Lawrence: President Zelenskyy had a successful day in the Trump White House

Well, it was another successful day in the White House for the president. That president was, of course, Volodymyr Zelensky. President Zelensky, the most heroic European leader of the 21st century, went to the White House today surrounded by seven other European leaders, including five European heads of state to prevent Donald Trump from doing something crazy. That was the whole purpose of their trip.

And once again, President Zelensky and the European leaders succeeded. Donald Trump did nothing crazy today about Ukraine. And only today. We don't know what happens tomorrow. But that is what a successful day looks like now in a White House which used to be occupied by presidents who tried to prevent Russian dictators from doing something crazy.

Success for Donald Trump today was measured in how much his not doing something crazy on Ukraine could distract attention from Donald Trump's long friendship with child rapist Jeffrey Epstein and his criminal co-conspirator, who also physically abused children with Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is also a friend of Donald Trump's and currently serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking, a sentence that Donald Trump made much easier by recently transferring her to the most lenient federal facility for women prisoners, which one former Bureau of Prison Officials

called a country club. That country club is in Texas, close to Gallade-Maxwell's family, and is an upgrade in every way she could hope, from the more serious prison where she was doing hard time, or harder time, in Florida. Donald Trump's attempt at diversion will work

with most of the news media today, but it won't work on this program. We will be joined tonight by Congressman Robert Garcia, the top-ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee. That committee took testimony today from the person who was Donald Trump's worst Senate-confirmed

attorney general in Donald Trump's first term. But William Barr was the attorney general when Jeffrey Epstein was arrested on federal charges in New York. And William Barr was the attorney general when Jeffrey Epstein was arrested on federal charges in New York, and William Barr was the attorney general when Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his federal jail cell awaiting trial. Donald Trump did everything he possibly could today to distract news attention away from one of his former attorneys general, who he now publicly hates, testifying to the House Oversight Committee.

Today in the Oval Office, Donald Trump spoke for the man who wasn't there, Vladimir Putin. Look, the war is going to end. When it ends, I can't tell you, but the war is going to end, and this gentleman wants it to end, and Vladimir gentleman wants it to end, and Vladimir Putin wants it to end.

I think the whole world is tired of it, and we're going to get it ended.

Vladimir Putin has never said he wants it to end. Today, when Donald Trump said Vladimir Putin wants it to end, Vladimir Putin fired missiles into Ukraine, killing 14 people and injuring dozens more people, including two children in a residential building in Kharkiv. In a social media post, President Zelensky said, this was a demonstrative and cynical Russian strike.

They are aware that a meeting is taking place today in Washington that will address the end of the war. The Russian war machine continues to destroy lives despite everything. Putin will commit demonstrative killings to maintain pressure on Ukraine and Europe, as well as to humiliate diplomatic efforts. That is precisely why we are seeking assistance to put an end to the killings.

That is why reliable security guarantees are required. That is why Russia should not be rewarded for its participation in this war. The war must be ended, and it is Moscow that must hear the word stop. And of course, the phrase humiliate diplomatic efforts really means humiliate Donald Trump. The whole world is tired of it. That is what you just heard Donald Trump say.

The whole world was tired of World War II, but it did not end by trying to make a Trump-like deal with Adolf Hitler, who started World War II. President Roosevelt never said to Adolf Hitler, here's how much of France you can keep if you just stop the war that you started. But that is how Donald Trump thinks this war should end.

We also need to discuss the possible exchanges of territory taken into consideration the current line of contact. That means the war zone, the war lines that are pretty obvious, very sad actually to look at them,

and negotiating positions. The Fox White House correspondent who got his job because his father is the Fox morning show host functions as a Trump Communications Strategy Partner. And today served as a public Trump co-conspirator in trying to reward Vladimir Putin by urging the surrender of Ukrainian

territory to Putin.

President Zelensky, are you prepared to keep sending Ukrainian troops to their deaths for another couple years, or are you going to agree to redraw the maps?

Thank you for your question. So, first of all, you know, we live under each day attacks. You know that today have been a lot of attacks, a lot of wounded people and the child was dead, small bomb, and the child was dead. Small bomb. One year and a half. So we need to stop this war to stop Russia,

and we need support from American and European partners. We will do our best for this. So, and I think we showed that we are strong people, and we supported the idea of the United States, of personally President Trump, to stop this war to make diplomatic way of finishing this war and we

are ready for trilateral as President said. This is a good signal about trilateral. I think this is very good.

