Last Friday, before President Donald Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office and proceeded to embarrass America before the entire world, I happened to publish a piece here in Salon about how Trump’s anger and resentment were driving him and, in some cases, were making him lose control. Trump has always had a short temper, but since he’s been back in the White House he’s been lashing out in public more aggressively than in the past and it’s most often when someone fails to show what he deems to be proper deference.
For instance, he imperiously cut off UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer in a joint press conference last week as Starmer was talking about Canada. He also rudely chastised the governor of Maine in a room full of other governors over her decision to follow state and federal law relating to transgender citizens and anti-discrimination protections. But his unhinged behavior toward Zelenskyy in that White House meeting on Friday was nothing less than a verbal beat down staged for the media, as Trump more or less admitted at the end when he said “this is going to be great television.”
The meeting began normally enough despite the fact that Trump had been insulting Zelenskyy nonstop for days, calling him a dictator and daftly claiming that Ukraine had started the war. He’d even ordered the U.S. to vote with North Korea and Iran against a UN resolution calling for a secure and lasting peace because it blamed Russia for the war. Nevertheless, Zelenskyy gamely flew to Washington on the heels of earlier visits by the French and UK leaders trying to calm Trump down, agreeing to the “minerals deal” (or the “raw earth,” as Trump insanely refers to them). He hoped to convince Trump that he needs some kind of security guarantee with any peace deal or cease fire because the thuggish war criminal Putin can’t be trusted to keep his word so Ukraine would be a sitting duck.
Trump and Vice President JD Vance obviously had other plans. Vice presidents never jump into photo-ops and press events to berate a foreign leader — but JD Vance did just that, rudely interrupting to make as shallow comment about America being a good country because it engages in diplomacy. That prompted Zelenskyy to politely ask if it was OK to respond.
Clearly taken aback by Trump’s repeated insistence that Russia had suffered just as much as Ukraine in the war, Zelenskyy spoke about all the earlier agreements for ceasefires that Russia had signed since 2014 and then promptly broke. “What kind of diplomacy, JD, are you speaking about?” Zelenskyy pressed. Like the nasty junior high mean girl he is at heart, Vance snapped back that “it’s the kind of diplomacy that’s going to end the destruction of your country.” It was at that point that he claimed Zelenskyy was disrespectful and should instead thank the president for his generosity.
Vance then proceeded to go after Zelenskyy for forcibly conscripting soldiers (something the Trump administration has been telling them they have to do) and when Zelenskyy said that he should come to Ukraine to see what it’s like, Vance was forced to admit that he’d never been but had seen “the stories” of Zelenskyy’s “propaganda tours.” That’s what JD Vance likes to call diplomacy apparently.
Trump then entered the chat to berate Zelenskyy for saying that the U.S. would be affected by Putin’s aggression, screaming in his face like a drunk real housewife, “don’t tell us how to feel! We’re strong!” He then went on to tell him that he “has no cards” and he’s “gambling with WWIII” whining that Zelenskyy wasn’t being thankful enough and he didn’t think that was “nice.” He said Zelenskyy’s hatred for Putin (for invading his country and killing hundreds of thousands of its citizens) was the problem in getting to a deal. He also repeated his fatuous insistence that he could trust Putin because they had both been persecuted by the “Russia hoax,” after which he proceeded to rant incoherently about Hunter Biden’s bathroom.
That performance was hailed by all the GOP sycophants as a “master class” in diplomacy.
As he has pretty much been insisting from the day Putin invaded and Trump called it a “genius” and “savvy” move, Trump clearly believes Putin is entitled to take what he wants and that America supplying Ukraine with arms to fight him is a waste of money and a waste of time. His refusal to even talk about a security guarantee translates to surrender since we know that Putin will not keep his word. This is all theatre and that weird meeting was clearly a set-up to give Trump the excuse he needs to withdraw completely. Perhaps the sickest part of it was that he wanted Zelenskyy to lick both his and Putins’ boots in public while he did it.
If Europe is unable to fully support Ukraine and Russia finally overruns Ukraine and commits more atrocities like they did in places like Bucha, Trump and his henchmen will simply say that Zelenskyy was asking for it. Trump now hands out a red hat that says “Trump was right about everything” and as long as he can blame someone else for the carnage he creates the people around him are willing to let him believe it.
The Europeans called an emergency meeting in London over the weekend and invited Zelenskyy to attend. They all ostentatiously embraced him and each other in a show of total unity.
(He even had a meeting with King Charles which I’m sure irritated Trump.) There seems to be some idea that maybe things with the U.S. can be patched up, perhaps just long enough for them to gather the necessary support to Ukraine which may very well include troops on the ground. But there is little doubt that the U.S. is now out. They have accepted it. The question is whether they are going to go along with Trump and his minions throwing their weight around at NATO, the G7 or the G20 anymore. Why should they?
For Europe this isn’t theatre and Zelenskyy isn’t a plaything to entertain themselves as they perform for Vladimir Putin. Forcing Ukraine to surrender because Trump has withdrawn his “cards” isn’t really an option for them. Putin is knocking on their door and unlike Trump they know what he is and they know what he wants.
Zelenskyy was right when he said that just because there’s an ocean between us and them, we will still feel the reverberations of what is happening. Trump may stupidly think that he and Putin have a bond but Putin thinks Trump is a joke. He’s played Trump perfectly from the moment he met him and his efforts are bearing fruit. The whole world sees that America is now a paper tiger run by a fool and that’s a very bad position for a fading superpower to be in.
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