Yesterday, relying on mainstream media accounts and what I saw in the meeting transcript between President Trump, Vice President Vance and Ukraine’s President Zelensky, I wrote an extremely negative attack on Trump and Vance.
A lot of what I wrote is true and still stands. Making the meeting a public spectacle and essentially giving Zelensky the bum’s rush should not have happened in public. It doesn’t help either side in any way.
But now I have more context on why this meeting devolved as it did. And my attitude about it has changed dramatically.
There are a number of sources causing this change of opinion. But the most important is Michael Goodwin’s article in today’s New York Post. Here is how it starts. Please pay special attention to the part I have put in bold print:
Disaster in the Oval Office: Dems lead Zelensky, Ukraine off a cliff with pressure to reject mineral deal
A common criticism of Volodymyr Zelensky’s disastrous Friday performance in the Oval Office is that he failed to read the room.
Actually, the Ukrainian president did read a room — but it was the wrong room.
Before meeting Trump, Zelensky met with anti-Trump Democrats who advised him to reject the terms of the mineral deal the president was offering, according to Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.).
“Just finished a meeting with President Zelensky here in Washington. He confirmed that the Ukrainian people will not support a fake peace agreement where Putin gets everything he wants and there are no security arrangements for Ukraine,” Murphy’s office posted on X at 11:15 a.m. Friday.
He attached a picture of Zelensky at a conference table, with Murphy seated on the opposite side.
Forty minutes later, Zelensky arrived at the White House, where Trump met his car, smiled, shook his hand and walked him into the Oval Office.
The meeting, as the world now knows, quickly went off the rails and ended with Trump angrily ejecting the arrogant ingrate from the White House.
The earlier meeting with Dems undercuts wild claims that Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance staged an ambush. In fact, it was Zelensky who came with an ulterior motive.
The purpose of the meeting was to sign the mineral agreement he and Trump representatives had negotiated. He had twice refused to sign it after promising to, and thanks to Murphy, we now know he had no intention of signing it Friday.
By listening to the nakedly partisan advice of Dems instead of dealing forthrightly with the current president, Zelensky betrayed his countrymen and, for now at least, leaves them without the military and diplomatic protection that only America can provide.
Good luck counting on Britain, France and the rest of Europe to save Ukraine. Maybe the Germans will send strudel.
In a perverse way, Murphy and other Dems got the outcome they wanted. The fireworks at the White House gave them an excuse to replay their Russia Russia Russia hoax.
Once again, they and their media handmaidens are dishonestly insisting that Trump is in Vladimir Putin’s camp.
Is that actually the way of things? Did Democrats, before Zelensky’s meeting with Trump and Vance, convince him to try and dictate the terms of our support ($250 – $350 BILLION dollars so far) and go back on signing the mineral deal he apparently was there to sign – until Democrats got hold of him?
Apparently that is exactly what happened.
Bottom line? Zelensky got nothing. The United States got nothing. But Democrats got a political talking point their mainstream media pals will be happy to repeat ad nauseam. This was their big win.
I again apologize to President Trum and Vice President Vance. When do I learn that, when it comes to political information especially about Trump, mainstream media accounts absolutely cannot be trusted.
