Thanks to a microphone that just so happened to still be hot, we can now hear a bit of what US President Donald Trump had to say in the seconds after the press left the room following the now-infamous and frankly disastrous Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky.
The two world leaders met for a discussion in the Oval Office on Friday that resulted in a crescendo of insults and arguing following weeks of the pair firing off public comments toward each other. That meeting, as we’re all aware by now, almost instantly devolved into a shouting match, as President Zelensky refused to be insulted and mistreated by American leadership, while Trump and his Vice President J.D. Vance attempted to publicly shame and chastise the Ukrainian leader for basically not groveling enough.
That disastrous meeting has since gone viral and effectively dominated the media cycle for days, as Zelensky and his people were ultimately ejected from the White House and any talks of deals came to a screeching halt, leaving the diplomatic world with their jaws on the floor.
Trump officials have attempted to do damage control and sway the narrative surrounding the meeting by pushing out anonymous accounts of what took place after the meeting fell apart.
New York Times reported:
After the meeting blew up, Trump administration officials regrouped and ultimately decided to tell Mr. Zelensky to leave, according to a person with knowledge of the events. Two officials were dispatched to inform the Ukrainians, who were waiting in the Roosevelt Room. One Ukrainian official proposed a meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Zelensky to calm things down, the person said, but the Americans said no.”
CNN reported:
A rattled Ukrainian delegation — including the Ukrainian ambassador to Washington Oksana Markarova, who stopped taking notes during the meeting and simply placed her head in her hands — left the Oval Office to regroup in the Roosevelt Room, just down the hall.
Huddling with his own key advisers to assess the situation, including Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Trump was enraged, saying he felt disrespected by Zelensky’s tone.
‘Zelensky played it as wrong as he could play it. He came into Oval acting like a tough guy. It didn’t play well. Everyone in the room felt insulted,’ one US official said. ‘Now Zelensky will have to figure out how to fix this on his own. We can’t fix it for him.'”
As the meeting came to its dramatic end and reporters began to file out of the Oval Office, the White House live feed continued to roll for about a minute, but only captured banter between reporters. Other feeds from inside the meeting also cut off as journalists were exiting. However, one Pool feed continued to capture audio from inside the Oval Office and offered a glimpse of just a few seconds into what Donald Trump was saying in the aftermath of the disaterous meeting with Zelenzy.
Much of the audio is difficult to make out, but Mediaite reports the following transcript of the hot mic audio, in which Trump can clearly be heard referencing the Roosevelt Room:
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: You’re right, maybe we should (INAUDIBLE). Let’s have a little something.
UNIDENTIFIED: Yeah.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We’ll uh–
UNIDENTIFIED: Especially if we’re gonna–
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Would you bring them to the Roosevelt Room, (INAUDIBLE).
The audio clip can be found at Mediaite here.
Featured image via screen capture