What did Trump offer Zelensky after their Oval Office meeting?

0:00BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. The war is going to end. When it ends, I can't tell you, but the war is going to end. And this gentleman wants it to end and Vladimir Putin wants it to end. I think the whole world is tired of it and we're going to get it ended. So that crucial meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Zelensky in the Oval Office is over. Further talks have gone on with European leaders. It's been a very, very big day at the White House. The leaders of America is looking happy, but behind the smiles, have we really got any closer to ending the war in Ukraine? Welcome to AmeriCast.

0:40AmeriCast. AmeriCast from BBC News. God spared my life for a reason. Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. A star is born, Elon. I'm not just Maga, I'm dark, gothic Maga. This is what happens when the machine comes after you. I'm terrified for this country and I'm so hurt that America let this happen. I think that we just witnessed the greatest political comeback in the history of the United States of America.

1:19Hello, it's Adam from Newscast here in the BBC's HQ in Salford. Hello, it is Sarah here. I'm in the BBC's Washington Bureau. And it's Anthony next to Sarah. We're both back from Alaska after our late night flights on Sunday. Right, Sarah, just before we get into details, just give me like a really impressionistic sense of what it's been like being there today with Zelensky returning to the Oval Office with that sort of massive cloud from February hanging over that place for him. And then like five, six, seven European leaders turning up at the same time. Yeah, it's been an absolutely hectic day at the White House, and not just for the hundreds of journalists who were all assembled there covering it, but for all of the leaders too.

2:00Because as you say, there were several different meetings going on. First off, Zelensky in the Oval Office with everybody waiting to see what the atmospherics would be like. And they were night and day different from what happened six months ago. People were smiling. It all seemed to be incredibly amicable. President Zelensky had put a suit on rather than his army fatigues. Remember, he was attacked for what he was wearing the last time. And also Donald Trump had a go at him six months ago for not being grateful enough. So in his opening statement, he thanked President Trump about five times, I think, in about three sentences.

2:34Thank you so much, Mr. President. If I can, first of all, thank you for the invitation and thank you very much for your efforts, personal efforts to stop killings and stop this war. Thank you. and using this opportunity, many thanks to your wife. So that got off to a good start. The next we saw of them was when Presidents Trump and Zelensky had sat down around an enormous French Polish table with no fewer than seven European leaders. Now, I was allowed into the room to see them making their statements there. And when I got in, I have to say, every single one of those Europeans looked really grim, serious, downcast.

3:14I was wondering what on earth has gone on that everybody looks so miserable. But maybe it was just the serious importance of the moment, because Zelensky gave a very upbeat statement, saying he'd probably had his best ever conversation with Donald Trump. I think that we had a very good conversation with President Trump. Very good. And it really was the best one, or sorry, maybe the best one will be in the future. But it was really good. and we spoke about very sensitive points. The first one is security guarantees and we are very happy with President that all the leaders are here and security in Ukraine depends on the United States and on you and on those leaders who are with us in our hearts.

3:58They have been online before yesterday and et cetera. So a lot of countries on the side of Ukraine, our people and all of us want to finish this war, stop Russia and stop this war. And Donald Trump was talking about moving to a trilateral meeting where he and President Zelensky would join President Putin for proper talks. And we heard from all the different European leaders that they thought that that was an important step forward and that they were all going to be discussing how their individual nations could help Ukraine after any peace deal guarantee its security. Press were ushered out and they all started having a meeting that went on considerably longer than people expected it to.

4:39And now, just after 6pm, they're still in the White House, that meeting's broken up, but they're all planning to have dinner together, apparently, and maybe even take the meetings into the next day. So there is obviously plenty to talk about in the White House tonight. Actually, just as you were speaking there, we've got a Truth Social post from Donald Trump on the meetings. He said he had a very good meeting with distinguished guests, and then he ticks through all the long list of people, European officials and Zelensky who were there. Everyone is very happy about the possibility of peace for Russia slash Ukraine.

5:09At the conclusion of the meetings, I called President Putin and began the arrangements for a meeting, a location at a location to be determined between President Putin and President Zelensky. After that meeting takes place, we will have a trial lap, which would be the two presidents plus myself. Again, this was a very good early step for a war that has been going on almost four years. And they said his staff are coordinating with Russia and Ukraine. Thank you for your attention in this matter. So the discussions of bilateral, the laying the groundwork for a trilateral, no big announcement, though, even with that conversation with Vladimir Putin.

