Fox anchor Maria Bartiromo repeats Trump's claim about Zelensky — and is immediately corrected by her guest Bill Browder
Bill Browder: “That number comes out of thin air. There's no 4% number”
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From the February 19, 2025, edition of Fox Business' Mornings with Maria
MARIA BARTIROMO (ANCHOR): Trump says he could meet with Vladimir Putin before the February. Joining me now is the head of the global Magnitsky Justice Campaign, the CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, Sir Bill Browder. Bill, 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.
BILL BROWDER (GUEST): 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. 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 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, Putin could end this war in right this minute by just stopping. That 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: Yeah. It's a great point that you make. And and, you know, it certainly felt in those comments from President Trump that he was more critical of Zelensky, certainly name noting, his, lack of popularity with that 4% number in terms of the potential for elections.
BROWDER: That number comes out of thin air. There's no 4% number. Zelensky's got a 52% approval rating, not a 4% approval rating. And they're under attack. The reason they have martial law is because this country has been invaded. They have air strikes every day from 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's launching the air strikes.
BARTIROMO: And and certainly, when you think about, you know, approval for Vladimir Putin, I mean, what are you gonna 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 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 gonna accept any outcome without being part of the talks.
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BARTIROMO: What do you think, Bill? Zelensky later canceled his own scheduled visit to Saudi Arabia following the talks.
BROWDER: Well, it's the whole thing, again, is Putin invaded Ukraine. Putin thought he was gonna 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. We don't want you to kill our men, rape our women, and kidnap our children.
There wasn't — this was not a time for negotiation. This was a time for them to defend themselves. And so it's there there was no chance for for any negotiation to happen. It's — this was a brutal dictatorship of invading a peaceful neighbor who didn't wanna 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 the democratically elected victim. Vladimir Putin has been a dictator for twenty five 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.