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Trump Orders Zelenskyy Out Of White House After Oval Office Clash; Russian Officials Celebrate After Trump Kicks Zelenskyy Out Of White House; Vatican: Pope Francis Put On Breathing Machine. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired February 28, 2025 - 15:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[15:30:00]

REP. MIKE QUIGLEY (D-IL), CONGRESSIONAL UKRAINE CAUCUS: We are at risk and ultimately the United States is too. The final thing, he should be thanking Zelenskyy because Zelenskyy's been fighting the fight for democracy and again all the reasons we fought the Second World War and instead he wants gratitude after he's had this vote in the United Nations.

He's extorted them now for the second time. I think President Zelenskyy's been very grateful. I'm not sure why he needs to be grateful to a president who's been nothing but betray our trust to democracy in Eastern Europe.

KEILAR: Congressman Mike Quigley, thank you for being with us.

QUIGLEY: Thank you.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Ahead, we are going to Moscow with reaction from Russia. Stay with CNN. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: We're following more breaking news. After this meeting between President Trump and President Zelenskyy of Ukraine, Russia State Media are ceasing on the breakdown in talks between the two leaders after their heated encounter in the Oval Office. The headline from one outlet reads, quote, Zelenskyy's hysteria in the White House shocks the Wada -- referring to the Ukrainian Parliament.

Here is one of those tense moments between Trump and Zelenskyy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The problem is I've empowered you to be a tough guy. And I don't think you'd be a tough guy without the United States. And your people are very brave, but you're either going to make a deal or we're out.

And if we're out, you'll fight it out. I don't think it's going to be pretty, but you'll fight it out. But you don't have the cards. But once we signed that deal, you're in a much better position, but you're not acting at all thankful. And that's not a nice thing. I'll be honest. That's not a nice thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Joining us now is a member of Ukraine's parliament, Kira Rudik. She is the leader of the Golos party. Kira, what is your reaction to this meeting? What does this mean for Ukraine?

KIRA RUDIK, UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENT MEMBER: Hello Boris and Brianna. Thank you so much for having me. Well, indeed, today is a very unfortunate day.

And the positions of President Zelenskyy and President Trump cannot be moved closer to each other because President Zelenskyy is representing the country that is at war. And it seems that President Trump still does not believe that the war is real and is killing people every single day. And President Zelenskyy is representing people who are fighting every single day.

And he wants to end the war more than anyone else, as all of us, because it's us being killed every day and every night. What we didn't hear in all those back and forth, again, are what the actual security guarantees that Ukraine is getting if we are signing the deal. We did not hear that.

We only heard that President Trump trusts Putin and that Putin will be afraid. There is one thing that we need to take as a fact. We did not see any single actual thing that would support this belief that Putin wants peace.

The attacks on Kyiv and other cities of Ukraine did not stop one day. And the battles at the front line continue. Russia has started the war.

They can end the war if they pull their troops and simply stop killing us every single day and return children that they kidnapped and return our prisoners of war. That doesn't happen. And we did not hear, not from President Trump, not from his team, of how the security guarantees would be working.

And this is the most important. I regret that the situation got very emotional. But we did not capitulate in 2022 when we were absolutely alone and nobody was behind us.

And we will not capitulate right now when we have been fighting for so long and we have so many European allies and so many people of America supporting us and standing behind us.

SANCHEZ: Kyra, what is your reaction to hearing Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and even others within the administration saying that Zelenskyy would have to fundamentally change his point of view or potentially step down?

RUDIK: With all due respect, in Ukraine, we elect our own presidents and we are known to start revolutions if we think that they are not acting at our best interest. So it's not up to Russian president or American president or American officials to tell Ukrainian people who should be our president.

KEILAR: So tell us, tell us, because this is news that came, I think, sort of after dinner for a lot of Ukrainians. But we understand that they're very much aware of it. It's not this isn't happening in the middle of the night.

And this is something that you all have been talking about amongst yourselves. Tell us what that has been like as people have been lighting up the phones, texting each other. What's it been like?

RUDIK: I will tell you what it's been like for the last two weeks. When I was constantly as a politician, as a member of parliament, as a representative of other people, was receiving calls from the front line.

[15:40:00]

When people were asking, people who are fighting at the front line were asking, why would the president of the United States say that we started the war? That President Zelenskyy is a dictator and many other things. And I was telling them it was a negotiation technique.

Right now, people are messaging each other saying that we will not be humiliated and that we deserve to know what we are signing for when there is a deal on the table that will require us on giving up what belongs to our children and children for our children, that we will be ready to do, but we didn't see anything workable.

You see, what we are discussing right now is that President Trump seems to be under the illusion that Putin wants peace, but we haven't seen that. And we can tell again our president that some certain things could have been done differently. We will tell him it on our side.

But on a personal level, I just really hoped that when he was in the Oval Office and standing up to President Trump that he knew and felt that his country is behind him and his people are behind him.

SANCHEZ: Kira Rudik, thank you so much for sharing your perspective. We appreciate you joining us.

RUDIK: Thank you and glory to Ukraine.