5:47Yeah, Adam, this was a complete shock to everybody that Donald Trump broke off in the middle of this meeting with the seven European leaders and Zelensky there and stepped out of the room, I think, to go and speak to President Putin, update him on what was going on and what everybody had to say because he didn't want to leave him out of the conversation. That was a pretty remarkable turn of events. I'd say there's two significant things in that Truth Social post. One, Anthony, you were just hinting at it there, which is that he is committing to having a conversation between Putin and Zelensky that could then become a meeting.

6:21So that's the promise of a phone call about a meeting. And then the other thing is the security guarantees. He said, we discussed security guarantees for Ukraine, which guarantees would be provided by the various European countries with a coordination with the United States of America. So Anthony, to me, that doesn't sound like any kind of actual contribution to a security guarantee by the US. That sounds like the US would provide a sort of like chairman-y, sort of chairperson-y sort of helping out role as opposed to providing any kind of man or material. It was kind of interesting in that Oval Office meeting with Zelensky.

6:57Trump was asked about whether the U.S. would commit troops to Ukraine after a peace deal was struck to help provide security. And he actually kind of batted that question away. He didn't he didn't commit to it one way or another. So one of the big questions hanging over these meetings was what kind of security guarantees the United States would provide. And if you listen to all of those European leaders in the room where you were, Sarah, they all hinted at it. They all talked about like the United States actually having maybe even committed already to providing security guarantees. This this truth social post by Donald Trump, it's not quite not quite as ironclad and clear as I think maybe we were being led to believe.

7:38And also, Sarah, presumably that's because any kind of serious security guarantee would be rejected by Vladimir Putin, because that would be like NATO encroaching on Ukrainian soil, which is why he invaded Ukraine in the first place. Even if it wasn't actually NATO membership for Ukraine or even anything close to a NATO style Article 5, where is the commitment that every NATO member protects every other one. Intriguingly, Vladimir Putin allowing some kind of security structure like this for Ukraine seems to have been one of the things that came out of the summit in Alaska when it was Donald Trump and Putin discussing it.

8:13Donald Trump's special envoy, Steve Wyckoff, came back from there and has given an interview saying that actually rather to the American delegation's surprise, it seemed that Putin was prepared to allow some kind of Article V style guarantee. Now, Article V's in the NATO constitution, obviously, and it says if you attack one NATO member, you've essentially attacked them all and they will all come to their members' defence. NATO membership for Ukraine is off the table. Vladimir Putin will never accept that. But we had been given to understand that some form of Article 5 type guarantee could be acceptable to Vladimir Putin.

8:49And that was one of the reasons that, you know, talks were able to move on a bit and something that could be discussed with all of these European leaders who'd rather hastily scrambled to get to the White House to talk about it. The foreign office from Russia came out with a statement today knocking down any kind of an idea of NATO affiliated troops being put into Ukraine. They said that that would be a nonstarter and then took a few swipes at the UK for saying, you know, they were meddlesome and that they were undermining these peace talks. So we'll see if Russia actually goes along with that.

9:20And the other thing is a mutual defense agreement, any kind of security guarantees is only as strong as a national will to to back it up. And if push comes to shove five years down the line, would the United States, would the United Kingdom, would Germany really go to war if Russia found some sort of a new pretense for sending in troops to support maybe an uprising in Ukraine? And I suppose from Vladimir Putin's point of view, though, what do I know about that, is that a looser security guarantee for the 80 % of Ukraine that he doesn't occupy alongside 20 % of Ukraine that he does might seem like a more acceptable kind of arrangement for him, even though that might seem very unacceptable to lots of Ukrainians.

10:02Right, let's go back through just how the day played out bit by bit. So we'll go back to the Oval Office. This is the first thing that happened. Zelensky has arrived. He's gone into the Oval Office. He's wearing a black or dark suit jacket rather than his camos, as we've discussed before. And, yeah, straight away the atmosphere is much better between the two men. And then we had the first sort of kind of theatrical flourish, although I say theatrical, it's about a very emotive issue and it's about the fate of the roughly 20 ,000 Ukrainian children who were abducted from Ukraine and taken to Russia.

