Seth Mandel (5:20)

Can I just say one thing about that before we get into larger stuff? Zelenskyy's speaking style and his. His sort of Zelenskyy English has been part of the winning Persona, actually, for over the past few years, in a sense, along with his fatigues, you know, so I kind of understand it's something he had been going with. So it was kind of in place already.

Abe Greenwald (5:49)

Fair enough. But you need things to be precise and accurate and, like, razor sharp. If you're negotiating with the President of the United States in public and he's the most powerful man in the world and you are not. So that's one thing. This is not like, a cutesy public appearance where he is, like, being his, you know, talking at the Grammys. It's, it's, it's. It's something else. And he was not in control of his emotions. He got baited by JD Vance, who wanted this to happen, which we'll get to. Okay. I don't even know how we just decided we're gonna do this. Got no plan for.

Seth Mandel (6:26)

Well, can I say this? Make another point. I did say on this morning's podcast that the whole Trump peace plan, even though Trump kept saying, we're close, we're closer, was seeming more and more fanciful to me because he never has ever drilled down on what is specifically happening to make peace closer. All he has talked about is the mineral deal and, you know, and talked about how his relations with the European leaders who come to visit him about this are so strong. And I was suspicious already as of this morning that, not that this was going to happen, but that this whole thing was not going to go forward.

J.D. Vance (7:12)

I thought the most telling part was his statement afterwards where he says that it's clear to him that Zelensky sees U.S. involvement in the peace talks as an advantage for Ukraine, as if that is something unusual or scandalous. The US's involvement should be helping our allies and our friends. And of course, it would be better, it should be better for allies like Ukraine to have us involved than to not have us involved. And there's something wild about reading the President say, well, Zelensky sees it as kind of an unfair advantage. So we're going to, you know, as if we're protecting him, we're going to stop protecting him, is essentially what that means. It's a statement on the past and the future, the future looking very bleak. Because it is the kind of statement where he says, well, you know, if you're, if you think where you're blocking back, we're just going to get off the field. And that's just a total, you know, it's just a deranged way to look at, you know, our involvement in these peace talks. We don't usually, we don't usually question the assumption that our friends want us involved.

Abe Greenwald (8:27)

I, I don't actually understand what Trump was saying throughout much of this meeting because it was not consistent and some of it was entirely in response to the fight between Vance and Zelensky. And some of it was him misunderstanding things that Zelensky was saying. One thing that Zelensky said was, and said it in an obnoxious sounding way because it's not his language said, you think you're protected by the ocean, but you're going to feel if Putin gets what he wants, you're Going to feel the effects across the ocean, which is an argument we've been making, people have been making. In other words, you let Putin win, the world gets more unstable and America is not going to be able to hide behind the Atlantic Ocean to protect itself from the depredations of other countries doing wild things. But he said it in.

J.D. Vance (9:28)

I actually didn't even think. He said it in a terrible way because I think we use that sort of phrasing too. You'll feel it rather, you know, he didn't say Russians are coming. He said, feel the effects.

Abe Greenwald (9:37)

But Trump said, you have no right to tell us how we feel or how we're going to feel or how, how we are going to feel. You don't have the cards to tell us how we're going to feel. Zelensky was making a point about how Russia's involvement, the Ukraine war is a canary in the coal mine for a more unstable world. Trump chose to hear it as Zelensky giving him a finger wagging lecture on what he should be feeling and why. Dictating.

Seth Mandel (10:09)

Trump said, you don't get to dictate how we feel, which is which.

Abe Greenwald (10:13)

