By Lev Tsitrin
A mere 3 weeks ago President Trump was asked, by a FOX reporter, a seemingly tricky question: “Do you view Vice President J.D. Vance as your successor? The Republican nominee in 2028?” Trump’s answer? “No, but he’s very capable. I think you have a lot of very capable people. So far, I think he’s doing a fantastic job. It’s too early. We’re just starting.”
The video of the bizarre scene in the White House of the argument between Trump, Vance, and Zelenski, I regret to say, fully vindicated Trump’s assessment of his Vice-President’s immaturity.
Zelenski came to an immensely important meeting that was long in preparations — the meeting in which Ukraine was supposed to sign a hugely adventitious for the US deal giving it control of Ukraine’s deposits of rare earths — a matter of strategic importance for both countries, ensuring that US industry is well supplied with the minerals indispensable for high technology and defense, and that the resulting Ukraine ties to the US would provide a measure of guarantee what Russia won’t re-invade, so the death and mayhem in Ukraine could stop.
And — courtesy of the Vice President Vance — the whole thing got derailed.
Both Trump and Zelensi were involved in an entirely relevant discussion of Putin’s trustworthiness — Zelenski enumerating the instances of lack thereof while Trump arguing that all those occurred while he wasn’t in the White House. Zelenski, blood and death of the thousands of Ukrainans weighing on his shoulders, was earnestly trying to make a point that, without a firm US security guarantee, Putin will go back on his word; Trump, clearly enjoying this back-and-forth about realpolitik, argued that he won’t.
And than, J.D. Vance threw in a monkey wrench: “Why are you disrespectful, President Zelenski?”
This was not a realpolitik argument. Moreover, it was not factually true — there is no disrespect in bringing a contrary factual argument, and insisting it it must be taken into consideration. And it wasn’t polite — Zelelnski was a guest, and should have been treated as such.
And than, there is a whole separate cultural factor which, I am sure, J.D. was not aware of, but which made me — an ex-Soviet — instantly recoil. “Do you respect me?” is, in Russian (and I am sure Ukrainian) culture a proverbial pretext for a fight among the low-lives over a refusal to participate in what Russians call “crushing a bottle” — finding three passerbys to pool their change to buy, and than drink in some dark alleyway, a bottle of cheap wine. The Russian phrase “do you respect me?” has no other connotations, and is only used to express contempt. How does it feel when the Vice President of the United States uses it towards a head of a foreign state in a White House?
This — by any measure cheap — pseudo-argument broke the deal that is literally a matter of global life-or-death, leave alone making America a laughing stock both in Russia and Ukraine.
I do not know whether, when the guests were gone, President Trump boxed J.D. Vance’s ears. Perhaps not — but the young man clearly has plenty to learn — not least, not to interrupt a strategically important discussion with nonsense. He should have sat straight, and quietly absorbed how geopolitics is done by grown-ups. His immaturity and discourtesy to a guest will unfortunately cost lives.
When I was a little kid going to a Soviet school, we has a big slogan on the wall that read “Study. Study. Study. V. I Lenin.” I am no fan of that guy, but this is a sound advice — not just to a little kid, but a political figure, too.
President Trump had the grace to end it all with a remark that the whole episode will make for a good TV. That it surely was — but the harm was done.
And it was also a warning to America — a warning that J.D Vance — who is surely good for typical vice-presidential ribbon-cutting jobs, or delivering official eulogies at state funerals — is nowhere near ready for the prime job.
Stay well, President Trump. We really need you. J.D. is no substitute.
And do give J.D a good dressing-down for what he’s done — so he starts to learn.
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7 Responses
Sorry, you’re way way off the mark.
Vance was correct to call out Zelinsky for disrespect of the time, the place, the moment, the location, the purpose, the people, and the office.
Zelinsky was completely in the wrong; Vance was calling him as the poor, rude, and out-of-context, aggressive, demanding, clueless guest that he was. Rarely has a head of state failed so impressively in public as did Zelinsky today, February 28th in the Oval Office of the People’s House.
The only people who think that he was successful and didn’t fail are deathocrats and they are wrong on every subject, all the time.
Your absurd insults of Vance also aren’t impressive.
One wonders why NER runs this sort of bizarre awkward fake commentary.
Vance will be an excellent president in 2024.
Your incorrect assessment on all of this is impressive in a, well, unimpressive sort of way.
Ooops.
This: “Vance will be an excellent president in 2024” should be: “Vance will be an excellent president in 2028.”
It seems to me Lev didn’t watch the full hour and, instead, watched the last 15 minutes or so– which was falsely advertised by many outlets as being complete.
Only someone on the left OR someone completely delusional would reach Lev’s conclusion after watching the whole hour.
Zelensky was incredibly rude, spoke OVER Trump many times, set actual demands, indicated he wouldn’t compromise, rolled his eyes when Trump was speaking, espoused vitriolic hate towards Putin, his would-be peace partner, and, in short, wouldn’t shut up.
He came to the meeting in bad faith. Prior to the meeting, Ukraine govt had ratified the agreement Zelensky was to sign. Agreements were made prior to his arrival. Zelensky apparently used the agreement as a way to have an audience with Trump, but had no intention to actually follow through. In fact, he used the camera as an opportunity to attempt to corner Trump in front of the world and bully him into agreeing to go to war with Russia and pay for the privilege.
Totally disagree. I watched the whole thing and Zelensky blew it big time. Vance was fine. Plus, the mineral agreement was a de facto security guarantee. What an idiot!
So, what was to do now?
1. Confirm points of agreement before mud-wrestling in disagreements resolution.
2. Negotiate in bad faith and require a
‘Verify first then Trust’ system to establish mutual faith in the foundation of mutual equivalent values obtained [Not, “Trust then Verify”)
3. Identify top 93 war criminal profiteers and punish them appropriately for their crimes.
I think Lev brings a useful perspective to what calling Zelensky disrespectful means in common parlance among his confederates. I wish Vance hadn’t said that. It sounds rather priggish during a vigorous debate. What I’d rather Vance had said was what both Rebecca and Kendra noted. The first being that Zelensky attended a meeting in which the purpose was to put an agreeable face to an agreement that had already been negotiated and agreed to, which Zelensky then underhandedly tried changing the nature of the agreement by starting an on-air public debate. The second was that the “mineral agreement was a de facto security guarantee”. I wish Vance had simply noted this. But when you’re the Administrative pit bull it is probably hard to know sometimes how hard to bite.
Whatever disagreements Trump, Vance, and Zelenskiyy had, it should have been thrashed out behind closed doors not in front of the press so the whole world could see.
In my opinion, Vance started it, and I wish Trump had de-escalated it. What should have been a great occasion turned into a train wreck.