Maria Bartiromo Interview Hammers Trump Over Blaming Zelensky — Fox Guest Says Trump Made Claim Up Out of ‘Thin Air’

Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo spoke with human rights campaigner Sir Bill Browder on Wednesday in an interview highly critical of President Donald Trump’s Tuesday comments blaming Volodymyr Zelensky for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Bartiromo, one of Trump’s most loyal media allies, introduced the segment, saying, “The US and Russia laying the groundwork to end the war in Ukraine after talks in Saudi Arabia yesterday. The agreement calls for including appointing high-level teams to begin talks to discuss economic diplomatic outcomes and restaff the nation’s two embassies.”

“Secretary of State Marco Rubio stressing this is just the beginning of finding a solution acceptable to all sides. One major sticking point includes new presidential elections in Ukraine. Here’s President Trump on that,” she added before playing a clip:

We have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine, where we have martial law, essentially martial law in Ukraine, where the leader in Ukraine I mean, I hate to say it, but he’s down at 4% approval rating. And where a country has been blown to smithereens. And I like him personally. He’s fine. But I don’t care about personally. I care about getting the job done. You have leadership now that’s allowed a war to go on that should have never even happened, even without the United States.

Bartiromo then noted, “Trump says he could meet with Vladimir Putin before the end of February. Joining me now is the head of the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign, the CEO of Hermitage Capital Management. Sir, Bill Browder. Well, it’s good to see you this morning. Thanks so much for being here. You’ve had plenty of run-ins with Vladimir Putin. Give us your reaction to all of this?”

“Well, Vladimir Putin, so my run-ins with Vladimir Putin was he murdered my lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky and a bunch of other people. And he’s been chasing me around the world ever since with death threats and so on,” Browder replied, adding:

And so I know Vladimir Putin very well. And he’s a very bad guy, a man who shouldn’t be trusted. And so when I’m watching this whole thing playing itself out, I’m thinking to myself that we need to be more supportive of Ukraine, who are the victims and a little bit less chummy with Putin, who is the aggressor in this whole situation?

I find that, you know, at the end of the day that Putin could end this war right this minute by just stopping. And that’s the thing. If Ukraine is defending, Putin’s attacking and he could stop. And so that’s what we should be pushing for.

Bartiromo agreed, saying, “Yeah, it’s a great point that you make. And, you know, it’s certainly felt in those comments from President Trump that he was more critical of Zelensky, certainly in name, noting his lack of popularity with that 4% number in terms of the potential for elections.”

“That number comes out of thin air. There’s no 4% number,” Browder replied.

“Really?” replied Bartiromo.

“He’s got a 52% approval rating, not a 4% approval rating. And they’re under attack. The reason they have martial law is because the country’s been invaded. They have air strikes every day from Russia. I think it’s highly unfair for for him to be critical of the victim. He should be critical of the person who is launching the airstrikes,” Browder explained.

“And certainly when you think about, you know, approval for Vladimir Putin, I mean, what are you going to say when you get the phone call? What do you think of Vladimir Putin? You better say you love him. So I don’t believe anything on the Russia side either in terms of approval of Vladimir Putin. But what’s your take on Ukraine not even being part of that peace talk?” Bartiromo said adding:

Yesterday, I mean, President Trump has made the point, look, he’s been part of the talks for three years. But Zelensky makes the point that he wasn’t at the table in Saudi Arabia, and he says he’s not going to accept any outcome without being part of the talks. Here’s what President Trump said about that. Watch.

After playing another clip of Trump’s comments, Bartiromo asked, “What do you think, Bill? Zelensky later canceled his own scheduled visit to Saudi Arabia following the talks.”

“Well, it’s the whole thing again is Putin invaded Ukraine. Putin thought he was going to win in three days and he didn’t. And why didn’t he win in three days? Because the Ukrainians bravely fought back and they said, we don’t want you to invade our country,” Browder replied, adding:

We don’t want you to kill our men, rape our women and kidnap our children. This was not a time for negotiation. This was a time for them to defend themselves. And so there was no chance for for any negotiation to happen. This was a brutal dictatorship of invading a peaceful neighbor who didn’t want to be invaded. And so I think President Trump is being very unfair to Volodymyr Zelensky. It pains me to see him saying these things. I think that he should be supporting the the victim in this thing, the democratically elected victim.

Vladimir Putin has been a dictator for 25 years. He’s taken over Georgia. He’s carpet-bombed Syria. He’s done all sorts of terrible things. I think we need to understand who the good guys are and who the bad guys here. Ukraine is the good guys and Putin is the bad guy.

Bartiromo then turned a bit toward criticism of Ukraine, adding, “But, you know, Americans are frustrated with all of the hundreds of billions of dollars having been sent to Ukraine with no end in sight.” Browder replied by suggesting Europe confiscate the $300 billion of Russian assets it has frozen and use that money to fund Ukraine’s defense.

Watch the clip above via Fox Business.