The closely watched meeting came days after Trump's talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska.
Taking questions from reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said he believed progress was being made toward resolving the war and suggested something could come out of his recent meeting with Putin.
Speaking alongside Zelensky, Trump also said he believed Putin wants the Ukraine war to end.
He added that he could try to negotiate an end to the conflict without first requiring a ceasefire, the Reuters news agency reported.
Trump also said he planned to call Putin after his meeting with Zelensky and that a three-way meeting was possible.
Zelensky said he was open to holding elections in his country once the war ends and conditions are safe.
US President Donald Trump (right) and Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky (left) meet at the White House on Monday, Aug. 18, 2025. Photo: EPA/AARON SCHWARTZ
"We need to work in parliament because during the war you can't have elections," he told reporters, adding that people must be able to vote in a democratic, open and legal election.
After his meeting with Zelensky, Trump was expected to sit down with European leaders who also gathered at the White House.
Ahead of those talks, Trump told Ukraine to give up hopes of regaining Crimea and joining NATO.
Trump and Zelensky previously met at the White House in February, but that meeting descended into a shouting match, as the two leaders engaged into a heated exchange over Russia's war and Washington's support for Kyiv.
During the exchange, Trump and Zelensky, joined by US Vice President JD Vance, raised their voices in an argument over the nature of US support and whether Ukraine had shown sufficient gratitude.
Earlier this year, Trump denounced Zelensky as "a dictator without elections" and warned that he must "move fast" to secure peace with Russia or risk losing his country.
In response, Zelensky said at the time that he was willing to step down if it would guarantee peace in Ukraine, adding that he could trade his resignation for the country's NATO membership.
Zelensky's official five-year term as president expired last year, but he has opposed holding elections while Ukraine remains under full-scale Russian invasion—a stance backed by his major domestic political opponents, according to reports.
Trump in February also mocked Zelensky as "a modestly successful comedian" and accused him of talking the United States into spending USD 350 billion "to go into a war that couldn’t be won, that never had to start, but a war that he, without the US and Trump, will never be able to settle."
Speaking to reporters in Florida on February 18, Trump blamed Ukraine's authorities for the war and suggested they "could have made a deal" with Russia earlier.
Russia invaded Ukraine by land, air and sea on February 24, 2022, starting the largest military conflict in Europe since World War II.
Monday is day 1,272 of Russia's war on Ukraine.
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Source: CNN, TVP Info, IAR, PAP, Reuters