President Donald Trump, ready to conclude His Oval office meeting on Friday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, asked the reporters gathered in the room.
That’s when Vice President JD Vance jumped in his place, Answering a previous question about Trump’s relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin praising Trump’s diplomatic approach to war in Ukraine.
His comments produced a strong replica of Zelenskyy, directing an already tense discussion in an unexpected, complete and high volume argument for the world to see it.
During the next seven minutes, Vance and Trump exchanged increasingly heated words with their visitor. Vance accused Zelenskyy of being disrespectful in the White House, of not being grateful enough for American assistance and embarking on a “propaganda tour.”
Zelenskyy questioned Vance’s authority in Ukraine, asking if he had ever been in the country, which caused Vance to respond that he had “seen and seen the stories.” Then Trump learned, reaching the defense of his vice president by demanding that Zelenskyy be more grateful and stating that the Ukrainian leader was “playing with World War II.”
It was, in the words of Matthew Bartlett, a republican strategist and designated by the State Department during Trump’s first mandate, “a horrible day for the peacemakers.”
It was also a sign of how Vance, who as a senator was known for his opposition to US aid for Ukraine, affirms himself on foreign policy affairs immediately as vice president. Earlier this month, Vance made waves at the Munich Security Conference with a speech that pointed to other world leaders. And on Thursday, the day before becoming entangled with Zelenskyy, Vance mixed it at an Oval office meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, although in a much lighter tone.
“Look, I said what I said,” Vance replied on Thursday When a journalist asked him about his comments in Munich who criticized alleged violations of freedom of expression in the United Kingdom.
Starmer responded politely: “In relation to freedom of expression in the United Kingdom, I am very proud of our history there.”
The confrontation on Friday with Zelenskyy was much more frozen, driven not by the question of a journalist, but, according to those close to the vice president, by Vance’s desire to go back what he thought was the inappropriate behavior of Zelenskyy in a diplomatic environment.
“The way to peace and the way to prosperity is perhaps to participate in diplomacy,” Vance said after avoiding Trump’s attempt to present a latest investigation of the media. “We tried the path of Joe Biden, to hit our chest and pretend that the president of the words of the United States imported more than the president of the actions of the United States. What makes the United States a good country is the United States participating in diplomacy. That is what President Trump is doing. “
Zelenskyy then requested and received permission to go to Vance directly, noting that Ukraine had made diplomatic agreements with Russia that were later violated.
“He killed our people and did not exchange prisoners,” Zelenskyy said visibly agitated, referring to Putin, who has been at war with Ukraine for three years. “What kind of diplomacy, JD, are you talking? What do you mean?”
Vance replied that it was “disrespectful” for Zelenskyy “to come to the Oval office to try to litigate this in front of the US media.” Things only got tense from there.
A previous meeting on Friday between Zelenskyy and the senators was “very bipartisan and very supportive,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Dr.i. When asked about the most spiteful tone in the oval office, Whitehouse said: “That is what you get to let Vance in the room.”
A source familiar with the planning of Trump’s meeting said there was not a predetermined strategy for Vance to face Zelenskyy in the way he did. Vance, added the source, felt forced to respond after finding Zelenskyy unnecessarily provocative in his behavior.
“No one expected Zelenskyy to enter there and act with law,” said this person, who added that the expectation was that the Oval office meeting would go out as a typical bilateral meeting.
Another source familiar with Vance’s thought at the meeting said: “I don’t think anyone will wait [Zelenskyy] Enter there and act as such a petulant child. “
Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who has supported the help of Ukraine, described the Zelenskyy meeting as a “complete and total disaster”, which “the way he faced the president was just at the top.”
Graham also said he was “very proud that JD Vance defended our country.”
The opinions of Vance de Largo Data about the help of Ukraine are well established, and Zelenskyy in the past has not made any effort to hide his disapproval of the vice president, since he called him “too radical” in an interview last year with the New Yorker, when Vance was working with the Trump ticket.
On Friday, Vance returned to visit a visit to Zelenskyy before the elections of the past autumn to the hometown of Biden de Scranton, Pennsylvania, a trip that Republicans have characterized as a support sign for the Democratic Ticket. Zelenskyy visited a ammunition factory in Scranton and met with the then vice president Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominated in the White House.
“You went to Pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition in October,” Vance told Zelenskyy. “Offer some words of thanks to the United States of America and the president who is trying to save his country.”
The adversary tone reminded some observers’s speech by Munich de Vance.
“I have heard a lot about what you need to defend yourself and, of course, that is important,” said Vance there, addressing European leaders. “But what seemed a little less clear … Is it exactly what they are defending?”
Bartlett, who resigned from Trump’s first administration on January 6, 2021, for Trump’s response to the attack on the United States Capitol, acknowledged that Zelenskyy “may have entered, possibly, with the incorrect position.”
“It simply shows how personality is critical for politics, and how a bad meeting, you know, can be so potentially condemned in history,” Bartlett said.
“There are many who will see Vance as tremendously inappropriate, even going through the president,” Bartlett added. “And there are many things that feel as if Vance said what needs to be said during the last three years.
“And it seems that, regardless of where someone fell, the vice president was very anxious to make this point,” Bartlett continued. “It was an echo of his speech in Munich, he echoes his personality online, and you saw the personification of it now in a situation of critical and tense foreign policy.”
