Zelensky leaves White House after angry meeting

No more folksy Bush with his boldfaced lies about WMDs leading to a million deaths. No more stately Obama redefining every dead 18 year old as an "enemy combatant".

Alas, time's cruel arrow!

I watched the entire press conference with Zelensky. There was 40 minutes of discussion up to the argument. Most people saw at most the last ten minutes. The whole video gives the proper context.

When I first watched the argument without the proper context, I thought it was possible that Trump and Vance ambushed Zelensky or were even trying to humiliate him. That's not what happened.

You had 40 minutes of calm conversation. Vance made a point that didn't attack Zelensky and wasn't even addressed to him, and Zelensky clearly started the argument.

In the first 40 minutes, Zelensky kept trying to go beyond what was negotiated in the deal. When Trump was asked a question, it was always "we'll see." Zelensky made blanket assertions that there would be no negotiating with Putin, and that Russia would pay for the war. When Trump said that it was a tragedy that people on both sides were dying, Zelensky interjected that the Russians were the invaders.

For his part, Trump made clear that the US would continue delivering military aid. All Zelensky had to do was remain calm for a few more minutes and they would've signed a deal.

The argument started when Trump pointed out that it would be hard to make a deal if you talk about Putin the way Zelensky does. Vance interjects to make the reasonable point that Biden called Putin names and that didn't get us anywhere.

The Zelensky/Trump dynamic was calm and stable. It was when Vance spoke that Zelensky started to interrogate him. Throughout the press conference to that point, everyone was making their arguments directly to the audience. Zelensky decided to challenge Vance and ask him hostile questions. He went back to his point that Putin never sticks to ceasefires, once again implying that negotiations are pointless. Why on earth would you do this? Then came the fight we all saw.

Zelensky was minutes away from being home free, and he would have had the deal and new commitments from the Trump administration. The point Vance made was directed against Biden and the media, taking them to task for speaking in moralistic terms. This offended Zelensky, and that began the argument.

I've been a fan of Zelensky up to this point, but this showed so much incompetence, if not emotional instability, that I don't see how he recovers from this. The relationship with the administration is broken. Ukraine should probably go with new leadership at this point.

i've been thinking a lot about this lately. how do we move from asking rhetorical questions of elected leaders into actually compelling them to act on our behalf? there's little to no connection between public will and its representation.

On the plus side, at least Marco Rubio seemed completely embarrassed to be sitting in the room with them. He was sinking and sinking into that sofa.

My point of view overall is that it was an insufferable meeting and I'm surprised that it didn't explode sooner.

Question after question praising Trump and then he repeating his same old script. They even seemed to forget Zelenskyy was there for a moment, and then a reporter asks him why is he not wearing a suit?. Such a ridiculous question, and if they care about it so much, why they don't ask Elon Musk that?

Being in Z shoes I would feel like a sane people trapped on an mental institution or a cult.