The Fallout From Zelensky and Trump’s Oval Office Meltdown
The Daily
03/03/25
•34m
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On Friday, President Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in an explosive televised Oval Office meeting and abruptly cut short a visit that was meant to help coordinate a plan for peace.
Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent for The Times, discusses the clash and its consequences.
Guest: Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent for The New York Times, covering President Trump and his administration.
Background reading:
- Mr. Trump berated Mr. Zelensky in a fiery exchange at the White House.
- The public blowup could propel President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to escalate the fight in Ukraine instead of agreeing to peace.
For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.
Photo: Doug Mills/The New York Times
Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Previous Episode
Jim Tucker could hardly believe what he was hearing. It sounded like fiction, a nightmare too outlandish for an unassuming town like his.
It was July 2023, and Tucker was hosting a meeting of the board of Heartland Tri-State Bank, a community-owned business in a small Kansas town called Elkhart. Heartland was a beloved local institution and a source of Tucker family pride: Tucker served on the board with his elderly father, Bill, who founded the bank four decades earlier. All of the board members — the Tuckers and several other farmers and businesspeople — had known one another for years.
That evening, however, they were gathering to discuss what seemed, on its face, an epic betrayal. Over the past few weeks, the bank’s longtime president, a popular local businessman named Shan Hanes, had ordered a series of unexplained wire transfers that drained tens of millions of dollars from the bank. Hanes converted the funds into cryptocurrencies. Then the money vanished.
Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Next Episode
DOGE Has a Math Problem
March 4, 2025
•25m
Since President Trump took office, Elon Musk and DOGE have wielded an unprecedented level of power to help the administration cut the U.S. government, and they claim to have stopped tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending.
David A. Fahrenthold, an investigative reporter for The Times, explains why those claims are not what they seem — and what that tells us about Mr. Musk’s project to shrink the federal bureaucracy.
Guest: David A. Fahrenthold, an investigative reporter for The New York Times.
Background reading:
- DOGE’s only public ledger has been riddled with mistakes.
- The group has now deleted hundreds of claimed savings, worth billions of dollars, from that ledger.
For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.
Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
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