Before Trump told Rubio and Waltz to go kick Zelenskyy and his team out of the White House, there was a confrontational Oval Office meeting between the Ukrainians and Trumpanzee and his bootlickers. Unable to get his way, and angry about Zelenskyy's body language and fashion sense, Trump went crazy, as though Putin were sitting on his shoulder, and treated Zelenskyy as an enemy. Actually, though the Associated Press and Reuters were barred from the Oval Office, TASS, a Kremlin propaganda outlet, was there. By the end of the day, the Washington Post was reporting that Señor T was “considering ending all ongoing shipments of military aid to Ukraine in response to Zelensky’s remarks.”
Keep in mind that the latest YouGov poll for The Economist shows that most Americans (58%) continue to side with Ukraine in the conflict; only 3% sympathize more with Russia. That said, 41% of Americans understand that Trump sides with Russia in the conflict. Even among Republicans, nearly half (47%) take Ukraine’s side, although that number is slipping. Though virtually no Americans (4%) agree with Trump's assertion that Ukraine initiated the conflict against Russia— even among Republicans, only 6% think Ukraine is to blame— as Trump has continued to smear Zelenskyy, Republicans' views on Ukraine's president have grown more negative. In the past week, the share of Republicans with an unfavorable view of Zelenskyy has increased 16 points, to 56% from 40%.
The two parties never got to the rare earth mineral deal because Trump started trying to pressure Zelenskyy to accept a deal with Russia that would leave significant amounts of Ukraine is Russia’s hands, the same way that Neville Chamberlain forced Czechoslovakia to agree to cede the Sudetenland to Hitler in 1938, only to then see Hitler quickly break the deal and swallow the whole country just months later, despite meaningless guarantees from Britain, France and Italy.
The worm-like JD Vance led the attack for Trump, accusing Zelenskyy of being disrespectful because he refused to give way to Putin’s demands, delivered by Trump. “You should be thanking the president for trying to bring an end to this conflict… Do you think that it's respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to prevent the destruction of your country?... Have you said ‘thank you’ once, this entire meeting? No, in this entire meeting, have you said ‘thank you?’”
Zelenskyy kept a measured, respectful tone throughout the meeting even when Vance and Trump started screaming at their guest, as though they were in a barroom brawl.
Zelenskyy: “You don't feel it now, but you'll feel it in the future.”
Trumpanzee: “You don't know that. You don't know that. Don't tell us what we're going to feel. We're trying to solve a problem. Don't tell us what we're gonna feel, because you're in no position to dictate that. You're in no position to dictate what we're going to feel. We're going to feel very good. You don't have the cards right now. With us, you start having cards. Right now, you don't have your playing cards, your playing cards— you're gambling with the lives of millions of people. You're gambling with World War III. You're gambling with World War III... You have to be thankful. You don't have the cards. You're buried there, people are dying, you're running low on soldiers.”
Michael Birnbaum and Matt Viser reported that “Zelensky pushed back against Trump, urging him to offer security guarantees, emphasizing Putin’s aggression, and, as things grew heated, chided Vance for speaking about Ukraine without having visited the country. Zelensky left shortly after 1:40 p.m., with a planned press conference canceled and Trump writing on social media: ‘He disrespected the United States of America in its cherished Oval Office. He can come back when he’s ready for Peace.’… Trump has declared his faith that Putin, too, wants to end the war and will abide by any peace agreement that is struck. He has held back from criticism of the Russian leader even as he has hit Zelensky, and this week sided with Moscow and Pyongyang against Ukraine in a vote marking the war’s anniversary at the United Nations. But Trump has often taken pains to be polite with other leaders when he has met them in person and has had positive face-to-face conversations with Zelensky in the past, something the Ukrainian leader was banking on when he rushed to Washington this week for the encounter.”
It’s worth noting that this week Rubio terminated a USAID initiative that has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to help restore Ukraine's energy grid from attacks by Russia. One USAID official involved in the Ukraine mission told NBC News that it’s a “signal to Russia that we don’t care about Ukraine or our past investments,” one USAID official involved in the Ukraine. Russia is fighting a two-pronged war in Ukraine: A military one but also an economic one. They’re trying to crush the economy, but USAID has played a central role in helping it be resilient, [including] shoring up the energy grid… We’ve provided vast amount of support to the Ukrainian government to avoid a macro economic crisis.”
