A day of shame as Trump abandons Ukraine—and our allies.

March 1, 2025

Trump and JD Vance shamed themselves, the Office of the Presidency, the United States of America, and the valor of the Ukrainian people in a disgraceful display of thuggish behavior in the Oval Office. During a Friday press conference, Trump and Vance insulted, threatened, and attempted to extort Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a way that felt like a “setup” designed to end US support for Ukraine.

As Ron Filipkowski noted on BlueSky (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social)

Trump and Vance needed to create an incident to provide a justification for their pre-planned abandonment of Ukraine now, then separation from NATO in the near future.

Many in the media are describing the debacle as “extraordinary” and “unprecedented.” Those words conceal the truth of what happened. Reporting in the US immediately devolved into partisan scorekeeping that focused on which members of what parties were supporting or opposing Trump.

Let’s be clear about the significance of Trump's brutish behavior toward Zelensky:

• Everyone in the world is less safe today because Trump's fragile ego and non-existent negotiating skills could not tolerate a world leader speaking the truth to the American media in Trump's presence.

• Trump has officially switched sides in Russia’s unprovoked war of aggression against the Ukrainian people, telling Ukraine that it is on its own in defending itself against Russia.

• Putin is celebrating in the Kremlin because his puppet Donald Trump has finally delivered the “payoff” in the corrupt bargain they struck years ago. Former Russian President Medvedev summed up Moscow’s view of the exchange, saying, “The insolent pig [Zelensky] finally got a slap down in the Oval Office.”

• The US no longer has any allies in the world. No ally can rationally trust any promise by any representative of the United States after Trump abandoned Ukraine over its refusal to capitulate to blackmail.

The Oval Office meeting was supposed to precede the execution of an agreement in which Ukraine would grant the US the right to exploit Ukraine’s reserves of rare earth metals (which Trump repeatedly called “raw earth materials” during the press conference).

The metals exploitation deal was naked extortion: Trump had made clear before Friday’s meeting that Ukraine would lose US support in the Russian war of aggression if Ukraine did not grant the US hundreds of billions of dollars in mining rights as “repayment” for money and weapons granted to Ukraine without expectation of repayment.

Trump, as usual, was acting like a mafioso boss, extorting Ukraine (for the second time) by demanding a benefit to which the US was not entitled but which Trump believed he could extract by withholding future military support. (Trump used the same tactic in 2019 when he demanded that Ukraine fabricate evidence of Joe Biden's non-existent wrongdoing.)

When President Zelensky arrived at the White House to sign away Ukraine’s mineral rights in exchange for US military support, the day seemed promising. But when Zelensky joined Trump and Vance in the Oval Office, things quickly turned ugly.

A few excerpts from the exchange are included in The Kyiv Independent, Zelensky, Trump get into heated argument while speaking with journalists in Oval Office. As I write, there are few comprehensive summaries of the discussion, so I would appreciate it if readers could post shareable links to reliable sources in the Comments section.

I watched the exchange live. It was sickening. In general, here is how the confrontation unfolded:

In response to Trump's comments and reporters’ questions, Zelensky made the point that Ukraine could not agree to a ceasefire without security guarantees because Putin had failed to honor ceasefires on dozens of occasions in the past.

Trump said that Zelensky should “make an agreement with Russia first,” and worry about the security guarantees later.

When Zelensky pushed back, JD Vance accused Zelensky of being ungrateful for US support and said that Zelensky had campaigned for “the opposition” (Kamala Harris) by making an appearance at a US munitions factory in October 2024.

Trump and Vance then began to shout at Zelensky, berating him, claiming that Ukraine would have lost the war in two weeks without US support. Trump said to Zelensky,

You are not in a good position. You don't have the right cards right now. . . . You're gambling with World War III. And what you're doing is very disrespectful to the country, this country. It's back to you. . . . Your country is in big trouble. You're not winning ... You have a damn good chance of coming out okay because of us.

Trump also said falsely that the US wasn’t aligned with “any party” in the Ukraine war. That statement constituted a major shift in US policy because the US has been firmly backing Ukraine--until today.

