This week, Trump falsely accused Ukraine of starting the war with Russia, echoing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rhetoric — even though it was Putin who ordered the invasion of Ukraine. In a Truth Social post Wednesday, Trump called Zelenskyy a “dictator without elections."

President Trump met with French President Emmanuel Macron to discuss issues including the war in Ukraine, where the two have expressed starkly different views. Macron has argued that any negotiated end to the war must come with “strong and credible security guarantees for the Ukrainians,

Donald Trump declined to label Vladimir Putin a dictator, days after calling Volodymyr Zelensky a "dictator without elections" and pushing for a U.S.-brokered peace deal.