President Trump Tuesday joked about scoring a ticket to heaven by brokering an elusive peace deal in Ukraine after a high-stakes summit assembly with European allies on the White Home.
A day after the extraordinary gathering of leaders claimed some modest progress towards talks with Russia, Trump predicted the pearly gates would swing large open for him if he can obtain a breakthrough to finish the 3-1/2 year-long battle.
From left: Finnish President Alexander Stubb, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, U.S. President Donald Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and NATO Secretary Common Mark Rutte put together to depart after a gaggle picture previous to assembly on the White Home on Monday in Washington, DC. (Win McNamee/Getty Pictures)
Trump wryly conceded that to date he’s fallen wanting what is perhaps required to achieve favor with St. Peter.
“I’m hearing that I’m not doing well,” he stated. “I am really at the bottom of the totem pole.”
From left: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, French President Emmanuel Macron, President Donald Trump, Finnish President Alexander Stubb and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz pay attention as European Fee President Ursula von der Leyen speaks throughout a gathering within the East Room of the White Home in Washington, DC, on Monday. (ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP by way of Getty Pictures)
Trump explicitly dominated out sending American troops to safeguard any peace deal in Ukraine, cleansing up some uncertainty from his earlier remarks.
He steered he nonetheless has a tough path forward to rearrange a face-to-face assembly between Putin and Ukraine President Zelenskyy, noting that each males must make concessions.
“I hope President Putin is going to be good and if he’s not, that’s going to be a rough situation,” he stated. “And I hope that Zelensky, President Zelensky, will do what he has to do. He has to show some flexibility.”
Russia poured chilly water on the concept of a summit within the close to future, with International Minister Sergei Lavrov saying such a sit-down would take a major period of time to arrange, repeating a well-recognized sample of stalling.
European leaders left the summit with Trump feeling cautiously optimistic that they restricted the harm from the American president’s summit with Putin, after which Trump adopted Kremlin speaking factors concerning the battle.
They claimed vital progress in arising with concrete Western “security guarantees” for Ukraine that may very well be included in a possible peace settlement.
However they did not get Trump to revert to his earlier stance of demanding an instantaneous ceasefire, which Putin rejects, which means the preventing and Russian’s aerial assaults on Ukraine civilians is unlikely to finish anytime quickly.
Initially Printed: August 19, 2025 at 10:04 AM EDT