He wasn't right. But it doesn't matter because if Trump heard it that way, Trump heard it that way. This is another sign of why it's really bad news to do this sort of thing speaking in a language that you, in which you don't have subtleties or aren't able to sort of express yourself in a subtle fashion. But now we got to get to Vance. What happened here was, was deliberate, purposeful. Vance went into this, was sitting there for the purpose of throwing Zelensky off the rails, pushing him off the rails, because what did he say? He said, what's the matter with you? You're not grateful enough to us. Where is the thanks? Thank us. Have you come into this office and thanked us? Zelensky has been thanking the United States for its involvement in there, in helping them for three years and he did thank Trump. He has thanked Trump. It's not true that he hasn't thanked him. Maybe they went into the Oval Office and he hadn't said thank you. So but it's not true. And Vance perfectly knows perfectly well it's not true. He was using a very clever, aggressive debating tactic to throw Zelensky back on his heels and Zelensky got his backup, which of course is like bad because you want to remain in control of your emotions and started arguing with Vance. And then Vance said, you're being very disrespectful to the president, meaning me, but you know, to the president, and then said, and you're going on propaganda tours of America for Democrats, which, again, was the signature mistake that Zelenskyy has made in the course of the public diplomacy in this war, was he went to Pennsylvania, went to a munitions factory to thank them for making weaponry that was being used in Ukraine. And the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania was there, and the local congressman was there, and it looked like a kind of Democratic campaign stop. And it got Republicans very angry and upset. And he did not need to push that button. And he is not getting good advice. He didn't hire good people here. His. His ambassadors was probably totally in the pocket of the State Department and didn't know to push back.

J.D. Vance (12:34)

And so she was covering her face. She was sitting in the meeting like, yes.

Abe Greenwald (12:41)

Anyway, so. So it. So Vance just took all the arrows out of the quiver and just started firing them, firing them, shooting them off at Zelensky. Because Vance doesn't want America on Ukraine's side. Vance wants America to visit a deal on Ukraine that is probably more favorable to Russia. He is a bad actor in this. The people who are advising him are bad actors. He is representing the wing of the Republican Party that wishes to see Ukraine defeated, which we can talk about in a different way. I'm not saying that. I don't think. I'm saying that hyperbolically. I mean, I think it's true. I think it's, like, true as a matter of.

J.D. Vance (13:24)

Trump told him to his face today, you. You can't win.

Abe Greenwald (13:28)

Right?

J.D. Vance (13:29)

You're not. You're not going to win.

Abe Greenwald (13:31)

Right. But that also doesn't mean that Putin has to win. I mean, Trump's line would be, Putin doesn't have to win either. We're going to get a. You, a ceasefire. You should want a ceasefire so people stop dying. What don't you want a ceasefire? Where's your ceasefire?

Seth Mandel (13:47)

But here, here's my question, John. Why ambush Zelensky at the White House if you want a deal if you're Trump?

Abe Greenwald (14:02)

I don't think Trump. Trump's an improviser. I don't think his purpose was to ambush Zelensky. I think it was a. Vance's purpose to ambush Zelensky. I mean, maybe it was a tag team. Maybe they were bad copying. Good copying it. But I think Vance wanted to push Zelensky. Trump was sitting there going, we're having a nice meeting. Vance said, you're being disrespectful. Where is your thanks? I don't hear you saying, thank you. You're going and helping our political rivals during the presidential campaign. And like that. And then Trump's like, yeah, you were doing all that. That's bad.

Seth Mandel (14:40)

But is there?

Abe Greenwald (14:41)

Zelensky said, you're talking. You can talk very loud. And then Trump got really, really pissed. And Trump basically said, don't you be talking to my vice president like that. Don't you be saying you're talking. He's not talking loud. He's not talking loud, said Trump. By the way, in the annals of our lifetimes, have we ever seen a confrontation like this?

Seth Mandel (15:08)

No.

Abe Greenwald (15:08)

Forget foreign policy.

J.D. Vance (15:11)

I mean, we had. We had.

Abe Greenwald (15:13)

I walked out on a couple of talk shows that I was on when things got too heated, literally walked off set. That's my only experience with something like that. I don't know that I've seen anything like this. It's like watching. It was like watching Will Smith slap Chris Rock in the face. Like he. You saw it, and you couldn't even take in what it was that you were seeing, because you were seeing something that should never be happening in front of you, but it should never be.

Seth Mandel (15:39)

Happening behind closed doors either. I mean, this was. And I'm the in front of us part. I'm. I have an open question here. I don't know the answer. So how does this all play in the American public? I mean, I think most Americans are mildly. Not mildly, but it's not that they care much, but they're on Ukraine's side, if you ask them, if they bother to think about it. How does Trump look after this? He said there was a peace deal that was ready to happen. That's not happening. He's, you know, changes his story every day on this policy. Said he didn't call Zelensky a dictator. Now he's going back and forth. I. Does it make the US look strong? I don't think so.

