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Trump Holds Meeting With Zelenskyy in the Oval Office; Trump Doesn't Rule Out Sending U.S. Troops to Ukraine for Security; I Don't Think You Need a Ceasefire in Ukraine Says President Trump; Zelenskyy Says Rearming Ukraine and Strengthening Its Military Will Be Part of Security Guarantees; Trump Says He Will Telephone Putin Right After Meeting With Zelenskyy. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired August 18, 2025 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: So let me just say, three-and-a-half years from now, so you mean if we happen to be in a war with somebody, no more elections, so I wonder what the fake news would say.

(CROSSTALK)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: No.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Speaking of news, I got a question for you. This sounds insane for me even to ask this, but do you think the American media really doesn't even want a peace deal because I've seen they've been so critical of you every step of the way as you lead the charge for peace?

TRUMP: It's an amazing -- it's an amazing phenomenon. I said that if in the settlement you got Moscow, say St. Petersburg and thousands of miles around them, they would say, I made a bad deal. The level of hatred and animosity is incredible. Not with all. I mean, we have great people up here. We also have terrible people up there that I think are told what to say. But, in solving all of these wars, they don't even write about it. I solved major wars. I've solved wars that have been going on for 31, 35 and 37, and a couple quicker ones, one that was going to go into a full blown deal very quickly. You know what the one I'm talking about, it was a big one. But, they don't even write about that. No matter what I do, no matter what -- and this is not anything to do with you. It's probably to your advantage in a certain way.

But no matter what I do, no matter what deal I make from my standpoint, you'll come out good, maybe President Putin will come out good, but they'll say Trump was absolutely horrible. It's just it, and I've lived with that for a long time. I've lived with it since just before the first election. I used to get great publicity. Now, I get the worst publicity anyone's ever gotten in office. But I won in a landslide, so that people understand. They're the only ones that count ultimately. But I've also had great reporters. I've had journalists that are very good. But, it's very sad when you do the right thing, as an example, they said because of the fact that Vladimir Putin came to American soil, this was a tremendous defeat for Donald Trump.

No, it was really wonderful that he did it. It was a hard thing for him to do, to be honest with you. It was the opposite of what they said, what they said it. Now, if he didn't come, they'd say that was also bad for Trump. You know, there's no way -- and there's just a great dishonesty of the press. And I think that's why it's lost its credibility. It's credibility is at an all time low. We have a thing going on right now in D.C., we went from the most unsafe place anywhere to a place that now people, friends are calling me up, Democrats are calling me up and they're saying, sir, I want to thank you. My wife and I went out to dinner last night for the first time in four years, and Washington, D.C. is safe. And you did that in four days.

I'll tell you, it's safe. I had another friend of mine, he has a son who's a great golfer. He's on tour, and he came in fourth yesterday in the big tournament where Scottie Scheffler made the great shot. And he said his son is going to dinner in Washington, D.C. tonight. I said, would you have allowed that to happen a year ago? He said no way. No way. He said what you've done is incredible. And I think the people realize it, but the press says he's a dictator. He's trying to take over. No, all I want is security for our people. But people that haven't gone out to dinner in Washington, D.C. in two years are going out to dinner. And the restaurants, the last two days, were busier than they've been in a long time. Thank you for (inaudible).

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I walked around yesterday with MTG, if you could walk around in D.C. with MTG and not be attacked, the city is safe.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Mr. President. Last week, you warned of what you called severe consequences if a 30-day ceasefire or any type of ceasefire were not agreed to by Russia. Will there be severe consequences? Does that change because you (inaudible).

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: I don't think you'd need a ceasefire. If you look at the six deals that I settled this year, they were all at war. I didn't do any ceasefires. And I know that it might be good to have, but I can also understand strategically why, well, one country or the other wouldn't want it. You have a ceasefire and they rebuild and rebuild and rebuild, and maybe they don't want that. But if you look at the six deals that we made peace and long-term, long running wars, I didn't do any ceasefires. Would I like -- I like the concept. I like the concept of a ceasefire for one reason because you'd stop killing people immediately as opposed to in two weeks or one week or whatever it takes. But we can work a deal where we're working on a peace deal while they're fighting. They have to fight. I wish they could stop. I'd like them to stop. But strategically, that could be a disadvantage for one side or the other. But all of these deals I made without even the mention of the words, ceasefire.

(CROSSTALK)

[13:35:00]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible) Can you explain your decision to offer Ukraine Article V like security guarantees, but stop short of pushing for their full membership?

