After watching the Oval Office exchange on Friday between President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance and their invited guest, Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelenskyy — I’m feeling some unusually visceral thoughts about my country. Betrayal, anger, embarrassment. Shame.
Trump and Vance’s display in the Oval Office presented America to the rest of the world in a dramatically shameful light.
We already know the post-World War II order is over. The U.S. voted against its allies — and with the dictatorships of North Korea and Belarus — at the United Nations this week, opposing a resolution condemning Russia for invading Ukraine and occupying about 20% of its land. We’ve already heard Trump praise Russian President Vladimir Putin (many times) and call Zelenskyy a “dictator.” At a Cabinet meeting this week, Trump dismissed pleas from our NATO allies, such as U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, to provide a “backstop” security guarantee in Ukraine, saying, “We’re going to have Europe do that.”
But Trump and Vance’s display in the Oval Office presented America to the rest of the world in a dramatically shameful light, making it plain that our government is no longer a worthy ally to liberal democracies around the world.
Zelenskyy expressed his appreciation to Trump for what he described as a “first step toward real security guarantees” for Ukraine, while also insisting there should be “no compromises” with the “killer” and “terrorist” Putin. Shortly after, Trump said that Zelenskyy ought to be more “grateful” and that his “hatred” for Putin makes it “tough to make a deal.”
Declaring himself a peacenik, Trump wrongly claimed his position — which is essentially to pre-emptively hand over Ukraine’s bargaining chips at the negotiating table, give Putin whatever he wants and take him at his word that he won’t reinvade — is more in line with Europe and the world’s sentiments than Zelenskyy’s.
Trump, typically incoherent, rambled and repeated himself, so his vice president helpfully stepped in, saying Putin invaded Ukraine because then-President Joe Biden was weak and “the path to peace and prosperity is diplomacy.”
Zelenskyy, armed with facts to counter Vance’s MAGA rhetoric, noted that Putin first invaded Ukraine in 2014 (Trump incorrectly tried to correct him, saying it was 2015), and that he occupied Crimea and had been aggressing on Ukrainian territory ever since, including the four years of Trump’s first term. He also noted that Putin’s brutal 2022 invasion was itself a violation of a previous ceasefire — bringing further absurdity to the idea that Putin’s promises for “peace” can be trusted.
That was when Vance went into attack poodle mode, scolding Zelenskyy as “disrespectful” for trying to litigate the matter (i.e. telling the truth with verifiable facts) in front of the American media. Vance barked that he should be thanking Trump and not attacking the administration that is “trying to prevent the destruction of your country.”
Zelenskyy, remarkably, kept his cool, trying to get in a word over the shouts of Trump and Vance, warning them that even though the U.S. has an ocean between itself and Europe, that the country would “feel” the consequences of capitulating to Russia “in the future.”
That’s when it completely went off the rails.
Vance went into attack poodle mode, scolding Zelenskyy as ‘disrespectful’ for trying to litigate the matter (i.e. telling the truth with verifiable facts) in front of the American media.
Trump bellowed, “You’re gambling with World War III” and attempted to humiliate Zelenskyy by saying “you don’t have the cards.” (The Ukrainian president replied that he’s not playing cards, he’s fighting a war.) Trump did a mock impersonation of Zelenskyy saying, “I don’t want a ceasefire!” Vance said Zelenskyy should have raised his objections in private and not in front of the media, adding, “We know that you’re wrong.”
When a reporter asked Trump what would happen if Putin broke a future ceasefire, the leader of the free world replied, “What if a bomb drops on your head right now?” before going on another incoherent rant about how Putin himself had suffered through the “phony witch hunt” and blamed the “Russia Russia Russia” investigation on Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and “shifty Adam Schiff.”
He then turned to Zelenskyy and said, “I’ve empowered you to be a tough guy and I don’t think you’d be a tough guy without the United States,” adding that if he doesn’t “make a deal” with Putin — the U.S. is “out.” Then Trump abruptly ended the press conference, noting “this is going to be great television.” As reporters were shunted out of the room, Vance reassuringly patted his boss on the arm.
Minutes after the meeting ended, Trump posted to his social media site Truth Social: “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.” Trump also reportedly kicked Zelenskyy out of the White House.
Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s nominal president during the four years from 2008-12 when Putin pretended he wasn’t actually in power, posted to X: “The insolent pig finally got a proper slap down in the Oval Office. And @realDonaldTrump is right: The Kiev regime is ‘gambling with WWIII.’”
Those few minutes in the Oval Office are destined for the history books as a catastrophic and disgraceful moment in the story of America.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio — who sat silently next to Vance during the Oval Office fiasco — in February 2022 tweeted: “The people of #Ukraine are tough people who will NEVER accept being ruled by #Putin … Men, women, children, the elderly, they are going to fight … And they are going to maim & kill alot [sic] of Russians.” Now that he works for Trump, Rubio posted this on Friday: “Thank you @POTUS for standing up for America in a way that no President has ever had the courage to do before.”
I’m not one for extensive self-flagellating over America’s many flaws. There are sins committed by this country’s government and its people, both recent and historic, that can never be fully atoned for — but which we should always be working to understand and strive to never repeat. Still, I don’t walk around life thinking the United States is irredeemable. Far from it, actually. On the ledger of history and in broad terms, I believe we’ve been more right than we’ve been wrong.
And yet, those few minutes in the Oval Office are destined for the history books as a catastrophic and disgraceful moment in the story of America.
Our president, for almost a century known as the “Leader of the Free World,” has abandoned that post. We, as represented by our government, offer support only in mafia-esque transactional terms (“You give us your nation’s natural resources, and we’ll protect you, maybe”). Our leaders parrot the propaganda of an imperialist dictator who has acted as one of America’s primary adversaries over the past two and a half decades. And a democratic ally that has miraculously survived an existential attack by its nuclear-armed neighbor for three years was humiliated on the world stage and essentially blamed for fighting back against Putin’s aggression.
Most perversely, the president’s admirers call this “diplomacy” and acting toward “peace.”
It’s too soon to say “we’re the bad guys,” but it’s not at all too soon to say “we’re on the side of the bad guys” — and historic alliances and mutual values mean nothing to us anymore. The “shining city on a hill” is a gangster’s paradise. It’s a shameful day for America.