In truth, Trump is aligned with a party in Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. Trump is aligned with Russia.

During a truly remarkable portion of the press conference, Trump spoke of himself and Putin as “co-victims” of the investigations into Trump's ties with Russia, which he called the “Russia hoax.” Trump suggested that he and Putin had survived the investigations as a team. Trump said,

Let me tell you, Putin went through a hell of a lot with me. He went through a phony witch hunt where they used him and Russia, Russia, Russia.

After the press conference ended, Trump threw Zelensky out of the White House (a demand delivered by the cowardly Marco Rubio).

Trump then posted an offensive statement on Truth Social that said that Zelensky was not welcome back to the White House until he was “ready for peace”—a statement that can only be interpreted to mean “when Zelensky is ready to surrender Ukraine to Russia.”

European leaders rallied behind President Zelensky in a series of statements posted within minutes of the encounter. Trump's enablers posted self-congratulatory statements on Twitter and Truth Social.

Rebecca Solnit provided the correct analysis of the Trumpworld tweets in her post on BlueSky (@rebeccasolnit.bsky.social):

Here's what the idiots in the White House utterly fail to comprehend. They and the US came out of that argument weaker. Zelensky came out stronger, with Europe rallying behind Ukraine more than before. They came out looking like petulant idiots; he came out looking like a leader with integrity.

David Frum gave his view The Atlantic, At Least Now We Know the Truth.

Frum writes,

We’re witnessing the self-sabotage of the United States. “America First” always meant America alone, a predatory America whose role in the world is no longer based on democratic belief.

America voted at the United Nations earlier this week against Ukraine, siding with Russia and China against almost all of its fellow democracies. Is this who Americans want to be? For this is what America is being turned into. [¶¶]

Both the president and vice president showed the U.S.-led alliance system something it needed urgently to know: The national-security system of the West is led by two men who cannot be trusted to defend America’s allies—and who deeply sympathize with the world’s most aggressive dictator.

Frum’s point is correct: America hasn’t abandoned Ukraine. It has abandoned the world. Until we defeat Trump and his cowardly supporters, America is “on its own” in global politics—not because the global community has ostracized us, but because Trump has demonstrated that under his leadership, America cannot be trusted.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans sacrificed their lives to earn the trust that Trump and JD Vance squandered in 45 minutes in the Oval Office by berating the heroic leader of a brave people whose fight against Russia promotes the peace and security of the United States and its (now) former allies.

Concluding Thoughts

Trump has aligned his administration with Putin. The Guardian reported on Friday that the US has stopped treating Russia as a cyberthreat to American national security—a change in policy seemingly designed to allow Russia to infiltrate US computer networks. See The Guardian, Trump administration retreats in fight against Russian cyber threats.

The shameful incident in the Oval Office was staged for the benefit of Russia. It is no coincidence that Trump initially invited a reporter for TASS (the official Russian news agency) into the Oval Office—even as he continues to exclude the Associated Press and Huffington Post. (The TASS reporter was removed from the Oval Office when his presence was noted by other pool reporters.)

There is little more Trump could do to advance Russia’s interests at the expense of the peace and security of the United States than if he was an active agent of the Russian KGB—a theory that reputable sources have begun to publish. See The Hill, Was 40-year-old Trump recruited by the KGB?

The stakes of defeating Trump just got higher. By a lot. None of us can afford to sit on the sidelines. Each of us must become an active participant in the effort to defeat Trump's enablers in Congress—the powerbase that allows him to act with impunity in destroying US foreign relations and federal government, twin goals that have been on Putin’s “to-do” list for decades.

As a reminder, I will host a Substack livestream on Saturday, March 1 at 9 am PST and 12 noon EST. Open the Substack App at the appointed hour and click on the livestream notification. Download the Substack App here.

Please consider this the Saturday morning edition of the newsletter; I am sending it early because of the urgency of the news about Trump's abandonment of Ukraine and our allies.

Stay strong. I will talk to you tomorrow!