If you want to understand why last Friday’s Oval Office press conference between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky went off the rails, ignore most of what you are seeing in the corporate media. Anyone watching a video of the entire event, instead of the deceptively edited clips featured on most “news” sites, will see that neither the President nor the Vice President “ambushed” Zelensky. The first 39 minutes of the meeting were unremarkable, with President Trump attempting to be cordial despite the Ukrainian president’s cartoonish costume and insolent attitude.
The legacy media have also lied about the UK’s position on Ukraine.
The argument erupted after a “reporter” suggested that Trump was “too closely aligned” with Vladimir Putin to negotiate a cease fire between Russia and Ukraine. The President answered, “If I didn’t align myself with both of them, you’d never have a deal.” The Vice President added that the Biden administration’s belligerent rhetoric had accomplished nothing and suggested a better path to peace was diplomacy. This set off Zelensky, who launched into a patronizing lecture which he concluded with this disrespectful question: “What kind of diplomacy, JD, you are speaking about? What do you mean?” Vance replied as follows:
I’m talking about the kind of diplomacy that’s going to end the destruction of your country. [Zelensky attempts to interrupt] Mr. President, with respect, I think it’s disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office to try to litigate this in front of the American media. Right now, you guys are going around and forcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems. You should be thanking the President for trying to bring an end to this conflict.
The pugnacious Ukrainian president responded to that admonition by peppering Vance with a new round of asinine questions that eventually angered President Trump enough to interrupt. Incredibly, Zelensky then began to argue with him. This upset Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S. Oksana Markarova so profoundly that she was on the verge of tears. This went on for a few more minutes until Trump threw his hands up: “All right, I think we’ve seen enough. What do you think? This is going to be great television. I will say that.” Not long thereafter, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Zelensky that he should leave the White House.
The corporate media are, of course, lying about all this. The New York Times told its readers, “The president’s verbal assault on Mr. Zelensky was a stunning display of anger and resentment toward the leader of a country that has been invaded by a larger power intent on eliminating it as an independent state.” Politico parroted this nonsense, “Ukraine’s supporters in Washington and abroad reacted with horror to President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance’s verbal takedown of Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday, calling it a dismaying display of American bullying.” The Atlantic echoed the narrative:
Leave aside, if only for a moment, the utter boorishness with which President Donald Trump and Vice President J. D. Vance treated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House today. Also leave aside the spectacle of American leaders publicly pummeling a friend as if he were an enemy. All of the ghastliness inflicted on Zelensky today should not obscure the geopolitical reality of what just happened: The president of the United States ambushed a loyal ally.
Curiously, none of these accounts include any mention of Zelensky’s meeting with a group of Democrats that occurred about an hour before his arrival at the White House. This is how Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) described this confab in a Friday morning X post: “Just finished a meeting with President Zelensky here in Washington. He confirmed that the Ukrainian people will not support a fake peace agreement where Putin gets everything he wants and there are no security arrangements for Ukraine.” In other words, this “loyal ally” never really intended to sign the mineral resources deal he was invited to the White House to close.
Nonetheless, the corporate media have insisted on misrepresenting what happened Friday in the Oval office. CNN portrayed the event in the same lurid tones used by the publications noted above: “Never before has an American president verbally attacked his visitor like Trump did Zelensky, leading to an almost real-time breakdown in relations between Washington and Kyiv. Trump at one point threatened to give up on Ukraine entirely.” The legacy media have also lied about the UK’s position on Ukraine. Britain’s U.S. ambassador, Peter Mandelson, joined ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday to deliver this message to Zelensky:
I think the first thing that President Zelensky can do is to make clear his commitment to the initiative that President Trump is taking. And, yes, I do think it would be a good idea if he signed the economic and commercial deal put forward by the United States … It will mean that U.S. commercial interest, U.S. individual citizens will be on the ground there and that will be an even greater, added incentive for the U.S. to protect the Ukraine in future, make sure that war does not ensue again.
It Is Time to Re-think Zelensky
Mandelson went on to tell the host, former Clinton operative George Stephanopoulos, “George, it is the only show in town.” Meanwhile, Zelensky has been hobnobbing with the bourgeoisie in London, where UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has allegedly “laid out a framework for a plan to end Russia’s war in Ukraine — one where Europe will lead the charge for securing peace — while still relying heavily on U.S. backing.” Zelensky also told the BBC that he’s still ready to sign the U.S. minerals deal. It is now abundantly clear that the feckless President of Ukraine is not the only comedian performing on the world stage.
All of which brings us back to Friday’s Oval Office press conference and the dust-up that was obviously caused by Volodymyr Zelensky. This is perhaps a good time to review this guy’s history. As Victor Davis Hanson reminds us, “Zelensky has postponed elections, outlawed opposition media and parties, suspended habeas corpus and walked out of negotiations when he had an even hand in Spring 2022.” This man clearly believes peace will end his brief destructive political career — and he is right. The media have consistently portrayed this character as a Churchillian statesman. It’s a lie. Time to give this clown the hook.
READ MORE from David Catron: