TOI correspondent from Washington: In a diplomatic trainwreck for the ages, Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his delegation were turfed out of the White House without even the courtesy of a lunch, which was ready to be served, after talks with US President Donald Trump and vice-president JD Vance turned toxic in public.
Lunch carts had already rolled in for a scheduled luncheon when an Oval Office tete-e-tete, which usually involves pleasantries in the presence of media before the press is ushered out for more serious talks, turned explosive in full view of the cameras.
While the norm is to allow TV cameras to capture visuals for a few minutes and for reporters to ask a few questions before formal talks (followed by a more formal press conference), the Trump White House has allowed the media to stay for extended periods (more than 20 minutes in the case of Trump-Modi meeting), ostensibly because Trump loves being on television as much as possible. For the Zelenskyy meeting, the media was there for almost 40 minutes, capturing what turned into a public fiasco during the last ten minutes when Trump and Vance berated and bullied a feisty Zelenskyy.
Trump himself, with his obsession over tv ratings, remarked at the end of the spectacle that it would make good television, even as the White House staffers finally asked the media to move out. But the scheduled formal talks and luncheon never took place. An angry Trump, furious at Zelenskyy’s dogged insistence that Russia’s Vladimir Putin could not be trusted with ceasefire (among other assertions), ended talks that were to conclude with the signing of a rare minerals deal.
The Ukrainian delegation had by moved to a holding room, expecting talks to continue over the scheduled luncheon, for which lunch carts had already arrived. Instead, Trump sent word that they should leave the premises, which the shocked Zelenskyy team eventually did. Trump told the delegation to “Get off my lawn!” screamed a headline in Daily Mail, part of the MAGA media which rejoiced at the humiliating treatment meted out to the Ukrainian team.
White House staffers were then invited to eat the lunch of early spring green salad, rosemary roasted chicken, and creme brulee.
Zelenskyy later sat down for a pre-scheduled interview with Fox News in which he declined to apologize to his hosts, who insist that it was he who derailed the talks.
Which side and what triggered the trainwreck was bitterly contested in interviews and on social media in the hours following the fiasco, with millions of posts on the biggest diplomatic debacle in modern times.
According to Trump and his MAGA minions, it was Zelenskyy who was rude and ungrateful as he pushed the Trump-Vance team for security guarantees and unloaded on Putin, saying he had repeatedly violated ceasefire agreements. There were several points Zelenskyy made which appeared to trigger Trump, particularly when the Ukrainian leader talked of Russia’s depredations against Ukraine going back more than a decade to 2014, suggesting that even Trump was part of the US leadership that little to stop Moscow.
“There was no need for him to go in there and become antagonistic…He should apologize for wasting our time for a meeting to end the way it did,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio, among those who did the prep work for the rare minerals deal, said later.
“Don’t come here and create a scenario where you’re going to start lecturing us about how diplomacy isn’t going to work,” Rubio said, revealing that it was the Ukrainians who insisted on coming to Washington DC for a deal that could have been signed in Kiev five days ago.
Trump was also visibly angered when Zelenskyy suggested that the US is protected by two oceans and despite this could feel the heat some day, a remark that some MAGA folk saw as an insidious threat to America. When Trump told him that he was in a lot of trouble and losing the war against Russia, Zelenskyy responded, “First of all, during the war, everybody has problems, even you. But you have nice ocean and don’t feel now. But you will feel it in the future. God bless –”
Trump: “You don’t know that. You don’t know that. Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel. We’re trying to solve a problem. Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel.”
Zelenskyy: “I’m not telling you. I am answering on these questions.”
Trump: “Because you’re in no position to dictate that.”
Vance: “That’s exactly what you’re doing.”
Trump: “You are in no position to dictate what we’re going to feel. We’re going to feel very good.”
Zelenskyy: “You will feel influenced.”
Trump: “We are going to feel very good and very strong.”
Zelenskyy: “I am telling you. You will feel influenced.”
Trump: “You’re, right now, not in a very good position. You’ve allowed yourself to be in a very bad position –”
Zelenskyy: “From the very beginning of the war —”
Trump: “You’re not in a good position. You don’t have the cards right now. With us, you start having cards.”
Zelenskyy: “I’m not playing cards. I’m very serious, Mr. President. I’m very serious.”
Trump: “You’re playing cards. You’re gambling with the lives of millions of people. You’re gambling with World War III.”
Zelenskyy: “What are you speaking about?”
Trump: “You’re gambling with World War III. And what you’re doing is very disrespectful to the country, this country that’s backed you far more than a lot of people said they should have.”