When we first heard the sound bites and saw the snippets of the confrontation between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the White House, our immediate reaction was to write an editorial blasting Trump for what appeared to be a provoked, disrespectful attack against the president of an allied country in the midst of a war for survival against an American foe.
But then we decided to look at the entire footage from start to finish rather than a select few soundbites provided by the mainstream media. When you do view the whole package, you will see that it’s far more complicated than has been presented.
The right-wing media is going off on Zelenskyy as to how he couldn’t read the room and pushed Trump and the vice president into a confrontation. Left-wing media types made it sound like Trump was still sore over Zelenskyy’s apparent support for Kamala Harris in the last election and was poised to jump on him to embarrass the Ukraine leader at this meeting.
But as Warner Wolf used to say, “Let’s go to the videotape.” Trump actually started off the press conference in a very cordial manner, debunking the narrative that he and Vance made a premeditated decision to blow up Zelenskyy at this event. His remarks initially were rather measured as to how he was seeking to play the middleman, and his ultimate goal was to simply get a deal to stop the fighting, rather than come off as an advocate for either side.
Some of us who detest Putin may hate the idea of providing some kind of moral equivalency between Russia and Ukraine, but if it helps break an impasse and bring about peace, that will be old news very quickly.
Actually, it was Zelenskyy who first started to answer questions that seemed to call into question the very deal that he was there to sign.
He seemed to be OK with the mineral exchange provisions, but kept harping on the fact that there were no guaranteed security provisions for Ukraine, intimating that he was unhappy with the status quo. That’s a peculiar position to take at a live press conference when you’re there to ink a deal that was just negotiated by the president of the United States.
If you don’t like the deal, don’t sign it. If you have concerns, express them in private and not on live TV in a joint interview.
At one point, late in the exchange, Vance jumped in calling Zelenskyy “ungrateful.” He definitely went overboard. Zelenskyy has thanked America countless times. And nothing he said at the press conference was inaccurate. He’s absolutely correct that Russia started the war, that Putin is a thug, and that he cannot be trusted. But there’s a time and place for that discussion and Friday’s meeting wasn’t it. That meeting should’ve been an opportunity to ink this deal and thank the United States for its past support.
The mineral deal they were to sign would bring a large American presence into the Ukraine, which alone should act as an enormous deterrent against Putin from re-litigating this war. With all those American citizens and companies in Ukraine, a military attack by Putin in the future would now be affecting American interests, which would bring about an enormous response on our part.
Trump and Vance went overboard in their reaction to Zelenskyy appearing to not be satisfied with the deal. But it doesn’t change the fact that Zelenskyy;s timing and overly defensive posture was misplaced.
Nothing that Zelenskyy said was inaccurate. He has every right to have continued concerns about Russia’s intentions. And it does appear that he was fighting back at the press conference to play to his own constituents who would not want their president to appear to be walked over by arrogant allies, slamming him at a press conference.
So it appears that both sides went about this wrong. Trump seemed to be in a very good and conciliatory mood at the beginning of the press conference. It was Zelenskyy who poured some cold water on the deal, prompting Trump to naturally respond, but in his usual overbearing and arrogant manner.
We’re glad we saw the whole footage because it tempered our first reaction, which was to excoriate the American president for emboldening the concept of the ugly American around the world.
There’s no doubt that the liberal media outlets here and elsewhere will paint Trump and Vance as the bad guys here. There’s plenty of ammo for that with Trump having falsely claimed that Zelenskyy is a dictator with 2% popularity and that he, not Putin, actually started the war.
But there’s also no doubt that this war was not going to end on the status quo path. Those who don’t like Trump‘s plan don’t have one of their own. It is simply not the case that Ukraine will ever have the ability on its own, or even with European assistance and continued American arms to push back Putin from the land he’s already gobbled up. If the Ukrainians want to stand on moral principle, they can do so, but at some point, they will run out of men even if they don’t run out of American ammunition.
We hate the idea that Putin will be able to keep a sliver of that Ukrainian territory. We never want an aggressive adversary to be rewarded. But is this really a reward? Let’s not forget that Biden‘s intelligence agencies had suggested that Putin was going to go through Ukraine in a matter of three weeks. Back then, we would’ve jumped for joy if we knew three years later the nation of Ukraine would survive as a democracy and an ally to the United States and it would have debilitated Russian manpower, munitions and economy in a devastating way without losing a single American. If this Trump deal remains in effect years later, it’s the peace and survival of Ukraine that will be the story, not the histrionics that occurred at this horrific press conference.
Both men must control their egos and get the job done.