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The Oval Office confrontation Friday between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and President Trump and Vice President Vance was a classical political Rorschach Test. It was either a much-needed and long-delayed smackdown of an arrogant and entitled authoritarian who demanded U.S. aid to continue a war he could not win, or an unprovoked and unwarranted dressing-down of a valuable U.S. ally by a narcissistic and short-sighted pawn of Vladmir Putin. Only one of those perspectives has the facts behind it, however, and the left’s knee-jerk embrace of the anti-Trump, anti-American point of view is as revealing as it was predictable.
Apparently writing through his tears, MSNBC’s Senior Editor Anthony L. Fisher on Friday served up a typical leftist spin on what happened, after first announcing: “I’m feeling some unusually visceral thoughts about my country. Betrayal, anger, embarrassment. Shame.” He noted that “we’ve already heard Trump praise Russian President Vladimir Putin (many times) and call Zelenskyy a ‘dictator.’” And now, “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.”
In a similar vein, far-left Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Orange Man Bad) offered a detailed blow-by-blow account of the entire incident, concluding that “the whole meeting is a set up. By pushing this plan to hand Ukraine to Putin (IN FRONT OF ZELENSKY!), Trump is trying to either humiliate or provoke Zelensky. But he does neither, and so Vance has to light the match.” Neocon warhawk Bill Kristol reposted a photo of Zelensky with Trump, along with the caption: “The Leader of the Free World, sitting next to Donald Trump.”
Conspicuously absent from every leftist attempt to spin the Oval Office incident was any genuine recognition of the points Trump and Vance were actually making. As National Security Adviser Mike Waltz explained to Zelensky after the confrontation: “Time is not on your side here. Time is not on your side on the battlefield. Time is not on your side in terms of the world situation, and, most importantly, US aid and the taxpayers’ tolerance is not unlimited.”
This was an amplification of one thing Trump said to Zelensky amid the imbroglio: “We gave you, through this stupid president, $350 billion. We gave you military equipment. Your men are brave but they have used our military equipment. If you didn’t have our military equipment, this war would have been over in two weeks.”
Trump’s point was that Ukraine would have been quickly defeated without help from the United States, but even with that help, he said, “You’re not winning this. You have a damn good chance of coming out okay because of us.” He was giving Zelensky a grim but realistic assessment: he couldn’t defeat Russia, but he could come out with an acceptable settlement if he agreed to Trump’s ceasefire terms. Without America, however, despite all the bluster and indignant support for Ukraine coming from European leaders, Ukraine would be thoroughly defeated. On Saturday, Zelensky demanded $250 billion from the EU if the U.S. ended its support, but it’s not at all clear that even the Europeans are so keen on prolonging the war that they will hand over that much money.
During the Oval Office confrontation, Trump behaved with perfect consistency. From the beginning of his political career, he has put the interests of Americans first, and continues to do so. He isn’t interested in pursuing the endless and inconclusive wars that the U.S. has fought, at a tremendous loss of lives, money, and materiel, ever since the end of World War II. The war in Ukraine is shaping up to be just that kind of boondoggle, as Zelensky has no way to win it or to sustain his victory, no matter how much money he receives. So Trump made it clear on Friday that the U.S. is no longer a cash cow for every world leader who comes to the Oval Office demanding funds. The president is going to look out for the American people first.
For the left, that is the worst thing Trump could possibly do. From their socialist internationalist perspective, his America-First position is wrongheaded, obstructionist, and recklessly counterrevolutionary. They would rather see America bankrupted than a reconsideration of the disastrous foreign policy strategy the nation has pursued for 75 years. And so they side once again against Trump and for the continued draining of the resources of the American people. There was never any doubt that they would.