OK, seriously: can anyone here give me an unbiased, agenda-free quick rundown on the meeting between Zelenskyy and Trump? My entire social media is on fire from angry shitlibs crying about muh Ukraine, I'm seeing Redditards seething as usual, mainstream news sites are giving me the predictable orange man bad shtick, and Youtube is recommending me right wing grifter channels bragging about how Ukraine has been buckbroken by TAmy Klobucharrump. I don't know who to trust, and these threads are going fast. What honestly is happening?
Zelensky was supposed to fly to Washington to meet with Trump and to sign a already negotiated mineral extraction deal with the US. Deals like this always negotiated to completion before the leaders meet. The annoucement of the agreement being complete was made on Wednesday.
But Zelensky had a press conference on Wednesday in Ukraine where he said:
“Regarding the visit. We were offered a visit, yes. But I want to know what format and when. The offices are working on it. There is a working date. What the US president said about Friday. I have an important question. I really want a visit,”
Zelensky in his comment in Ukraine seemed to hedge on if he thought the meeting had anything to do with the minerals agreement. That it was rather a meeting to talk to Trump.
On his way to the US, Zelensky started talking about how maybe the deal was not final and how he was going to personally negotiate the details with Trump in Washington. There were also troubling signs in the comments of both Trump and Zelensky that suggesting that they had radically different ideas about what had been agreed to. Usually that would mean the plug would be pulled on the trip and negotiations would resume. But that didn't happen.
So Zelensky arrives in Washington and before he meets with Trump, he meets with Democratic Senator and former Presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar. That was probably not a good idea. Especially doing it before the meeting with Trump.
So eventually Zelensky gets to the White House. Before the talks, there is the usual press event in the lead-up to signing an agreement where everyone is nice to each other and nothing at all is supposed to happen. But then everything starts to go off the rails. The two sides don't seem to have agreed on anything. Zelensky starts to get needled by Trump and then things escalate badly from there. Both sides to go after each other. The Ukrainian diplomats have paniced looks like they know something terrible is happening.
By the end, the intended meeting behind closed doors never happens and Zelensky is asked to leave.
So what happened:
- Meetings like this are never supposed to happen between the top two leaders before the deal is already negotiated. That was not the case here. Diplomats on both sides should have pulled the plug on the meeting long before it happened.
- Zelensky is a buffoon with no manners. The rules for these sorts of events in front of the press is that you smile, act nice and NEVER fight with the other side. You say whatever you have say behind closed doors. Especially when you are in another country as a guest. He was being made to eat shit in that meeting, but that is what you have to do.
- Trump and Vance have a long list of issues with Ukraine and Zelensky. Perhaps the worst of those issues was Zelensky budying up to Kamala during the election campaign and appearing at a democratic political even in PA not that before the election. If someone like Zelensky decides to support one American party over another, you are going to make enemies and have real problems mater.
- Zelensky also made some bad comments about Vance during the fall campaign. Trump on the other hand still carries grudges going all the way back to his first impeachment (which had to do with Ukraine) and Ukraine's efforts to protect Hunter Biden.
- For his part, Zelensky had been treated for a couple years like a tiny god and had repeatedly gotten away with pushing international leaders around to get what he wanted. In particular he was able multiple times to appeal to Jello headed Joe Biden or the mainstream media directly to override decisions made by other people in the Biden Administration. People tolerated alot of bad behavior from Zelensky for several years but he had never been called out on it.
What the meeting showed is why political leaders are supposed to listen to diplomats and do things in particular ways. There is a whole art to these things and when people don't play by the rules, THIS with Zelensky & Trump is what happens.