You can study the White House transcripts of President Roosevelt's literally hundreds of press conferences in the Oval Office during World War II with the White House Press Corps. And not one of them asked President Roosevelt how much territory, how much of France, how much of Europe should be given to Adolf Hitler. Not one American reporter sank to that level in the White House during World War II. But of course, today the Fox guy did, and it is lucky for the world that Fox did not exist during World War II. Before his meeting on Friday in Alaska with Vladimir Putin, which accomplished nothing other than distracting news media attention

from Donald Trump's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump said this.

I want to see a ceasefire rapidly. I don't know if it's going to be today, but I'm not going to be happy if it's not today.

There was no ceasefire on Friday, but Donald Trump still said that he was happy after his meeting with Vladimir Putin, which was widely declared a failure, even in some Trump-supporting media. And 72 hours after saying, I want to see a ceasefire rapidly, I don't know if it's going to be today, but I'm not going to be happy if it's not today. Donald Trump said this today. they're fighting. They have to fight. I wish they could stop. I'd like them to stop. But strategically, that could be a disadvantage for one side or the other. They have to fight. There's Donald Trump saying they have to fight. Donald Trump, who has

given up even trying to get a ceasefire after trying for less than a day to get a ceasefire, now says they have to fight. No, they don't. They were not fighting until Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, thereby winning Vladimir Putin the legal status of war criminal, a status that Vladimir Putin reestablishes every day.

Vladimir Putin kills children deliberately. Vladimir Putin targets residential buildings, knowing that children are sleeping there, that grandmothers are sleeping there, that noncombatant people of all kinds are sleeping in those residential buildings. And Vladimir Putin wants them dead. And Donald Trump says he has to keep doing it.

They have to fight. We have never had a more morally vacant president of the United States. They have to fight. Donald Trump says Vladimir Putin has to keep doing what he is doing. We have never had a more diplomatically dazed and confused president of the United States. Donald Trump has no idea that in diplomatic negotiations, when you're trying to get one side to stop doing something, you don't say that they have to keep doing it.

When President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry were negotiating a deal with Iran to stop Iran from enriching weapons-grade uranium for nuclear weapons. John Kerry didn't say they have to keep doing it. President Obama didn't say they have to keep doing it. They didn't publicly negotiate against themselves.

But the truth is Donald Trump doesn't care about Ukraine. Donald Trump has made that obvious for years now. Donald Trump doesn't care about the survival of Ukraine. And so he's not really trying to negotiate anything. So he's not negotiating against himself. He's not negotiating.

He's just trying to get the cameras into his reality show White House for something other than questions about Jeffrey Epstein. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said this.

We all would like to see a ceasefire, the latest from the next meeting on. I can't imagine that the next meeting would took place without a ceasefire. So let's work on that and let's try to put pressure on Russia because the credibility of these efforts we are undertaking today are depending on at least a ceasefire from the beginning of the serious negotiations, from next step on.

That's right. And that's another way of saying there is no credibility to Donald Trump's so-called efforts.

Donald Trump could have-called efforts.

Donald Trump could have made an effort on Friday to press for a ceasefire, but he didn't. He simply gave up. And after all the criticism Donald Trump got from most of the American news media on Friday and through the weekend for giving up, Donald Trump today tweeted, I know exactly what I'm doing. The I know exactly what I'm doing tweet was a classic Trump case of what psychology calls

projection, projecting onto other people what you fear deep down about yourself, what you feel deep down about yourself. Donald Trump said, I know exactly what I'm doing and I don't need the advice of people who have been working on all of these conflicts for years and were never able to do a thing to stop them. They are stupid people with no common sense, intelligence, or understanding. When you're the stupid person in the room, you feel it.

You know it. I was that person in many rooms at Harvard University, then later as the chief of staff of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, where every staff member of that committee knew more about environment and public works than I did. And then, as chief of staff of the Senate Committee on Finance, where all of the committee's staff experts

on taxation, international trade, social security, Medicaid, welfare, unemployment insurance, and other programs all knew more about those programs than I did. And when I was in high-level meetings in the Senate Majority Leader's Office office or in the Speaker's office or in the Oval Office, I was always the person in the room with the

least experience. And I knew it. I know what it feels like. And Donald Trump knows. Quote, stupid people with no common sense, intelligence, or understanding. End quote from Donald Trump. End quote from Donald Trump.

Donald Trump knows that's who he is.