{"id":290874,"date":"2025-04-26T10:34:13","date_gmt":"2025-04-26T10:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/26\/trump-and-zelensky-meet-on-sidelines-of-pope-francis-funeral-white-house-says\/"},"modified":"2025-04-26T10:34:14","modified_gmt":"2025-04-26T10:34:14","slug":"trump-and-zelensky-meet-on-sidelines-of-pope-francis-funeral-white-house-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/26\/trump-and-zelensky-meet-on-sidelines-of-pope-francis-funeral-white-house-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump and Zelensky Meet on Sidelines of Pope Francis\u2019 Funeral, White House Says"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/04\/26\/multimedia\/26pope-funeral-trump-htjb\/26pope-funeral-trump-htjb-facebookJumbo.jpg?ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Trump and Zelensky Meet on Sidelines of Pope Francis\u2019 Funeral, White House Says\" title=\"Trump and Zelensky Meet on Sidelines of Pope Francis\u2019 Funeral, White House Says\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">President Trump met privately with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on Saturday in Rome, the White House said, on the sidelines of the funeral service for Pope Francis. It was the first time the two leaders had met in person since their televised argument in late February in the Oval Office that resulted in a deep breach between the two countries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The White House did not say when the two men met, but it appears likely it was before the funeral started, before the president left for the funeral services a little after 9 a.m. in Rome. A White House spokesman, Stephen Cheung, called it a \u201cvery productive discussion,\u201d but gave no details.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The meeting in Rome came at a critical moment, just as the United States had presented a suggested plan for a cease-fire in Ukraine\u2019s war with Russia and a postwar plan that would give Russia effective control over all of the lands it has illegally seized since the invasion began three years ago. The plan includes a major reversal of American policy: a formal American recognition that Crimea is Russian territory, even if Ukraine and the rest of Europe maintain that it remains part of Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Trump had made clear he wanted his first trip overseas in this term to be to the Middle East, starting with Saudi Arabia, the site of his initial visit during his first term in office.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But then Pope Francis died. And so Saturday morning, made his way to Vatican City to pay his respects at the pontiff\u2019s funeral.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">As the ceremonies began, Mr. Trump was surrounded by European leaders he has been denouncing as freeloaders unwilling to pay their share of the continent\u2019s defense, and leaders of the European Union, which he said was \u201cformed in order to screw the United States.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">On his way over to Italy on Friday, Mr. Trump told reporters on Air Force One that he was attending the funeral \u201cout of respect\u201d for Francis, noting, \u201cI won the Catholic vote.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The president\u2019s schedule does not allow much time for meetings, or even many casual \u201cpull asides,\u201d the term diplomats use for planned, brief encounters. Mr. Trump was able to chat a bit when he arrived.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The seating plan released by the Vatican had guests seated in their group in alphabetical order based on their country\u2019s name in French. That put Mr. Trump in the front row between the leaders of Finland and Estonia, and just down from President Emmanuel Macron of France.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The schedule calls for Mr. Trump to leave Rome less than three hours after the ceremony begins, and to fly to Newark to spend the night at his nearby golf club.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Trump\u2019s every handshake and conversation at the funeral is being watched for meaning. Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, was sitting a few chairs down from Mr. Trump, and White House reporters traveling with the president, but kept at a considerable distance, reported that the two appeared to chat, funereal protocols aside. In the past three months, Ms. von der Leyen was conspicuously absent from the leaders visiting the White House.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/04\/26\/world\/europe\/trump-pope-francis-funeral.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Trump met privately with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on Saturday in Rome, the White House said, on the sidelines of the funeral service for Pope Francis. It was the first time the two leaders had met in person since their televised argument in late February in the Oval Office that resulted in a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290875,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/04\/26\/multimedia\/26pope-funeral-trump-htjb\/26pope-funeral-trump-htjb-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[163575,18714,19463,79,2485,13327,40147,164769,165232,64143,52,163574,128437,163486,34139,7797,8774],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290874"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290874"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":290876,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290874\/revisions\/290876"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}