Below the fold is the transcript of the first part of the meeting between President Donald Trump and Zelensky in 2019.
Here is the skirmish from yesterday.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, thank you very much, everybody. We’re with the President of
Ukraine, and he’s made me more famous, and I’ve made him more famous. (Laughter.) I
will say he’s got a great reputation. He’s very, very strongly looking into all sorts of
corruption and some of the problems they’ve had over the years. I think it’s one of the
primary reasons he got elected. His reputation is absolutely sterling. And it’s an honor to
be with you.
And we spoke a couple of times, as you probably remember. And they’d like to hear every
single word, and we give them every single word, and then they’ll say, “Well, about today?” I
think the press would like to stay in the meeting, but we have lots of witnesses, if you’d like
to have it.
But the country of — our country is doing phenomenally well. We are — we have the best
economy we’ve ever had. We have the best employment numbers that we’ve ever had. We
have now almost 160 million people working, which is more than we’ve ever had. So we’re
doing very well in every respect. And I have a feeling that your country is going to do
fantastically well. And whatever we can do. You just take care of yourself. Thank you.
Thank you very much. It’s a great pleasure to me to be here, and it’s better to be on TV than
by phone, I think.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Yeah. (Laughter.)
PRESIDENT ZELENSKY: And, Mr. President, thank you very much. And I’m not the first time
to stay in New York —
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Right.
PRESIDENT ZELENSKY: — but I know that you’ve never been in Ukraine.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: That’s right.
1/8
PRESIDENT ZELENSKY: And your predecessor also — how do you say it in English? — didn’t
find time; I mean that. (Laughter.)
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Right.
PRESIDENT ZELENSKY: So, can you give me a word that you will come to our great country?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I’m going to try. (Laughter.) And I know a lot of people — I will
say this: I know a lot of people from Ukraine. They’re great people. And I owned something
called the Miss Universe pageants years ago, and I sold it to IMG. And when I ran for
President, I thought maybe it wouldn’t be the greatest thing to own the Miss Universe and
Miss USA pageants. But it’s a great thing. And we had a winner from Ukraine, and we’ve
really had — we got to know the country very well in a lot of different ways. But it’s a
country, I think, with tremendous potential.
PRESIDENT ZELENSKY: Yes, I know it, because I’m from this country.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Right. (Laughter.)
PRESIDENT ZELENSKY: And I want to thank you for the invitation to Washington.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Right.
PRESIDENT ZELENSKY: You invited me. But I think — I’m sorry, but I think you forgot to tell
me the date. (Laughter.) But I think in the near future.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: They’ll tell you the date.
PRESIDENT ZELENSKY: (Laughs.) Yes, they know before us. And I want to thank you — to
thank you, especially, Mr. President, to USA, to your government. Like I said, I know many
people, many faces, like the Second Family, after you — my Ukrainian family, we know each
other.
Thank you for your support, especially now when — you know, when we have two — really,
two wars in Ukraine. The first one is with corruption, you know. But we’ll fight — no, we’ll
be winner in this fight, I’m sure. And the priority — my priority is to stop the war on
Donbass and to get back our territories: Crimea, Donbass, Luhansk.
Thank you for your support in this case. Thank you very much.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, thank you very much, Mr. President. If you remember, you lost
Crimea during a different administration, not during the Trump administration.
PRESIDENT ZELENSKY: Yeah. So you have chance to help us.
2/8
PRESIDENT TRUMP: That’s right. I do. But that was during the Obama administration that
you lost Crimea, and I didn’t think it was something that you should have. But that was
done a long time ago, and I think it was handled poorly. But it’s just one of those things.
One of the elements that we discussed is the United States helps Ukraine, but I think that
other countries should help Ukraine much more than they’re doing — Germany, France, the
European Union nations. They really should help you a lot more. And I think maybe,
together, we’ll work on that. They have to feel a little bit guilty about it because they don’t
do what they should be doing.
You’re very important to the European Union. You’re very important — strategically, very
important. And I think they should spend a lot more in helping Ukraine. And they know that
also, and they actually tell me that, but they don’t seem to produce. So I’m sure you’ll talk to
them, and I’ll certainly be talking to them.
PRESIDENT ZELENSKY: Thank you very much, Mr. President. And, you know, now we need
— I want to tell you that we now (inaudible) the new country. And, I’m sorry, but we don’t
need help; we need support. Real support. And we thank — thank everybody, thank all of
the European countries; they each help us. But we also want to have more — more. But I
understand, so only together, America and EU — only together we can stop the war. And,
you know, we are ready. We just want to tell that we are — remember that we are the
biggest country in Europe, but we want to be the richest one. It’s true; it’s in my heart.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, you know, you have great people in Ukraine, and you have very
talented people —
PRESIDENT ZELENSKY: Very smart.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: — in terms of manufacturing, in terms of some of the things they do.
And we’ll be doing — we’re doing trading already, but we should be doing a lot more trading
with Ukraine. But you have very talented people. They make great things. You’re at the top
of the line, really. So that’s very important.
And the other thing is I’ve heard you actually have — over the last fairly short period of
time, you’ve really made some progress with Russia. I hear a lot of progress has been
made. And just keep it going. It’d be nice to end that whole disaster.
PRESIDENT ZELENSKY: First of all, I want to tell you, before — before the relations with
Russia — I will prolong, just one minute — I mean, you have to know — I want world to
know that now we have the new team, the new parliament, the new government.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Right.
PRESIDENT ZELENSKY: So now we (inaudible) about 74 laws, new laws, which help for our
new reforms: land reform, big privatization. They did the law about concessions. Did — we
(inaudible) general for security, and we launched the Service Secretary.
Is it right Service Secretary?
AIDE: Yes. Anti-corruption court, as well.
PRESIDENT ZELENSKY: An anti-corruption court. As we came, we did — we launched the
anti-corruption court. It began to work on the 5th of September. It was — you know, it was
— after five days, we had the new government.
So, we are ready. We want to show that we — we just come. And if somebody, if you — if
you want to help us, so just let’s do businesses cases. We have many investment cases.
We’re ready.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: And stop corruption in Ukraine, because that will really make you
great. That will make you great personally, and it’ll also be so tremendous for your nation,
in terms of what you want to do and where you want to take it.
Thank you very much. It’s a great honor.
PRESIDENT ZELENSKY: Thank you very much, Mr. President.
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