Center. We're live here with a very fun crowd at Club for Growth at their conference down in Florida. It is verdict with Ted Cruz obviously Ben Ferguson with you. It is great to be here and this is going to be for our audience. So what we refer to as an emergency pod outside the normal Monday, Wednesday Friday's schedule, we're doing two basically today for Friday because of what we just witnessed in the Oval office with Zelensky showing up, and it was very clear from what the President said,
he was not there to work a deal. He was not there for peace. I want to get your initial reaction.
To this, Well, let me say you and I are both at the Club for Growth conference down in Florida today. I will say the Club for Growth is an extraordinarily important conservative and free market organization. They support conservative and free market candidates running for the Senate, running for the House. I literally would not be in the US Senate were it not for the Club for Growth making a big gamble on me.
They know how to pick winners.
And by the way, when the Club got behind me thirteen years ago when I first ran, I was.
Literally at two percent in the polls.
You had to be out of your ever loving minds to be backing me. The last job I had been elected to was student council, and the Club leaned in in a big way and shocked every observer. And they play cycle after cycle fighting to elect strong free market principal conservatives. And so I've been to the Club for
Growth conference many many times. There are extraordinary patriots here, and so I just want to say thank you to the men and women here, your leadership standing up and fighting to save our nation.
Amen. So let's get into your initial reaction. Then I want to play some clips. But this has gone viral. Obviously, Zelenski coming to White House, the pretensive or this meeting was to get a deal and to work deal for peace, and the President, I think learned pretty quickly to the point where he said, we're not even doing a joint press conference. Have a good day. You're not here for that at all.
So look, I suspect pretty much everyone here has already watched much of this exchange.
In what happened.
What I will tell you is that President Zelensky showed up in the Oval Office and decided he was there to battle Donald Trump decided he was there to insult Donald Trump, decided he was there to attack and belittle Donald Trump. And without exaggeration, I believe this will go down as the most disastrous Oval Office meeting in the history of our nation.
Wow, Zelensky had one job.
His one job was to go there and to try to get the president's support for a peace that leaves his country in a good and strong position. That was his entire mission. And apparently decided that he knew better than everyone else and that President Trump should be kissing his ass. Now, I got to say, look, for any president, you go back from George Washington to Ronald Reagan, to George w Bush, to Joe Biden.
To Donald Trump.
Coming into the Oval Office and behaving like an ass, insulting and attacking the president with the TV cameras running, by the way, doing this for the entire world, for any president, is a dumb ass move.
It was on purpose too, It was very deliberate. It wasn't an accident.
So there literally is no analog. If you look back, you look back. I've been in a lot of Oval Office meetings. No foreign leader has ever done what President Zelenski did, and it's particularly ironic because it is exactly opposite what he wanted to do. It's exactly opposite what he his mission was. Look, he was there. Number one, The United States has given hundreds of billions of dollars to Zelenski.
Let's be queer, not millions.
You said it will be with a B and and sude you can't find. Zelenski's attitude was why the hell haven't you given us more? And we're entitled every bit of it. Here, I want to play the first clip. This is a clip of the exchange between President Zelenski and President Trump.
Your country is in big trouble. No, No, He've done a lot of talking. Your country is in big trouble. I know you're not winning. You're not winning this. You have a damn good chance of coming out okay, because of the President.
We're staying in Yawa country, staying strong. From the very beginning of the war, we've been alone, and we are thankful.
I said, thanks, Cabinet, we gave you this stupid president, three hundred and fifty billion dollars. You will we military equipment. You and you met are brave, but they had to use our military one of ours. If you didn't have our military equipment. If you didn't have our military equipment, this war would have been over in two weeks.
So let's read the transcript of it, and if we get clipped to you, they let us know. But eqlip number one. If you want to read what the president said, it said, I mean, look, your country's in big trouble. You're not winning. You have a damn good chance of coming out okay, because of us. You haven't been alone. We gave you, through our stupid president, three hundred and fifty billion. We gave you military equipment. If you didn't have our military equipment, this war wouldn't have would have
been over in two weeks. That was like point number one from the President. I think it's a pretty solid point, by the way.
