Since the middle of 2022, I have been arguing that the off-ramp in Ukraine would involve territorial concessions to Russia (i.e., allowing them to retain Donbas and Crimea) in return for security guarantees that would ensure no renewal of Russian war in Ukraine. That has been the clear off-ramp for almost three years at this point.
When it comes to the war in Ukraine, whatever gets us to that durable off-ramp is good. And whatever gets in the way of that durable off-ramp is bad. That’s all.
That happens to be the policy of the Trump administration, which is seeking an off-ramp that would not allow Vladimir Putin to waltz into Kyiv, but also acknowledges that the likelihood of Ukraine winning back Donbas and Crimea is basically nonexistent — and has been since 2014.
That was the predicate for the big meeting that took place Friday. Ukrainian President Zelensky was supposed to sign a minerals deal with the U.S.
There was an immediate conflict between what both parties wanted; President Trump wanted the minerals deal. He believes the United States ought to be repaid for its investment in other countries, as he believes that when we get involved in foreign policy, there ought to be sort of a clear return to the United States.
President Trump also saw the economic minerals deal as a foot in the door to prevent a Russian invasion, because if the United States had workers in Ukraine who were mining raw, rare earth minerals and the Russians were to invade, the United States would immediately be dragged in.
President Trump was not wrong about this; that perspective has been a Western way for centuries. For instance, if the British East India Company got involved in trade in a far-flung place and were attacked by the local government, such could trigger the British Empire getting directly militarily involved. Thus, no one wanted to mess with the British East India Company.
Zelensky claimed he couldn’t go back to his people and say he signed a minerals deal without explicit security guarantees.
All President Trump wanted from the meeting was for Zelensky to show up, shake his hand, and there would be an implicit understanding (that almost became explicit during this meeting) that the rare earth minerals deal was a kind of trigger force for the United States providing security guarantees.
Trump came very close to saying that several times in the actual meeting.
But Zelensky came in with another agenda; he was reportedly prepped by Democrats. He wanted Trump to say that he would offer a security guarantee, which President Trump did not want to do, because from the president’s perspective, the United States should not have to do so; instead, Europe should have to provide that security guarantee.
So that was the setup.
WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show
Beyond that, there’s personal dislike between these two leaders. Zelensky does not like President Trump. He’s angry at President Trump. He believes that President Trump and Vice President Vance do not like him and have said nasty things about him, which is true. He thinks they have said things that are untrue about the Ukraine-Russia war by casting moral aspersions at Ukraine that are unearned while going easy on Putin. And there’s a case to be made that that’s true as well.
The Trump-Vance case is that Zelensky is being intransigent because he wants Trump’s moral condemnation of Russia. But moral condemnation doesn’t get the job done. What does get the job done is whatever gets us to that off-ramp.
So, if that means Trump has to massage Putin in public relations in order to get him to the table, he’ll do that.
People forget that Zelensky has been a very famous world leader prior to the outbreak of the 2022 war. He was an actor; he’s an egomaniac. Zelensky likes being on camera. He made his money on camera. He’s quite performative.
But so is President Trump. And, as it turns out, so is Vice President Vance.
This was a powder keg ready to explode.
Zelensky really blew it. Of the three people in the room, the adult in the room was Trump, and it wasn’t close.
Zelensky was rude to Trump upon entering the room. I know there are people on the Right who think that Vance handled himself beautifully, but I think Vance actually threw a couple of hand grenades into the middle of the conversation, because there may, in fact, be some emerging foreign policy differences between Vance and Trump in regards to their view of the United States in the world.
Zelensky wore a sort of military jumpsuit. What would have been the downside to him having worn a suit? I understand Zelensky is trying to keep his country’s spirits up, but it seems to me that if he had shown up in a suit, had a great meeting with Trump and walked out, that would have been a pretty good boost for the Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines.
The case could be made that Zelensky was tacitly recognizing the United States is out of the Ukraine business and he was actually trying to blow up the meeting in order to get the EU to step in and provide some sort of aid that the United States is unwilling to provide. If that’s the case, then Zelensky actually got something he wanted out of this whole situation.
But conversations like this have wide-ranging ramifications in terms of future policy. For example, the Gulf War might have started because of a stray comment from a low-level State Department staffer who implied that if Saddam Hussein had walked into Kuwait, the United States might not actually do anything about it. Hussein took that seriously, and he walked into Kuwait. The Russian invasion of Ukraine was probably prompted by the United States pulling out of Afghanistan ignominiously and in disgrace.
