In attack against Zelensky, Trump and Vance shame America

The only hero in the extraordinary Oval Office shouting match on Friday between President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Volodymyr Zelensky, was the Ukrainian leader.

The grotesque White House spectacle ended with the eviction of Zelensky from the White House before he could sign a framework for a Trump-demanded deal to “repay” the United States for helping Kyiv stand up to Vladimir Putin’s invasion.

The details of this farcical framework had nothing to do with advancing peace. And the economic deal might never even have been completed.

But after the Trump-Vance tirade against a courageous ally, it is time to put aside any delusions. No more pretending that Trump wants — or can deliver — peace for Ukraine in its war against Russia. Trump has totally gone over to Putin’s side.

The president’s hostility to Zelensky dates to the famous phone call in which the Ukrainian leader refused to dig up (fake) dirt on Vice President Joe Biden in 2019. Yet to better understand what happened Friday you need to look back at Trump’s behavior since he took office in January — and what was the meaning of the minerals deal that has gone unsigned.

Zelensky came to Washington, like French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer earlier this week, with one idea in mind: the hope that promising Trump a future share of Ukraine’s untapped mineral wealth might convince a transactional president to support a future European peace force if a ceasefire ever emerges.

» READ MORE: After three years of war in Ukraine, a Trump-backed ‘Russian peace’ would spell disaster | Trudy Rubin

Without such U.S. backup — in military areas that only Washington can provide, including air cover, intelligence support, and key weapons systems — no European force can guarantee a peace deal with Putin. The Russian war criminal has broken every deal he’s ever signed with Ukraine.

But Trump has steadfastly refused to provide such support, repeating Russian talking points and insisting that he “trusts” Putin. That trust seemingly extends to making repeated concessions to Moscow before any peace talks even get started, exchanging phone calls with Putin, and organizing high level official meetings between Russian and U.S. delegations — all without including Ukraine.

The State Department has dropped references to Putin as the aggressor who invaded Ukraine, and the U.S. actually voted against 93 members of the U.N. General Assembly on Monday, who condemned Russia on the third anniversary of the invasion. That no vote put the U.S. in league with Russia and North Korea. Even China abstained.

Trump compounded this infamy by echoing Kremlin propaganda and calling Zelensky a “dictator” because he wouldn’t hold elections during wartime, an impossibility under Ukrainian law and Russian shelling. Never did Trump mention that Putin has been in power for 24 years, murdering and poisoning opposition leaders and only holding sham ballots.

But the most venal and perhaps most shameless attack on Ukraine was the attempt to shake the country down for $500 billion to repay the United States for aid. Never mind that Kyiv is fighting back against an aggressor who openly wants to undermine the U.S. and Europe.

Despite Trump’s repeated lie that the U.S. gave $350 billion in Ukraine aid, the actual amount the U.S. has spent was at most around $160 billion, which is far less than Europe gave. Much of the U.S. military aid went to pay for new U.S. weapons. Ukraine mostly got the used stuff from storage, while the Ukraine funds went to pay for updated American stocks.

Initially, Trump’s emissary to Kyiv demanded that Zelensky commit half a trillion dollars’ worth of future resources earnings to U.S. coffers from still undeveloped mineral and other natural resources — far more than those sites are likely to ever earn, especially if a “Putin peace” is imposed on Ukraine. No Western investors will be interested if, as Putin seeks, the country is left divided and broken.

News of this shakedown created such a stir — with critics blasting Trump’s “art of the steal” — that the concept was modified. What Zelensky intended to sign was only a loose framework, without fixed numbers, leaving the detailed negotiations for later.

The trip’s main purpose was to follow European leaders in buttering up Trump, which was seen as the only way he might agree to continue helping Ukraine.

However, things went wrong in the conversation Friday when Vance interjected to claim Zelensky was insufficiently deferential to Trump. Keep in mind that Zelensky has thanked Americans, and Congress, and Trump over and over. But to Vance and the president, the need for overt obeisance was paramount.

Vance kept hounding Zelensky, as if speaking to his MAGA base, and then Trump jumped in. When Zelensky tried to explain why Putin could not be trusted, and had broken previous deals, Trump thundered that Putin would never break a deal with him. “You don’t seem thankful,” scolded Trump, overriding the Ukrainian leader’s effort to inject facts into the discussion.

And then Trump trotted out Putin’s longtime threat: to use nuclear weapons and bring on World War III. That threat — which paralyzed Joe Biden from fully backing Ukraine — has been debunked. Mostly because taking nuclear action would harm Russia more than Ukraine, especially since Putin ally Beijing has publicly ruled it out.

» READ MORE: Trump consummates his bromance with Putin, selling out Europe and Ukraine | Trudy Rubin

Under attack from Vance, joined by Trump, Zelensky finally exploded.

Perhaps Trump’s mocking claim that the Ukrainian didn’t want a ceasefire was the final straw, as Ukrainians die every day, but don’t want a Trumpian ceasefire that hands over their nation to Putin.

Or perhaps it was the Kremlin-like flood of insults that Trump and Vance unleashed on a burdened Zelensky, as they made clear to the world that the White House is on Russia’s side.

Either way, it’s as if Franklin Delano Roosevelt had showered slurs on Winston Churchill during the Blitz and praised Adolf Hitler. Our adversaries abroad are watching Trump’s cave-in to Putin with awe. They must be stunned at Trump’s incomprehension that Putin is playing him like a violin.

Gleefully, the Kremlin stepped in immediately to congratulate the White House for denouncing Zelensky. Former Russian President Dmitri Medvedev praised Trump for “telling the truth” to Zelensky’s face and urged him to end military aid to Kyiv. If Trump acquiesces, he may as well fly to the Kremlin and openly do so from Putin’s side.

Now the question is what comes next.

Zelensky had spoken to a bipartisan group of senators before the White House meeting, and much may depend on whether they are willing to go public in support of Zelensky, while privately trying to calm Trump.

Yet one of Ukraine’s most fervent past supporters, South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham, has cravenly called for Zelensky to issue a televised apology or step down as president. If this is the stance taken by other pro-Ukraine GOP senators, there is no hope from that quarter.

Ukraine and Europe will be left to their own inadequate resources. And those senatorial cowards will be as complicit as Trump in siding with the enemy and destroying America’s standing and influence abroad.