TRUMP: Yeah, well, we haven't done anything on that yet. If you look back and you go back long before President Putin, it was always a statement that they would never allow Ukraine into NATO. So that was a statement that was made, but we haven't discussed any of that yet. We're going to be discussing it today. But we will give them very good protection, very good security. That's part of it. And the people that are waiting for us, they are -- I think they're very like-minded. They want to -- they want to help out all.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, President Trump.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you disappointed there's no ceasefire, Mr. President?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The United States has already given hundreds of billions of dollars to this war effort in Ukraine.

TRUMP: Biden.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At best, it is a stalemate and the killing continues. So President Trump, how much more is the United States willing to give Ukraine? And President Zelenskyy, how much more do you want?

TRUMP: Well, I'll start off just by saying we're not giving anything now. We're selling weapons. This is something before, I guess the number is well over $300 billion. That was under Joe Biden, a corrupt politician, not a smart man, never was. By the way, go back 40 years, he was not a smart man 40 years ago either. But now, he's in particular bad. This was done by a corrupt administration that shouldn't have been in and of the -- and frankly, if the right results of the election were given, if I were president, this war would've never taken place. And he would've been very happy because he would've liked to have seen -- I mean, they went through hell. He went through hell.

This war would've never happened. And the people that were killed, a couple of million people, a lot of people with soldiers and everything else, and the people that have been displaced and forced into other areas and other countries because of what's happened, none of that would've happened. And I'm just saying that he was a horrible president whether it was the borders or this, he was just a horrible, corrupt president.

(CROSSTALK)

ZELENSKYY: Thanks so much. So first of all, we have possibility now to buy weapon from the United States. We're thankful for this program and this opportunity. We're thankful for Europe. They paid for this and through a NATO program, for example, and et cetera. We have some programs where we can have some money to finance this. And this is a part, I think, it's not a part for the war and to defend us. It also will be a part for security guarantees, to strengthen our army, to re- arm Ukrainian army. This is very, very important.

And it depends how much money we need to re-arm. For example, the question of air defense, we spoke about it with President Trump, and I'm happy that we have now bilateral decisions and we work on it with production, American production. Nobody in Europe has so many air defense like PATRIOTs, for example. We need it very much. And this is also about defending.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: I think the good news, we make the best military equipment in the world by far. You mentioned the PATRIOTs. How good are they?

ZELENSKYY: Yeah, systems air defense.

TRUMP: We have systems. They're literally a hundred percent foolproof. And it's really like shooting two bullets, two bullets hitting each other in the air in a space like this. A chance of hundred percent, it's 99 to a hundred percent. So we sell the equipment to NATO, and NATO does what? I don't know what the arrangement is that you have with -- but I know that they want you to have the equipment and we're getting the best equipment in the world, but they pay us for the equipment.

Under Biden, it was just crazy what was going on. I believe the number is over 300, I think it could be $350 billion worth of equipment and money and everything else. And we've made more progress in settling this war in the last two months than they made in four years. They should have been settled a long time ago, but it should have never happened. Yeah, please.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You pushed out on social media.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Was there any --

TRUMP: All right, Brian (ph), go ahead. Go first.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You pushed out on social media about doing away with mail-in ballots and potentially electronic voting machines. Can you expand on that? How important that is.

TRUMP: Well, that's a very off-topic. Just really quickly, mail-in ballots are corrupt. Mail-in ballots, you can never have a real democracy with mail-in ballots. And we as a Republican Party, are going to do everything possible that we get rid of mail-in ballots. We're going to start with an executive order that's being written right now by the best lawyers in the country to end mail-in ballots because they're corrupt and -- you know that we're the only country in the world, I believe, I may be wrong, but just about the only country in the world that uses it because of what's happened, massive fraud all over the place.

[13:40:00]

The other thing we want changed are the machines. For all of the money they spend, it's approximately 10 times more expensive than paper ballots and paper ballots are very sophisticated with the watermarked paper and everything else. We would get secure elections; we'd get much faster results. The machines, I mean, they say we're going to have the results in two weeks. With paper ballots, you have the results that night. Most people almost -- but most people, many countries use paper ballots. It's the most secure form. So between paper ballots, very, very important, paper ballots. And I think maybe even more important, the mail-in voting, we're going to end mail-in voting. It's a fraud.

