The MeidasTouch Podcast

Trump Gets Rude Awakening as Zelenskyy Strikes Back

February 20, 2025 22m
MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on Ukrainian President Zelenskyy not submitting to Trump’s threats, coercion, and intimidation. Qualia Life: Head to https://qualialife.com/meidas and use promo code: MEIDAS at checkout for 15% OFF your purchase of Qualia's products. Visit https://meidasplus.com for more! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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That's MantisX.com. If Donald Trump thought that Ukrainian President Zelensky was just going to roll over, well, Donald Trump just got a rude awakening.
President Zelensky of Ukraine is saying to Donald Trump, what makes you think that I'm going to give up so easily as you try to sell out Ukraine to Russia? I'm going to show you some clips of what President Zelensky recently said. This follows, of course, the United States under Donald Trump's authoritarian regime,

sending Secretary of State Marco Rubio. President Zelensky recently said this follows, of course, the United States under Donald

Trump's authoritarian regime, sending Secretary of State Marco Rubio to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to negotiate directly with the Russians, led by their foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and the United States and Russia cut off Ukraine and Europe from being part of the negotiations. The plan was for the United States and Russia to carve up Ukraine, to sell it out to Russia, and then just impose their will on Ukraine.
And before this meeting, Donald Trump tried to get Zelensky to sign a piece of paper giving basically all of Ukraine's rare earth metals and rare earth materials to the United States in perpetuity. So let me show you what Zelensky did as the United States totally capitulated and showed how weak the United States is going to be and the betrayal by the United States to Ukraine and to Europe.
So before this meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, between the United States and Russia, let me show you what Zelensky said when he was asked why he did not sign the piece of paper to give up all of the rare earth materials belonging to Ukraine, to the United States, especially with no security guarantees. Here, play this clip.
What was the issue of what the Americans showed you yesterday? It's not in our interest today. Not in the interest of sovereign Ukraine.
I'm just a president. I'm a manager.
And after my tour, there will be another manager. And these resources, this is not mine, of our people.
And I'm a guarantor that these resources will have our children. With all partners, please, make profits, make business.
It's open for your companies. In some cases, exclusive to your...
Please, we are strategic partners. And that's why we trust Americans, American people, and some European countries who helped a lot.
It's about it. But it's not mine.
I'm not... Take, give.
It's very serious things. Okay.
Then following the meeting between the United States and Russia, Rubio and Sergey Lavrov, which Russian press, Russian state media, I should say, and propaganda was loving it. The United States bending its knee to Russia.
This was the moment that Russia always wanted, having the United States kiss the ring of Russia. It was so humiliating for the United States.
And as an American, it was so shameful to see this American regime so utterly weak and pathetic. But you know who wasn't pathetic? President Zelensky.
President Zelensky went to Turkey where he met with the leader Erdogan there. And then Zelensky talked about and basically directed this message to Donald Trump saying, you think you're going to just cut us out? You think that I'm just going to submit to what you tell us

to do? Do you know the history of Ukraine? Do you know how valiantly we fought the Russians when nobody was by our side at first and then the rest of the world took notice? You think we're going to tap out that easily? Well, you don't know Ukrainians, Donald. Here, play this clip.
And we had no choice but to take up arms and defend ourselves. There was no diplomacy because Russia attacked Ukraine at night and Ukrainians took up arms and began to defend their country without the help of any country in the world.
That's how it was. No one was helping Ukraine at that moment.
But then, when everyone saw that Putin could not capture our country, that our people were not going anywhere, our military, that the president of Ukraine did not flee, then everyone understood that Ukraine needed help.

And only then did various countries begin to provide help in varying amounts.

Russia issued an ultimatum at that moment, reducing the number of Ukrainian armed forces,

recognizing the occupied territories of Ukraine as Russian territories. The country's leadership is pro-Russian so that it is completely aligned with Putin's hierarchy.
And I have the impression that some negotiations are happening now and they have the same mood, but they are occurring between representatives of Russia and representatives of the United States. About Ukraine, again about Ukraine and without Ukraine.
It's interesting, if we didn't agree to all these ultimatums in the most difficult moment, where does this feeling come from that Ukraine will agree to them now? As for Turkey then,

after the ultimatum,

Russia gave the same ultimatum in Belarus at the meeting and the same ultimatum after Belarus in Turkey.

