Victoria Derbyshire clashed with a senior White House official as she grilled him over Donald Trump’s plan to end the war in Ukraine.
Sebastian Gorka, senior director of counter-terrorism in Donald Trump’s administration, at one point asked the BBC Newsnight presenter if she was “ashamed” during the heated exchange.
Derbyshire had kicked off the interview by asking him if the president had “just handed victory to President Putin on a plate”.
The pair locked horns just hours after President Trump and Vladimir Putin held a 90-minute phone call in which they agreed to “immediately” kick-start peace talks to end the war nearly three years after Russia’s invasion of its neighbour.
But the breakthrough came without the involvement of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, leading to fears that he will be forced to give up land seized by Russia in order to bring the war to an end.
Derbyshire began the interview by telling Gorka that a Ministry of Defence source had told Newsnight “the bastards are doing it” in reference to Trump’s peace plan.
Gorka replied: “I hope that’s fake news or not from somebody who actually cares about the special relationship between our two countries.”
The presenter then asked: “Have you just handed victory to President Putin on a plate?”
He said: “After 100,000 casualties and the fact that Ukraine will remain an independent nation, that’s just an asinine statement. It’s absolutely absurd and really irresponsible.”
Undeterred, Derbyshire told him: “President Putin invaded a country. He took a load of land. He killed tens of thousands of Ukrainians. And now it appears the US is saying to him ‘yeah, you can keep the land that you’ve taken and stolen from your neighbour’.”
Gorka then hit back: “I like the fact that you think you know what the US is promising to anyone. We’ve been very clear on the campaign trail. President Trump and his team has been adamant since we came into this building three weeks ago that the number one priority is to stop the bloodshed.
“And you don’t have to tell me, the son of those who literally escaped a Communist regime, what the reality of the Russian Federation is today. So please stick to the facts.”
Later in the interview, Gorka said America stands “shoulder to shoulder” with Ukraine.
But Derbyshire said: “But not the women killed in the maternity hospital in southern Ukraine?”
A clearly-angry Gorka told her: “No shame. You have no shame. That’s beneath the BBC.
“As someone who grew up on the products of the BBC that is absolutely shameful.”
After Derbyshire then referred to Ukrainian civilians “killed in their own apartments” in Kyiv, the Trump official told her: “You should be ashamed of yourself. I am not even going to countenance replying to such an absolutely abhorrent statement.”