Look it clearly is. And I want to give an example. Let's say you're running a business.
All right, let's play it.
Take a right a lot of questions.
Let's start from the big sure fills to wall. During the war, everybody has problems, even you. But you have nice soution and don't feel now, but you will feel it.
You don't know that.
God bless You're not blessed.
You don't know, don't tell us what we're gonna feel. We're trying to solve a problem. Don't tell us what we're going to feel, because you're in no position to dictate that.
Remember this, you're.
In no position to dictate what we're going to feel.
We're gonna feel very good.
We're gonna feel very good and very strong. You're, right now, not in a very good position. You've allowed you.
From the beginning of the war, not in a good position.
You don't have the cards right now with us. You start having right now, you don't know your playing. You're gambling with the lives of millions of people. You're gambling with world War three. You're gambling with World War three. And what you're doing is very disrespectful to the country, this country.
I mean center. You look at that and it's a shocking. Yeah, you can clap for the president, there's no doubt about it and the way you hit it, but you're right, it was shocking because look, we know world leaders come in and have things maybe they disagree with. They do it in private. They don't do it that way.
There are meetings where world leaders disagree and disagree, sometimes with a great deal of candor. One hundred percent of the times the TV cameras are turned off. Behind closed doors, world leaders can have very frank discussions, and I have been in on many of those discussions with President Trump and world leaders. But when the TV camera turns on, Zelensky's putting on a show. And see you heard him say, you know, I have much respect. You're wearing a sweatshirt.
For Pete's sakes, it's the Oval office of the White House, the office of the President of the United States. Put on a friggin jacket and tie, wear a suit.
I mean, look, especially when you're asking for three hundred fifty billion, right, it's obnoxious.
And he's acting like a performance artist. He used to be a comedic actor, and his costume is the sweatshirt.
Look.
He came and addressed a joint session of Congress a few years ago. He stood on the dais of the House of Representatives. I was there for those remarks. He wore the same damn sweatshirt. I will say at the time there was a fairly amusing meme that went around. I remember that it was Zelenski trying to explain what happened. He said, I'd planned to wear a suit and tie. But then an official from the Biden administration stole my luggage.
And if you.
Remember this odd transgender official in the Biden administration who was arrested for going to airports and stealing stranger's luggage, it.
Was weird stealing women's clothes.
Well, there is that.
But this the arrogance that Zelensky brought to this, and I actually want to credit Trump. Trump doesn't get mad in this exchange. He could get angry, but he doesn't. But it's just astonishing. You know, yesterday I met with the Foreign Minister of the European Union, so the number three official in the European Union, the former Prime Minister of Estonia.
She came to my office.
We spent about an hour talking about Ukraine and Russia and what's happening in Europe, and she was expressing concerns and I said, look, number one, this war was unnecessary. It was caused by Joe Biden's weakness. It was caused by his unwillingness to stand and be strong.
His weakness caused this war, and in.
Particular, Joe Biden waived the sanctions on nord Stream two. Nordstream two is the undersea pipeline Russia was building from Russia to Germany. And the reason Russia was building Nordstream two was to be able to get natural gas directly to Europe without having to go through Ukraine. The entire purpose of Nordstream iiO was to enable Russia to invade Ukraine. In December of twenty nineteen, I authored sanctions legislation that
shut down Nordstream two. Putin literally stopped building that pipeline. The day that President Trump signed my sanctions legislation in the law Your work, It worked.
It prevented war. Joe Biden came in.
He was sworn into office on January twentieth, twenty twenty one. Putin resumed deep sea construction of Nordstream two four days later January twenty fourth, because Biden had foreshadowed weakness. That foreshadowing was accurate, because several months later he formally waived those sanctions on Russia on Putin effectively gave him billions of dollars that caused the war in Ukraine.
Without the funding so that people understand that they're listening. Without having that money come in from the from oiling gas, they couldn't fund the war right, So it was an easy way to keep war in check. Keep them in check, because without that funding, there's no way they could do this for three years.