J.D. Vance (16:42)

I mean, there was a poll earlier this week. On Monday, there was a poll from Pew about the. Or Gallup. Actually, it was Gallup about the. About American, about how Americans see other countries. And the takeaway from the poll was, wow, look at this partisan gap on Israel. But if you kept reading the poll, you also saw a remarkable partisan gap on Ukraine. However, overall, Ukraine came away with 63%.

Abe Greenwald (17:14)

You know, 83% of Democrats are favorably disposed toward Ukraine versus 36% of Republicans. So, again, Trump is president of the entire country. We don't feel this way anymore about our presidents. Right. We think basically he's representing the Republican Party. The Republican Party will presumably now dislike Ukraine more because of the fight and because Trump said he was disrespectful to me. And Republicans like Trump, but they like Trump better than Zelensky. But you're right, this is a, this is three fifths issue for the United States. I don't know how it plays or doesn't play. Doesn't really matter in that sense. The question is, what is he going to do? He didn't get the mineral deal. I didn't even understand the purpose of the mineral deal since, as Seth said this morning on our first of today's two podcasts, that 80% of the minerals that we're talking about are in the territory controlled by the Russians. So congratulations to Trump. Maybe he can get that deal with Russia to steal Ukraine's rare earth minerals. But apparently Zelensky was ready to sign the deal and Trump's the one who said, we're not signing it, so maybe he doesn't really want the deal. That's, I think, the point that you're making. Didn't have to throw Zelensky out of the White House. Has Trump, has a president ever thrown a foreign leader out of the White House ever? I mean, I, So we're just, we're just in, we're just in uncharted territory here in terms of international incidents like.

J.D. Vance (18:54)

And notably other, like, regular Americans are too, like, not just people, not just people like us who will be watching all of these Oval Office meetings as a matter of course. But, you know, we're getting texts from people who are not heavily invested in politics, you know, wondering what on earth is going on. So the, it had a pretty wide reach. This was not something, this was not the sort of thing that they could say, well, it plays in the Beltway one way. But regular people, they don't really notice this, this one was bigger than that. Regular people are noticing immediately, so they, they can't use that one. This is, this is something that they are going to have to figure out how to address on a larger level. It's not something the public missed that went over their head. You know, it wasn't a Twitter thing. But Twitter's influence on this, by the way, is also worth noting because it's an attitude, it's a vibe, it's the way that the administration handles communication. When Zelenskyy got out of his car and greeted Trump, Trump saw that Zelensky was wearing a sweater instead of a military button down or whatever. And he said, oh, look at you all dressed up. And Elon Musk tweeted that exchange with, like, a laughing emoji. I know that sounds weird, but essentially the point was the people in Trump's orbit saw it as making fun of, like, picking on the kid, and they loved it. So the role of Twitter and the way that these online Personas and the online discourse feed into it and become the regular discourse, there's just so much less of a difference between the online and the real. This was like watching these guys talk to each other on Twitter, except it was in the Oval Office.

Abe Greenwald (20:51)

I don't think that Trump went into this meeting with the intention of it ending the way that it has ended. I really don't. I think that the person to watch here and the person to be aware of just how formidable he is and how important a role he is going to be playing is J.D. vance. J.D. vance pulled something off here that is very, very suggestive of the Republican future. He pushed Trump's buttons. He got Zelensky to push Trump's buttons. Trump is very concerned about being treated with respect. It was Vance who introduced the notion that he was being treated with disrespect. And Zelensky seemed to be so shocked at the idea, and he thought, okay, let's, as we say, talk tacless. Let's have an honest conversation about this. And I'm going to speak honestly, and you're going to speak honestly. And basically, Trump said, I don't want you to speak honestly. I want you on your knees in front of me thanking me for how kind I'm being to you, when in fact, my vice president is sitting here basically saying, you can't win the war. Is also Trump saying, you can't win the war. You're being disrespectful. You helped our enemies, political enemies, and how dare you.

Seth Mandel (22:19)

But then. But, John, if. If what you're saying is the case, isn't Trump at some point going to be furious advance for blowing up his supposed deal?

