U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky looks on during a meeting in New York on September 25, 2019, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.
Saul Loeb | Afp | Getty Images
He loves him, he loves him not?
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump continues to keep people guessing over his position on Ukraine — and over his opinion of the country’s wartime leader, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
In Trump’s much-hyped interview with X owner Elon Musk on Monday, the former president raised eyebrows when he said that “there’s nobody that feels worse about the Ukraine situation than I do,” given his previous hints that he could cut Ukraine’s vital war funding if re-elected to the White House in November.
The Republican frontrunner also described Zelenskyy as “very honorable” in his handling of a telephone call that led to Trump’s first impeachment in 2019.
During the now-infamous phone conversation in July 2019, Trump told the newly-elected President Zelenskyy — then a political novice — that he would like him to “do us a favor” by helping to investigate Trump’s Democratic political rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who had business dealings in Ukraine.
The call prompted allegations that Trump had improperly sought help from Ukraine to boost his chances of re-election in 2020, and Trump was impeached in late 2019 as a result. He was acquitted after a two-week Senate trial in early 2020, however, and vehemently denied any wrongdoing.
At the time, President Zelenskyy said there was no blackmail involved in the call with Trump.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, capital of Ukraine, on July 23, 2019.
Hennadii Minchenko | Future Publishing | Getty Images
Speaking to Musk during an interview streamed on social media platform X on Monday, Trump referenced the incident, stating: “Zelenskyy, he was very honorable to me because when they went with the Russia hoax and they said I had a phone call with him, he said it was a perfect phone call, it was a great phone call.”
Trump added, “He could have grandstanded and said, ‘Oh, he was very threatening.’ [But] He said, no, it was a very nice phone call.”
Zelenskyy the ‘salesman’
The praise for Zelenskyy was a far cry from earlier this year, when Trump characterized the president as “maybe the greatest salesman of any politician that’s ever lived,” suggesting Ukraine’s requests for — and receipt of — U.S. military aid packages were based on Zelenskyy’s deftness and skills as a diplomat, rather than on Ukraine’s actual needs.
“I think Zelenskyy is maybe the greatest salesman of any politician that’s ever lived,” Trump said in June, segueing from characterizing the Green New Deal as a “scam” straight into a description of Zelenskyy.
The former White House leader said of the Ukrainian chief, “every time he comes to our country, he walks away with $60 billion,” referring to a major U.S. aid package wrangled over by Republicans and Democrats, and finally…
Read More: What does Trump say about Zelenskyy in X interview?