10:37And basically, Melania Trump had written a personal letter to Vladimir Putin that Donald Trump handed over in Alaska as a bit of a sort of sidebar to what happened on Friday. And so then Zelensky handed over a letter from the First Lady of Ukraine to Melania Trump. Many thanks to your wife, First Lady of the United States. She sent a letter to Putin about our children abducted children and my wife, she, first lady of Ukraine, she gave the letters. It's not to you, to your wife. I won't. I won't. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we're saying this is a sensitive topic, yeah. So yeah, a nice little diplomatic lesson maybe learnt from Keir Starmer because of course he flourished the letter from the king doing the offer of a state visit when he was there and that was widely seen to be a bit of a diplomatic masterstroke.

11:28Sarah, what kind of slightly freaks me out listening to that clip is the sort of the jollity in the Oval Office. And I mean, that's mostly from the reporters there, isn't it? But it's also a little bit from Trump. He was, I think, keen to display some kind of bonhomie, but it did tip over into, as you say, sort of slightly gleeful in a way that's maybe not entirely appropriate when you're discussing either the conflict in Ukraine or the fate of these children who've been abducted. There was also some joshing about exactly what President Zelensky was wearing. As you pointed out, the very same reporter who started that argument six months ago by saying you're not dressed appropriately for the Oval Office, why haven't you put a suit on?

12:11He asked Zelensky about it again. And even then there was some joshing back and forward and President Zelensky was teasing him for wearing the same suit he'd had on the last time. Yes, sir, I've got a question for each of you. First of all, President Zelensky, you looked fabulous in that suit. I said the same thing. You look good. I said the same thing. Yeah, looks good. I said the one that attacked you last time. I remember that. I apologise to you. You look wonderful. No, my first question for you, President Zelensky. In the same suit. You see, I changed your eyes. Maybe yours is much better than mine.

12:45Yeah, it was really surprising, the lightness that there was occasionally in the atmosphere, but I think that might have been because everybody, Everybody, President Zelensky included, was trying so hard not to make it look like the last meeting that they had in there. Although some of the questions from the press were a little bit more serious than that. Let's listen to this one. President Zelensky, are you prepared to keep sending Ukrainian troops to their deaths for another couple of years? Or are you going to agree to redraw the maps? Thank you for your question. So, first of all, you know, we live under each day attacks.

13:18that today have been a lot of attacks and a lot of wounded people and the child was dead, a small one, one year and a half. So we need to stop this war to stop Russia and we need support, American and European partners. We will do our best for this. Anthony, I can't tell if that's Zelensky doing the politician thing of just avoiding the question or whether he's avoiding the question because actually he has accepted the need for conceding some territory. Yeah, I think he doesn't want to answer that question one way or the other. If you look at polls in Ukraine, a majority of Ukrainians don't want to give up territory to Russia under any circumstances.

14:01And part of it is because of all the sacrifices that Ukrainians have made already, the number of deaths in this war. If you end up giving up large swaths of areas where Ukrainians still live in some in the initial Russian ask on Friday. Apparently they wanted territory they haven't even conquered yet that that is still still has a lot of Ukrainians in it. It would be tough for him to make any kind of a commitment to that. But but there was behind where where the desk was, where Zelensky and Trump was sitting, there was a big map. And on that map, it showed the current battle lines and how much territory was controlled by Russia right now, which is about 20 percent of Ukraine.

14:41And that was that was just kind of sitting there. The Ukrainians could see during this conversation. I think that is that is the message of the White House was trying to send that this much of your country is already occupied by Russia. You're not getting it back. You're going to have to make some sort of a sacrifice and and some sort of a negotiation. And actually, the White House released a photo after that meeting showing Donald Trump and Vladimir Zelensky standing in black and white against that large map and the look of Trump explaining something to Zelensky. So you could read into what that picture and what the message of that picture was saying.

15:20Well, yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that because I was going to ask about it. And then, Sarah, there was a reference to that map in the next bit of the day when Zelensky and Trump were joined by the Europeans at that big table. And actually, Trump and Zelensky was sort of joshing about that map. And Trump said, oh, if you like a copy of it, you can take it away with you. And it's like now knowing what the purpose of that map was, it looks like and that photo is sort of very reminiscent of kind of like Nixon and Vietnam in the 70s, actually, like that era of countries being being carved up in that way.