Abe Greenwald (22:31)

No. Because the deal may just be a cover. But if the deal is. But then what? Did Trump want Mexico to pay for the wall? Like he's going to cut Ukraine off? Do we really think that at the end of the day, by the summer, the United States is going to be supplying Ukraine with weaponry?

Seth Mandel (22:52)

No.

Abe Greenwald (22:53)

Okay, so did we believe that this morning? No. So he was actually trying to get this deal. He was trying to snow Zelensky into giving him mineral rights and then cut him off and say, you see, what he was doing was paying us for the stuff we already Gave him. We're not giving him any more. Zelensky might have thought, if I do this, maybe he'll like me. Now Zelensky knows he's not going to like him. So let's talk about where this goes from here, because, holy cow, are the Europeans now on the hot seat? I mean, Trump has basically made it clear that he is, I think, threw him out, said, come back when you want peace, which means, of course, peace on Putin's terms. He's not going to come back. America is going to cut off Ukraine. So if there's going to be a war that continues in Ukraine, somebody's going to have to help, and it's got to be the Europeans. So in the end, maybe Trump gets his Machiavellian way and Europe takes care of Europe's defense without the United States playing a role. But I don't know.

Seth Mandel (24:08)

But I also wonder how much closer Trump now sidles up to Putin out of revenge.

Abe Greenwald (24:17)

Or he's like, you should like me. Look what I did to the, look, look what I did to your, to your antagonist over here. Threw him out of the White House. What are you going to do for me? I don't know what he thinks he wants from Putin. What does he want from Putin?

J.D. Vance (24:35)

I think also the stuff about Europe is that there's, they're, they're limited. And, you know, it's not like the German chancellor can, who's now like, welcome to the job, you know, but it's not like the German chancellor can say, okay, we'll just give Ukraine $100 billion worth of whatever. Like, Europe has some stuff. America has some stuff. Some of America's weapons and munitions and equipment is spread throughout the world, and we arrange for it to be passed through. You know, we'll go to Estonia and say, give them 16 of these things that we were keeping in your warehouses and things like that, so it can disrupt. You know, it's not even. Even if they wanted to wave a magic wand. But the other thing is that the European publics are not. They are pro Ukraine in voice, but they are also pro balanced budgets and not overspending and all this stuff. And over the last year, France and Germany have tried to cut their contributions to Ukraine. And then there's been, there's been all this international outcry. And so they say, oh, we'll find a way to restore it, or what? Maybe they do whatever it is. But, but they, they start out each budget negotiation trying to cut billions from what they're getting.

Abe Greenwald (25:55)

Yeah, well, look, either There's a crisis or there isn't. Either the Europeans are going to say America's out and, and a country in Europe is about to swallow up large swaths of another country in Europe, and it's probably not going to stop. And we are here on the front lines and we're going to do something because we're at DEFCON 1 or they're not. And if they're not, then good luck to them. Maybe the oceans will protect the United States, but there's nothing to protect Lafia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Romania, there's nothing to protect them from, from the Russian bear. Except. Except the wounds that have been delivered to the Russian bear by Ukraine. Or the fact they need Ukraine to keep fighting in order for Putin not to start consolidating gains and starting to loom menacingly toward them and to break up NATO maybe by invading the Baltics and seeing that Donald Trump will not agree to Article 5, which is what requires every member of NATO to treat an attack on one member of NATO as if it's an attack on all countries in NATO. And then you have to go to war. Right. That, that is the key element of NATO's existence, is that if Tallinn is hit, the United States is obliged by treaty to respond as though Pittsburgh was hit. And we. Trump's not going to do that. You know he's not going to do that. I know he's not going to do that. So where does Europe go here if.

J.D. Vance (27:33)

Some of it copies his pro Putin stuff? Right. I mean, there's a segment of Europe that cozies up to Putin now because they have to. I mean, there's half of Poland is going to want to do that. Hungary is already there. I mean, Central Europe, you know, is like Germany is going to have a problem on its hands because it's all its neighbors are going to say, okay, well, the strong horse right now is Russia.

Seth Mandel (27:55)

And also when the US does something, it becomes thinkable for Europe. And Trump has done something that was unthinkable when we woke up this morning. Now it's thinkable and there'll be arguments in favor of it, and some of those will be adopted by Europeans who don't want to get involved.

