I’m going to keep this simple. I took my own excellent advice and watched the entire nearly one hour press conference with President Zelenskyy and President Trump. I’ll admit that I was tempted to just go back to the bed, hide under the covers and watch endless footage of President Kennedy but I told myself to get real.
So I watched it. On the big telly, not even on my laptop. With my ten – year old on one side and the three – year – old on the other. I put the subtitles on. And I just watched and listened. I didn’t go in with an agenda. I didn’t seek to analyse it to death or draw sweeping conclusions about the participants, like John did. I wasn’t Team Trump or Team Zelenskyy. If anything I leaned Zelenskyy. This is what I saw.
For the first 40 minutes everything was fine. President Trump was as you’d expect: he said what a great deal maker he was. He talked about achieving peace. There was some crazy stuff in there about the amount of wars we do not know about and that he stopped. He called Ukrainian soldiers ‘brave’ more than once. The journalists were doing what journalists do: trying to create a wedge between the two. One asked a question about Starmer and free speech and asked if he could be trusted. President Trump seemed easy going enough.
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Then at around the forty minute mark, this is what was going viral, things took a turn. Up to then President Zelenskyy had been pushing them for ‘security guarantees’ after any peace deal/cease fire. Trump said we have to get the deal first, which seemed fair enough to me. It was implied – I believe – that if the United States had economic interests in Ukraine because of this mineral deal, then the security guarantee would more or less follow. If the US had economic interests in the area then these would be secured militarily. In other words, Putin would not dare break a deal. The overwhelming aim by Trump up until then was that he wanted a deal. ‘I make deals my whole life.’
At the 40 minute mark Vice President Vance cuts in. He actually said, which Trump had not, that Putin invaded Ukraine. VP Vance then talks about diplomacy, finishes up and sits back.
President Zelenskyy at this point could have said nothing. But he pushed Vance on the meaning of diplomacy pointing out that Russia broke agreements before. Everyone is pretty calm and then Zelenskyy says, what kind of diplomacy do you mean? As in, he seemed to be saying as Russia has broken agreements before, we are going to need more than just diplomacy. But I will say this; it was a direct verbal challenge to Vance and it went downhill from there.
It was at this stage Vance goes in hard. I won’t do a transcript. When Zelenskyy then points out that there is an ocean between Europe and the United States, but they will ‘feel it’ eventually Trump gets riled. Things quickly fall apart.
I don’t know much about high stakes deal making. But I do know this. If I went to a meeting with someone who is more powerful and wealthier than me and I wanted a deal that was announced days beforehand and considered ‘done’ I’d stay in my lane. I’d try to keep my mouth shut.
How exactly could President Zelenskyy lose a deal, that was already ‘done’ with a man who loves ‘to do deals.’ How the heck did he manage that?
In fact if I went to this meeting where the deal was to be signed in the next room and then I’d be given lunch, but I couldn’t keep my mouth shut such that not only did I leave without the necessary signature but I wasn’t even given lunch I’d consider I’d fucked up. That’s just me.
Sure I can go running back to the Europeans who will give me lunch all day long. Heck, the King might even give me a really fancy lunch. Do you know what they currently cannot give me? The deal that was on the table. And they currently cannot give me the “security guarantees” that I couldn’t stop banging on about and caused me to lose the deal that was ‘done.’
What nonsense is this?
I went on to Twitter/X where there are claims of ambush and the rest.
This was Adam ‘let’s shut down GB News’ Boulton’s take: JD Vance is a piece of sh*t.
And this was part of Victor Davis Hanson’s take:
If one views carefully all the 50-minute tape, most of it was going quite well—until Zelenskyy started correcting Vance firstly, and Trump secondly. By Ukraine-splaining to his hosts, and by his gestures, tone, and interruptions, he made it clear that he assumed that Trump was just more of the same compliant, clueless moneybags Biden waxen effigy. And that was naïve for such a supposedly worldly leader.
I’m with VDH.
Finally, something light hearted in these dark times. I used to watch the comedy show Thirty Rock, starring Alec Baldwin. He plays the executive Jack who is a supreme negotiator. Jack usually wins every negotiation he is in until he must negotiate with the nanny. In this scene the nanny dominates by saying very little. Jack soon adopts her technique.
If only President Zelenskyy had brought a tangerine and kept his mouth shut.