Category President Donald Trump

Zelenskyy didn’t exactly say ‘raising volume of your voice’ but not ‘your logic’ in Trump meeting

Claim:
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance during their contentious February 2025 Oval Office meeting, “You're raising the volume of your voice, but not the logic of your argument."

Context
Zelenskyy said, "You think that if you will speak very loudly about the war [between Ukraine and Russia], you can ..." before Trump cut him off. We do not know what Zelenskyy was planning to say in the rest of his sentence before he was interrupted.

Read MoreZelenskyy didn’t exactly say ‘raising volume of your voice’ but not ‘your logic’ in Trump meeting

Video doesn’t show Zelenskyy using expletive about Trump outside 10 Downing Street

However, Zelenskyy did not use any expletives about Trump when speaking to journalists during the walk from his motorcade to greet Starmer. The claim is false. Further, the video exhibited potential signs that its originator used an artificial-intelligence tool to create many of its elements.

An unedited video (archived) showing the same moment featured an unidentified reporter asking, "Mr. President, how was the trip? How do you feel?," and Zelenskyy responding, "Ok. Thank you so much."

Read MoreVideo doesn’t show Zelenskyy using expletive about Trump outside 10 Downing Street

Trump Exaggerates on U.S. and European Aid to Ukraine, Loans

Mark Cancian, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, told us in an email that “Trump’s citation of $350 billion is double what Congress has appropriated.”

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Congress has passed five spending bills to provide support to Ukraine, totaling about $174.2 billion, as we’ve explained before in fact-checking this and other claims Trump has made about Ukraine and Zelenskky. Each of those five measures passed with bipartisan support. [...]

As for Trump’s claim that Europe provided its aid to Ukraine in the “form of a loan, they get their money back,” that’s an exaggeration. Only a portion of European aid is in the form of loans.

Read MoreTrump Exaggerates on U.S. and European Aid to Ukraine, Loans

Zelenskyy met with Democrats – and Republicans – before his meeting with Trump

Claim: On Feb. 28, 2025, before a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with Democrats who convinced him to reject a deal that would allow the U.S. to exploit minerals in Ukraine in exchange for U.S. support in Ukraine's war with Russia.

Rating: Mixture.

What's True: Zelenskyy did meet with Democratic U.S. senators ...
What's False: ... but that meeting also included at least three Republican senators. Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, emphatically rejected claims that the Democrats of the U.S. Senate delegation had dissuaded Zelenskyy from taking the minerals deal. Further, Zelenskyy confirmed to reporters two days after the meeting that his country was ready to accept the deal.

Read MoreZelenskyy met with Democrats – and Republicans – before his meeting with Trump

Trump, Vance and Zelenskyy’s tense Oval Office meeting about Ukraine and Russia, fact-checked

- Vance: Zelenskyy has not said, "Thank you" to the United States for its support of Ukraine.
- Vance: Zelenskyy "went to Pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition in October."
- Trump: "We gave you $350 billion."

Read MoreTrump, Vance and Zelenskyy’s tense Oval Office meeting about Ukraine and Russia, fact-checked

Fabricated audio of Trump Jr on Ukraine and Russia, spreads online

Audio purportedly of Donald Trump Jr using his podcast to say the United States should have sent weapons to Russia instead of Ukraine is spreading widely online, with an official Democratic National Committee account among those that shared and deleted it. But the clip is fake, spokesmen for the US president's son and video platform Rumble told AFP. A media forensics expert said the quote -- which is not in the original episode -- appears to be the product of artificial intelligence technology. [...]

"The audio in question, which was amplified by the official X account of the DNC, along with countless other major anti-Trump accounts, is 100 percent fake," a Trump Jr spokesman told AFP in a February 26 statement. "It appears to be an AI-generated deep fake."

Read MoreFabricated audio of Trump Jr on Ukraine and Russia, spreads online