in, like pilotless airplanes.
How easy is it for these new companies to eventually win those contracts with the Department of Defense?
The old guard of defense contractors has had a long-standing relationship with a lot of the people making the decisions at the Department of Defense. And they also have a track record that they can lean on. So they can rest on that reputation when they're bidding for new contracts. One of the toughest parts of
Any business that's looking to sell to the military is this so-called valley of death between when a newer technology company develops a prototype and the system or the program actually goes into production and starts becoming a real thing. A lot of startups fail before they get past that point.
But if you look at a company like SpaceX, despite its relatively younger heritage, they've had no problem selling a lot of different tools and services to the U.S. military already.
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