If you have mail-in vote, even Jimmy Carter with his commission, they set it up. He said, the one thing about mail-in voting, you will never have an honest election of you have mail-in. And it's time that the Republicans get tough and stop it because the Democrats want it. It's the only way they can get elected. Because with men in women's sports, and with transgender for everybody, and open borders and all of the horrible thing, and now the new thing is they love crime. They're fighting me on the fact that I've made Washington, D.C. safe. We are not going to get mugged, beaten up or killed, like all the people you've been watching get so badly hurt.

I'm glad -- I hate to take your time with this, but I'm glad you asked me that question.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sorry.

TRUMP: We're going to stop mail-in ballots because it's corrupt. When you go to a voting booth and you do it the right way and you go to a state that runs it properly, you go in, they even asked me. They ask me for my license plate, for identifying. I said, I don't know if I have it. They said, sir, you have to have it. I was very impressed, actually. But it's very hard to cheat with mail-in voting. As you know, what happens in California, it's so corrupt where some people get five, six, seven ballots delivered to them, that we got to stop mail-in voting, and the Republicans have to lead the charge.

The Democrats want it because they have horrible policy. If you have mail-in voting, you're not going to have many Democrats get elected. That's bigger than anything having to do with redistricting, believe me. And the Republicans have to get smart. We're not going to have a country -- I said for a long time at rallies, you need borders and you need free and fair elections, those two things. Otherwise, you don't have -- we have strong borders now. In 90 days, Mr. President, we didn't have one -- zero, zero -- in three months, not one person came in illegally into our country. In fact, even I find that hard to believe, but it's run by a little bit of a liberal group that put out the numbers. So I guess it's -- but zero, zero and zero. You go back a year ago, two years ago, three, millions of people poured into our country. It was terrible. Thank you very much. (CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What security guarantees do you need from President Trump to be able to make a deal? Is it American troops, intelligence, equipment? What is it?

ZELENSKYY: Everything. Really, we -- it includes two parts, first, strong Ukrainian army. That's what I began to discuss with your colleagues, and it's a lot about weapon and then people and training missions and intelligence. And second, it'll -- we will discuss with our partners. It depends on the big countries, on the United States, on a lot of our friends.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And Mr. President, are you willing to commit American troops to that NATO-like protection in order to get President Zelenskyy to a deal today?

TRUMP: Well, I don't know if you define that way. But NATO-like, I mean, we are going to give -- we have people waiting in another room right now. They're all here from Europe, biggest people in Europe, and they want to give protection. They feel very strongly about it, and we'll help them out with that. I think it's very important. I think it's very important to get the deal done.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You've been involved with the peace peacekeeping in Ukraine since your first day of the administration. What would you say to the Ukrainian people right now who are suffering under the Russian attacks and hoping that the American people will stand with them?

TRUMP: Well, I know Ukrainian people. I've known many over the years. They're great people. They're smart, they're energetic. They love their country. I mean, they love their country and we want to get this war ended. That's all I can do. I love the Ukrainian people, but I love all people. I love the Russian people. I love them all. I want to get the war stopped, very important.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, was there any aspect of your discussion with Vladimir Putin that left you disappointed?

TRUMP: Look, we just spoke to, I was just telling the president, I just spoke to President Putin indirectly. And we're going to have a phone call right after these meetings today, and we may or may not have a trilat. If we don't have a trilat, then the fighting continues.

[13:45:00]

And if we do, we have a good chance. I think if we have a trilat, there's a good chance of maybe ending it. But, he's expecting my call when we're finished with this meeting. Thank you very much, everybody. (CROSSTALK)

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Thank you. Thanks, guys. Thank you, guys. Thank you, press. Let's go (inaudible).

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": That was a very interesting Oval Office meeting that we saw there. A little bit of the weave, a little bit of meandering on some topics that the president likes to go off-topic on. But largely, he was trying to stay pretty disciplined on the questions that he was being asked there, Boris, whether it was about -- he kept going back to we need to end the war. But he was actually asked at one point, who has the better cards? And even then he said, I don't want to say that. And we'll remember that last time during his meeting with Zelenskyy, he kept saying you don't have the cards. That was teed up for him, and he did not take a whack at that pinata (ph).

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": And notably, it was soon after that meeting where he actually called Vladimir Zelenskyy a dictator on social media. And this time, he agreed with Zelenskyy that having elections in Ukraine in the middle of a war would be untenable. The president was asked about the extent of U.S. support in the form of security guarantees, or even U.S. troops on the ground, President Trump saying that we are going to work with Ukraine and work with everybody. We're going to make sure this is a lasting peace, he said.

