A CNN reporter appeared taken aback by President Donald Trump's eyebrow-raising remarks Monday afternoon during a summit with European leaders, in which he made remarks about a possible ceasefire in Ukraine, then shifted to a peace agreement.
Trump met with a delegation of European leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House on Monday to discuss ending Russia’s ongoing invasion. The summit comes after Trump’s recent face-to-face meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, where discussions ended with no peace deal. European leaders included those from Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Finland, the European Commission, and NATO.
After a public roundtable where the leaders each expressed their desires, CNN's Kristen Holmes reacted to Trump's comments specifically.
"Those comments about a ceasefire were really interesting, particularly given that he seemed to walk away from the idea of a ceasefire after Alaska," she said. "Then he said, 'I would prefer, everyone here would prefer, a ceasefire. A ceasefire is better in some ways because it stops the killing."
She noted that Trump changed his rhetoric later in the meeting.
"But then later, after some of the leaders had talked about a ceasefire as well, he went back to this idea of a peace agreement, saying he solved other wars with just a peace agreement. So that was quite interesting there."
Holmes also highlighted Trump's remarks on land concessions and security guarantees for Ukraine.
"Now, President Trump said that there was quite a bit of things that they were going to have up for discussion — that during these talks today it was going to include potential land concessions. It was also going to include these security guarantees."
The latter, she said, were "incredibly notable" for a couple of reasons.
"One, you heard several of the leaders there saying that they were grateful for President Trump to engage in those conversations and to potentially lend U.S. assistance. Now, this is after we heard President Trump earlier today not ruling out the idea of U.S. troops on the ground. Clearly, this is a key item when it comes to Ukraine and to the European leaders — that they want U.S. buy-in when it comes to these security guarantees."
Additionally, she said, Trump appeared to signal they could come to a resolution about such security guarantees on Monday.
"They seem to want to come out of here with a couple of big things: one, potential security guarantees, as we’ve said; but the other part of this is that trilateral meeting. We heard several of these various leaders saying that they want to leave here with this trilateral meeting, at least in the works of being set up between Trump, Putin, and Zelenskyy."
Holmes also highlighted that Trump essentially said that any peace in Ukraine was "on Zelenskyy."
"But then he added that it was also on Russian President Vladimir Putin," she said. "That is notable given that earlier today, after he came out of those conversations in Alaska and earlier on Truth Social, he was saying essentially that the ball is all in Zelenskyy’s court now on a ceasefire."
Watch the clip below or at this link.