Dean Obeidallah was succinct this morning: Trump is not an American President- he’s a Treasonous POS. “What happened in the Oval Office Friday with Trump attacking Zelensky in the service of Vladimir Putin is unlike anything we have ever seen. Trump spewing Putin's talking points to undermine Zelensky would’ve been like FDR openly mocking Winston Churchill using Hitler's talking points as the Nazis bombed London. Trump was not working for us but for Putin. That is why Arizona Democratic Senator Mark Kelly— who served as a U.S. Navy combat-pilot— summed it up this way after the meeting, ‘Putin and his cronies are probably popping champagne bottles right now.’”
So why did this happen? Jonathan Chait wrote that it all goes back to the Trump-Putin relationship. “Trump seems to genuinely feel that he and Vladimir Putin forged a personal bond through the shared trauma of being persecuted by the Democratic Party. Trump is known for his cold-eyed, transactional approach, and yet here he was, displaying affection and loyalty. (At another point, Trump complained that Zelensky has ‘tremendous hatred’ toward Putin and insisted, ‘It’s very tough for me to make a deal with that kind of hate.’) He was not explaining why a deal with Russia would advance America’s interests, or why honoring it would advance Russia’s. He was defending Russia’s integrity by vouching for Putin’s character... [I]t is all true: Trump does admire dictators. He does instinctively side with bullies over victims. He does lack any values-based framework for American foreign policy. But many Republicans who acknowledged these traits nonetheless believed that Trump could be persuaded to stay in Ukraine’s corner. They were wrong. The reason they were wrong is that, in addition to his generalized amorality, Trump exhibits a particular affection for Putin and Russia.”
Chait also wrote that the whole thing “was a setup. Trump and Vance appear to have entered the meeting with the intention of berating Zelensky and drawing him into an argument as a pretext for the diplomatic break. Why should anyone have expected anything different? Trump has been regurgitating Russian propaganda, not only regarding Ukraine, since before Zelensky even assumed office. He defended Russia’s seizure of Crimea in 2018 (the year preceding Zelensky’s election), has repeatedly refused to acknowledge Russian guilt for various murders, and has even stuck to Russian talking points on such idiosyncratic topics as the Soviets’ supposedly defensive rationale for invading Afghanistan in 1979 and their fear that an ‘aggressive’ Montenegro would attack Russia, dragging NATO into war.”
Tom Nichols called it an ambush, “presumably so that he can soon make a deal with the dictator of Russia to sell out a European nation fighting for its very existence… [T]his meeting reeked of a planned attack, with Trump unloading Russian talking points on Zelensky (such as blaming Ukraine for risking global war), all of it designed to humiliate the Ukrainian leader on national television and give Trump the pretext to do what he has indicated repeatedly he wants to do: side with Russian President Vladimir Putin and bring the war to an end on Russia’s terms. Trump is now reportedly considering the immediate end of all military aid to Ukraine because of Zelensky’s supposed intransigence during the meeting. Vance’s presence at the White House also suggests that the meeting was a setup. Vance is usually an invisible backbencher in this administration, with few duties other than some occasional trolling of Trump’s critics. (The actual business of furthering Trump’s policies is apparently now Elon Musk’s job.) This time, however, he was brought in to troll not other Americans, but a foreign leader. Marco Rubio— in theory, America’s top diplomat— was also there, but he sat glumly and silently while Vance pontificated like an obnoxious graduate student... [He] fully inhabited the role of a smarmy talk-show sidekick, jumping in to make sure the star got the support he needed while slamming one of the guests. The vice president is an unserious man who tries to insert himself into serious moments, but this time the stakes were much higher than the usual dustups with the media or congressional Democrats... Friday, February 28, 2025, will go into the history books as one of the grimmest days in American diplomacy, the beginning of a long-term disaster that every American, every U.S. ally, and anyone who cares about the future of democracy will have to endure. With the White House’s betrayal of Ukraine capping a month of authoritarian chaos in America, Putin, along with other dictators around the world, can finally look at Trump with confidence and think: one of us.”
President Convicted Felon is dismantling our constitutional government AND appeasing Russia which makes him both Chamberlain and Hitler at the same time.
The ONLY thing that is holding the line for democracy are the courts. And eventually we will get to the SCOTUS where, if democracy wins there, will President Convicted Felon follow the law? And just as scary, if President Convicted Felon wins, will we as a people rise up and disobey SCOTUS in a mass act of judicial nullification?
PS. Hope you are OK, Howie.