Trump was warm at the start, saying:
It’s an honor to have President Zelensky of Ukraine … we have something that is a very fair deal, and we look forward to getting in and digging, digging, digging, and working and getting some of the rare earth … We have had some very good discussions with Russia. I spoke with President Putin, and we’re going to try and bring this to a close, something that you want and that he wants.
Even from his body language, Zelensky already appeared very nervous, clearly not liking what he was hearing.
All Trump was saying was that he was looking for some sort of win.
Then, Zelensky came out firing, demanding a security guarantee. It is understandable why he wanted it; he’s the president of Ukraine. He does not want another negotiation that ends in two years with the Russians coming back in.
But — these are negotiations to be saved for the back room. These are not the topics to be discussed in the front room. Why was he negotiating in the room with President Trump?
Trump could have blown up on him at this point, but they were only two minutes deep in the meeting. So, what did Trump do?
He acted like an adult. He listened to Zelensky for 40 minutes. Why? Because that’s what an adult does.
In this meeting, it was not Trump who flew off the handle. It was Zelensky — and then Vance.
All Trump wanted from this meeting was to get out of there with the rare earth minerals deal to provide the lever for a broader — or tacit — American commitment to the security of Ukraine.
Yet Zelensky kept pushing, effectively attempting to negotiate a deal in the room.
Trump was asked why he has not said many words about Putin. He said:
Well, if I didn’t align myself with both of them, you’d never have a deal. You want me to say really terrible things about Putin and then say, ‘Hi, Vladimir. How are we doing on the deal?’ That doesn’t work that way. I’m not aligned with Putin. I’m not aligned with anybody. I’m aligned with the United States of America, and for the good of the world, I’m aligned with the world. And I want to get this thing over with. You see, the hatred he’s got for Putin. It’s very tough for me to make a deal with that kind of hate. He’s got tremendous hatred, and I understand that, but I can tell you the other side is[n’t] exactly in love with, you know, him either.
Trump was saying, I want to get to a deal. And the meeting could have ended any time there.
But it started to go sideways. The tension was palpable. Zelensky was tense, leaning toward Trump almost aggressively throughout this meeting. Trump was sitting back, acting like the adult in the room.
Then, Vance jumped in. He hadn’t said anything this entire time. In my opinion, the vice president of the United States should have been attempting to facilitate the end of this meeting. It was in everybody’s interest to say, “We’ve taken 45 minutes of questions. We’re going to go in the back room; we’re going to talk, and they’re going to do a signing ceremony.”
But, instead, Vance decided he needed to jump in and defend President Trump. I know this is Vice President Vance’s somewhat typical role as bulldog for Trump. That’s fine. But it did set off a conflagration.
And Zelensky decided he was going to go after Vance. Whatever relationship Zelensky has with Trump, his relationship with Vance is terrible because Vance has openly said he does not care if Russia just eats up Ukraine. Further, Vance associates with a number of public figures who make some of the wildest statements possible about Ukraine, in addition to some of the most pro-Putin statements that are possible to make, which I think Zelensky knows.
Vance declared:
Look, for four years the United States of America, we had a president who stood up at press conferences and talked tough about Vladimir Putin, and then Putin invaded Ukraine and destroyed a significant chunk of the country. The path to peace and the path to prosperity is maybe engaging in diplomacy. We tried the pathway of Joe Biden, of thumping our chest and pretending that the President of the United States is words mattered more than the President of the United States is actions. What makes America a good country? Is America engaging in diplomacy? That’s what President Trump is doing.
What Vance said was absolutely true. But then Zelensky jumped in and started fighting with Vance. Vance was not attempting to start a firefight. But it unfolded into a nuclear meltdown.
Vance took the opportunity to throw two grenades. One was directed at President Trump and one at Zelensky. The one that was clearly directed at President Trump was bringing up Zelensky going to Pennsylvania in the final days of the campaign and walking around Pennsylvania with Josh Shapiro (which I said at the time was an idiot move). The reason he mentioned that was to anger Trump.. Saying, “This man is being disrespectful and loved Joe Biden,” to Trump is like waving a red flag in front of a bull.
Vance then said to Zelensky something that no leader can tolerate, which is: You’re losing the war, and you’re having to forcibly conscript people. That’s an accusation about the inhumanity of the Ukrainian regime that Vance did not use with regard to Putin, who has kidnaped apparently tens of thousands of Ukrainian children and then taken them back to Russia for “Russification.”
