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‘Living in This Disinformation Space’: Zelenskyy Pummels Trump Over Ukraine Lie

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President Donald Trump’s false claim, an attack on Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has ignited outrage from U.S. allies abroad and from his frequent critics at home — who branded him a “Russian asset” and a “traitor to the free world.” While Trump’s remarks are being described as “a watershed moment in the war,” the criticism that may carry the most weight and leave the longest-lasting impact came from the Ukrainian President himself.

In a stunning display echoing Vladimir Putin’s rhetoric, President Trump, speaking from his Florida resort and residence at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday, falsely placed the blame for the Russian President’s full-scale illegal war on Ukraine squarely on President Zelenskyy.

Trump’s remarks appeared to be a direct response to Zelenskyy’s public criticism of a meeting in Saudi Arabia between Trump administration officials and members of the Putin regime — talks about ending Russia’s war and about Ukraine’s future, that excluded Zelenskyy and his administration.

RELATED: ‘Bloodbath by Design’: Trump’s Russia Negotiators Criticized for ‘Almost No Experience’

Instead of addressing those concerns, Trump launched a blistering attack on the Ukrainian leader.

“Today I heard, ‘Oh, well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should have ended it three years — you should have never started it,” Trump said, talking about Zelenskyy. “You could have made a deal. I could have made a deal for Ukraine that would have given them almost all of the land. Everything, almost all of the land. And no people would have been killed and no city would have been demolished, and not one dome would have been knocked down. But they chose not to do it that way.”

Trump then went on to attack his predecessor.

Responding to a reporter’s question about Russia’s call for elections in Ukraine as part of negotiations, Trump baselessly accused Zelenskyy of imposing martial law and falsely claimed his approval rating is in the single digits.

“Well, we have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine,” Trump said. “Well, we have martial law, essentially martial law in Ukraine, where the leader in Ukraine, I mean, I hate to say it, but he’s down at four percent approval rating and where a country has been blown to smithereens. You got most of the cities are laying on their sides.”

CBS News reported that Trump “appeared to shift three years — if not many decades — of U.S. foreign policy almost 180 degrees, issuing remarks that made his administration sound aligned more with Russian President Vladimir Putin than America’s European allies of the last eight decades.”

President Zelenskyy pushed back.

“We are seeing a lot of disinformation and that is coming from Russia,” Zelenskyy said Wednesday, CBS reported. “Unfortunately, President Trump, with all due respect… is living in this disinformation space.”

He also accused the American President of being trapped in a Russian “disinformation bubble.”

Zelenskyy also said he “would like Trump’s team to be more truthful,” in what the Associated Press characterized as “his first response to a series of striking claims the U.S. president made the previous day.”

The Ukrainian president also took issue with remarks Trump officials made at Tuesday’s talks in Saudi Arabia.

“Yesterday, there were signals of speaking with them as victims,” Zelenskyy said, according to The New York Times, which reported he was referring to “the Trump officials’ tone in discussing the Russian officials, whose government sparked the largest war in Europe since World War II, which has killed or wounded about a million people on both sides over three years.”

“That is something new,” Zelenskyy observed.

READ MORE: Stephen Miller Melts Down on Live TV: ‘I Will Be as Excited as I Want to Be!’

Indeed, as The Guardian reported, former UK defense secretary Ben Wallace “described Trump’s claims as being ‘straight out of the Kremlin talking points’.”

Trump’s remarks stretched around the globe. In the UK, former British prime minister Boris Johnson, a conservative, appeared to mock the American president.

“Of course Ukraine didn’t start the war. You might as well say that America attacked Japan at Pearl Harbor,” Johnson said, according to The Independent.

Former British Army colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon told The Independent, “I agree with Boris – Trump is talking bollocks and being hoodwinked by Putin – he said he’d end the war in 24 hours. He’s living in some sort of fantasy land and doesn’t seem to realize people are dying out there as he ‘show boats’ – we with Europe need to step up our support to Ukraine.”

The Trump administration, perhaps sensing the damage the President did to America’s relationship with Ukraine and its allies, quickly dispatched Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, retired general Keith Kellogg, a longtime Trump aide, to Ukraine.

“Upon arriving, Kellogg, a retired three-star general, said it was nice to be visiting Kyiv ‘just a few days before the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,’ seemingly acknowledging which side had initiated the war,’ CBS noted.

“Zelenskyy said he hoped Kellogg would walk through Kyiv and ‘ask (Ukrainians) if they trust their president? Do they trust Putin? Let him ask about Trump, what they think after the statements made by their president,’” the AP reported.

Meanwhile, in a fact-check, The Guardian took a look at several of Trump’s “misleading and outright false statements.”

“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was unprovoked and widely condemned by the international community as an act of aggression,” The Guardian reports. “In the lead-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, Zelenskyy repeatedly offered to meet his Russian counterpart. Five days before Russian troops rolled into Ukraine, Zelenskyy said: ‘We are ready to sit down and speak. Pick the platform that you like.'”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Ridiculous’: Federal Judge Scorches Trump DOJ Lawyer Over Military ‘Pronoun Use’

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News

‘Code Red’: Newsom Tells Europe They’ve Been Played by ‘T-Rex’ Trump

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January 20, 2026

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California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom issued what he described as a “code red” warning over President Donald Trump, citing what he characterized as a “wrecking ball” approach to the global order.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Governor Newsom told reporters that Europeans have been “played,” and that Trump has been “playing folks for fools.”

Calling the entire situation “embarrassing,” Newsom rejected the idea that what is happening between Trump and world leaders is diplomacy.

