Overview

February 2025 Volodymyr Zelenskyy Donald Trump White House Meeting refers to a meeting between United States President Donald Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office. The leaders met in late February 2025 to discuss the terms of a potential deal that would give the U.S. access to Ukraine's minerals in exchange for continued aid from the U.S. to Ukraine during the ongoing war with Russia, however, the nearly two-hour-long meeting broke down after a question-and-answer session with the press. Zelenskyy bristled at Trump defending his approach with Russian President Vladimir Putin and pressed him and Vance on Putin's ceasefire violations. Trump and J.D. Vance reacted by calling Zelenskyy ungrateful for U.S. aid, and Zelenskyy left the meeting early without signing the deal. Memes about Vance asking Zelenskyy if he had said "thank you" even once began making the rounds online shortly after the meeting, as did an AI-generated video of Zelenskyy punching Trump.

Background

On February 12th, 2025, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent presented the outline of a proposed deal in which the U.S. would receive a 50 percent stake in Ukraine’s rare earth minerals to offset past aid, stating that the deal is part of Trump's plan to end the war.^[1]

On February 18th, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to discuss diplomatic and economic ties and a potential peace deal. Neither Ukrainian nor European officials were invited to the meeting.^[2] On February 19th, Trump took to Truth Social^[3] to call Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a "dictator," saying that the U.S. had sent over $350 billion in aid to Ukraine, despite differing reports that place the actual figure at $119 billion.^[4]

On February 28th, 2025, President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance met with Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy to discuss the proposed raw materials trade deal in exchange for continued U.S. support to Ukraine. The three leaders held a lengthy question-and-answer session with the press before the meeting grew contentious.

Nearly two hours into the meeting, Trump defended his attempts at diplomacy with Russian officials by saying, "I'm not aligned with anybody. I'm aligned with the United States of America," an approach Vance described as "diplomacy."

Zelenskyy reacted to the comments, saying, "He [President Putin] broke the ceasefire. He killed our people. … What kind of diplomacy, JD, you are speaking about? What do you mean?" J.D Vance then accused Zelenskyy of trying to "litigate this in front of the American media," and accused him of being ungrateful for U.S. aid, asking, "Have you said thank you once?"

The televised meeting was also streamed live on YouTube,^[5] as seen in the archived WFAA livestream (shown below). The stream received over 1 million views in three days.

Developments

Following the meeting, President Trump's actions were condemned by many as an unprecedented breach of diplomatic norms, with officials from Commonwealth countries such as Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and New Zealand, as well as EU nations such as France, Belgium, Estonia, Germany and Sweden, making statements of support for Zelenskyy and Ukraine. Other nations such as Hungary and Russia praised Trump for the meeting.^[6]

Online Reactions

J.D. Vance's "Have You Said 'Thank You' Once?"

A clip of VP J.D. Vance asking President Zelenskyy, "Have you said, 'Thank you,' once this entire meeting?" came to be widely discussed in the aftermath of the meeting. The moment was clipped by X^[2] user @Acyn on February 28th, 2025, gaining over 21.5 million views and 133,000 likes in three days (shown below Vance says the quote at the video's 0:55-second mark).

Vance: Have you said thank you once? Zelenskyy: You think if you speak very loudly--Trump: He’s not speaking loudly. You’ve done a lot of talking. You’re not winning this pic.twitter.com/32wEHc4Pk6

— Acyn (@Acyn) February 28, 2025

Various internet users reacted to the statement by noting that Zelenskyy had not only thanked Trump at the start of the meeting but publically thanked the U.S. over 33 times over the course of the war.^[7]

Later on February 28th, Redditor^[8] GermanDronePilot shared a post to the subreddit /r/UkraineWarVideoReport that attached a screen recording of President Zelenskyy's then-recent tweets, showing himself thanking world leaders in succession, likely in response to Vance's questioning. The Reddit post received over 37,000 upvotes in three days.

Also on February 28th, 2025, X^[9] user @CNLiberalism quote tweeted the abovementioned post, attaching a Babyface Edit of Vance in which he has a chubbier face, a propeller hat and a lollipop, gaining over 53,000 likes in three days (shown below, left).

That same day, X^[10] user @CallUpStuds quote tweeted the White House's tweet, attaching a Y'all Got Any Fun meme in which the robot says, "We got hype moments and aura," as opposed to "good foreign policy." The post gained over 4,900 likes in three days (shown below, right).

Fake Zelenskyy and U.S. Democrats Call

Shortly following the meeting on February 28th, 2025, Twitter / X^[11] user @KeenanPeachy made a tweet that read, "Blinken, Rice, Nuland, and Vindman conference call with Zelenskyy on the flight to DC advising him to 'stand strong' and 'be tough' and 'don't let Trump bully you' seems to have backfired."

The user replied to the tweet roughly 30 minutes later, clarifying that she was "speculating" while also asserting, "but obviously I'm correct. Obama probably on too."

This story was shared around various right-wing Twitter / X accounts^[12][13] without attribution or a source and eventually reached the attention of Trump's special envoy Richard Grendell.^[14]

Upon seeing the attention her tweet received, @KeenanPeachy made two tweets in response, the first reading, "It's called we start an international incident in one X post," including a screenshot of Richard Grendell's tweet^[15] and a second post reading, "Thank you for the shout out, Yasher. I don’t always start international incidents on X but when I do, I like to take credit for my work 😂," including screenshots of her post with text highlighted.^[16]

Why Don't You Wear A Suit?

Commentator Brian Glenn from Real America's Voice asked President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, "Why don't you wear a suit?" during the February 28th, 2025, Oval Office meeting.

The reporter continued, "You’re in the highest level of this country’s office, and you refuse to wear a suit? I just want to see, do you own a suit? A lot of Americans have problems with you respecting this office." Zelensky replied to the question by saying, "I will wear a costume after this war will finish, Maybe something like yours, yes, maybe something better, I don’t know."

A clip of the interaction was reposted to YouTube^[17] by CNN-News18, gathering 7,000 views in two days.

An unknown Redditor posted a meme about the interaction to the subreddit /r/dankmemes on March 1st, gathering over 300 upvotes before the post was deleted.^[18]

Zelenskyy Fighting Trump AI Videos

"AI videos": of President Zelenskyy fighting President Trump began making the rounds on social media in late February and early March 2025 after the meeting, showing AI-generated footage of Zelenskky fighting Trump and sometimes VP Vance. In particular, an AI-generated video of Zelenskyy punching Trump and knocking him out was widely reposted.

For example, one video was posted by user @The_Fauxy^[19] to their Instagram and Twitter accounts on February 28th shortly after the meeting had concluded. The Twitter post gained nearly one million views, 3,000 retweets and 15,000 likes in a day (seen below).

🚨 #𝐁𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐞𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐙𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐤𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐦𝐩 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐬. pic.twitter.com/GHlmUmBRlF

— The Fauxy (@the_fauxy) February 28, 2025

Search Interest

External References