Listen, if Donald Trump had been president the last four years, there is no war in Ukraine. Putin does not invade, but Biden's weakness. You remember Biden's disastrous withdraw in Afghanistan, the absolute debacle that was there. I said the day that happened, I said, the chances of Russia invading Ukraine have just risen tenfold because a weak commander in chief in the United States that our enemies are not afraid of.
It emboldens them.
Now what I told the EU's Foreign minister yesterday, I said, Listen, Zelenski is behaving catastrophically badly. Zelenski for the past two weeks has been running around to the European press and has just been shooting his mouth off and attacking President Trump. And I told the EU Foreign Minister it's not complicated, Donald Trump. If somebody attacks him, we'll punch back every time, one hundred percent of the time, with no exceptions.
In every instance. This is not a secret.
I'm not revealing top secret classified psychological profile.
The sun rises in the morning it goes down in the evening and Donald Trump, if you punch him, will punch back.
And by the way, show me one person in a negotiation with Trump that thinks the thing to do is just go in and be a jackass and just insult him publicly and ridicule him. And by the way, I'm there asking for hundreds of billions of dollars at the same time I'm going to insult him. It was staggeringly bad. And I actually want to give a contrast. So we actually had the day before, we had the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Ker Starmer, who came and met
with President Trump. Now, look, Kier Starmer is a leftist in UK politics. Kier Starmer's politics are markedly different from President Trump's. He not a conservative in any way, shape or form. Sadly, the Conservatives in the UK have been obliterated politically right now and the left is in control in the UK. And by the way, Kier Starmer has a terrible record on things like free speech, where he's willing to send in and arrest people for social media
tweets he doesn't like. So his record on free speech is abysmal. Nonetheless, ker Starmer understood exactly what his job was coming there, which was to respect the President of the United States, which was to strengthen his friendship with the President of the United States.
I want you to listen to this.
Exchange where a reporter tries to get kir Starmer to criticize and blast President Trump.
Earlier today, you told me that you believe that foreign countries pay tariffs, But Americans, who were concerned about higher prices, believe, as most people do, that they're paid by consumers and importers when they import things into this country. Can you explain how you came to this belief that foreign governments are paying tariffs? And for the Prime Minister, did you discuss with President Trump his repeated statements of desire to
annex Canada? And has the King expressed any concern over the president's apparent desire to remove one of his realms from his control.
So I'll go ahead the first part. The tariffs are necessary because we've been treated very unfairly by many many countries, including our friends friend Info. But I will tell you it's going to make our country rich and it's going to stop us from being a laughing stock all over the world because we have been taken advantage of, like no country has ever been taken advantage of. Thank you very much.
And look, we had a really good discussion, a productive discussion, a good discussion, as a result of which our teams are not going to be working together on an economic deal. Our team is going to be working together on security in Ukraine. You mentioned Canada. I think you're trying to find a divide between us that doesn't exist with the closest of nations. And we had very good discussions today, but we didn't Canada.
Thank you. That's a pro move.
That's actually a head of state who understands the mission, who understands what he's there for.
And you see a reporter.
By the way, it's very similar to what the media is trying to do with President Trump and Elon Musk, where they're desperately trying to get Trump and Elon battling. You know, Time magazine was so clottish. They put out a picture of Elon at the resolute desk. They're like, oh, this will work, this will piss Trump off.
I will just throw them out of the ovoy instantly with this article.
And listen, I spent an hour with Elon yesterday. It's not working. It's not working with Elon, it's not working with Trump. But in this instance, you had a report that was trying to say, mister British Prime Minister, would you attack Donald Trump please? In the White House and ahead of state who actually knows what the hell he's doing, says no, we are close, good friends, not just close. The closest of friends, is what he said. And he understood.
He has a mission and by the way, I promise you behind closed doors, they had some issues of disagreement, but once the cameras came on. That's what heads of state do with the President of the United States, particularly when you're at the White House and listen. I think there are a number of consequences of what happened today.
