Washington Examiner Editor-in-Chief Hugo Gurdon argued on Sunday that Democrats have been mischaracterizing the testy exchange in the Oval Office last week between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and President Donald Trump in order to malign the U.S. president.

Speaking on Fox News with Jon Scott, Gurdon listed Democrats’ reactions to the fiery exchange between Zelensky, Trump, and Vice President JD Vance, which have included Susan Rice, a former ambassador to the United Nations, calling the meeting a “setup” and others referring to it as an “ambush.” He called these a “mischaracterization” of what actually happened in the meeting and how it spiraled out of control.

“This is a mischaracterization of what happened in the Oval Office. It was, in fact, Vice President Vance was answering a reporter’s question and backing up the U.S. diplomatic approach, and President Zelensky took the opportunity to interject and almost mock America’s approach,” he said. “And, you know, it went downhill from there. In fact, President Trump tried to, kind of, calm things down until he finally lost his temper when it seemed that Zelensky was saying, ‘Look, you know, we just want another $100 billion no questions asked.'”

Gurdon added that while Trump and Vance “should take some blame” along with Zelensky for how the meeting transpired, it is still being mischaracterized by Democrats who are engaging in “cheap point-scoring” to simply attack Trump as being “on Russia’s side.”

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Trump has been pushing for a deal between Russia and Ukraine since the very beginning of his second term, and that came to a head in the Oval Office meeting when Trump repeatedly said to Zelensky that he doesn’t have “the cards” without the United States and the minerals deal which was left unsigned by the Ukrainian president. This is now raising questions of what the U.S. policy will be toward Ukraine and the war at large.

Since the heated Oval Office meeting, Zelensky has been in the United Kingdom, where he secured a loan agreement from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and met with European leaders at a defense summit earlier Sunday.