Last week, during a press conference in the Oval Office, President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance excoriated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for not sufficiently showing gratitude to the U.S. The entire affair was shameful, but it could potentially cause European leaders to step up their own support of Ukraine, which would be a positive and perhaps unintended consequence.
Trump hosted reporters Friday to commemorate the signing of a treaty with Zelenskyy to provide further military support. The agreement came more than three years after Russia launched a full-scale invasion that has killed more than 100,000 soldiers and civilians, and more than a decade since Russia seized broad swathes of Ukrainian territory.
But before the deal could take place, the meeting fell apart—seemingly at the instigation of Vance, who interjected that Zelenskyy was "disrespectful" and said, "You should be thanking the president for trying to bring an end to this conflict." This seemed to set off Trump, who charged that Zelenskyy was "gambling with World War III. And what you're doing is very disrespectful to the country…that's backed you far more than a lot of people said they should have."
