Summary
Trump just presided over one of the greatest diplomatic disasters in modern history, with flared tempers, raised voices, and shredded protocol.
Never before has a U.S. president bullied and berated an adversary, never mind an ally, in such a public way.
During a tense Oval Office meeting, Trump and JD Vance attacked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, demanding he accept a peace deal with Russia or lose U.S. support.
The conversation devolved into shouting, with Trump accusing Zelenskyy of being ungrateful and “gambling with World War III.”
The meeting ended in chaos, with no agreement reached.
Zelenskyy is a goddamn hero
fuck trump fuck vance fuck musk fuck putin
And his most heroic act was not punching the old fart in the teeth
He’s not a hero lol
Most people would have taken the ride offer out of Kiev in 2022. That alone made him a hero. This new incident just adds even more to his hero status
Edit: Not you specifically, just in general.
Yeah, because we learned that if you don’t counter trolls some people will believe every goddamn word they say and then vote the trolls into office.
Zelenskyy is a goddamn hero
He’s far from being a hero. Zelenskyy just happens to be the president of a country being invaded, if trump was in his place you would be here calling him a hero. Zelenskyy is the president of an authoritarian government who turned to martial law and is drafting people by force while not allowing any male between 18-60 to leave the country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobilization_in_Ukraine#2024
“In 2023, harsher methods of mobilization began to be used, such as road blocks, business raids, and pulling people from the streets. In the latter half of 2023, videos surfaced online showing Ukrainian men violently dragged into vans and driven to the military recruiting centers”
Zelenskyy is the president of an authoritarian government who turned to martial law
Active invasion of their country from Belarus and Russia. What a brain dead take.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobilization_in_Russia
Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics
The mobilization was accompanied by mass raids on men of military age. In the enterprises of the region, up to 80% of employees were called up, which led to shutdown of mines and public transport, as well as the paralysis of cities and public services. To avoid mobilization, residents hid or tried to illegally leave the republics.[21]
Recruitment of prisoners
Implementation
It was reported that Russian authorities were targeting poor, homeless and people from poorer regions of Russia for conscription.[79][80] Russian authorities drafted detained protestors with no previous military experience, including a 17-year-old boy who was arrested at an anti-war demonstration in Moscow.[81]
On 14 April 2023, Putin signed into law a bill that would allow authorities to issue electronic summons to draftees.[92][93] The law blocks anyone eligible for military service who has received a digital summons from leaving the country.[94] Russian lawyer Valeria Vetoshkina called it a “hidden mobilization.” According to Russian economist Konstantin Sonin, “Now, any person, regardless of whether he took a summons or not, [or] has an account with Gosuslugi or not, can be arrested and convicted for not going to war.”[95] Russian lawyer and human rights activist Ivan Pavlov said that the “only option is to leave the country as soon as possible, but there is very little time for that.”[96]
Thanks for reporting on the draft in russia too. Forced conscription is form of slavery and a violation of human rights, it should be abolished and every person should fight against it and against the governments forcing it on people.
When two countries drafting people by force and not allowing them to leave the country get into a war you get a total disaster where poor people are forced to murder each others. The rulers and government behind these authoritarian polices are criminal and enemies of humanity.
When two countries drafting people by force and not allowing them to leave the country get into a war you get a total disaster where poor people are forced to murder each others
In this situation, one country got into a war. The other is defending its sovereign territory.
So if russia were to be attacked by china would it be ok for them to draft people by force to defend their sovereign territory? If you were someone living in russia would you be ok with putin goons arresting you if you try to leave the country?
Didn’t like, every country do the draft in WW2 and it was barely enough to defeat the Nazis?
Trump’s unreasonable nature is so obvious in the full video that I don’t see how anyone with two braincells can be on his side. Some highlights I want to share:
Reporter asks at 37:39 “… and who would protect those minerals … ?” Trump: “They’ll be protected. The agreement will protect them. The agreement, yeah we’re signing an agreement.” Reporter: “Right but what if Russia tries to invade or there’s russian agression in those spots.” Trump: “I just don’t think that’s going to happen.” He then deflects by trying to discredit the reporter since he couldn’t answer the question. So instead of giving Ukraine any guarantees or acknowledging Russia’s previous deceit, he hand waves it away.
At 33:45 “… what did [Putin] tell you that he wanted peace?”. Trump: “My whole life is deals … I’ve known him for a long time, he had to suffer through the Russia hoax, you know Russia Russia Russia it was a hoax. It was all Biden it was nothing to do with him … I think that he wants to make a deal and he would like to see it end.” What an absolute nothing answer. He’s asked why he believes this is viable and after a short attempt at making Russia the victim he just says, rephrased, “because, lol”.
At 39:50 Vance goes on a truly incoherent ramble about how Biden tried “thumping [his] chest and pretending that the president of the United States words mattered more than the President of the United States’s actions” and thus “the path to peace and the path to prosperity is maybe in engaging in diplomacy”. Ah, diplomacy, the path that is famously known for it’s lack of words… sending money to Ukraine or providing military aid? Those aren’t actions, they’re just words. Zelensky goes on to ELI5 to Vance how Putin broke diplomacy before the clips everyone is posting begins.