As you well know, Vladimir Putin is not one to keep agreements historically when it comes to Ukraine. So President Trump saying here, though unspecific that he is trying to ensure peace for the region, very different from what we saw earlier this year between President Trump and President Zelenskyy, and also between Zelenskyy and J.D. Vance, the Vice President. You noted to me that as the camera started rolling in the room, there appeared to be an exchange of chuckle between the Vice President and Zelenskyy.

KEILAR: They were laughing ahead of time. And just to note, before we of course go back to Ukraine, he did also talk about this D.C. crime, which we should note is down. But there of course has been this federal takeover of D.C. Police. He said, someone called him and said my wife and I went out for dinner last night for the first time in four years. I mean, quite frankly, when you look at the D.C. crime numbers, that is more indicative of a marital problem than a crime problem. And actually, reservations have sharply dipped since that takeover, we should just mention that.

SANCHEZ: The president was also asked about mail-in voting and a couple of other issues. But we'll focus on the big headline, which is, Kim, that President Trump said that as soon as these meetings wrap --

KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Yeah.

SANCHEZ: -- he's going to call Vladimir Putin and perhaps schedule trilateral meeting.

DOZIER: Yeah. The fact that he feels he's got to check in with Putin right away and that just as this meeting is taking place, we get news that Putin is saying, by the way, no NATO troops on the ground in Ukraine. That is unacceptable. Still feels like Trump needs Putin's approval in a way that's got to be very disturbing to Zelenskyy sitting there. But of course, Zelenskyy was a good actor. He's playing it cool. He's not biting on any of the questions he got. And hopefully, what's going to happen is they're going to go into this meeting with European officials and the Europeans are saying, we need to put these troops on the ground inside Ukraine, and it's not Vladimir Putin's business.

KEILAR: What did you think, Jeff?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: I was struck that the President Trump did not rule out the idea of sending U.S. troops as part of this security guarantee. That is significant. Also, President Trump saying it's never the end of the road in terms of U.S. involvement. There are many people in the president's orbit who would like him to, essentially, wash his hands and move on from this. So I thought that was significant.

But I think, thinking back to that February 28th meeting, that it didn't necessarily get off on the wrong foot, but it certainly ended that way. But President Zelenskyy was so intent on making sure this started right by presenting President Trump with a letter from the First Lady of Ukraine to First Lady Melania Trump. And he used that as a mechanism to point out and highlight, raise attention to a letter that Melania Trump wrote to President Putin that the President Trump had delivered, and she asked him for the children. She said, in today's world, some children are forced to carry a quiet laughter, a quiet defiance, as she said, they dream of love and possibility effectively end this war. So that's how President Zelenskyy was very intentional in getting this meeting off on the right foot, I think.

Now, they're in a closed-door session, one-on-one before they join European leaders here. We do not know where this is going from here. Still plenty of time for it to go off the rails, no doubt about it. But to your point earlier, Brianna, I think the president, the American president is very well aware that many European leaders, who he admires and he wants them to sort of see him in a presidential way, are watching this from just steps away in the White House complex.

[13:50:00]

KEILAR: That's a good point.

ZELENY: So that's where this meeting is going to head. But by saying it's not the end of the road and not ruling out U.S. troops, so significant.

SANCHEZ: Colonel, your thoughts?

COL CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.) CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yeah, I think, Jeff is exactly right. This is a major change, and so when you look at the political dynamic and all of the things that are related to putting U.S. troops potentially on the ground in a place like Ukraine, there was a lot of reluctance, not only in the Trump Administration to do something like this, but a lot of reluctance even in the Biden Administration to even consider something like that. So, we are seeing a -- you know, you almost want to call it the internationalization of Donald Trump happening right in front of our eyes here. And when you see that, it really shows that there is a potential for him to reclaim a leading role, at least in Europe and perhaps in the world.

And perhaps there's been a -- I almost want to call it, a change of heart in how to approach foreign policy and whether or not to use the military in a certain way. I mean, there have been arguments, for example, of whether or not to impose an no-fly zone over Ukraine. That could be disadvantageous to Ukraine because they use drones to go after the Russians. The Russians use drones to go after the Ukrainians. But nevertheless, discussions like that, could very well upend some of the efforts by the Russians to prevent NATO forces from getting into Ukraine, or NATO affiliated forces. And that is the kind of thing that I think might result in a change in the way foreign policy is conducted by the United States.

And it could be the realization that in order to achieve certain goals, you actually need to be involved instead of not being involved.

