President Trump brushed aside questions Friday about interruptions to Starlink service for Ukraine, following complaints from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy earlier in the day.
“You must know now who ordered the Starlink access in Ukraine to be restricted. Who was it?” a reporter asked Trump outside of the White House. Trump denied any knowledge, and replied, “Well, I wouldn’t tell you if I did,” asking who the reporter worked for. When she said, “CNN,” he chuckled.
“Why would I tell CNN?” Trump said, before saying the network did some “nice polls” on him recently.
Earlier in the day, Zelenskiy said regarding Starlink that “the speed has not been restored,” despite Trump’s claim that Elon Musk, who owns the company, had restored access. Ukrainian military and government officials told The Wall Street Journal that connections were failing at higher drone speeds, hurting defense capabilities. Another reporter asked Trump if he had told Musk to stop messing around with Ukraine’s connection.
“I have not spoken to him. I might have to, but I have not. I’ve heard it was fixed, but if it’s not, I’ll speak to him,” Trump said.
Trump and Musk are each blaming each other for the decision to throttle Ukraine’s Starlink service last week, which allowed Russia to launch a massive aerial attack on the country. The Wall Street Journal earlier this week reported that Musk in fact ordered internet speeds to slow down, and discussed the decision with Trump ahead of time.