SANCHEZ: Stay with CNN. We'll be right back.

[15:45:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: We are getting new reaction from Russia after President Trump essentially kicked Ukraine's president out of the White House following this volatile meeting between the two leaders in the Oval Office. KEILAR: That's right. CNN's Matthew Chance following reaction now from Moscow. So, Matthew, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham saying he thinks Moscow is, quote, more afraid than ever following this fiery meeting. How are you gauging things?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think they probably were looking at this, this, this spectacle unfolding in the Oval Office and sort of like thinking, you know, what, what, what is this? You know, what kind of negotiating partner do we have? Because privately, and I've spoken to Russian officials and ordinary Russians about what they thought when they when they saw this.

And, you know, they're all universally saying they were gob smacked. They've never seen national leaders of this sort of caliber speak to each other in this way. And there was something sort of unseemly about it and shocking in the words of one of the people that I spoke to.

So that's the the reaction sort of privately. But publicly, of course, Russian officials have been much more supportive of the White House, you know, playing along with this idea that President Zelenskyy of Ukraine was very disrespectful. We've got a couple of, you know, kind of tweets and quotes from Russian media that we can give you now.

The Russian senior senator, Andrey Klishas, said that Zelenskyy getting kicked out of the White House was a brilliant result. The Kyiv clown -- he called Zelenskyy -- played his role of president poorly in the White House and was thrown out for bad behavior and disrespect towards the United States.

There's been a statement as well from Maria Zakharova, who's the spokeswoman for the Russian foreign ministry. And basically, she talked about how Trump and Vance restrained themselves and didn't hit that, you know, how they didn't hit this scandal is a miracle of self- control. She posted on social media.

And then there's the deputy speaker of the upper house of the Russian parliament. His name is Konstantin Kosachev.

And he said this: Today in the Oval Office. Zelenskyy continued to lie about Ukraine's strength, about gratitude to America and about readiness for peace.

And so all of these very much reflecting the complaints, the grievances that the White House has said that it was so upset about as well.

There's been one other sort of comment from a Russian official, Kirill Dmitriev, is the one of the negotiators in the U.S.-Russian talks and a key Kremlin envoy. He just called this spectacle historic. And that's certainly true, because, you know, rightly or wrongly, for better or worse, rather, history will certainly judge the events that unfolded in the Oval Office today.

SANCHEZ: Matthew Chance, live for us in Moscow. Thank you so much.

As we track breaking news in the United States, we're also following breaking news out of the Vatican, a setback for Pope Francis, the pontiff being put on a breathing machine. We have an update on his condition and a live report in just moments.

[15:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Breaking news out of Rome. Pope Francis' health taking a turn for the worse after the 88-year-old had a sudden breathing problem. The Vatican says that the Pope was put on a breathing machine after he aspirated vomit.

SANCHEZ: Yes, the Pope, as you may know, has been battling pneumonia in the hospital for more than two weeks. CNN Vatican correspondent Christopher Lamb is in Rome with the update. Obviously, this is a major setback -- Christopher.

CHRISTOPHER LAMB, CNN VATICAN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Boris and Brianna. It's a setback given that in recent days we were told of improvement in the Pope's condition. But today the Vatican explained the Pope had a bronchospasm, which is a tightening of the bronchi.

He then had a vomiting episode, which led to an inhalation, which caused further breathing difficulties. He's on a breathing machine, not an invasive one, but it's still an intensification of the oxygen that he's needing to receive. Concerning development for Francis, given that he has pneumonia in both lungs, he's 88-years-old, he has a history of respiratory difficulties.

And so this update tonight causing concern and worry in the Vatican. Behind me, you can see people who've just left a prayer service for the Pope in St. Peter's Square. People gathering each night to pray for the pontiff.

Seems that the numbers were up tonight following this news. And clearly a lot of concern for Francis. We're going to be getting a further update from the Vatican on Saturday.

KEILAR: All right, Christopher, we will be looking for more information tomorrow as folks there holding vigil, saying prayers. They're obviously hoping for a recovery of the pontiff. Christopher Lamb, thank you so much.

[15:55:00]

And it has been a day of breaking news here in Washington as well. An extraordinary day that we have been watching, right? As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy came after these other visits by the U.K. president, the prime minister of France, the president of France, I should say.

And they were here to kind of grease the rails for this visit at the end of the week, to sign a minerals deal, to have a press conference. And instead, that part got canceled. He gets kicked out of the White House. SANCHEZ: Yes, and it all hinged on these differing views of Vladimir Putin. Zelenskyy at the early onset of the meeting described Putin as a terrorist. Donald Trump responded by saying that having that view of Putin would make it very difficult to make any kind of peace deal.

And it just unfolded from there with Vice President J.D. Vance calling Zelenskyy's remarks disrespectful when Zelenskyy was talking about diplomacy, not working with someone like Vladimir Putin. And now, as a result of this meeting, the future of Ukraine itself, the future of Europe, and the future of the world order established in large part by the United States after World War II is in question. A historic afternoon, no doubt.

Thank you so much for joining us. "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper begins after a short break.