U.S. Vice President JD Vance led a verbal attack on Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky in an Oval Office visit today, as both Vance and President Donald Trump claimed the Ukrainian leader was disrespectful and not grateful enough for U.S. support of Ukraine.
The televised exchange showed Zelensky continually objecting to the narrative Vance presented, which is in part that the Trump administration’s negotiations with Russia to settle the Ukraine-Russia war — negotiations that are taking place without Ukraine or any European nation at the table — are the only way to bring peace to the region.
Vance accused Zelensky of having problems with conscripting soldiers and that “diplomacy” was the only way to stop the carnage and destruction.
Zelensky pointed out that Vance had not been to Ukraine — “come once,” he said — and said that diplomacy with Putin was impossible. Presenting a historical view of Russia’s incursions into Ukraine beginning in Crimea in 2014 and spanning four U.S. presidential terms (Obama, Trump, Biden, Trump), Zelensky said he had signed agreements with Putin which the Russian leader had failed to honor — and nobody stopped him.
Diplomacy, Zelensky emphasized, requires an adherence to agreements arrived at through the diplomatic process.
The shouting match and the animosity in the Oval Office, driven by what critics characterize as the current administration’s pro-Putin view, was palpable. Former congresswoman and avowed anti-Trump Republican Liz Cheney was among those who called the Trump and Vance performance a betrayal of an American ally, saying Vance and Trump “pressured [Zelensky] to surrender the freedom of his people to the KGB war criminal who invaded Ukraine.”
Cheney predicted that “History will remember this day— when an American President and Vice President abandoned all we stand for.”
Generations of American patriots, from our revolution onward, have fought for the principles Zelenskyy is risking his life to defend. But today, Donald Trump and JD Vance attacked Zelenskyy and pressured him to surrender the freedom of his people to the KGB war criminal who… https://t.co/oMoWZ7FmBL
— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) February 28, 2025
Interpreting it very differently, Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally, called Trump’s performance in castigating Zelensky a “masterclass.”
Lindsey Graham on Trump attacking Zelenskyy: President Trump gave a masterclass pic.twitter.com/6gBMhhg3R1
— Acyn (@Acyn) February 28, 2025
Aligning more with the view of Cheney, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul called the moment a “tragedy for American national security interests.”
McFaul: We’re on live TV, so I’m not going to speak in terms that I would speak if we were off the air. But this was horrific. This was a tragedy and a tragedy for American national security interests pic.twitter.com/E1yW8am8HA
— Acyn (@Acyn) February 28, 2025
In Russia’s state-controlled media, the narrative advanced by Trump and Vance was hailed and the meeting characterized as a pro-Putin exchange. The New York Times reported that “Russian state media are savoring what they describe as a public ‘dressing down’ for President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.”
Trump said during the meeting, “You see the hatred [Zelensky’s] got for Putin. That’s very tough for me to make a deal with that kind of hate.”