By now you’ve seen and heard the meeting that shot around the world online. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy went to the White House to visit with President Trump and Vice President Vance, ostensibly to finalize one of Trump’s deals.
The agreement was to have been this. In exchange for past and future U.S. military support in its war with Russia, Ukraine was to have agreed to give the U.S. half of any money it got from Ukraine’s natural resources. These included rare earth minerals (crucial in high-tech manufacturing) and proceeds from the sale of oil, natural gas, and similar materials.
So far, the U.S. has given hundreds of billions of dollars in cash and artillery to Ukraine. Trump claims it’s between $300 and $350 billion, though many news outlets put the number closer to $182 billion. It’s impossible to know the truth; Trump may be wrong or exaggerating, but he may also know something the public does not. Regardless, every figure is massive.
But whatever it is in that range, it’s a huge wad of cash, all of which came from the pockets of regular Americans. Trump and Vance emphasized this to Zelenskyy during the meeting in the Oval Office, which was called to finalize not only the minerals deal, but to cement a peace process between Ukraine and Russia.
Zelenskyy’s performance crashed the entire deal, peace and all. Nothing like this exchange has been seen in American politics in living memory. From walking in to the oval office in his “playing war” costume while everyone else wore suits, to addressing the Vice President as “JD” and baiting him, Zelenskyy was the illustration next to the dictionary entry for “biting the hand that feeds you.”
Both Trump and Vance had had enough, and warned him with raised voices that he was a guest in the United States, and that it did not help his cause to come in ungrateful, demanding, and rude.
Here’s just some of that exchange. “I think it’s disrespectful for you come into the oval office and try to litigate this in front of the American media.” And that was just the start.
Zelenskyy remained combative, folded his arms across his chest like a scorned child, and was eventually kicked out of the White House with the lunch in his honor canceled. Trump said “he can come back when he is ready for peace.”
Democrats, of course, are running to comfort the grasping leader of a foreign country who has treated America like a piggy bank. But Zelenskyy is losing the American people, among whom he has a dwindling number of “friends.” Citing a Harvard poll from this week, the X/Twitter account End Wokeness posted these lopsided pie charts.
In response to the question “Do you want Ukraine to continue the war against Russia or negotiate a settlement with Russia?” – 61% of Democrats, 80% of Republicans, and 73% of Independents said “negotiate a settlement.” A majority of independents (53%) backed Trump announcing direct U.S.-Russia negotiations to end the war, while 85% of Republicans did. 40% of Democrats did too.
Twitter users are divided between liberals and conservatives as always. You’ve got typical Democrat responses like this one:
But the majority of users are posting things like this:
