Trump Debuts New Nickname For Zelensky: "PT Barnum"--"More Difficult To Work With Than Putin"
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2026/10/15/trump_debuts_new_nickname_for_zelensky_pt_barnum.html

President Trump said during a Newsmax interview Tuesday that Ukrainian President Zelensky is "more difficult to work with than Putin" and compared his government to a circus, calling him "P.T. Barnum."

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: You know, they talk about ammunition. We're building up ammunition very, very rapidly, by the way. We're keeping it for ourselves. We're just building it up very rapidly. We're getting Patriots at record levels. We're getting Tomahawks at record levels. We're building very quickly.

But when I first came, you had Obama. Our cupboards were empty because he didn't want to buy any ammunition. I filled it up.

But the reason that we went lower than we'd like to, and only with certain munitions, not with very good stuff, but we have a lot. But now we're very rapidly building it up for purposes.

But I just want to say it wasn't what I was doing with Iran. It was what Biden did with Ukraine.

They gave him, they gave them, I call him P.T. Barnum. They gave to P.T. Barnum, which is Zelenskyy, massive amounts of Patriots, of Tomahawks, of everything. And they didn't make him pay. There was nobody to pay.

So I went to the European Union. I said, "I'm not going to give you anything. You have to pay." They have a lot of money. They've been paying us, and we send them munitions, and that works.

But over the last period of time, we just take the munitions for ourselves because we have to have for ourselves. We have to have. And once we are stocked, really stocked, we will start letting our allies buy them from us.

But Biden should have made them pay. He gave hundreds of, probably $350 billion worth of equipment and cash to Ukraine.

Where is the cash that we gave to Ukraine? Where are all of those? Where is all the equipment? You know, people who are selling that equipment?

Biden was giving them missiles, and they were being sold on the open market right after they went to Ukraine.

REPORTER: And I ask you, because the war is at a stalemate over the Donbas region, which six years later most Americans still can't find on a map.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I do two things. Number one, had they not taken the right turn onto dirt instead of going up a concrete highway, it would have ended in one day.

So I can imagine Putin's not exactly thrilled because you're getting into six years. They're losing on average 25,000. Now that number is going up to 32,000. But 25,000, mostly men, mostly military, you know, small numbers relatively in towns and cities that are being hit, but they're losing a tremendous amount of people.

And I want to see it stop. And I want Zelenskyy to stop. And I want Putin. Now, if you tell me that Zelenskyy is again shooting at refineries, all he's doing is making the world oil price higher, and he is doing that.

Well, I think that's a disgrace. There's plenty of other targets they don't have to hit. There are a lot of targets that you can hit.

But when you shoot at diesel refineries, when you make diesel oil, and we need that and the world needs that, then he's not doing a good service for the world.

REPORTER: Mr. President

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And I think that, frankly, Zelenskyy has been there a long time. And I think it's time for, if they want to get that settled.

So I watched an interview of a young woman the other day from Ukraine, and she said, "President Zelenskyy has destroyed our country. President Zelenskyy has taken our men away from us. Our men have no legs, no arms. Our men are, in many cases, in mental institutions or they're dead."

They need a two-month pause to hold elections. To make that a pssibility.