15:51Yes, although I mean, at least President Zelensky was in the room because the great fear everybody had about the Alaska summit just a couple of days ago was that Ukraine was going to be being carved up and battle lines redrawn between President Trump and President Putin, of course. So, you know, Vladimir Zelensky was there for that. And yeah, and as you say, the next time we saw him in public, he thanked Donald Trump for his very, very nice map. But of course, what we don't know is what they discussed around that because they were quite careful to avoid any mention of whether Zelensky had agreed to ceding Ukrainian territory, either that is currently occupied by Russia or, more importantly, areas of the Donbass which are not currently occupied by Russia.

16:31We know that that's what Vladimir Putin wants and Donald Trump seems to think that that would be an entirely fair bargain. We don't know if that was discussed in detail or even in principle between him and Zelensky or whether any agreement about that was made. And then, Sarah, take us into that room then where the prime ministers and presidents from Europe were there. So I'm just going to do the whole guest list. There was Keir Starmer at one end. Well, Mark, and then opposite him was Mark Rutter. The next to Starmer was Macron. Then there was Trump. And then opposite Trump was Alexander Stuboff of Finland.

17:06And then Zelensky was next to him. And then next to them was Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission. And opposite her was Friedrich Merz of Germany. And basically Trump just sort of went round the table. It sort of reminded me a little bit of the traitor's table, but oblong rather than round. And it was such a make-the-TV moment. Yeah. And then right beside Donald Trump with Friedrich Merckx on our other side was Giorgio Maloney as well. Of course, yes. Each one of them was called on by Donald Trump to give a little statement. And these were very, very carefully worded statements because, you know, there's no point going in there to antagonise Donald Trump, is there?

17:46But they just fundamentally don't agree with his vision for how a peace deal could be achieved. So most of them said that they wanted to see a ceasefire, even though Donald Trump says, you know, let's forget about a ceasefire and move straight to a peace deal. Giorgio Maloney and some of the others specifically said we are on Ukraine's side in this. They weren't trying to pretend that they were some sort of, you know, brokers in the middle. They were very clear about who they were there to support and also talking about the US getting involved in security guarantees. So not every word of it was just to please Donald Trump.

18:21They were making their own points, but having to do it quite diplomatically. Yeah, I think if you listen to all of the Europeans there, there was very clearly a strategy. And they had a strategy session before they showed up at the White House. So it's not surprising that they had a game plan. And it seemed like that game plan included trying to pin the Americans down and Donald Trump down on security guarantees, as you said. Maybe even going so far as some of them in that meeting said, sounded like they had already reached some sort of a security arrangement. Keir Starmer thanked Donald Trump for the Americans signing on, essentially, to what their coalition of the willing had already committed to.

18:56And then to lavish Trump with praise and to use his own words, we've got to stop the killing, I think one of the leaders said. And we are mentioning mentioning the children who were dying and we have to do this for the children. Again, a reference to that letter from Melania Trump. And and then you heard Mertz, the German chancellor, hit again on the idea of a ceasefire, something that Macron picked up. So they wanted to push back a little bit on Donald Trump being resistant to the idea now of a ceasefire before any kind of negotiations could begin. So there's a playbook for handling Trump. I think that's clear.

19:34The playbook includes persistence. It includes praise, lavishing praise. They used all of that. And I'm not sure if they made any headway, but it sounded like at least they avoided this meeting from going off the rails the way that February meeting with Zelensky did. And then because you're in a big room with lots of participants, lots of cameras and lots of microphones, sometimes little snippets get picked up. Maybe snippets that weren't intended for public consumption. Here is the hot mic moment, as we call it in the trade, that people were discussing tonight on Monday.

20:10And if you didn't hear that properly, that's Donald Trump saying Putin wants to do a deal for me, as crazy as that sounds. Sarah, what do you think is going on there? Well, it's this fascinating glimpse yet again into the weird bromance between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, isn't it? Because, you know, we're still trying to digest what happened in Alaska from the dynamics and the body language that we watched when the two leaders came out to give what was supposed to be a press conference, but ended up just being two statements from each of them. when Donald Trump seated the floor. In America, he's the host of this summit, and he usually likes to be the alpha in the room, but Odo, he just looked on rather lovingly as Vladimir Putin delivered a lengthy statement first in Russian.