Zelensky started the fire, and then Vance poured fuel on the fire. Zelensky then kept going, and it kept getting worse.
Zelensky was obviously spoiling for a fight, and Vance pushed back on him in a way designed to blow up the entire thing. Vance decided to get incredibly personal, which may have something to do with Vance’s own views on foreign policy.
What was the actual impact of all of this?
The reality is that the end of the war means Russia getting control of Donbas and Crimea, security guarantees are issued by Europe for Ukraine, and there’s tacit American support of those security guarantees.
Whatever accelerates the process toward that is good. Whatever decelerates the progress toward that is bad.
Did any of this change the underlying dynamics of the deal? Perhaps not. But the perceptions from other players such as Russia and China are going to matter.
One of the big questions we’re going to have to answer is whether this meeting is symptomatic of a broader American foreign policy shift, whether it is reflective of bad political calculations by Zelensky, or whether it is reflective of specific designs in Ukraine that might have implications for NATO or the Far East.
Why did this go so wrong?
One reason is because, according to Michael Goodwin’s writing at The New York Post, Zelensky apparently decided to take his hints and his advisory opinions from Democrats. Apparently, the goal for Democrats was to sink the deal. Hardcore leftist Senator Chris Murphy had advised Zelensky before the meeting. Murphy would love to run for president, and he apparently sent Zelensky to get absolutely creamed in that meeting. Then, he turned around and said that Trump is working for Putin.
But the salient question really is: What is the Trump doctrine? President Trump told me on this show that the Trump doctrine is peace through strength, that America is stronger in the world with strong allies.
But there is an open question, as there are members of the Trump administration who don’t necessarily believe that.
That’s the open question after the Trump-Ukraine meeting. Is this symptomatic of a broader foreign policy shift away from America being the world’s hegemonic leader, and toward the idea that we’re going to retreat from the world behind our oceans and then assume that everything will be ok?
I think that’s probably not the case because looking at the Russia-Ukraine situation in isolation, we see President Trump trying to get to a deal through any means that he can.
But Friday’s meeting certainly was problematic.
[#item_full_content]
[[{“value”:”
Since the middle of 2022, I have been arguing that the off-ramp in Ukraine would involve territorial concessions to Russia (i.e., allowing them to retain Donbas and Crimea) in return for security guarantees that would ensure no renewal of Russian war in Ukraine. That has been the clear off-ramp for almost three years at this point.
When it comes to the war in Ukraine, whatever gets us to that durable off-ramp is good. And whatever gets in the way of that durable off-ramp is bad. That’s all.
That happens to be the policy of the Trump administration, which is seeking an off-ramp that would not allow Vladimir Putin to waltz into Kyiv, but also acknowledges that the likelihood of Ukraine winning back Donbas and Crimea is basically nonexistent — and has been since 2014.
That was the predicate for the big meeting that took place Friday. Ukrainian President Zelensky was supposed to sign a minerals deal with the U.S.
There was an immediate conflict between what both parties wanted; President Trump wanted the minerals deal. He believes the United States ought to be repaid for its investment in other countries, as he believes that when we get involved in foreign policy, there ought to be sort of a clear return to the United States.
President Trump also saw the economic minerals deal as a foot in the door to prevent a Russian invasion, because if the United States had workers in Ukraine who were mining raw, rare earth minerals and the Russians were to invade, the United States would immediately be dragged in.
President Trump was not wrong about this; that perspective has been a Western way for centuries. For instance, if the British East India Company got involved in trade in a far-flung place and were attacked by the local government, such could trigger the British Empire getting directly militarily involved. Thus, no one wanted to mess with the British East India Company.
Zelensky claimed he couldn’t go back to his people and say he signed a minerals deal without explicit security guarantees.
All President Trump wanted from the meeting was for Zelensky to show up, shake his hand, and there would be an implicit understanding (that almost became explicit during this meeting) that the rare earth minerals deal was a kind of trigger force for the United States providing security guarantees.
Trump came very close to saying that several times in the actual meeting.
But Zelensky came in with another agenda; he was reportedly prepped by Democrats. He wanted Trump to say that he would offer a security guarantee, which President Trump did not want to do, because from the president’s perspective, the United States should not have to do so; instead, Europe should have to provide that security guarantee.
So that was the setup.
WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show
Beyond that, there’s personal dislike between these two leaders. Zelensky does not like President Trump. He’s angry at President Trump. He believes that President Trump and Vice President Vance do not like him and have said nasty things about him, which is true. He thinks they have said things that are untrue about the Ukraine-Russia war by casting moral aspersions at Ukraine that are unearned while going easy on Putin. And there’s a case to be made that that’s true as well.
The Trump-Vance case is that Zelensky is being intransigent because he wants Trump’s moral condemnation of Russia. But moral condemnation doesn’t get the job done. What does get the job done is whatever gets us to that off-ramp.
So, if that means Trump has to massage Putin in public relations in order to get him to the table, he’ll do that.
People forget that Zelensky has been a very famous world leader prior to the outbreak of the 2022 war. He was an actor; he’s an egomaniac. Zelensky likes being on camera. He made his money on camera. He’s quite performative.
But so is President Trump. And, as it turns out, so is Vice President Vance.
This was a powder keg ready to explode.
Zelensky really blew it. Of the three people in the room, the adult in the room was Trump, and it wasn’t close.
Zelensky was rude to Trump upon entering the room. I know there are people on the Right who think that Vance handled himself beautifully, but I think Vance actually threw a couple of hand grenades into the middle of the conversation, because there may, in fact, be some emerging foreign policy differences between Vance and Trump in regards to their view of the United States in the world.
Zelensky wore a sort of military jumpsuit. What would have been the downside to him having worn a suit? I understand Zelensky is trying to keep his country’s spirits up, but it seems to me that if he had shown up in a suit, had a great meeting with Trump and walked out, that would have been a pretty good boost for the Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines.
The case could be made that Zelensky was tacitly recognizing the United States is out of the Ukraine business and he was actually trying to blow up the meeting in order to get the EU to step in and provide some sort of aid that the United States is unwilling to provide. If that’s the case, then Zelensky actually got something he wanted out of this whole situation.
But conversations like this have wide-ranging ramifications in terms of future policy. For example, the Gulf War might have started because of a stray comment from a low-level State Department staffer who implied that if Saddam Hussein had walked into Kuwait, the United States might not actually do anything about it. Hussein took that seriously, and he walked into Kuwait. The Russian invasion of Ukraine was probably prompted by the United States pulling out of Afghanistan ignominiously and in disgrace.
Trump was warm at the start, saying:
It’s an honor to have President Zelensky of Ukraine … we have something that is a very fair deal, and we look forward to getting in and digging, digging, digging, and working and getting some of the rare earth … We have had some very good discussions with Russia. I spoke with President Putin, and we’re going to try and bring this to a close, something that you want and that he wants.
Even from his body language, Zelensky already appeared very nervous, clearly not liking what he was hearing.
All Trump was saying was that he was looking for some sort of win.
Then, Zelensky came out firing, demanding a security guarantee. It is understandable why he wanted it; he’s the president of Ukraine. He does not want another negotiation that ends in two years with the Russians coming back in.
But — these are negotiations to be saved for the back room. These are not the topics to be discussed in the front room. Why was he negotiating in the room with President Trump?
Trump could have blown up on him at this point, but they were only two minutes deep in the meeting. So, what did Trump do?
He acted like an adult. He listened to Zelensky for 40 minutes. Why? Because that’s what an adult does.
In this meeting, it was not Trump who flew off the handle. It was Zelensky — and then Vance.
All Trump wanted from this meeting was to get out of there with the rare earth minerals deal to provide the lever for a broader — or tacit — American commitment to the security of Ukraine.
Yet Zelensky kept pushing, effectively attempting to negotiate a deal in the room.
Trump was asked why he has not said many words about Putin. He said:
Well, if I didn’t align myself with both of them, you’d never have a deal. You want me to say really terrible things about Putin and then say, ‘Hi, Vladimir. How are we doing on the deal?’ That doesn’t work that way. I’m not aligned with Putin. I’m not aligned with anybody. I’m aligned with the United States of America, and for the good of the world, I’m aligned with the world. And I want to get this thing over with. You see, the hatred he’s got for Putin. It’s very tough for me to make a deal with that kind of hate. He’s got tremendous hatred, and I understand that, but I can tell you the other side is[n’t] exactly in love with, you know, him either.
Trump was saying, I want to get to a deal. And the meeting could have ended any time there.
But it started to go sideways. The tension was palpable. Zelensky was tense, leaning toward Trump almost aggressively throughout this meeting. Trump was sitting back, acting like the adult in the room.
Then, Vance jumped in. He hadn’t said anything this entire time. In my opinion, the vice president of the United States should have been attempting to facilitate the end of this meeting. It was in everybody’s interest to say, “We’ve taken 45 minutes of questions. We’re going to go in the back room; we’re going to talk, and they’re going to do a signing ceremony.”
But, instead, Vance decided he needed to jump in and defend President Trump. I know this is Vice President Vance’s somewhat typical role as bulldog for Trump. That’s fine. But it did set off a conflagration.
And Zelensky decided he was going to go after Vance. Whatever relationship Zelensky has with Trump, his relationship with Vance is terrible because Vance has openly said he does not care if Russia just eats up Ukraine. Further, Vance associates with a number of public figures who make some of the wildest statements possible about Ukraine, in addition to some of the most pro-Putin statements that are possible to make, which I think Zelensky knows.
Vance declared:
Look, for four years the United States of America, we had a president who stood up at press conferences and talked tough about Vladimir Putin, and then Putin invaded Ukraine and destroyed a significant chunk of the country. The path to peace and the path to prosperity is maybe engaging in diplomacy. We tried the pathway of Joe Biden, of thumping our chest and pretending that the President of the United States is words mattered more than the President of the United States is actions. What makes America a good country? Is America engaging in diplomacy? That’s what President Trump is doing.
What Vance said was absolutely true. But then Zelensky jumped in and started fighting with Vance. Vance was not attempting to start a firefight. But it unfolded into a nuclear meltdown.
Vance took the opportunity to throw two grenades. One was directed at President Trump and one at Zelensky. The one that was clearly directed at President Trump was bringing up Zelensky going to Pennsylvania in the final days of the campaign and walking around Pennsylvania with Josh Shapiro (which I said at the time was an idiot move). The reason he mentioned that was to anger Trump.. Saying, “This man is being disrespectful and loved Joe Biden,” to Trump is like waving a red flag in front of a bull.
Vance then said to Zelensky something that no leader can tolerate, which is: You’re losing the war, and you’re having to forcibly conscript people. That’s an accusation about the inhumanity of the Ukrainian regime that Vance did not use with regard to Putin, who has kidnaped apparently tens of thousands of Ukrainian children and then taken them back to Russia for “Russification.”
Zelensky started the fire, and then Vance poured fuel on the fire. Zelensky then kept going, and it kept getting worse.
Zelensky was obviously spoiling for a fight, and Vance pushed back on him in a way designed to blow up the entire thing. Vance decided to get incredibly personal, which may have something to do with Vance’s own views on foreign policy.
What was the actual impact of all of this?
The reality is that the end of the war means Russia getting control of Donbas and Crimea, security guarantees are issued by Europe for Ukraine, and there’s tacit American support of those security guarantees.
Whatever accelerates the process toward that is good. Whatever decelerates the progress toward that is bad.
Did any of this change the underlying dynamics of the deal? Perhaps not. But the perceptions from other players such as Russia and China are going to matter.
One of the big questions we’re going to have to answer is whether this meeting is symptomatic of a broader American foreign policy shift, whether it is reflective of bad political calculations by Zelensky, or whether it is reflective of specific designs in Ukraine that might have implications for NATO or the Far East.
Why did this go so wrong?
One reason is because, according to Michael Goodwin’s writing at The New York Post, Zelensky apparently decided to take his hints and his advisory opinions from Democrats. Apparently, the goal for Democrats was to sink the deal. Hardcore leftist Senator Chris Murphy had advised Zelensky before the meeting. Murphy would love to run for president, and he apparently sent Zelensky to get absolutely creamed in that meeting. Then, he turned around and said that Trump is working for Putin.
But the salient question really is: What is the Trump doctrine? President Trump told me on this show that the Trump doctrine is peace through strength, that America is stronger in the world with strong allies.
But there is an open question, as there are members of the Trump administration who don’t necessarily believe that.
That’s the open question after the Trump-Ukraine meeting. Is this symptomatic of a broader foreign policy shift away from America being the world’s hegemonic leader, and toward the idea that we’re going to retreat from the world behind our oceans and then assume that everything will be ok?
I think that’s probably not the case because looking at the Russia-Ukraine situation in isolation, we see President Trump trying to get to a deal through any means that he can.
But Friday’s meeting certainly was problematic.
“}]]