And just for fun, at 30:15 Trump delivers a line so stupid it almost breaks Zelensky’s poker face: “I’ve stopped wars, I’ve stopped many wars. My people will tell you, I’ve stopped wars that nobody ever heard about. I stopped wars before they ever started. … I could give you a lot of nations that would tell you right now they were probably going to war — I could tell you right now there is a nation thinking about going to war on something that nobody in this room has ever even heard about.”
This is ignoring all the times they try and blame Biden for Russia invading Ukraine which just ???
You seem to be one of the few people I’ve seen online that seems to have watched the whole video and came away with this take, so I would love a civil response.
I’m certainly not on Trump/Vance’s side, but when watching the whole video I can’t help but think that Zelenskyy truly failed at understanding the purpose of the meeting and has condemned many more of his countrymen to death. It seemed obvious from the get go that Trump wanted this to be a public deceleration of economic entanglements and that the security discussions would come later. I get Zelenskyy’s point that Russia has been impossible to deal with from a diplomatic standpoint and that he didn’t want to leave Washington without a security gaurentee, but by publicly shaming Russia from the ovel office he is making diplomacy impossible. My impression is that Zelenskyy wants the war to keep going, but I truly don’t understand why. His citizens are dying and they are losing territory. Russia has 10x the population and, historically, has had little reservations about sending their soldiers into the meat grinder. And let’s not forget that if Russia gets backed into a corner, they still have nukes that could escalate the situation to unfathomable destruction.
From my nonexpert opinion, if I was the leader of Ukrainian I would be trying to make as many economic deals as possible with foreign nations and look to stop the war asap. I truly can’t think of a better alternative than that given the current situation. So my question is, what should the US, EU, and Ukrainians be doing to stop the killing? What is the most realistic path to peace?
And just reiterate, I don’t agree with the wording and attitude of Trump/Vance during that meeting, but the general sentiment of economic entanglements seems like the best option at this point. No?
The idea that any deal with Russia that wouldn’t include rock solid security guarantees would lead to stopping the killing, much less any sort of peace, is extremely naive. This issue is ongoing ever since Russia annexed Crimea, there have been many deals and all of them failed to stop Putin from breaking them. The issue is very simple - Trump can not (and absolutely doesn’t want to, from the looks of things) convince Putin to stop the war, because Putin doesn’t want the war to stop. It was shown time and time again that they aren’t willing to stop their invasion, and only thing that ever thwarted their progress was military opposition. There is no reason to believe that Russia wouldn’t just continue the invasion after the deal with USA is made. And Ukraine wouldn’t have any benefit from this kind of deal, so why would they go through with it?
Since you watched all of it, as unbearable to watch it was, you probably also heard the comments of Trump in the interview afterwards - that he organized and prolonged this discussion to show the world that Zelensky can not be negotiated with. Whatever you might believe in, it’s hard to imagine that as anything else other than admission that Trump never expected his “deal” to go through. They jumped and insulted the president of soverign country and blamed him for the war their close friend started. If your reaction to that is “he shouldn’t have reacted to the provocation”, then you’re missing the point of why they provoked him in the first place. This way, at the very least, he made sure the world despised Trump and that all other allies of Ukraine were sympathetic. His only choice is to weather this storm until the fascist bubble in USA bursts and there is some chance for diplomacy in the future.
As for the economic entanglements, they mean nothing in times when USA is incapable of diplomacy and Russia is unwilling of adhering to any deals. Speaking of any trades where Ukraine is giving up their minerals before USA promises to push Russia outside of Ukraine borders is meaningless, and Ukraine wouldn’t get anything out of that.
Zelenskyy was only interested in allowing the US to take their ‘rare earth’ if the US was also going to guarantee that it would help their defense against Russia’s advancements.
Trump claimed the deal had already been made, and tried to make the conference about how great he is and how bad the previous presidents were.
He praised questions that verbally sucked him off, and belittled those who asked genuine questions about the deal.
Then the two Americans bombarded Zelenskyy with questions and refused to allow him to answer.
They talked over him and got upset at him for not sucking their cocks the whole conference.Zelenskyy was sent out because the babies in the Whitehouse couldn’t handle somebody who didn’t kiss their feet. He didn’t disagree with the deal, he just wanted more clarification and this was taken as a personal attack.
The world does not respect Trump or the US. We laugh at their incompetence and look forward to their ego getting checked.
This whole press conference made the US look like half-assed war profiteers, rather than the ‘freedom fighters’ they like to roleplay as.
It is not our place to fund their war and their country any longer. Americans need help and those hundreds of billions could be helping our people. If Ukraine wants to continue fighting then do it without US support.
Your funds are being used so that Ukrainian soldiers can risk their lives defending your border with your biggest enemy.
America’s border isn’t in Eastern Europe.
