Washington: The first time he spoke to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President Donald Trump tried to pressure Ukraine’s new leader to dig up dirt on Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 election. It was a 2019 phone call that eventually sparked an impeachment.
On Friday, a meeting in the Oval Office that started out with cordialities turned heated at the end, with Vice President JD Vance telling Zelenskyy to show more gratitude toward Trump before the president himself began shouting.
“You’re gambling with the lives of millions of people,” Trump berated Zelenskyy.”You’re gambling with World War III.”
With that, Trump scrapped plans to sign an agreement that would have allowed the U.S. to access Ukraine’s rare earth minerals, a deal the U.S. president had said would have helped move the war toward a conclusion. The blowup cast new doubt on the future of U.S. support for Kyiv in fending off Russia’s invasion.
A look at the evolution of Trump and Zelenskyy’s relationship over the years:
‘Perfect’ phone call
In July 2019, Zelenskyy was anxious for a meeting with Trump at the White House, one of the Ukrainian leader’s top foreign policy priorities at the time.
During a 30-minute call, Trump dangled the possibility of a face-to-face meeting. But he also suggested that future U.S. military support for Ukraine might be contingent on its leader helping investigate business dealings there by Hunter Biden, the former vice president’s son.
The elder Biden was competing for the Democratic presidential nomination, and Trump seemed to want to weaken him 15 months out from Election Day.
Trump denied wrongdoing and began referring to his exchange with Zelenskyy as a “perfect” phone call. Even Zelenskyy later insisted that he faced “no blackmail.”
But Trump was impeached by the Democratic-controlled House in December 2019 on abuse of power and obstruction of justice charges, only the third American commander in chief to be in that situation. He was acquitted by the Senate.
Russia’s war in Ukraine
Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, triggering the biggest conflict on the European continent since World War II.
Since then, the U.S. has provided more than $65 billion in military assistance to Ukraine. The Biden administration made steadfast military and political support for Zelenskyy’s country a centerpiece of his foreign policy.
As the war raged, the Biden White House staunchly defended continuing to provide support to Ukraine, even as some Republicans began grumbling about so much funding for a war that had no end in sight.
In a speech to Congress in December 2022, Zelenskyy thanked “every American” for supporting his country.
“Your money is not charity,” he said then. “It’s an investment in the global security and democracy that we handle most responsibly.”
Trump, then campaigning for his second term, said repeatedly that Russia would never have invaded Ukraine if he’d been president and that he’d have no trouble solving the conflict.
Upon taking office, he upended years of U.S. policy by dispatching negotiators to Saudi Arabia to meet with officials from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government and also began hammering out the minerals deal that he and Zelenskyy had planned to sign Friday.
Trump meets with Zelenskyy ahead of Election Day 2024
Last September, Zelenskyy accompanied Biden to a Pennsylvania ammunition factory to thank the workers producing some of the most critically needed munitions for his country’s fight with Russian ground forces.
A few days later, he traveled to Trump Tower in Manhattan and discussed ending the war. In comments to Fox News Channel afterward, Trump said of the fighting, “It should stop and the president wants it to stop,” meaning Zelenskyy.
“And I’m sure President Putin wants it to stop and that’s a good combination,” Trump added. Zelenskyy invited Trump to visit Ukraine, to which Trump responded, “I will.”
That trip came up again Friday, when Vance told Zelenskyy, “You went to Pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition.”
Zelenskyy’s September trip was not billed as political, though, and Trump’s election opponent was Vice President Kamala Harris, not Biden. Still, Pennsylvania is a battleground state and some congressional Republicans at the time accused Democrats of using Zelenskyy’s visit to bolster Harris politically.
