{"id":78924,"date":"2025-08-19T03:00:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T03:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/78924\/"},"modified":"2025-08-19T03:00:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T03:00:08","slug":"ukrainian-president-gets-us-president-to-laugh-with-suit-joke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/78924\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukrainian president gets US President to laugh with suit joke"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Washington: Getting Donald Trump to laugh is no mean feat. A smile, sure. But genuine laughter? Rare. Of all people, Volodymyr Zelensky made it happen.<\/p>\n<p>The Ukrainian president returned to the scene of the crime \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smh.com.au\/world\/north-america\/trump-and-zelensky-clash-in-bitter-oval-office-talks-20250301-p5lg30.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">that disastrous February meeting<\/a> \u2013 and although his relationship with his US counterpart has improved markedly since then, there was no guarantee he would escape another dressing down.<\/p>\n<p>This time he came prepared. He began by flattering Trump \u2013 thanking him for his efforts to end the war, and thanking his wife, Melania, for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theage.com.au\/link\/follow-20170101-p5mnng\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the letter she wrote<\/a> to Putin about the plight of children impacted by conflict. Zelensky also handed over a letter from his own wife addressed to the first lady.<\/p>\n<p>He also dressed for the occasion. Last time he was mocked by Trump from the moment they shook hands, with the US president sarcastically remarking \u201che\u2019s all dressed up today\u201d when Zelensky emerged from his car in a military-style black sweatshirt.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s easily forgotten that in that February encounter, Zelensky faced not only a combative US delegation but an occasionally hostile American press pack, including Brian Glenn of Real America\u2019s Voice, a right-wing channel. Glenn had also grilled Zelensky about his lack of suit and tie.<\/p>\n<p>Loading<\/p>\n<p>This time Glenn was conciliatory. \u201cPresident Zelensky, you look fabulous in that suit,\u201d he said. Trump agreed and pointed out Glenn was the reporter who had chastised Zelensky last time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI remember,\u201d the Ukrainian leader said. Then, just when you thought he might still harbour a grudge, he turned his attention to Glenn and joked: \u201cYou are in the same suit. I changed, you are not.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Everyone found it funny, including Trump. After all, English may not be his first language but Zelensky was a comedian before going into politics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Washington: Getting Donald Trump to laugh is no mean feat. A smile, sure. But genuine laughter? Rare. Of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-78924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}