Numerous media outlets and politicians were taken aback by the confrontation between the US president and the Ukrainian leader.
On a stage, a former TV personality who is now president pays a visit to a much more powerful person and tries to introduce a plot twist. What might go wrong?
Some US political analysts saw Friday’s high-stakes White House confrontation as a defeat for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and a devastating setback to Donald Trump’s efforts to negotiate a peace agreement after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy demanded US security guarantees.
Additionally, Trump supporters in the US interpreted the president’s meeting with Zelenskyy as a victory for his “America first” realignment objectives.
The conservative-leaning editorial board of the Wall Street Journal stated on Saturday that it is “harder to achieve” the US goal of curbing Russian expansionism without the use of US military, calling it “disorienting to see Mr. Trump’s allies defending this debacle as some show of American strength.”
“Granting Ukraine to Mr. Putin would be disastrous for that nation and Europe, but it would also be a political disaster for Mr. Trump,” the publication cautioned.
After the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, “Friday’s spectacle won’t make [Putin] any more willing to stop his onslaught.”
According to the New York Times, Trump’s “determination to scrap America’s traditional sources of power – its alliances among like-minded democracies – and return the country to an era of raw great-power negotiations” was demonstrated by the cancelled Oval Office meeting.
“Washington and Kyiv’s three-year wartime partnership was shattered,” the report continued.
Trump and Vance, two fellow Republicans, were also criticised by certain conservative political heavyweights for how they handled the meeting. Adam Kinzinger, the former Republican congressman from Illinois who was a member of a House committee that looked into the attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters in early 2021, said, “I hate to say this … but the United States right now is not the good guys in this.”
On Saturday, it was still unclear if the US and Ukraine might mend their diplomatic ties. However, even if Trump, a former reality-TV personality, said that the confrontation with his Ukrainian counterpart, an ex-actor, provided “great television,” the debate highlights the risks of doing diplomacy in public.
Republican strategist Karl Rove told Fox News that it would be really difficult to retract some of those remarks and to move past the level of hostility we seen in that room today. “If the cameras hadn’t been rolling, it could have been done, but Vladimir Putin is the only one who has won today.”
Following the confrontation, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent disclosed that he had met with Zelenskyy in Kviv a few days prior, and that the meeting had triggered a similar reaction. Bessent referred to Zelenskyy’s strategy as “one of the great diplomatic own goals in history” following Friday’s catastrophe.
Bessent told Bloomberg that it is “clearly very difficult to do an economic deal with a leader that doesn’t want to do a peace deal.”
After Ukrainian diplomatic aides texted that they were ready to sign the agreed economic rare earth minerals contract, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio finally requested Zelenskyy to leave the White House, saying, “I don’t know what he was thinking.”
Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy, criticised Zelenskyy for his “impertinence” and dubbed the confrontation “one of the great moments in the history of American diplomacy.”
Miller stated without providing any details on the public opinion data he used to support his assertion that “millions of American hearts swelled with overflowing pride today to watch President Trump put Zelenskyy in his place.”
“It was odd that Zelensky got the script wrong for a former comedian accustomed to the cameras,” commented Ravi Agrawal of Foreign Policy. Agawal pointed out that during the week, Trump had been pushing the limits of media coverage with “freewheeling” conversations in front of cameras throughout the globe.
The Ukraine president responded, “I’m not sure we did something bad,” when Fox News host Bret Baier asked Zelenskyy whether he wanted to apologise to Trump.
“I think we have to be very open and very honest,” Zelenskyy told Baier, adding, “I respect [the] president and I respect [the] American people.”
However, Zelenskyy expressed gratitude to the US and its leadership and expressed hope for solid relations when he arrived in London on Saturday ahead of a summit of European and British leaders. “I sincerely hope we will have strong relations with America, as that is what we want.”
Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the president of Germany, has expressed support for Zelenskyy, stating that he “would never have believed that we would one day have to protect Ukraine from the USA.”
According to French President Emmanuel Macron, Zelenskyy is not the one who is betting on the third global war, as Trump claimed on Friday.
Following Trump’s complaint that Zelenskyy had been unduly critical of the Russian autocrat, Macron declared, “If anyone is gambling with World War III, his name is Vladimir Putin.”
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