Rubio, Vance Confirm Trump ‘very Upset’ With Zelensky For Lying About Mineral Talks.

Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have confirmed President Donald J. Trump is “very upset” with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky for lying about U.S.-Ukrainian discussions over mineral rights. Zelensky has claimed he refused to countenance reserving mineral and energy exploration rights in Ukraine to the U.S. rather than its competitors to help repay American taxpayers for arming, funding, and training his military, as well as subsidizing Ukrainian government workers and businesses—but Vance and Rubio say his characterization of these discussions is untrue.

“President Trump is very upset at President Zelensky… and rightfully so,” Rubio told journalist Catherine Herridge, recalling how Biden, too, once reportedly “cursed at [Zelensky] in a phone call” for publicly denigrating U.S. efforts to assist him rather than expressing gratitude for the help his government was receiving.

“Frankly, I was personally very upset, because we had a conversation with President Zelensky, the Vice President and I, the three of us, and we discussed this issue about the mineral rights,” Rubio continued. “And we explained to them, look, we want to be in a joint venture with you, not because we’re trying to steal from your country, but because we think that’s actually a security guarantee if we’re your partner in an important economic endeavor. We get to get paid back some of the money the taxpayers have given, close to $200 billion, and also, now we have a vested interest in the security of Ukraine.

“And [Zelensky] said, ‘Sure, we want to do this deal, it makes all the sense in the world, the only thing is, I need to run it through my legislative process, they have to approve it.’ I read two days later that Zelensky’s out there saying, ‘I rejected the deal, I told them no way, that we’re not doing that’—well, that’s not what happened in that meeting,” Rubio stressed.

He went on to say Zelensky’s public claims that President Trump is “living in a world of disinformation” are “very counterproductive… President Trump’s not the kind of person that’s going to sit there and take that… he’s not gonna get gamed here.”

VANCE.

Vice President Vance, who shared a clip of Rubio’s exchange with Herridge on social media, commenting, “What Secretary Rubio is saying here is exactly right,” made similar remarks to Raheem Kassam, Editor-in-Chief of The National Pulse, in an exclusive interview earlier this week.

“Zelensky is getting really bad advice, and I don’t know from whom,” Vance said. “He’s not dealing with Joe Biden and the Biden administration anymore. He’s dealing with Donald Trump and the Trump administration.”

“The idea that he’s going to litigate his disagreements with the President in the public square—I mean, you [Kassam] know the President very well, obviously, I know the President very well. This is not a good way to deal with President Trump… he’s attacking the only reason this country exists, publicly, right now. And it’s disgraceful. And it’s not something that is going to move the President of the United States. In fact, it’s going to have the opposite effect,” he warned.

What Secretary Rubio is saying here is exactly right. https://t.co/nh2pHzramp

— JD Vance (@JDVance) February 21, 2025

The post Rubio, Vance Confirm Trump ‘Very Upset’ with Zelensky for Lying About Mineral Talks. appeared first on The National Pulse.