So the plan today was to announce an agreement with Ukraine, an agreement that would have given the United States an entitlement to significant portions of the rare earth minerals that are in Ukraine as a way of paying back to the money that had been spent funding the Ukrainian War. That was the initial plan, and that was the press conference. It's now been canceled. There was a press conference Donald Trump canceled the press conference, so the agreement on rare
earth veneralds was not signed. Trump essentially said get the hell out, and in fact, I'm going to read the truth social that Trump put out after the meeting. He said, 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. 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 and its cherished Oval office. He can come back when he's ready for peace.
Which, by the way, you look at that last line, and I think this is part of you know what, Donald Trump's really good at the art of the deal, of the negotiation. He didn't say see you later and we're done. He said he can come back when he's ready for peace. The door's open, but not if you're going to come and act the way that you just did and basically come on false pretense, which was we were gonna get a deal done, and now you're saying no.
Look that there's an image.
There's a picture from the meeting in the middle of the meeting, and it's the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States holding her head in her hands, like what am I watching? And she's looking at her boss. Crap the bed on global television. That's a technical diplomatic term, and I will say, by the.
Way, let me just do it aside. This is one of the great things about podcasts.
If you're used to watching Meet the Press, Yes, people rarely use phrases like crap the bed on Meet the press. Now the host often will crap the bed on the press. Okay, rarely will We'll describe it thusly. The virtue of a podcast is you talk directly to people. If you're doing this right, it should feel like you're sitting at at a coffee shop or a bar and having a conversation
about what the hell, man did you see? What just happened and how, and that that's the whole power of this medium, is that there's not that there's not a press intermediary that decides here's what you get to hear, here's what you don't this will go down. Look, you and I we did. We did another emergency podcast. We don't do many emergency pods. We only do it when when the breaking news is of sufficient magnitude to justify it.
But you and I did an emergency pod the night of the first and only debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
Yep.
And as soon as that debate ended, you and I he immediately recorded a podcast, put it out an hour after the debate was over. We said that night that this will prove the most consequential presidential debate in the history of our country. Why and what I said that night Joe Biden will not be the nominee. This debate was so bad that he's done. He will be pulled from the ticket. He will not be the nominee that
obviously ended up proving accurate in this instance. We open this by my saying this will go down in history as the most disastrous oval office meeting in history. I think that's going to happen as well. I think this meeting could easily end President Zelenski's tenure.
That's what I was going to ask you, is how consequential is this going to be as he's flying back to Ukraine or wherever he's going, because it obviously changed the way the rest of the world's looking at him. You go from a guy that had this massive rise to fame. He was calling into award shows. If you guys remember it was it was like the Oscars where he called into was early on and everybody stood and clapped. I mean, he was a hero of the quote world. Then now you look at this and he leaves.
What happens then, look, the media loves sim the hard left loves him. He's decided he wants to be a Hollywood celebrity rather than a world leader. And I will say at the outset of this war, he had moments. So for example, Joe Biden was so weak that when Russia invaded, Biden's like, you can't win it all, and he offered, we'll send a plane to get you President Zelensky, so you can flee the country. This is in the first week of the war, and Zelensky had a comment
that at the time was an extraordinary comment. He said, I don't need a ride, I need ammunition. And that leadership at the time rallied his country behind him and he ended up fighting with significant resources from the United States and Europe fighting against Putin and slowing down the onslaughts significantly.
What is strange.
Look, you and I did a podcast in last and it was when Zelensky came to the United States, and it was during the presidential campaign, and Zelensky made the bizarre decision to do what was essentially a campaign event with Kamala Harris in Pennsylvania, and he simultaneously did interviews attacking Donald Trump and attacking JD.
Vance.
And this is in the middle of the campaign.
Here was campaigning, and you and I did a podcast at the time and we said, what the hell is this guy thinking. Look, he is ostensibly leading his country there at war. Their most important ally in this war has been the United States of America, and either his instincts or the advisors around him think it's a really good idea to pick a partisan side and go all
in and attack the other side. And we both said, listen, if Trump wins, which both of us believed he was going to, Zolensky is going to deeply regret doing so. And what's amazing is he keeps doubling down. I think there's a very good possibility as I said that Zelensky does not politically survive this, and within days that he's out of office. I also think, look, it's not complicated that President Trump campaigned on ending the war in Ukraine.
