In this Pod Save The World Special, Tommy and Ben discuss Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s disastrous meeting at the White House that erupted in a yelling match and resulted in Zelensky being told to leave. They dig into JD Vance’s role as instigator, the revealed motivations for attacking Zelensky in front of the press, and what Zelensky’s options are for pursuing peace from here. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [email protected] and include the name of the podcast.
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Go to sundays4dogs.com slash world or use code world at checkout. That's sundays4dogs.com slash world, code world. Hey guys, it's Tommy Vitor. By now you've probably all seen footage of the disastrous meeting between Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky Friday.
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Chapter 2: What happened during the Trump and Zelensky meeting?
They were supposed to do a quick pool spray, which is when the press comes in, shots a question and leaves, and then have a meeting about rare earth minerals, hold a press conference, and then figure out the future of the U.S.-Ukrainian relationship. But instead, Trump and J.D. Vance erupted on Zelensky. They ended up throwing the Ukrainian delegation out of the White House.
And it was truly a meeting unlike anything I've ever seen before. So what you're about to hear is a quick reaction episode that Ben Rhodes and I recorded for Pod Save the World. We'll be covering this again next week on Wednesday. Subscribe to Pod Save the World wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube. And here is that episode. Welcome back to Pod Save the World. I'm Tommy Vitor.
I'm Ben Rhodes. And we are doing a little YouTube exclusive episode today based off of President Zelensky's meeting with Donald Trump just now. We were going to plan to do this regardless. But Ben, I didn't expect it to be. the worst meeting ever in the Oval Office. I'm trying to think of an example of a meeting that went worse.
I mean, there was the infamous Bibi Netanyahu Obama meeting that you and I were both in the room for, but it was nothing even close to what just happened.
Not even close, yeah. This is unlike anything that has taken place in my entire lifetime. And, you know, I have to mind my brain. I mean, I assume there were some tough meetings, you know, in the Civil War. But, yeah, I never never we've never seen anything like it. Yeah.
OK, well, we'll cut to the chase and start to play you some of that. We have a very long clip and we're going to play some excerpts, pause and talk about them and play some more, because honestly, it was just impossible to cut it down. It was that. Much of a fucking train wreck. So with that, here is a clip from Zelensky and Trump's meeting in the Oval Office today, Friday, February 28th.
He broken the ceasefire. He killed our people and he didn't exchange prisoners. We signed the exchange of prisoners, but he didn't do it. What kind of diplomacy, JD, you are speaking about? What do you mean?
I'm talking about the kind of diplomacy that's going to end the destruction of your country. Mr. President, with respect, I think it's disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office and try to litigate this in front of the American media. Right now, you guys are going around and forcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems.
You should be thanking the President for trying to bring an end to this conflict.
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Chapter 3: Who caused tensions during the Trump-Zelensky meeting?
I have been to, I have actually, I've actually watched and seen the stories and I know what happens is you bring people, you bring them on a propaganda tour, Mr. President.
Okay, stop.
Yeah. OK, stop. This is the worst OK, stop episode in history. So what you can hear there is Zelensky does this wind up where he's talking about how we can't trust Putin to implement a ceasefire because he breaks every agreement he's ever signed.
And actually, I was just watching Mike Pompeo on Fox News talking about how the United States pulled out of all these arms control agreements during the first Trump administration because Trump because Putin was breaking the terms of the deal. But, you know, it was hard to tell exactly what kind of sets the meeting off here, Ben. But I do think J.D.
Vance is kind of the chief arsonist because Zelensky pretty quickly calls him out and is like, OK, you seem to know a lot about my country. Have you ever been there? And obviously, obviously, J.D. Vance has not. And he flips out about it and just, I guess, says that any visit to Ukraine is a propaganda tour now.
Yeah, two things stand out to me about this. First, just so people know what Zelensky is talking about, he's talking about the Minsk agreement that was reached in the late Obama administration to essentially freeze the conflict and have some kind of process whereby the Ukrainians had autonomous regions in these places where the Russians had invaded in eastern Ukraine. And what he's saying is,
Putin broke the ceasefire. The last time someone tried to do what Trump's doing, you know, Putin is the one that violated the agreement and reinvaded the country and dramatically escalated. And that's just a fact. It's not an opinion. You know, so this is going to be a reoccurring theme here that Zelensky's saying facts and J.D. Vance and Trump are just basically offering excuses.
Kremlin talking points in response.
And then, Tommy, I said this to you, but for JD Vance to refer to visits that people make to Ukraine as propaganda tours was one of the most triggering things in many that were said today, because what people do when they go to Ukraine is they often visit Bucha, for instance, where there were war crimes committed, where innocent civilians were massacred, where children were killed.
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Chapter 4: Why was J.D. Vance's role controversial in the meeting?
But just to be clear, this meeting was ostensibly about signing some sort of deal between the U.S. and Ukrainians about rare earth minerals. In reality, it seems like it was a setup to get to exactly this moment. So J.D. Vance and Donald Trump could harangue Zelensky in front of the cameras and show what a tough guy they are and, you know, beat their chest on Fox News later.
