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TRUMP, VANCE ATTACK ZELENSKY AND TRUMP CUTS MEETING SHORT: THE TRUTH NOW REVEALED?

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A live-camera meeting between President Donald Trump, and Vice President J. D. Vance and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky that was supposed to highlight a major agreement between the two countries ended in a disaster: Trump and Vance aggressively double-teamed Zelensky, Trump was angry and Trump cut the meeting short.

Meanwhile, it completely solidified where the United States now stands, as Trump and Vance defended Russian President Vladimir Putin and world leaders expressed shock. In the United States, Democrats blasted Trump and Vance’s performance and called it a pre-planned “ambush”, while some Republicans suggested Zelensky deserved it. But some but traditional Reagan era conservatives and former GOPers were livid over the way Zelensky was treated.

The Drudge Report put this headline in red:
OVAL OFFICE SHOUTING MATCH
TRUMP BLASTS ‘DISRESPECTFUL’ ZELENSKY
‘YOU’RE GAMBLING WITH WWIII’
PEACE TALKS COLLAPSE
KREMLIN CELEBRATES
VIDEO: THE MELTDOWN

Here is the full video:

The Atlantic’s David Frum:

Trump and Vance have revealed to Americans and to America’s allies their alignment with Russia, and their animosity toward Ukraine in general and its president in particular. The truth is ugly, but it’s necessary to face it.

….Today’s meeting gave the lie to any claim that this administration’s policy is driven by any strategic effort to advance the interests of the United States, however misguided. Trump and Vance displayed in the Oval Office a highly personal hatred. There was no effort here to make a case for American interests. Vance complained that Zelensky had traveled to Pennsylvania to thank U.S. ammunition workers, because, Vance charged, the appearance amounted to campaigning for the Democratic presidential ticket. “Let me tell you, Putin went through a hell of a lot with me,” Trump angrily explained. “He went through a phony witch hunt where they used him and Russia, Russia, Russia.”

Both the president and vice president showed the U.S.-led alliance system something it needed urgently to know: The national-security system of the West is led by two men who cannot be trusted to defend America’s allies—and who deeply sympathize with the world’s most aggressive dictator.

…We’re witnessing the self-sabotage of the United States. “America First” always meant America alone, a predatory America whose role in the world is no longer based on democratic belief. America voted at the United Nations earlier this week against Ukraine, siding with Russia and China against almost all of its fellow democracies. Is this who Americans want to be? For this is what America is being turned into.

And:

In his first term, Trump sometimes seemed a rogue actor within his own administration. The president expressed strange and disquieting opinions, but his Cabinet secretaries were mostly normal and responsible people. The oddball appointees on the White House staff were contained by the many more-or-less normal appointees. This time, Trump is building a national-security system to follow his lead. He has intimidated or persuaded his caucus in the House to accept—and his caucus in the Senate not to oppose—his pro-authoritarian agenda.

The good and great America that once inspired global admiration—that good and great America still lives. But it no longer commands a consensus above party. The pro-Trump party exposed its face to the world in the Oval Office today. Nobody who saw that face will ever forget the grotesque sight.

Some reaction on Twitter: