Donald Trump recently criticized an Australian journalist, accusing her of ignorance after she questioned his ability to facilitate a Ukrainian victory over Russia.
Last week, Trump held discussions with Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House, where they focused on the upcoming peace talks with Vladimir Putin.
Kyiv has been pushing for the U.S. to provide long-range Tomahawk missiles. However, Trump has declined, citing concerns that this could escalate tensions with Russia and hinder diplomatic efforts.
During Trump’s initial formal meeting with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the White House on Monday, Latika Bourke from The Nightly pressed the president on this issue.
“As the most powerful man on Earth, why don’t you just enable Ukraine to finish this war tomorrow?” Bourke questioned.
Trump responded sharply to Bourke’s inquiry, saying, “Well, if you knew anything about what you were talking about, you’d be able…”
‘I do,’ Bourke interrupted.
Trump replied: ‘You do? I don’t think you do, really. I don’t think you do. Because it’s a little more complicated than that, but it sounds easy.’
The Nightly’s Latika Bourke pressed Donald Trump on the Ukraine-Russia war
‘We’re in the process of trying to make a deal. If we make a deal, that’s great. If we don’t make a deal, it’ll be a lot of people who are paying a big price.’
Trump then called for quiet as the media spoke over each other.
Trump on Sunday floated the idea of ending the bloody Ukraine conflict by freezing the front-lines of the war as the country’s new borders.
‘We think that what they should do is just stop at the lines where they are — the battle lines,’ Trump told reporters when asked about reports he pressed Zelensky to accept Putin’s terms for a ceasefire.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov responded to Trump’s offer by throwing cold water on the prospect of allowing Ukraine to keep some parts of the Donbas region.
‘This topic was repeatedly raised in various forms during contacts between Russia and the US. The Russian side answered every time, this answer is well known: the consistency of Russia’s position doesn’t change.’
Earlier on Sunday, Trump insisted he never tried to force Volodymyr Zelensky to accept Russia’s demands to end the war.
The Ukrainian president’s meeting with Trump on Friday didn’t go smoothly. Trump apparently launched a profanity-riddled diatribe against Zelensky during the closed-door meeting, sources told the Financial Times.
Donald Trump has savaged an Aussie reporter for ‘not knowing anything’ after she questioned why the president does not support Ukraine to win the war over Russia
They claim Trump repeated Russian President Vladimir Putin’s talking points from a call a day before the meeting, including demanding that Zelensky surrender the entire Donbas region to Moscow to bring an end to the war.
But Trump said on Sunday that he ‘never discussed’ giving up the land and instead wants to see the fighting stop immediately and borders be drawn at the front-lines of the war.
‘We think that what they should do is just stop at the lines where they are — the battle lines,’ Trump told reporters when asked about reports he pressed Zelensky to accept Putin’s terms for a ceasefire.
‘The rest is very tough to negotiate if you’re going to say, ‘You take this, we take that’. There are just so many different permutations,’ he added. ‘So what I say is they should stop right now at the battle lines. Go home, stop killing people and be done.’
Bourke is no stranger to tense exchanges with political leaders, previously clashing with Albanese in New York in September.
Albanese told Bourke ‘don’t verbal me’ after she pressed him on comments he made in April about whether he had Donald Trump’s personal phone number.
At the time, Albanese had said: ‘No. I’m not sure that he has a mobile phone, the US President. Or Joe Biden. It’s not the way it works with any global leader.’
‘There’s people taking notes from either side, it’s not a casual relationship,’ he explained.
President Donald Trump says he didn’t urge Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to accept Russia’s terms to end the war, which included giving up the entire Donbas region
Reports emerged that Trump repeated Putin’s demands for a ceasefire during his meeting with Zelensky – the president denies these claims
‘I don’t have Donald Trump’s number.’
But while in New York, French President Emmanuel Macron reportedly phoned Trump directly when he was stuck in traffic and asked the US President for help navigating the gridlock.
When the reporter contrasted the French president’s access to Trump with that of Albanese, citing his earlier claim Trump did not have a mobile, the Prime Minister cut her off.
‘Don’t verbal me, don’t verbal me,’ Albanese said. ‘I didn’t say that, but anyway, keep going. If I did [say it], it’s called a joke – humour.’
‘Obviously he has a mobile phone.
‘The point I was making was that between leaders of nations, you organise phone calls, you have note-takers, and you do it in rooms where mobiles aren’t allowed. That’s the point.’
