White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that it was an “incredibly refreshing” moment to watch US President Donald Trump shout at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during the Oval Office meeting last week.

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Leavitt told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Monday (Mar 3), “President Trump wants to end this war. He campaigned on this. He talked about it at every single rally across the country, and unfortunately, President Zelensky is not in the mindset to negotiate peace.”

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“And I think, frankly, it was incredibly refreshing to watch the president and the vice president stand up for America,” she added.

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Leavitt said that Zelensky appeared “ungrateful to the American taxpayer.”

“It was incredibly profound to watch our president actually stand up for us, for the taxpaying American, law-abiding citizen, who was sick and tired of seeing hundreds of billions of dollars go out the door every single year when we had real problems in our country here,” she said.

Also read | ‘Determined to continue cooperation with US’: Ukraine for negotiations after Trump halts military aid

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Trump White House meltdown

Leavitt’s remarks come days after the meeting happened on Friday (Feb 28) to discuss a crucial deal over mineral resources as part of the efforts to end Ukraine's war with Russia.

Prior to the White House meeting between the two leaders, she expressed that she was confident in Trump’s ability to strike an agreement with Russia and bring the war to an end.

Also read | ‘Best contribution to peace’: Russia hails Trump’s move of halting military aid to Ukraine

However, the plan went sideways when the two leaders engaged in a tense war of words and Trump accused Zelensky of refusing to make peace with Russia. Subsequently, the Ukrainian president was made to leave the White House early without signing the deal and their joint press conference was cancelled.

Trump and Vice President JD Vance accused Zelensky of being “disrespectful” and not showing enough gratitude for US assistance when he questioned Trump’s recent talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin that did not include Ukraine.

Also read | ‘Deeply disrespectful’: UK MPs demand apology from JD Vance, accuse him of ‘erasing history’

On Monday (Mar 3), a White House official reportedly said that President Donald Trump suspended military aid to Ukraine, a move that will escalate tensions between Washington and Kyiv and its European allies.

(With inputs from agencies)