After meeting with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House on Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy traveled to New York to sit down with GOP candidate Donald Trump for the first time in five years.
Trump's attempts to bribe Zelenskyy into finding damning evidence against Joe and Hunter Biden resulted in his first impeachment, which he complained about at their joint press conference ahead of their closed-door meeting.
Trump deliberately held up aid to Ukraine after Zelenskyy refused to investigate the Bidens, but has long denied any wrongdoing and points to his acquittal in his first Senate trial as proof.
Zelenskyy and Trump met after MAGA backlash over comments the Ukrainian president had made to The New Yorker that his running mate, JD Vance, is "too radical." Zelenskyy also expressed doubt that Trump knows how to address Ukraine's conflict with Russia. "My feeling is that Trump doesn’t really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how," said Zelenskyy, adding later, "The idea that the world should end this war at Ukraine’s expense is unacceptable.”
But Trump continued to revise his own history at the press conference. "It was a hoax, just a Democrat hoax, which we won," Trump said of the impeachment effort, with Zelenskyy standing by his side.
He claimed that Zelenskyy said that Trump did nothing wrong during their phone call, saying that the Ukrainian president "said it loud and clear and the impeachment hoax died right there." He praised Zelenskyy for being "like a piece of steel."
House Republicans had tried to block the Ukrainian President's visit despite Zelenskyy's invitation to Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson.
However, President Zelenskyy shrewdly used the moment to show his full disdain for Trump and his obvious preference for Putin.