President Donald Trump’s administration has demanded a recorded “public apology” from Volodymyr Zelensky after the Ukrainian leader just announced that he’s now “ready” to sign the peace deal he walked away from last week.
According to Fox White House correspondent Peter Doocy, Trump has asserted that the deal will move forward unless “Zelensky goes in front of cameras and makes an explicit public apology for the way he behaved in the Oval Office.”
As Slay News reported, Zelensky outraged Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance by complaining in front of the media about the deal he’d previously agreed to sign.
Trump and Vance blasted Zelesky as “disprespectful” and kicked him out of the White House.
In recent developments, it has now emerged that Zelensky met with top Senate Democrats just an hour before he met with Trump at the White House.
Democrat Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) and other lawmakers reportedly urged Zelensky to reject the possibility of a peace deal without so-called “security guarantees.”
During that meeting, the Democrats convinced Zelensky that Trump was supposedly tricking him into signing a “fake peace agreement.”
Now, it appears Zelensky has seen the error of his ways as Ukraine faces an ongoing war with Russia without U.S. support.
On Tuesday, President Zelensky reiterated that he’s “ready” to sign the minerals deal with the US.
“Nothing is gonna happen with this minerals deal until Zelensky goes in front of cameras and makes an explicit public apology for the way he behaved in the Oval Office with that meeting,” Doocy said in a live broadcast from the White House lawn.
“There’s now quite a disconnect happening here at the White House with their allies in Kiev.”
Doocy said he was specifically “told by a senior official” in the Trump administration that the president requires a recorded apology by Zelensky to make amends.
Over the weekend, Zelensky said he still hopes for “constructive dialogue” with Washington.
He has expressed a willingness to sign the agreement.
WATCH:
Just hours after Zelensky left the White House Friday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio advised the Ukrainian leader to apologize “for wasting our time.”
Rubio told Zelensky that he had turned “this thing into the fiasco for him that it became.”
Zelensky has still not apologized, however.
While his office has issued statements that express “regret,” Zelensky hasn’t explicitly apologized.
Similalrly, Trump and Vamce took issue with Zelensky refusing to thank the American people for their support.
“My team and I stand ready to work under President Trump’s strong leadership to get a peace that lasts,” Zelenskiy said Tuesday on X.
“The first stages could be the release of prisoners and truce in the sky — ban on missiles, long-ranged drones, bombs on energy and other civilian infrastructure — and truce in the sea immediately, if Russia will do the same.”
Meanwhile, Republican congressional leaders are still holding out hope that a deal will be reached.
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), a co-chair of the bipartisan Congressional Ukraine Caucus, said he’s confident a minerals deal will still “be signed in short order.”
“We are 100% getting this train back on the tracks,” Fitzpatrick wrote on X on Monday.
“This mineral deal will be signed in short order, which will lead to a strong long-term economic partnership between the United States and Ukraine, and which will ultimately and naturally lead to security assistance.”
READ MORE – Evidence Emerges That Democrats Were Behind Zelensky’s Oval Office Disaster