But Ben, I'm glad you mentioned this. uh, Bucha because, you know, that's another triggering thing for me because you often hear these same conservatives, actually Democrats to talk about how there were some early peace talks between the Ukrainians and the Russians, but they blew up and they often blame Zelensky for pulling out of those talks.
In fact, those talks blew up because the atrocities that occurred at Bucha were revealed and it became impossible for anyone in Ukraine to imagine cutting a deal with Putin and the Russians in that moment.
Yeah. And this context was entirely missing. They seem to be offended by Zelensky pointing out that his country was invaded by Putin. That seemed to offend Trump and J.D. Vance. And I think another piece of context here, Tommy, is Zelensky is a profoundly exhausted person. And you can see it on his face. You can see it on his face. I've heard this from some Europeans.
This guy probably barely sleeps at night. He has been besieged by the Trump administration, bullied into trying to sign this absurd deal for critical minerals. And he flies to Washington because he feels this thing slipping away from him, this thing being US support as kind of a Hail Mary.
And then he sits down and they bring the cameras in and he just starts getting insulted to his face by people who can demonstrate no degree of empathy. I mean, like they don't even, not even a perfunctory, you know, tribute to what the people of Ukraine have done. And they insulted not just Zelensky, this is important, They insulted the Ukrainian people.
He said the only people you can get to fight are conscripts that you force to the front line. So that's insulting the troops. That's insulting the Ukrainians that have been fighting and saying they don't want to be there. They're only there because Zelensky made them go there. When in fact, Putin is the one that conscripts people. Putin is the one that did the mobilization.
And so we can talk later about whether Zelensky erred tactically here, but I have a great deal of empathy for what he had to go through.
Yeah, I mean, look, you're you're Trump being offended by reality and people insulting Zelensky is going to be a theme of this thing. The press corps even gets in on the action. But we'll get to that in a minute. But let's keep rolling that clip.
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Chapter 5: How did Trump and Zelensky's meeting turn into a media spectacle?
With us, you start having cards.
Right now, you're playing cards.
You're playing cards. You're gambling with the lives of millions of people. You're gambling with World War III. You're gambling with World War III. And what you're doing is very disrespectful to the country, this country, that's back to you far more than a lot of people said they should have.
Have you said thank you once?
This entire meeting?
No, in this entire meeting, have you said thank you? You went to Pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition in October. Offer some words of appreciation for the United States of America and the president.
just gave up the whole game there. They are offended by a campaign period visit by Zelensky to Pennsylvania, which was perceived as an endorsement or support for Joe Biden.
Geez, Ben, I wonder why Zelensky might have thought he'd be better off if Joe Biden was president or Kamala Harris was president and not Donald Trump as he's lecturing him in the Oval Office about how he's gambling and about to start World War III.
Yeah, there's a lot in that one, too, Tommy. I mean, first of all, boy, to say that Zelensky is the one that's gambling with World War Three when Putin is the one that invaded the country. I mean, the Ukrainians didn't want they don't want to be in this war.
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Chapter 6: What are the implications of the meeting for U.S.-Ukrainian relations?
Trump is mad. It's earlier on in this Oval Office meeting because this was a very, very long pool spray. And just to give folks a little context, what usually happens is the two leaders go into the Oval Office. They sit down. You bring the pool, the White House press pool in for like a minute or two. Sometimes there's a shadow question.
They take photos and then they get them the hell out of there. They have the real meeting. There was supposed to be a lunch and then there was supposed to be a press conference. Trump has started doing this thing where he takes like 45 minutes worth of questions during the pool spray, and then they do the press conference just because he needs to be on TV all the time.
So what you didn't hear that happened earlier was, you know, Trump's entire shtick about Ukraine is the war never would have happened if he was president. But Zelensky, when he was walking through all the times the Russians...
broke ceasefire agreements, talks about how the Russians were occupying Ukraine throughout the duration of the Trump presidency and people were getting killed during the Trump presidency.
And Trump really didn't like that because it undercut his whole fucking argument that none of this would have happened if I were in charge because he acts like he wasn't actually the president for four years and isn't responsible for anything.
Yeah, and he needs everything to be about himself and not about like the reality of what is happening in the world, particularly a reality that is counter to his narrative and inconvenient to him in any way, shape or form. And Zelensky is this guy who's only trying to share facts, you know, and each time he does –
They act as if he has personally offended them and come down even harder on the guy. And by this point in the clip, they're just picking on him. And to say that because he's not kissing Trump's ass, he's insulting the whole country, just shows you what Donald Trump's view of this country is, that he is the only thing that matters.
He, the leader, he, Der Fuhrer, is the only guy, he's the symbol of the nation or something. It's... It's absolutely grotesque. And what we can see here is like little Marco Rubio on the couch, like shrinking deeper and deeper into his seat.
JD Vance is like sitting on the edge of his seat. He's the happiest little boy in town because he was allowed to go to the big boy meeting and say something. And Marco Rubio.
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