President Trump lashed out at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday and declared that Ukraine should “get a new president.”
The broadside came as Trump, 78, left the White House for a rally in Tennessee, a red-leaning agricultural state where Republicans face tight midterm races. He tied his anger directly to a new administration deal allowing Russia to supply 300,000 metric tons of diesel to global markets, an arrangement he cast as necessary relief from fuel costs averaging above $6 per gallon domestically.
Trump framed the diesel agreement as a response to Zelensky’s defiance of his direct requests. “I said to him: ‘do what you want, don’t hit refineries,'” he told reporters. The president accused Zelensky of deliberately undermining global energy stability by continuing strikes on Russian oil infrastructure.
“You’ve lost 30% of your country and you’ve had over a million people killed. … I think it’s time for Ukraine to get a new president,” Trump fumed.
He pressed the attack further, insisting the Ukrainian leader had squandered multiple off-ramps. “Zelensky could have settled this war many times – many many times. And he chooses not to. Very difficult. It’s a war that should have never been started,” he continued.
Trump’s demand for Zelensky to halt refinery strikes carried an unmistakable threat. “He’d better damned well stop,” he said, adding that Kyiv should “get a new leader who can make a deal.” He characterized Zelensky’s actions as deliberately destructive to worldwide interests. “That’s a world problem that’s causing. And he wants to make problems for the world,” he said about his counterpart.
The president’s remarks landed hours after Moscow launched a massive overnight air campaign into Saturday that killed at least 17 Ukrainians, including three children. Zelensky, 47, fired back on X with a post linking the bloodshed directly to the new U.S.-Russia energy arrangement.
“Today, Russia expressed its thanks for the lifting of sanctions on diesel exports by dropping five glide bombs on residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia,” he wrote.
“Last night confirmed once again that in Russia, they take any easing of pressure to mean they can keep fighting, to mean they can keep dropping bombs on cities,” Zelensky added on the platform.
The diesel deal drew criticism from within Trump’s own party. “Unfortunately, while I understand the desire to bring down diesel prices, I am concerned the lifting of sanctions on Russian oil will only fund the Kremlin’s war machine—emboldening more violence and destruction, as we have seen in recent days,” posted Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) on X Friday.
The White House defended the arrangement through newly installed press secretary Katie Zacharia, who appeared on Fox & Friends Weekend Saturday. “President Trump has heard people have been frustrated with the gas prices. People are frustrated with the increasing grocery prices,” she said.
“And he is delivering what he always does, which are solutions,” Zacharia added.
Trump’s Saturday attack marked his most pointed rhetoric toward Zelensky since the explosive Oval Office meeting in February 2025, when Vice President JD Vance tore into the Ukrainian leader during a televised confrontation that derailed planned mineral-rights negotiations and sent Zelensky departing without the expected agreement.
The president is scheduled to appear at his Tennessee rally as part of a pre-midterm push through agricultural states where fuel costs have become a pressing campaign issue, including tight races in Iowa and Kansas where Republican operatives worry about the political fallout from elevated diesel prices hitting farmers.