We understand that there are no agreements,

neither during the occupation of Kyiv with the

Russians, no agreements during the meeting in Belarus, no agreements during the meeting in

Turkey with the Russians. I, as the president of Ukraine, did not guarantee anything to anyone,

did not confirm anything to anyone, especially I was not going to comply with Russia's ultimatums. And I am not going to.
Powerful words there by Zelensky, where he said, it feels like the US is now discussing the ultimatum that Putin set at the start of the full scale war. Once again, decisions about Ukraine are being made without Ukraine.
I wonder if we didn't accept such ultimatums in our most difficult moment, why does anyone think we would now, Donald, you weak, pathetic person, you? Look, this is a Republican senator over here, Senator Roger Wicker. He is the chairman of the Senate Armed

Services Committee, and he's been a powerful ally, powerful advocate for Ukraine. He was asked right

here if America, if Trump should trust Putin. Watch what this Republican says.
Play this clip.

Do you think that Putin can be trusted in these negotiations?

No. Putin is a war criminal and should be in jail for the rest of his life, if not executed.
Because Trump thinks that he should, that he wants peace, that Putin wants peace. Well, I read a pamphlet back when I was in junior high called You Can Trust the Russians.
And then parenthetically it was to be clearly on their side and to violate the rule of law. I think that's what we can trust the Russians to do, is to do anything to their advantage, to take temporary steps.
But, Vladimir Putin has violated every tenet of international law. And I asked Wicker about the fact that the United States so far has begun those direct negotiations with Russia alone.
He said, quote, I don't know what the scheme is, but he said that the Ukrainians ultimately need to be at the table. And he said, quote, European interests have to be considered and, quote, carefully weighed.
But as Julia Davis, who covers all of the Russian state propaganda, she runs Russian Monitor, she does a great job. She goes, wait until Trump teaches him and the rest of the spineless GOP to trust Putin.
It won't take long for these pathetic MAGAs to fall into line like the sheeple that they are. While all of this was going on, Russian press was ecstatic at the weakness shown by the United States.
Their top propaganda shows were saying, quote, the U.S. is doing Russia's work, says ecstatic propagandists.
Putin's mouthpieces are in a lather over the excitement over the U.S. administration's willingness to make the deal that Russia wanted, the ultimatum that Russia put to Zelensky at the beginning of the war before its unlawful invasion.
Here's the headline from Politico in Europe, Moscow's media gloats over U.S.-Russia talks.