This was not a mystery. Every voter who went and voted in November understood that if you elect the Democrats, the Ukraine War goes on and on and on and on, and we keep pouring billions into it forever. And every voter understood if you vote for Donald Trump, this war is going to come to an end.
Now.
I think it is important. This is something I have urged President Trump repeatedly. I think it's important that this war come to an end in a way that is a clear and unmistakable loss for Russia, a loss for Putin. I think Russia losing benefits the national security interest of the United States. I got to say, by the way, Zelensky's performance was so bad that I think it not only harmed his own country, but I think it harmed
world peace. And that's that's I cannot imagine the plain flight back right.
Now, No, I neither can.
I mean you and I I assume Zelenski's in the air right now, flying back.
What I don't know what is he landing to.
Are his advisors sitting there blowing smoke at him? Oh wonderful job, mister President. You showed him it certainly.
Won't be the ambassador because she was.
Like this, I mean, listen, this war needs to end. It needs to end promptly. I believe it is going to end promptly. And as I said, it is important in that it ends in a way that is a clear discernible loss for Russia. I also think the direction President Trump was going of signing an agreement where the United States gets significant benefits from rare earth minerals in Ukraine.
That has a lot of upside to it, but not when they have a world leader coming in into the Oval office telling the President of the United States essentially screw you. Look an analogy, if you think about it, there are a lot of small business owners in the room.
If your business is in crisis and you're facing a moment where you've got to lay off a thousand employees, you've got to go under, and you go to the bank and you say, I got to borrow fifty million dollars or my business goes under and the bank lends you fifty million dollars and you save your business, you don't fire your employees, and then a week later you go to the bank and say, you damn jerk, why didn't you give me more Like, it is not complicated that if you went to the bank and they gave
you the capital you needed to save your business. Even even the person with the lowest EQ on planet Earth, even the person with no sense of other human beings, would say, maybe, if someone is providing me the only financial lifeline that is keeping me alive, maybe I have the sense to.
Be nice to them.
Zelenski, I just think you know, he's been in Vanity Fair, he's been on People Magazine. I think he thinks he's he's he's Brad Pitt or Taylor Swift and uh. And I'm pretty sure he's not dating uh Travis Kelson.
No.
Uh. And if he is, I really know about it. I don't want to know about it.
But listen, So let me ask you this moving forward, final question. This I want to do some Q and A obviously, and and that is you've got a joint session of Congress on on Tuesday night. How much are the speech writers changing what Donald Trump may say to the world because you are You're not, You're not just talking to Congress. Will that anything change? Ers? He say, I move on.
I don't think dramatically.
I think almost all of what the President is going to talk about is the domestic agenda. I think what the President is going to talk about on Tuesday Night his promises made, promises kept. I will say this, we're forty days into a new administration. In our lifetimes, there has never been a president who has hit the ground running as fast and furious as this president. It is breathtaking. It is wild right now. Elon Musk is obviously integraly involved.
That is driving democrats in the media crazy, and it's embodying the old Silicon Valley adage of a move fast and break things. I think that's what we'll hear Tuesday night is we made promises to secure the border.
We're securing the border.
We made promises to unleash American energy.
We're unleashing American energy.
We made promises to unleash the economy and bring back jobs and small businesses. We're doing exactly that. We made promises to make America safer. Hamas has been releasing hostages, and I think the President will say we will end the war in Ukraine. But I I'll be surprised if the President it wouldn't surprise me if he doesn't even use the word Zelensky in the speech. I think his
approach will be, we want to end it. What he said, the Oval Office spoke for itself, but I for one, am damn glad we have a commander in chief with a backbone and that our enemies are afraid of America as much safer as a result.
Ay a mint of that. Don't forget. We do this show Monday, Wednesday Friday, so if you're listening, make sure you hit that subscriber auto download button. I want to say big thank you to Club for Growth, you guys for having us here today as well. Check them out online. If you don't know about them, you should. They do amazing work like getting people like you elected. How many
years ago is that? Thirteen thirteen years ago? There you go, and thanks for having us all, you guys for having us here today.