When Volodymyr Zelenskyy came to the White House last week, he had every right to expect to be received as an ally and the head of a sovereign nation, both of which he was. He was also a hero who had led his scrappy little country, Ukraine, to fight through three brutal years against a much larger aggressor nation, Russia.
Zelenskyy is still all those things, but he was not treated as such by Donald Trump and J. D. Vance. Instead, they ambushed him, teaming up to try to humiliate him and force him to grovel before them. Trump and Vance rudely talked over his attempts to dispute their lies about him and about that war.
He didn’t grovel. He stood up for himself and for his country. And for his refusal to bend the knee before their unjust accusations, he was kicked out of the White House.
As an American, I seldom feel shame for this country. But I am ashamed that two men in high positions in this country behaved in that meeting like a couple of bullies on the playground, picking on someone they perceived as weaker.
Trump accused Zelenskyy, among other things, of failing to express gratitude for all the help that the United States has given Ukraine in its war against Russia. But numerous Trumpwatchers dispute this. By one journalist’s count, Zelenskyy has publicly thanked the United States nearly 100 times (Lucile Brizard, “Fact Check: Zelenskyy Has Thanked the U.S. at Least 94 Times,” United24Media, March 2, 2025).
Supposedly Zelenskyy was at the White House that day to sign an agreement that would have given the U.S. access to valuable minerals in Ukraine. Not unreasonably, Zelenskyy expected to get something in return, preferably security guarantees by the United States. Understandably, he couldn’t rely on any promise he might get from the Kremlin, since Vladimir Putin doesn’t have a record of keeping any agreement he makes.
Following the disastrous meeting—which Trump insists on seeing as a victory for himself, when any objective viewer knows it was anything but—Trump has said he’s considering discontinuing aid to Ukraine.
Well duh. That’s what he had planned to do all along. Trump has been pushing the United States closer and closer to Putin for years. The meeting with Zelenskyy was his way of trying to justify cutting off help to Ukraine. He of course had directed J. D. Vance, his willing sycophant, to double-team Zelenskyy with him.
And Vance eagerly did so. Vice-Presidents typically stay silent in meetings with world leaders. They certainly don’t interrupt a head of state while he’s speaking. Yet Vance frequently interrupted Zelenskyy, and obviously did so because Trump had told him to.
In numerous polls, about 80% of Americans have supported aid to Ukraine. I predict, and hope, that Trump/ Vance will get plenty of blowback from their treatment of this important ally.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, that human weathervane from South Carolina, had told Zelenskyy only a week before the White House meeting that Ukraine was a model ally, because its brave people were “fighting our enemy” so that the United States didn’t have to.
Graham, predictably, switched course once he learned that Zelenskyy had been trashed by Trump and Vance. But what he had earlier said to the Ukrainian leader was, and is, clearly true.
The United States should stand with Zelenskyy and Ukraine. Period.
Unfortunately, under Trump, it appears that our long-time foreign policy of opposing Russia’s aggression against its smaller neighbors is now flipped on its head.
That’s a horrible development for Ukraine. But since European leaders are stepping into the leadership spot vacated by us, Putin may not have won the victory he’d thought he had.
However, the shame and humiliation that we in the United States feel, over our letting an ally down and instead joining the aggressor, will linger.
Our 80-year record of defending freedom throughout the world since World War II, of coming to the aid of smaller democracies when they’re threatened by larger autocracies, is now at an end.
R.I.P., our reputation as leader of the good guys. The United States will now be seen as one of the bad guys.