Abe Greenwald (28:15)

Look, these events are fast moving and complicated, and the response to them are going to be very complicated. The fact that close to two thirds of the country is supportive of Ukraine is not meaningless. I think we shouldn't write this off just because a bunch of isolationist filths in the Republican and MAGA coalitions don't believe in supporting democracies and believe that that's a monstrous thing to do and that we should support a monstrous authoritarian because he pretends to be religious and hates gay people. Fine. Congratulations to all of you. May you all choke on your success today. Having said that, you know, that doesn't mean they're going to win. I mean, they've won. They have the Vice President of the United States in their pocket. Congratulations to him and everybody who was a friend of his. And, and, you know, I just. Having said all this, I don't know where the, where, where this conversation is going to be in five days. And neither do you, and neither do we. And maybe Russia feels very emboldened by what happened today. And then it literally, like bombs, 20 orphanages and 50 hospitals just to, just to rub it in. Or it's clever and doesn't do anything and then lets Trump say, you see, they're fine, they're, they're nice. I don't know how it's going to go.

J.D. Vance (29:50)

Well, there's also, you know, we could say days or weeks, but we should say two hours from now, because the Hudson Institute is now tweeting that their speech, that Zelensky's appearance at the Hudson Institute is still on.

Abe Greenwald (30:04)

Oh, it's not going to be on. We'll see. Okay. Yes. So whatever.

J.D. Vance (30:07)

But I mean, if he, if he, he might, he might give us. Yeah, he might give a speech at 4:00.

Abe Greenwald (30:13)

That would be madness. I'm not, I mean, okay, so maybe he will. And I'm saying it's madness. I love the Hudson. I said, many of my many dear friends of mine work there. And if Zelensky shows up there to speak this afternoon, that will be a sign of a, of a, of an ongoing sort of like mental collapse because he's got to shut his mouth, keep his powder dry, go home and rally his people, because he just, you know, something really terrible just happened and he's gonna have to make a St Christian's Day speech or something to get there, to get their spirits up, because I don't know how, what, what it's going to be like there. I mean, Abe, you were there a couple months ago having the, the idea that the President, United States would say, the hell with you. Get out of the Oval Office, you disrespectful, creepy. How are people in Kyiv gonna feel about that?

Seth Mandel (31:07)

I mean, you know what? I was struck by the people in terms of their attitude towards the US Was. I think I've said this before on the podcast that they consider us in the long term, unpredictable and somewhat unreliable in that sometimes you can rely on us, sometimes you can't, but they generally love us anyway, and they don't view our relationship with them through an American partisan lens. They didn't necessarily think that the move from, if this was before the election, that if Trump came to office that he would necessarily be any worse than Biden on this. This is going to be a total blow, I think a total shock. And I also have to say, I just, I think we're being a little lopsided in the way we're talking about Zelenskyy's ill preparedness and his sort of blundering into a trap here. If Trump was never going to give Zelenskyy a damn thing, and if it was all about just getting this mineral deal and to blow Ukraine off anyway, what, what on earth could Zelensky have done or said that wouldn't have just made him look simpering while losing?

Abe Greenwald (32:34)

I, I mean, I, I, you can't, you can't rewind the tape. Like what happened has never happened before. And he was one of the participants in the room. So saying if he had behaved differently, things would have gone differently, I think is axiomatic. Like he was, he, he was one of the three free radicals, whatever, you know, now, now I'm getting into bad physics, you know, he was one of the, the three, whatever, bouncing around in the, you know, again.

J.D. Vance (33:06)

Well, the thing that he always, what he always needs to keep in mind is that Trump is very good at, at immediately rolling with whatever happens and setting the first strike of the narrative for it. Right. So the official White House account, right after that happened, official White House Twitter account, tweeted a picture of the American flag with the words America first in all caps. Trump is very good at just that, not making a speech, not making long comments, but just saying, here's the stamp, I put my Trump America first stamp on it that tells his supporters first and foremost where they're going with this, what the talking points are going to be, all that stuff. But also he's nimble at messaging. He's nimble and he's quick on his feet when stuff like this happens because he's non ideological, it's not clear he cares what happens to a lot of the, a lot of the characters in this particular drama. Right? Whether he gets the Ukraine deal, whether he doesn't get a Ukraine deal and Ukraine gets swallowed up. You know, a hole opens in the earth and swallows Ukraine up. It's not Clear any of those move him all that much. So what he's going to do is run with the messaging. The messaging is I'm strong, you know, whatever. So the advice to Zelensky is to always understand that any sort of confrontation whatsoever with the Trump team gets pushed to 11 in that. Further in that direction.