KEILAR: And we have former Ambassador Nicholas Burns with us. So, what stood out to you is you were listening to this very different meeting between these two leaders just moments ago?

NICHOLAS BURNS, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO NATO: Well, Brianna, I thought actually they were very cordial with each other. In fact, President Trump, I would say, was warm with Zelenskyy and that's a far cry from late February. And it's important, it sets the tone. And it's a message that he's -- President Trump is treating President Zelenskyy in a very positive way, which is good.

Second, I do agree with Jeff and others that the fact that President Trump is now willing to consider an American role, unspecified, it could be -- to a security force in Ukraine that could police an eventual ceasefire, a peace agreement, exceedingly important. The European leaders who are waiting in the White House today are willing to put an ad hoc military force on the ground, but they need intelligence support and air support, that would be very consequential. And frankly, it puts pressure on Putin, which is a good thing.

I felt on the negative side, President Trump, again, has turned on a dime. He's no longer supporting a ceasefire. He's supporting something much more difficult that plays into Putin's hands, and that's a peace agreement which is not -- which is far, far away from where the two sides are right now. And I was disappointed in that because it rewards Putin and it rewards his aggression in Ukraine, and it puts President Zelenskyy in a very difficult position politically back at home.

I'd say finally, I found as someone who's worked for both parties, a Republican and Democrat and a foreign service career, I found President Trump's remarks about President Biden and about the American Press Corps to be completely unfair and really unpresidential, and I wish he would stop doing it. SANCHEZ: Ambassador, I wanted to ask you about one specific bit of reporting that we got from Special Envoy to the Mid East, Steve Witkoff, who's been instrumental in these conversations and facilitating these conversations with the Kremlin. He talked about, for the first time, the Russians agreeing to an Article V like agreement that would essentially guarantee Ukraine's security by making it so that if Ukraine is attacked by Russia, other countries would immediately defend it. I wonder if this Article V language is adopted, and we should point out that President Trump didn't directly answer a question about any Article V like language during that press availability, if that is adopted, why would the Russians support that and yet prevent Ukraine from joining NATO? Aren't they effectively guaranteeing the same security for Ukraine?

BURNS: Well, Boris, I don't think any eventual ceasefire agreement or peace agreement can rest on the word of Vladimir Putin. He's violated every promise he made and that Russia has made, going back to the December 1994 Budapest meeting, where this issue of Ukraine's security was first put in the table.

[13:55:00]

I was at that meeting long ago with President Clinton. If we've learned one thing about Putin is he never meets his promises. So, I think the challenge here for President Trump, and I really wish him well on this, is to either go for a quick ceasefire in order to stop the fighting and then engage in a negotiation for an eventual peace agreement, or if they decide to go for a full peace agreement, the outcome cannot rest on the word of Vladimir Putin.

That's why this security force of the countries led by Britain and France is so important for the future. And I think it's encouraging that the European leaders are there today. They understand that pressure has to be applied on Putin by President Trump and the Europeans together, and that hasn't happened yet. President Trump effectively has deserted the European position the other day in Alaska. Let's hope he can reconsider that today.

KEILAR: What are your concerns, Ambassador, about the potential agreements or not on land -- on Ukraine's land? Considering what we heard in that post from President Trump last night, where he basically said to Ukraine, abandon your claim to Crimea. Considering a lot of experts think it would be very difficult for Ukraine to regain Crimea.

BURNS: What's at stake here is the survival of Ukraine as a nation and as a state. And President Putin, especially in the post-Alaska comments over the last couple of days, has made it very clear he wants to extinguish Ukraine's independence. And so the peace agreement, if it materializes, has got to protect Ukraine and protect its sovereignty. Now obviously, a peace agreement may not result in Ukraine going back to its pre-2014 borders. But Ukraine should not be asked to make these fundamental, preliminary concessions on land and Putin not asked to do anything. Putin's the violator and aggressor here, not the Ukrainian.

So, I think if the United States is conceiving of itself as a mediator, the mediator can't just give away the Ukrainian positions and expect the Ukrainian to accept that. And unfortunately, when President Trump said, it's now all up to Zelenskyy, that puts a lot of pressure on the Ukrainian leader and that's unfair.

KEILAR: It does put a lot of pressure on him at this historic meeting, as we are watching at the White House. Ambassador, thank you so much. Thank you to everyone on our panel. We'll have much more of our coverage of this summit at the White House just ahead. Stay with us.

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