Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy owes all Americans an apology, Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., says.
“Zelenskyy owes Trump and the American people an apology,” Smith told The Daily Signal on Tuesday at a media row event on Capitol Hill.
Zelenskyy had a heated exchange Friday in the Oval Office with President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance over ending the war between Ukraine and Russia. The meeting went so poorly that Zelenskyy left the White House early, and plans to sign a deal giving the U.S. access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals were canceled.
“The Biden administration, their action and their involvement with Ukraine was [to] send money and do nothing,” Smith said.
“President Trump wants peace, and that’s what he’s been pushing for,” he said, adding that “Zelenskyy showed on Friday that he does not want to really end this war anytime soon.”
“Zelenskyy owes the president two things,” agreed Rep. Mark Alford, Smith’s fellow Missouri Republican. “Put on a suit to show up at the Oval Office and apologize to the president of the United States.”
Like Smith and Alford, Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo., said Zelenskyy “owes the American public an apology.” Hageman voted against sending more money to Ukraine last year in the supplemental budget because “we have never had an accounting of the approximately $200 billion that we have sent to Ukraine,” she said.
“Ukraine is notorious for being a very corrupt country,” Hageman said, adding that America has “been sending money without any accountability.”
“We also have been sending money and resources without knowing whether they’re making it to the front line. So, I think that the way that [the Ukrainian leader] conducted himself was reprehensible, not only to President Trump and Vice President JD Vance, but to the American people.”
After the terse meeting between the two presidents, the White House announced Monday that Trump had chosen to pause and review all military aid to Ukraine.
“We are pausing and reviewing our aid to ensure that it is contributing to a solution,” the White House said in a statement.
“Zelenskyy should have come to the United States humbly, not demanding, not expectant, but rather saying, ‘Thank you’ for what we’ve done,” Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, told The Daily Signal.
“A lot of us want to make sure that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin can’t advance, can’t endanger Estonia and Poland, our friends in the Eastern European part of the countries,” Roy said. “And I think we should expect now Zelenskyy to come back and do what he needs to do so that we can try to advance the ball where President Trump wanted to go.”
Right now, there are only three options, Roy said.
“Either Ukraine gets rolled, and that’s bad, or we get sucked into war, which is also bad, or you have a ceasefire, and we go negotiate and figure out how we can put this back together again after [President] Joe Biden created the mess with his weakness and his fecklessness,” the Texas lawmaker said.
Trump has repeatedly stressed that his goal is to “bring an end to the fighting and the bloodshed and the and the risk of expanded fighting in southeastern Europe,” Rep. Derek Schmidt, R-Kan., said, adding that Trump is “following through” on that priority.
On Tuesday, Zelenskyy wrote a long post on X expressing his gratitude for his nation’s relationship with the U.S.
“We do really value how much America has done to help Ukraine maintain its sovereignty and independence,” Zelenskyy wrote. “And we remember the moment when things changed when President Trump provided Ukraine with [Javelin anti-tank missiles]. We are grateful for this.”
Zelenskyy said his meeting with Trump “did not go the way it was supposed to be,” adding that it is “regrettable that it happened this way.”
“It is time to make things right,” he said. “We would like future cooperation and communication to be constructive.”
The Ukrainian president also wrote that he is ready to sign the mineral deal with the U.S.
Rep. Darin LaHood, R-Ill., said Zelenskyy’s statement on X serves as an apology to the president and stressed that Putin is a “thug” and a “dictator” and “can’t be trusted.”
“But this is also a war of attrition,” he said. “It’s a meat grinder war, and we’ve given the Ukrainians three years to try to win that war, but now we’ve got to figure out the best possible resolution to getting that done.”
“We need the best results possible for a peace agreement for Ukraine,” LaHood said.
This article was originally published at www.dailysignal.com
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