It was a sickening spectacle: the person who tried to upend democracy bullying the person who’s preventing for democracy.
The air appeared to show flame crimson because the TV stars-turned-pols sat aspect by aspect in elegant yellow armchairs and had the wildest dust-up ever televised from the Oval Workplace.
“That is going to be nice tv — I’ll say that,” President Trump famous. The Ukrainian ambassador, Oksana Markarova, hung her head in her arms.
It appeared like a setup. Vice President JD Vance, a malign presence who has mentioned he doesn’t care a fig about Ukraine, chided Volodymyr Zelensky for not being grateful sufficient to America, i.e. Trump.
“Have you ever mentioned, ‘Thanks’ as soon as this complete assembly?” Vance pressed Zelensky, who has thanked America time and again.
Trump barked at Zelensky, “You’re playing with World Struggle III” and wagged a finger at him: “You’ve obtained to be extra grateful as a result of, let me let you know, you don’t have the playing cards. With us, you have got the playing cards, however with out us, you don’t have any playing cards.”
Fairly wealthy for a draft dodger to lecture a person whose identify has develop into synonymous with wartime bravery. (Trump as soon as mentioned that avoiding sexually transmitted illnesses was his private “Vietnam.”)
When a reporter requested what would occur if Russia broke the cease-fire once more, Trump snapped, “What if something? What if a bomb drops in your head proper now?”
The bust of Churchill so beloved by Trump watched over the three males as they sparred. Are you able to think about F.D.R. petulantly ordering Churchill to be extra grateful? Are you able to think about Churchill’s chilly disdain for Trump’s protection-racket demand for Ukraine’s minerals?
As if this weren’t sufficient humiliation, a member of the president’s new handpicked press pool, Brian Glenn of the right-wing Actual America’s Voice, requested Zelensky, “Why don’t you put on a swimsuit?” After which, “Do you personal a swimsuit?”
(He was echoing Trump, who mocked Zelensky when he arrived, saying “Ooh, you’re all dressed up.” The Ukrainian president had on black pants, prime and boots, just like what Elon Musk wears on the White Home.)
Although we needs to be used to it by now, it was nonetheless stunning to see Trump parrot the view of Vladimir Putin, a murderous tyrant who desires to swallow Ukraine in a match of nostalgia for the Soviet Union. Trump insisted that they had been fellow victims.
“Let me let you know, Putin went by way of a hell of rather a lot with me,” Trump mentioned, as if they had been Military buddies. “He went by way of a phony witch hunt the place they used him and Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia.” U.S. intelligence businesses found that Russia meddled within the 2016 election on Trump’s behalf.
“You see the hatred he’s obtained for Putin,” Trump mentioned of Zelensky. “It’s very powerful for me to make a take care of that form of hate.”
The president doesn’t perceive why Zelensky just isn’t pleased with Putin for invading the smaller nation and beating the bejesus out of it, for decimating a era of younger Ukrainian troopers, for breaking cease-fires and committing warfare crimes.
Zelensky deserves our thanks. He has endured a lot, conserving the David versus Goliath dream alive, exposing the weak spot of the Russian army and mainly taking it on the chin for the remainder of Europe to maintain Putin from gobbling up extra territory.
However as a substitute of being gracious, Trump booted Zelensky out of the White Home, leaving the hero’s lunch on a tray within the corridor, torpedoing his existential struggle to avoid wasting his battered nation and Ukrainian lives.
Republican lickspittles like Lindsey Graham and Jim Banks praised Trump and trashed Zelensky whereas Russian leaders rejoiced. “The insolent pig lastly obtained a correct slap down within the Oval Workplace,” said Dmitri Medvedev, the previous Russian president and Putin toady.
A cascade of gobsmacked Western leaders wrapped Zelensky in a heat on-line embrace. “At this time, it turned clear that the free world wants a brand new chief,” mentioned Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s prime diplomat. France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, posted, “Il y a un agresseur: la Russie.”
European leaders had tried to information Trump within the days earlier than Zelensky arrived, however Trump is wedded to his demented dream of a troika of strongmen — himself, Putin and Xi Jinping — astride the world.
Macron and Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain got here to Washington, humoring Trump. Starmer grandly delivered a cream envelope with an “unprecedented” invitation from King Charles III for a second state go to, maybe to Balmoral.
An actual king soothing the ego of a hooligan who thinks he’s a king.
All of the flattery didn’t soften up Trump. It puffed him up. Everyone seems to be so obsequious round Trump that he now will get huffy at least pushback. He could make any declare, regardless of how outrageous — that Ukraine began the warfare with Russia, that Zelensky is a “dictator.” But when anybody factors out that he’s flawed, he blows a gasket.
After Trump flew off to Mar-a-Lago, Zelensky did an interview with Bret Baier on Fox Information. He didn’t apologize when Baier requested him if he ought to. “I can’t, you realize, change our Ukrainian perspective to Russia,” he mentioned, including that Putin desires to “kill us.”
He mentioned the assembly got here a cropper as a result of he talked truthfully in regards to the want for safety ensures. “We simply need to acknowledge the fact, the true scenario.” He added that everyone is “afraid that Putin will come again tomorrow.”
Trump doesn’t do effectively with actuality; he tries to impose his personal on the remainder of us.
Zelensky mentioned that Trump informed him he wished to be in “the center” of the negotiations. However the Ukrainian president demurred: “I need actually him to be extra at our aspect” as a result of “the warfare started when Russia introduced this warfare to our nation.” About Ukrainians, he mentioned: “They only need to hear that America on our aspect and America will stick with us, not with Russians.”
Appears easy. Until Trump’s artwork of the deal is all about truckling to Putin.
