Fallout From Zelenskyy Meeting; Europe Faces Defense Crisis | CLIP | Crossroads

There were plans for a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine and those ended right in front of our eyes on live TV. In a now viral discussion of the White House, Ukrainian President Zelensky, he argued with President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance and look, the deal is now on pause. Trump has said Zelensky can come back when he's ready for peace. Zelensky is saying basically he wants Ukraine to be part of NATO, he wants a long-term guarantee of peace and he won't have peace until that guarantee of peace is there. And in the meantime also, Ukraine is turning to Europe for help and this is sparking new debates on whether Europe could defend itself without the help of the United States. And as a brief recap, let me show you how that White House meeting went. Watch this. You're right now not in a very good position. You've allowed yourself to be in a very bad position and it happens to be right about that. You're not in a good position. You don't have the cards right now. With us, you start having cards, but right now you don't. Yeah, you're playing cards. You're playing cards. You're gambling with the lives of millions of people. You're gambling with World War III. You're gambling with World War III. And what you're doing is very disrespectful to the country, this country. I'm with all respect to you. Far more than a lot of people said they should have. Have you said thank you once? A lot of times. No, in this entire meeting that you said thank you, you went to Pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition in October, offer some words of appreciation for the United States of America and the president who's trying to save your country. You get the idea. Meeting basically stayed in that basic tone for the rest of it. It continued like that for a bit and then the deal was scrapped. A scheduled lunch between Trump and Zelensky, they canceled it. Report said that Zelensky was kicked out of the White House, although you can decide whether that's true or not. Afterwards, Zelensky posted a threat on X stating his position. He began thanking the United States, but then he said he cannot accept the terms of peace as they are. And he said that Ukraine, what he wants is a long-term guarantee for security. Here's what he wrote. This is his official X page. He said this. He said we are ready to sign the minerals agreement and will be the first step towards security guarantees, which is what he really wants. But he said it's not enough. And we need more than just that. A ceasefire without security guarantee is dangerous for Ukraine. We've been fighting for three years and Ukrainian people need to know that America is on our side. And then he said, I cannot change Ukraine's position on Russia. The Russians are killing us. Russia is the enemy. And that's the reality we face. Then he adds Ukraine wants peace, but it must be a just and lasting peace. For that, we need to be strong at the negotiating table. Peace can only come when we know we have security guarantees, when our army is strong and our partners are with us. Now, Trump also responded to that in an online statement. He wrote this quote, we had a very meaningful meeting in the White House today. Much was learned that could never be understood without conversation under such fire and pressure. He said, it's amazing what comes out through emotion. And I have determined that President Zelensky is not ready for peace if America is involved, because he feels our involvement gives him a big advantage in negotiations. I don't want advantage. I want peace. He disrespected the United States of America in his cherished Oval Office. He can come back when he is ready for peace. Now look on this, American public opinion has been mixed. Politically, it's fairly divided along partisan lines. If you look at online polls, it actually does show most normal Americans basically agree Zelensky was disrespectful. The overwhelming majority do state that. If you look at the views of like the politicians, it's the opposite. They think Trump and Vance kind of like instigated this. Folks, you decide. CNN, they captured the general view in an interview with former special assistant George W. Bush, Scott Jennings, and also with Washington Post global security analyst Josh Rogin. Watch this. All Zelensky had to do today was put on a tie, show up, smile, say thank you, sign the papers, and have lunch. That's it. And he couldn't do that. And this followed 10 days of being difficult in private, and now one day of being stupid in public. This did not have to go down this way. And however you feel about why it started, why it's going on, who's right and who's wrong, we can help them in this and come out okay on the other side. And he's making it hard. Now, first of all, I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I actually agree with Scott. And everything that he said was basically right. Now, look, in the meantime, Zelensky is putting his hopes on European powers. The big question is whether Europe could provide the security and the funding that he needs. The EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy wrote on X, quote, Ukraine is Europe. We stand by Ukraine. We will step up our support to Ukraine so that it can continue to fight back the aggressor. They want to keep the war going. And they said today it became clear that the free world needs a new leader, meaning not the United