tag-team attack on embattled Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was the most shameful moment in the history of the Oval Office — I’ve only been around for 70-some years — but let’s just say it’s definitely in the running.
And I don’t know whether the ambush, played out before TV cameras and, therefore, the entire world, was choreographed — although I’m guessing it was, with Vance playing the attack dog and Trump playing the closer. But whether choreographed or not, the meeting escalated out of control once Trump lost his temper and turned it into a shocking display of bullying.
I just hope the kids weren’t watching. I’m sorry I had to.
When the dance was over and the discordant music had stopped, the old world order of Pax Americana, already endangered by Trump, seemed to lie in tatters on the Oval Office floor, along with remnants of a possible negotiated end to Russia’s assault on Ukraine.
Trump canceled the rest of the day’s plans with Zelenskyy, who was apparently asked to leave.
Because Zelenskyy showed some spine in the meeting, a belligerent Trump turned the event into what family newspapers are calling a shouting match, but what we must call, in real life, a disgraceful s—-show.
And now, nobody knows where things stand. Only that we’re waist deep in a Big Muddy of Vladimir Putin’s making, with Trump standing by to help him dig out.
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SUBSCRIBEIt’s easy enough — unless you’re Lindsey Graham, who is programmed to praise Trump at all times and who basically called for Zelenskyy to resign — to say that this is not how presidents act. But it’s very much how Trump acts. It’s all shock and awe, and we might remember how the most prominent shock-and-awe campaign turned out.
The public showing of the meeting was clearly designed to make Zelenskyy look like the ungrateful, unappreciative bad guy because he wouldn’t roll over for Trump — who had promised to complete a deal with Russia even before he took office — when it came to the fate of his country.
Anyone outside the MAGA cult understands that Putin is the villain of the piece. And that Ukraine, led by Zelenskyy, has courageously fought back in the face of extraordinary odds for three years, with help from the United States and also Europe.
And that the bad guys on display in the Oval Office were clearly Trump and Vance. You may remember that the vice president said as a U.S. senator in 2022 that he didn’t care what happened to Ukraine. I guess he still doesn’t.
But this wasn’t about Vance, who has shown how ugly he can be — accusing migrants of eating pets one day and then playing a teeth-baring attack dog on another. This is about Trump — following recent meetings with President Emmanuel Macron of France and Prime Minister Keir Starmer of the United Kingdom — letting everyone know who was now in charge.
The meeting ended with Trump threatening to fully abandon Ukraine if Zelenskyy didn’t follow Trump’s, uh, advice in making a deal with Russia, telling Zelenskyy, “You’re either going to make a deal or we’re out. And if we’re out, you’ll fight it out and I don’t think it’s going to be pretty.”
Vice President JD Vance, right, speaks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, as President Donald Trump listens in the Oval Office at the White House, on Feb. 28, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/ Mystyslav Chernov)And Trump later wrote on his social media site, “I have determined that President Zelenskyy is not ready for Peace if America is involved, because he feels our involvement gives him a big advantage in negotiations. I don’t want advantage, I want PEACE. He disrespected the United States of America in its cherished Oval Office. He can come back when he is ready for Peace.”
I’ve watched the meeting five times now — watching with awe the remarkable amount of time Trump allowed the cameras to stay in the room. That was no accident. Each time I watched the head-on collision, it was with greater dismay and with greater disgust.
The whole thing would have been unbelievable, if, in fact, anything emerging from the mouths of King Donald of Orange and his henchpeople could still challenge our disbelief.
As Trump might say, no one has ever seen anything like it in the Oval Office, in which a wartime ally — or any country’s leader, for that matter — was so publicly dressed down by an American president.
It began with Vance, who, while talking over Zelenskyy, accused him of being ungrateful to Trump and disrespectful.
Trump, of course, doesn’t care if Zelenskyy is sufficiently grateful to the United States — a gratefulness the Ukrainian president has publicly expressed many times, by the way — but whether Zelenskyy has shown sufficient knee-scraping gratitude to Trump.
That’s the same Trump who has recently called Zelenskyy a dictator; who has said democratic Ukraine, not Russia, started the war; who was hosting Zelenskyy as he came to Washington to sign a deal (one that would go unsigned) on Trump’s extortion demands for access to Ukraine’s rare-earth minerals; and who assured Zelenskyy, in the midst of Putin’s criminal war, that Putin could be trusted, as if Putin hadn’t routinely dishonored deals with Ukraine and others.
Trump, on the other hand, can be trusted in only one way — to tell lies.
About the amount of money the United States has contributed to Ukraine during its war with Russia.
About Zelenskyy’s approval ratings.
About Putin’s trustworthiness.
He could be trusted to tell Zelenskyy that he had “no cards” to play and therefore couldn’t refuse demands from Trump, who had all the cards, or at least those not reserved for Putin.
Zelenskyy said he wasn’t playing a game. And Trump said he was — and that he “was gambling with World War III.”
As Zelenskyy argued the point, Trump, now clearly berating Zelenskyy, said that “it’s gonna be a very hard thing to do business like this.”
☀️ MORE FROM MIKE LITTWIN
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3:05 AM MST on Feb 26, 20254:23 PM MST on Feb 25, 2025Littwin: Trump claims to be king of a country that doesn’t do kings. As if dictator wasn’t enough.
3:05 AM MST on Feb 23, 20257:16 PM MST on Feb 24, 2025Littwin: It looks like a ban — or a version of a ban — on most semiautomatic weapons will land on Jared Polis’ desk
3:05 AM MST on Feb 19, 20254:24 PM MST on Feb 18, 2025And from there, everything only got worse, just the way it has with Elon Musk’s (probably illegal) rampage through the federal government, with Trump and Musk’s obsession with DEI, with transgender people now banned from the military, fast tracking migrant expulsions, and on and on.
Democrats are busily calling out Trump and Vance for their behavior, and even a few Republicans have joined in. We heard from Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet, who, according to The Sun’s Jesse Paul, is apparently looking into running for governor in 2026, when Jared Polis is term-limited.
In a statement, Bennet said, while praising Zelenskyy and condemning Putin, “Every time President Trump opens his mouth, including with his lack of self-control in the Oval Office today, he weakens Ukraine’s bargaining position, and ours, and makes the world more dangerous.”
The danger is everywhere — even our longtime allies have to wonder whether they, too, are on their own. But especially in Ukraine.
Even if Trump abandons the Ukrainian people, they will fight on. And he’s right — it won’t be pretty.
The one thing we know for sure is that, thanks to Trump, everything just got a whole lot uglier.
Mike Littwin has been a columnist for too many years to count. He has covered Dr. J, four presidential inaugurations, six national conventions and countless brain-numbing speeches in the New Hampshire and Iowa snow. Sign up for Mike’s newsletter.
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