White House Press Secretary Karoline faced backlash from Fox News host Howard Kurtz after she defended President Donald Trump's recent ambush of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House.
During his Sunday morning Media Buzz program, the Fox News host described Zelensky as "irritating" but added: "It also seemed like President Trump lost his temper."
"I would disagree with that," Leavitt replied. "I think what happened in the Oval Office, I was there, was unfortunately President Zelensky came in with a mindset not wanting to negotiate peace."
"President Zelensky was also antagonistic, and frankly, he was rude," she continued. "He picked a fight with the Vice President of the United States. He repeatedly interrupted President Trump, and so what President Trump did was stood strong for America, defended his Vice President, but most importantly, defended the American people who, after three years of funding this brutal war, are sick and tired of footing the bill."
"It was clear President Zelensky wasn't in the mindset to negotiate that just yet."
Kurz pushed back: "President kicked him out without the expected agreement about rare minerals, and President Zelensky kept saying he needed security agreements, security because Vladimir Putin had a long history of breaking agreements, so wasn't that a reasonable point for him to make?"
"Well, that's not what this meeting was about, and President Zelensky was told that ahead of time," Leavitt said despite also claiming the Ukrainian president was not ready to negotiate. "This meeting was about signing an economic partnership between the United States of America and Ukraine."
"His country's at war!" Kurtz exclaimed.
"Well, our teams are engaged in active negotiations, and nobody wants to end that war more than President Trump," Leavitt asserted.
"Yeah, I would just say a ceasefire might leave all the Russian land gains intact," Kurtz observed. "I've never seen anything like it, would have happened behind closed doors. So why hold the meeting in front of the cameras?"
"Because President Trump is the most transparent president in history, and as he said, it was great for the cameras to be in there," Leavitt insisted.