States, supposedly. They say it's up to us Europeans to take this challenge, meaning Europe is going to do it alone without the United States involved. And they're saying we need a new leader, not America. And in the meeting, just following the White House discussions, Zelensky also got a 2.6 billion pound loan from the United Kingdom for defense. That's 2.5 billion pounds. That's a lot. That's about 3.7 billion US dollars. But it's not nearly enough for Ukraine to keep the war going. The number going around that he needs is like 200 billion, 250 billion. And this is what Zelensky is getting from one of the wealthiest countries in Europe, right? A very small fraction of that. It's unlikely he's going to get the money he needs elsewhere, just being frank. And look, just as a recap on how much money the United States has given Ukraine so far, Congress approved about $175 billion for Ukraine in February 2022. What is not often understood is about $106 billion of that money was not for defense. That was for the Ukrainian government to keep their government functioning. It was money to keep them afloat, to pay their pensions and things like that. It wasn't even for defense, at least not, again, over 100 billion of it. In 2023, the US gave around $23 billion to Ukraine through USAID. About 20 billion of that was for economic aid. The loan from the UK, well, it's likely appreciated by Zelensky, but it's not going to cover their bills, not for long. Now, Zelensky himself has said that Ukraine never received a lot of the money that was sent by the United States. He's saying we never got most of it, right? This is now sparking calls for investigations. Well, where did the money go if he did not get it? Elon Musk wrote an ex-quote, time to find out what really happened to the Now, look, on the European front, it also now appears that the discussions, they are rapidly shifting to a possible peace deal. The problem they have is that, look, without the United States, they have a lot less negotiating power. Europe, frankly, it's debatable whether they can even afford to keep this war going, let alone whether they have the military power for it. A lot of them weren't really paying their budgets either. They were letting the United States do that for them. The narrative now is they need to win the United States back to the table. And frankly, they're not treating the US very nicely either. In the meantime, look, a new and very harsh reality is looming over all of Europe. They're finding, in the meantime, they are standing with Ukraine, but they're doing so without the backing of the United States. And as this happens, it's also becoming more clear the failure of many NATO allies to pay their fair share in defense has had the effect of weakening regional defense. Their budgets are unlikely to hit even, look, it's going to hit them even harder right now because of the reciprocal US tariffs. And Europe overall is still deeply dependent on the United States for defense. They need the United States for defense. They've depended on it and they refuse to pay their fair share until now. And this point is being made even more strongly from the US side because, look, due to another diplomatic disaster, this is now sparking calls for the United States to pull out from NATO altogether and to also remove the US troop presence from Europe overall, something which has largely subsidized Europe's defense. This is what happened. A major Norwegian fuel company, this is Haltback Bunkers. They refused to refuel an American submarine. And then it also declared, quote, no fuel to Americans. We encourage all Norwegians and Europeans to follow our example, Slava Ukrana, meaning, you know, they stand by Ukraine essentially, and they will no longer support America or support our military. What does America do if Europe refuses to support our military when it has a presence there? Well, the argument among some is we need to pull out. And look, that did not go over very well. Very quickly, the Norwegian government, they responded to this. They said the stance of that energy company is not the stance of their government. In fact, its Minister of Defense, Tor Sandvig, he wrote in a statement, quote, we have seen reports raising concerns about support for US Navy vessels in Norway. This is not in line with the Norwegian government's policy. I can confirm that all requested support has been provided. The US and Norway maintain a close and strong defense cooperation. And they say American forces will continue to receive the supply and support they require from Norway. In other words, please don't leave. We didn't mean it. That was one company's opinion. But look where it's at now, that response may have been a little bit too little too late. In response to news about the Norwegian company refusing to refuel US Navy ships and calling for an all of Europe boycott of the US military, Senator Mike Lee wrote on X, quote, Europe doesn't love us. Let's leave NATO. Now others responded noting that if NATO is close to $1.26 trillion defense budget, the United States pays around $860 billion. We pay about 68% of Europe's defense. And many NATO countries, they've refused to pay their share on that. They say that, well, we can't because of EU law, right? EU law has a certain limit on the amount of GDP a country can spend and the amount of money that can go into debt. They're saying, yeah, we committed to it, but we can't do it. And so America's shouldering it and saying, well, why are we doing it for you?