President Trump said Tuesday that he didn’t call Russian President Vladimir Putin in front of the European leaders at the White House the day prior to avoid disrespecting the Russian leader.
“I didn’t do it in front of them — I thought that would be disrespectful to President Putin. I wouldn’t do that, because they have not had the warmest relations,” Trump told Fox News’s “Fox & Friends.”
“And actually, President Putin wouldn’t talk to the people from Europe. I mean, that was part of the problem,” he added.
Trump said in the interview he told the European leaders, as well as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky who was also in the meeting, that he would go into another room to call Putin. The European leaders included French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, among others.
The president said he expected ahead of his meetings that he would call Putin, whom he had met with in Alaska on Friday as his administration pushes Moscow toward a peace deal in Ukraine.
Trump on Monday had announced during his Oval Office meeting with Zelensky that he planned to call Putin later in the day. He said he was working on arranging a meeting between the Ukrainian and Russian presidents and then would work on all three of them meeting some time later.
“I think I sort of knew, I was — at the end of the meeting, I was going to call President Putin, and President Putin expected it, and he was there. Now, by the time I called him, it was 1 o’clock in the morning in Russia,” Trump told Fox on Tuesday.
“But he … picked it up very happily. Sure, he works very hard, like we all do. And, we had a very good call, and I told him that we’re going to set up a meeting with President Zelensky, and you and he will meet. And then after that meeting, if everything works out OK, I’ll meet and we’ll wrap it up,” he added.
Trump pointed to Zelensky as a necessary part of the deal to end the war, saying the Ukrainian leader has to be flexible.
“But you know, it takes, in this case, two to tango. They have to have somewhat of a relationship. Otherwise, we’re just wasting a lot of time. I don’t want to be doing that. I just want to end it,” Trump said.
He added, “I hope President Putin is going to be good. If he’s not, that’s going to be a rough situation. And I hope Zelensky, President Zelensky, will do what he has to do. He has to show some flexibility also. The thing is a mess.”
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