As this account explains, war criminal Putin is having a fantastic week. We have no clue how the so-called peace agreement will play out or what's next for the war.
But one thing's clear, Putin is getting legitimized. His atrocities conveniently forgotten.
Is the rest of the world fine with this? Professor Michael McFowell says the following. So Putin is apparently insisting that Ukraine hold new elections, phase two allegedly of a peace plan.
Phase one is a ceasefire before real negotiations on a settlement begin. The U.S.
should agree as long as Russia holds a free and fair presidential election too. Professor McFowell then says, as I predicted last night, the main goal of the Russian delegation in Riyadh was to restart U.S.-Russia relations.
They've already achieved their goal, and so Russia is ecstatic that the Trump regime has legitimized the Putin regime. As Phillips O'Brien says, I hope people understands what we are seeing here.
However, Trump and Putin are preparing a common plan to dictate to Ukraine. Ukraine will surprise them, at least Trump, by refusing.
The war will continue. The role of Europe will become decisive.
Here was a press conference that Donald Trump gave yesterday while vacationing in Mar-a-Lago because apparently Donald Trump doesn't even work in Washington, D.C. anymore.
He was asked the following question, how would you guard against Russia installing a puppet government in Ukraine? And then Donald Trump blames Ukraine for the beginning of the war. Here, play this clip.
How would you counter the perception, because Russia is pushing for this, obviously, they don't really hold true elections, that that would be a capitulation of some sort. How would you guard against potentially Russia installing a puppet government? And then finally, how would that new election have an impact on getting Zelensky to sign the rare earth minerals deal look you have leadership and i like him personally he's fine but i don't care about personally i care about getting the job done you have leadership now that's allowed a war to go on that should have never even happened even without the united states look we had a president who was grossly incompetent he had no idea what he was doing he said some very stupid things like going in for portions and all those things he made a lot of bad statements but uh he's grossly incompetent and i think everyone knew that this is something that should have never happened would have never happened and i used to discuss it with putin president putin and i would talk about ukraine it was the apple of his eye i will tell you that but he never there was never a chance of him going in and i told him you better not go in don't go in don't go in and he understood that he understood it fully but i'm only interested i want to see if i can save maybe millions of lives this could even end up in a world war three i mean to be honest with you you've been hearing now europe is saying well i think we're going to go in and we're going to go all of a sudden you're going end up in a World War III.
I mean, to be honest with you, you've been hearing now Europe is saying, well, I think we're going to go in and we're going to go. All of a sudden, you're going to end up in World War III.
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Donald Trump was asked if you have a message for Ukrainians who feel betrayed. Play this clip.
Yeah, please. Do you have any message for Ukrainians who, after three years of fighting, might feel betrayed or disappointed at not having a seat at these initial talks in Saudi Arabia? Well, I think I'm really disappointed in what's happened.
I've been watching this for three years. It's a war that would have never happened if I was president.
And I've been watching these, you know, people being killed at levels that you've rarely seen, not even close since the Second World War. And I'm very disappointed.
I hear that, you know, they're upset about not having a seat. Well, they've had a seat for three years and a long time before that this could have been settled very easily just a half a half-baked negotiator could have settled this years ago without i think without the loss of much land very little land without the loss of any lives and without the loss of cities that are just laying on their side you have those magnificent golden domes that are shattered will never be replaced you can't replace them thousand year old domes that are so beautiful they can't replace that the whole civilization has changed because of what so when they're worried about not being seated you mean somebody that should have gone in and made a deal a long time ago uh you could have made a deal this is one that could have made a deal there was no talk of this during the trump administration putin would have never ever done it and by the way we wouldn't have had october 7th you know that we wouldn't have had october 7th either in israel and we wouldn't have that mess that's going on over there it's like we're we have great fire people here we're putting out fires all over the world we're putting out fires so that wouldn't have happened and you know what else wouldn't have happened inflation because it was caused really by the cost of energy going through the roof because of their bad energy policies and uh and also their spending their terrible spending wasteful spending on the Green News scam.

It's a scam. It's a whole big scam.
Yeah, please. Again, what a dastardly, despicable, disgusting statement by the menace that is Donald Trump running the authoritarian regime here, Putin's puppet in the United States of America.
And to see the weak, spineless Secretary of State of the United States, Marco Rubio, hyping how he wants to do economic deals with Russia, all I say to the spineless Republicans who pretend to be Russian hawks is take a look at what's going on here. And this is you.
You are complicit in this. Here, play this clip.
A diplomatic one is one we

think we hope to move pretty quickly on because this involves the treatment of our respective missions. The second one will be difficult, which is the question of Ukraine and the end of that conflict.
But I think that's essential in order for the third piece to even be possible, which is our ability to work together on other geopolitical matters of common interest. And of course, some pretty unique, potentially historic economic partnerships as well.
The key that unlocks the door for those opportunities, however, is the end to this conflict. Finally, Professor McFowell explains the following.
Apparently, Trump's team offered Putin, one, Ukrainian territory, two, no NATO membership for Ukraine, three, no U.S. soldiers in Ukraine, four, the withdrawal of U.S.
soldiers from Europe, including from frontline states, and five, sanctions relief.

Putin's return offer, absolutely nothing right there.

Zelensky's powerful words, though, remain what I shared with you at the beginning.

If we didn't accept such ultimatums in our hardest moments, why would we now?

I'm going to go. Powerful words, though, remain what I shared with you at the beginning.
If we didn't accept such ultimatums in our hardest moments, why would we now?

I'm Ben Micellis reporting from the Midas Touch Network.

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