President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance are being criticized by Democrats and some Republicans for their behavior in the Oval Office with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump and Vance accused Zelensky of being “ungrateful” for the financial and military aid the U.S. has provided Ukraine for the past three years.
Trump also notably avoided recognizing, during the meeting, that Russian President Vladimir Putin initiated the war by invading Ukraine in February 2022.
Writing in The New York Times, Thomas Friedman called the Zelensky-Trump-Vance Oval Office exchange an obvious “planned ambush” by the White House, and a first in American history where “our president clearly sided with the aggressor, the dictator and the invader against the democrat, the freedom fighter and the invaded.”
[Former Congresswoman and Republican Trump antagonist Liz Cheney wrote: “Donald Trump and JD Vance attacked Zelenskyy and pressured him to surrender the freedom of his people to the KGB war criminal who invaded Ukraine. History will remember this day— when an American President and Vice President abandoned all we stand for.”]
U.S. Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) reacted on X to the televised meeting, writing: “I can’t imagine the party Putin is having in Moscow right now. He doesn’t have to lift a finger — he invades a country, gets pushed back, and then sidles up to an American President short-sighted enough to do this bidding for him, right from our Oval Office.”
[NOTE: Upon returning to office Trump entered the U.S. into negotiations with Russia for a peace deal in Ukraine — negotiations, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, from which Ukraine itself was excluded. During the Oval Office rancor, the U.S. President bemoaned Zelensky’s enmity toward the Russian leader who attacked his country, characterizing it mainly as an obstacle to a Trump-brokered peace: “You see the hatred he’s got for Putin,” Trump said. “That’s very tough for me to make a deal with that kind of hate.”]
Meanwhile, the 'Art of the Deal' guy ended the day without the mineral rights deal he said would be good for our country. Not a great day for anyone but Putin — or maybe Xi Jinping.
— Sen. Elissa Slotkin (@SenatorSlotkin) February 28, 2025
Slotkin added: “Meanwhile, the ‘Art of the Deal’ guy ended the day without the mineral rights deal he said would be good for our country. Not a great day for anyone but Putin — or maybe Xi Jinping.”
[Note: When Trump initially demanded a $500 billion share of Ukraine’s rare earths and other minerals in exchange for the aid the U.S. has already provided to Kyiv, Zelensky rejected the proposal idea. Further negotiations made a similar deal seem imminent and part of Zelensky’s visit was supposed to include him signing a minerals deal. That did not happen as planned, which fuels Slotkin’s criticism.]
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) announced this week that Slotkin has been chosen to give the Democratic Party’s formal rebuttal of Trump’s upcoming State of the Union address on Tuesday, March 4, which will be televised on FOX.
