From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Wallace White

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dramatically changed his tune on peace negotiations with Russia just hours after President Donald Trump pulled the plug on military aid Monday.

Zelenskyy issued a long statement to X Tuesday, floating prisoner exchanges, a halt on air operations and naval operations as potential first steps towards peace, while also lamenting his fiery meeting in the Oval Office on Friday. Just a day earlier on Monday, Zelenskyy said that he believed an end to the war with Russia was “very, very far away,” prompting Trump to halt all military aid to the nation that evening and slam his comments on Truth Social.

“None of us wants an endless war,” Zelenskyy said on X. “My team and I stand ready to work under President Trump’s strong leadership to get a peace that lasts.”

“We do really value how much America has done to help Ukraine maintain its sovereignty and independence. And we remember the moment when things changed when President Trump provided Ukraine with Javelins,” Zelenskyy continued. “We are grateful for this. Our meeting in Washington, at the White House on Friday, did not go the way it was supposed to be. It is regrettable that it happened this way. It is time to make things right. We would like future cooperation and communication to be constructive.”

Zelenskyy originally came to the White House Friday to sign a mineral deal that would have allowed for U.S. investment in mining projects in the nation, which was seen as the first step towards a U.S.-brokered ceasefire. However, he was asked to leave the White House without signing the deal after making statements Trump and Vice President Vance deemed “disrespectful.”

For instance, Zelenskyy implied that the U.S. might “feel” the impact of war in the future. The U.S. has spent over $170 billion on Ukraine’s defense since the war began three years ago.

After the meeting, Trump said in a Truth Social post that Zelenskyy was “not ready for peace” because U.S. involvement grants him a “big advantage in negotiations.”

In Zelenskyy’s new post Tuesday, he said he was ready to sign the mineral deal at “any time and in any convenient format.”

“We see this agreement as a step toward greater security and solid security guarantees, and I truly hope it will work effectively,” Zelenskyy said on X. The deal in its final form did not explicitly make any security guarantees from the U.S. 

Trump’s exchanges with Zelenskyy are not the only example of his penchant for aggressive advocacy abroad, as earlier in his administration, he leveraged tariff threats to gain concessions from Mexico and Canada to crack down on the fentanyl epidemic among other issues.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry and the White House did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Hailey Gomez

If something’s redacted, you will know the line, and you will know why it’s redacted, the victim’s name, identifying information of a victim.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Monday evening on Fox News that the thousands of withheld files on deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein are now in the hands of the FBI, adding certain redactions will be made, with an explanation provided for each one.

The Department of Justice released the first phase of “The Epstein Files” — an over 100-page document — on Thursday, but it failed to contain a majority of new information, sparking controversy online. On “Hannity,” Fox’s Sean Hannity addressed the controversy, asking Bondi for her response. She said she had been informed fewer than 24 hours before the release that “there were way more documents that they were supposed to turn over.”

“You’re looking at these documents going, ‘These aren’t all the Epstein files.’ There were flight logs, there were names, victims’ names, and we’re going, ‘Where’s the rest of the stuff?’ That’s what the FBI had turned over to us,” Bondi said. “So a source said, ‘Whoa, all this evidence is sitting in the Southern District of New York.’ So based on that, I gave them the deadline, Friday at 8, a truckload of evidence arrived.”

“It’s now in the possession of the FBI. Kash is going to get me, and himself really, a detailed report as to why all these documents and evidence had been withheld,” Bondi added. “We’re going to go through it, go through it as fast as we can, but go through it very cautiously to protect all the victims of Epstein, because there are a lot of victims.”

Before the release of “Phase One,” Bondi told Fox News last Wednesday that the DOJ would be releasing “some” of the files by Thursday, hoping the public would see “a lot of flight logs, a lot of names, a lot of information.” However, the DOJ and Trump administration faced pushback online after conservative influencers obtained a binder labeled “The Epstein Files: Phase 1.” Some of those influencers were seen smiling and holding it up outside the West Wing.

WATCH:

Hannity pressed Bondi about additional potential redactions in the files.

“National security, some grand jury information, which is always going to be confidential, but we’ll see. Let’s look through them as fast as we can. Get it out to the American people, because the American people have a right to know,” Bondi said. “Not only on that, but on Kennedy, on Martin Luther King, on all of these cases that the Biden administration has just sat on for all these years.”

“It’s really — it’s not sad. It’s infuriating that these people thought that they could sit on this information, but they can’t,” Bondi said. “And when we redact things, Sean, what we’re going to do is not just pull pages out like they used to do. If something’s redacted, you will know the line, and you will know why it’s redacted, the victim’s name, identifying information of a victim.”

Epstein was arrested and charged in 2019 with sex trafficking, only later to be found dead in his New York Metropolitan Correctional Center cell a month after his arrest. Since his death, Republicans, including Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn, have called for the full, unredacted records of Epstein to be released to the public, which includes his infamous flight log.

After the release of phase one, Bondi requested that the FBI deliver the remaining documents to the DOJ by Friday at 8 a.m., tasking newly confirmed FBI Director Kash Patel with investigating “why the request for all documents was not followed.”

“We believe in transparency, and America has the right to know. The Biden administration sat on these documents. No one did anything with them. Why were they sitting in the Southern District of New York? I want a full report on that,” Bondi said.

“Sadly, these people don’t believe in transparency, but I think more, unfortunately, I think a lot of them don’t believe in honesty,” Bondi added. “It’s a new day. It’s a new administration, and everything’s going to come out to the public. The public has a right to know. Americans have a right to know.”