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Notes -
Trump just kicked Zelenskyy out of the White House after a public shouting match.
I've never seen anything like this. I sort of expected Trump to give him a hard time just for the cameras, but this seems to have legitimately hurt relations. Zelenskyy was in town to sign the much-anticipated minerals deal. From what I can hear the deal was not signed.
Ukraine needs the US much more than the US needs Ukraine. Could Zelenskyy not keep his pride contained for a few hours?
Zelensky, essentially unprompted, heavily implied that diplomacy with Putin would be ineffective without concrete security guarantees (i.e. a promise of boots on the ground, if not now then at least in the future). Trump and Vance didn't think it was the right time to be discussing that. It spiraled out from there.
You can argue that it should have been handled better, but I don't think you can say that the exchange was irrational, or that it was solely based on an abstract notion of "disrespect".
I'm referring to 1:20 in this clip when Zelensky said "can I ask you...?"
Vance's preceding comment did not demand a response. It was already complete and self-contained. Zelensky could have simply smiled and said nothing and none of this would have happened.
I'm really confused about how anyone is interpreting this as Zelensky being unreasonable or childish. Trump spent the first 30 seconds essentiay badmouthing Zelensky, during which time Zelensky sat there quietly and didn’t react. Around the 1:20 mark when Vance mentioned negotiation, Zelensky very calmly and defferentially said "Can I ask you something?" It wasn't in a heated or charged way--he was clearly trying to engage in rational discussion. He even said, "I'm not speaking just of Biden, it was president Obama, and President Trump, and President Biden, and now president Trump, and God bless now President Trump will stop him. But in 2014 nobody stopped him (Putin) he just occupied amlnd took. He killed people. . ." And he goes on to piint out that for 8 years, he tried to negotiate with Putin and that he actually signed a ceasefire in 2019.
What part of that is problematic? What part of that should have caused negotiations to blow up? You're telling me that somehow Zelensky didn't phrase something exactly right and that set Trump off and Zelensky's at fault because he shojld have known better? Not the guy who flies off the handle when someone says something that in any way challenges what he wants to hear, no matter how calmly, kindly or rationally?
Everything from Vance looked to me like a performance intended to make it appear as if for some reason Zelensky was doing something inappropriate, but i can't figure out what he's actually complaining about. "We tried to negotiate. What do you want us to do? ", "you didn't do negotiations that would bring peace, dummy. How dare you come here and say otherwise in front of the media?"
I literally can't believe that anyone is falling for Vance doing anything other than trying to put on a self aggrandizing performance here.
This ignores the 40 minutes before when Zelensky took subtle digs etc.
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