Abe Greenwald (34:41)

You know, I mean, further. How much further can they go? Where are they going to go? He's basically made it clear he's going to cut off Ukraine now. I mean, he said, come back when you're ready for peace. So does that mean. Oh, no, the pipeline just going to keep flowing. Don't worry. Everything's, everything status quo. I mean, by 11:00 tonight, God knows what, what, what documents or what, what tweets are going to be issued, what executive orders are going to be laid out. They're all at the ready. All of those people, all of those, Bridge, Colby, Nate Hockman, trying to restrain myself. People are there and they got their executive orders ready to cut Ukraine off and they're going to put him in front of Trump. Right. Vance is going to bring it in, slap it on the Resolute desk, and we'll see what happens.

Seth Mandel (35:30)

I just want to add something here that I'm thinking that's occurred to me while we're talking, which is that I also think this is very bad for the country, for the U.S. because the wheels are coming off too soon of this on this administration. And if this is happening 39 days. But I'm saying this, this, that opening the door to a kind of chaos that we had been talking as if was a thing of the past, and it is very clearly not a thing of the past. And chaos begets chaos by nature. And it's going to be bad. This is very bad.

J.D. Vance (36:19)

Well, he's got people. He's also got people prepared to, in a way, there's less chaos, but it's worse because there's less chaos in this manner, which is that he has a team of those guys, you know, people John just mentioned, Bridge and others who are in place, who know what they want to do. JD Vance knows exactly what he wants America to do regarding Ukraine, and they've got the policy advisors and experienced and connected people in the positions to carry that out. So in some ways, chaos almost would be better than what we're going to see, because I'm concerned that we're going.

Abe Greenwald (37:00)

To see orderly change in foreign policy that goes in the direction that we think is so noxious. I did think about one thing, though, which is when administrations act badly or when in foreign policy terms, they want to do things that maybe they have bad consciences about or that they feel amoral about or whatever. This is the second time in a decade that we have had a president, administration and a party, and we're going to hear the Republican Party echo this, say that it was extraordinarily disrespectful what a foreign leader did. And the first time was of course, when Bibi Netanyahu came to the United States to give a speech against the Iranian nuclear deal. And what was it the Democrats said to a man as though they were issued, you know, they got the text on the phone that told them to say this. They said it was disrespectful. Bibi was. It would show as extreme sign of disrespect to give a speech before Congress opposing America's nuclear deal with Iran. Right. That it was disrespectful and he showed disrespect and the disrespect. And here we are 10 years later and Trump hates Obama and he hates Biden and he hates all that. And yet here they are using the same rhetoric. There was nothing disrespectful about Zelensky. He was aggressed against by Vance. He pushed back on Vance shouldn't have done it because there it was a. It was a trap. But what Vance wanted was for Zelensky for him to be able to put meat on the bones of the idea that Zelensky was showing Trump disrespect, because that was Vance's goal, was to manipulate Trump. And I hope that if anybody knows Trump, maybe they'll explain, try to lay this out to them that he was played by J.D. vance. And I do believe that to be the case or Trump is a Machiavellian genius of a sort that I don't believe he is because he's not a pre planner. But I think Abe, you're right. If he wanted the mineral, wasn't going to was going to get the mineral deal and screw Ukraine anyway. What difference does it make? The only difference it makes is that we have now had established in front of us and in front of the world that Trump is going to bring in somebody from a nation under threat and yell at them and tell them that they're bad when they actually did nothing wrong. And that just is un American and disgraceful. And you know, as much as I would, there are things about the Trump administration I'm going to like and there are things that he's done so far that I like, and there are things that I think he deserves praise for. And we're going to continue calling balls and strikes. But this, this is a low moment for the United what just happened today is a very low moment for the United States. Okay. Well, I hope you enjoyed our emergency podcast. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. I sure will. So for Seth and Ava, John Bob Horowitz, keep the candle burning SA.