21:01Then Donald Trump had his say, and then, of course, Vladimir Putin broke in in English, saying, let's meet in Moscow the next time, and Donald Trump's chuckling, ha-ha, I might get some heat for that, but you never know, maybe we could. Yeah, and then his eagerness to go and phone Vladimir Putin in the midst of these talks today, and his belief that the strength of their personal relationship might mean that he can persuade Vladimir Putin to end the war. I mean, some of it plays to Donald Trump's own ego, of course, you know, that he can direct world events because people want to please him. But I think a lot of it speaks to this very difficult to understand and decode relationship that he has with Putin.

21:41Yeah, I think he believes he does believe that I think he believes that Vladimir Putin might do something just because it's him. And in the past, he said he's afraid or concerned that Putin might be tapping him along. It seems to have acknowledged that Putin may be playing him. And the reality is, last week, we were talking about sanctions, and then the summit came up and the sanctions went away. Now, it looks like two to three weeks before maybe even consider sanctions. I don't think there was even any talk today, at least public talk today about secondary sanctions and something that the United States could do to increase pressure on Russia.

22:17So this does seem like Putin's getting his way, that he's dodging left and right, trying to get as much as he can, trying to delay things while the fighting continues on the ground. And part of that, I think, is because Putin feels like he's making progress in this military action. And if he doesn't negotiate or if he avoids dire consequences that trump has hinted at then he's going to get his way on the battlefield and he doesn't have to bother with these kind of talks this is just reminding me of two things a historic thing and a recent thing the historic thing is i was just googling pictures of the congress of vienna in 1814 which is when all the leaders of europe sat in a grand grand drawing room looking at maps and working out what to do with europe when the new napoleon was about to be defeated and today that big meeting of all the europeans looked so like that and i just wonder if like Donald Trump had that in the back of his mind when he was like concocting this event because it just seems so reminiscent of those kind of very old fashioned great power politics.

23:16And this is going to sound ridiculous. The thing that sort of reminds me of is Saturday morning when we were all chatting about what was happening in Alaska and all the news was about the activity that had happened in Alaska. The actual substance of what Alaska meant and how it changed the situation in Ukraine was the next day or the days after. And I'm just really thinking of that right now, that we've talked a lot about comments and imagery and how it felt and vibes, but actually the truth will probably only emerge in a little while. And again, we're in a process. This is another stage in a big process.

23:57Yeah, I think that Donald Trump obviously enjoys the attention, enjoys being the center of attention. Alaska was the center of the world's attention on Friday, now Washington, D.C., and the White House was the center of attention. Caroline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, shared a photo on her social media account of all of the press, including you, Sarah, and everyone else from the BBC on the south side of the White House, or I guess north side of the White House, lined up on the little driveway there, crowded in to watch the cars of the various foreign leaders arrive. Donald Trump mentioned And how historic it was to have all of these foreign leaders.

24:32Never before, he said, in the history of this illustrious building have so many leaders been gathered in the East Room for such momentous events. He likes this. And even if there's no real progress, this is the big story now. And it's a story that he feels perfectly happy with. We're not talking about Jeffrey Epstein. We're not talking about National Guard troops occupying the nation's capital or whatever else, you know, could be politically embarrassing to him. We're talking about Donald Trump, the peacemaker, and what he will do next. And apparently what he's going to do next is not have any more public appearances tonight, because as we've been talking, the White House has declared a lid, which means there's going to be no more appearances by the president, at least no more travel or any kind of public events by the president.

25:19And although we are still waiting, all of these various leaders who may be talking to their media and holding their own press conferences. And maybe at that point, we'll, as you mentioned, Adam, start to get a better idea, a better picture of what was agreed to today and what is still left outstanding. Yeah, we'll get some substance and not have to rely simply on the vibes. Although, Anthony, what do you make of this vibe? Zelensky cancelled an interview with Fox News that he was scheduled to do after these meetings in the White House. and then around about, I think, four or five in the afternoon, we heard that he had cancelled that.