“This is diplomacy with Donald Trump? He’s a T-rex,” Newsom said, describing the president as a vicious dinosaur. “You mate with him, or he devours you. One of the other.”

READ MORE: ‘25th Amendment Territory’: Critics Warn Trump Impeachment Is ‘Not Enough’

Newsom warned that Europe is still playing by the old set of rules, while arguing that in actuality, “It’s the law of the jungle, it’s the rule of Don. And I hope it’s dawning on the world what we’re up against. I mean, this is serious. This guy is — he’s not mad. He is very intentional. But he’s unmoored. And he’s unhinged.”

Asked what Trump’s goal is, Newsom replied, “The goal is whatever he wants it to be. The goal is the world in his image. He’s a narcissist.”

Newsom then chastised European leaders, asking why they don’t do “what they’re saying in private?”

“Why don’t they just simply do what they know is right? Everybody’s talking behind his back. They laughing, and meanwhile they’re sucking up to him. It’s embarrassing.”

“This is not diplomacy,” the governor charged. “This is stupidity.”

READ MORE: Europe Divorcing America Now Seen as ‘Inevitable’: Report

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‘Is Canada Next?’ Ex-Trump Official Says Greenland Threat Worse Than Imagined

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January 19, 2026

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A former top Trump official is warning that President Donald Trump’s threats to Greenland are worse than could be imagined, and wonders if he will stop there or target another close U.S. ally, like Canada, next.

John Bolton, who served as Trump’s National Security Adviser during the first Trump administration, told NewsNation that the “damage that Donald Trump is doing to America’s reputation, to the trust and good faith and reliance, our European allies and friends around the world have on us is just impossible to state.”

He called it “extraordinary” to “threaten the invasion of a NATO ally, to seize by force a territory from a democracy.”

“The impact in Europe,” he said, “you cannot calculate how bad this is for us.”

READ MORE: ‘Dictators’ Tea Party’: Trump’s Board of Peace Ridiculed as New Details Revealed

Trump has ramped up his threats to acquire Greenland, and has refused to commit to not using military force to take control of the semi-autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark.

Bolton added, “if you want to rip up the NATO alliance, if you want to convince every other American ally around the world — Japan, South Korea, Australia — that we can’t be trusted, go ahead and use military force against Denmark in Greenland.”

“Go ahead and threaten your best friends and allies with retaliatory tariffs, because they just won’t give in,” he continued. “This is so counterproductive for the United States that it’s gonna take years to repair the damage that Donald Trump is doing, and none of it will do anything for the security of Greenland or the NATO alliance.”

“Well,” he added, “consider what it means for the United States to invade an ally like Denmark. Is Canada next? Shall we invade Great Britain? How about Spain?”

Bolton asked, “what is it that gives Trump the idea that the only way to deal with one of the friendliest countries in the world toward America, for 250 years, is to threaten military force?”

READ MORE: ‘25th Amendment Territory’: Critics Warn Trump Impeachment Is ‘Not Enough’

 

Image via Reuters 

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‘Dictators’ Tea Party’: Trump’s Board of Peace Ridiculed as New Details Revealed

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18 hours ago

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January 19, 2026

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The rollout for President Donald Trump’s new Board of Peace, which has drawn controversy and is facing resistance, does not appear to be going smoothly. The American president wants national leaders who join to donate at least $1 billion within the first year to become a permanent member. According to reports, Trump would be chairman for life, the organization could be filled with authoritarian leaders, and it is being seen as a possible rival to the United Nations.

Already, French President Emmanuel Macron, who appears to be leading the charge against Trump in Europe, reportedly has declined to join.

“The body was originally conceived as part of the U.S. president’s push to create a new governance framework for the shattered Palestinian enclave in the wake of Israel’s devastating two-year offensive against Hamas,” The Financial Times reported.

“The Board of Peace has had a rough landing,” reported Bloomberg News’ UK political editor Alex Wickham, noting that “it’s been criticized by Israel, questioned by Europe and has Russia’s friends celebrating.”

READ MORE: ‘25th Amendment Territory’: Critics Warn Trump Impeachment Is ‘Not Enough’

“World leaders were blindsided and bewildered by Trump’s demand they pay $1 billion for permanent membership, sources say,” Wickham noted. “European allies are working to modify the terms and coordinate a response, sources say. They are trying to persuade Arab leaders to help lobby Trump for changes.”

As chairman, Trump would have the ability to add or remove member nations, veto the board’s decisions and cast tie-breaking votes, and create or dissolve committees.

Critics are blasting Trump’s proposed Board of Peace.

Daily Mail UK columnist Andrew Neil said it will probably be Trump’s “most radical step yet to replace the post-WW2 global order. It will also be quite the dictators’ tea party. Putin, Lukashenko (Belarus tyrant) and the dictator of Kazakhstan have all been asked to join!!”

Fox News’ Jessica Tarlov remarked, “The board of peace stars dictators apparently.”

The Wall Street Journal’s chief foreign-affairs correspondent, Yaroslav Trofimov, observed, “Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ looks very much like a plan to replace the UN Security Council with an imperial court of vassals in which he is chairman for life, even after leaving the White House, with veto over every decision and the sole right to designate a successor. And a $1 billion fee for aspiring permanent members.”

Former chief White House ethics attorney Richard Painter wrote, “Almost 75,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in this war, and now we are auctioning off seats on a Gaza ‘Board of Peace’. For a Middle East peace policy, this is pathetic.”

READ MORE: Europe Divorcing America Now Seen as ‘Inevitable’: Report

 

Image via Reuters

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