‘It made me want to throw up’: Americans ‘sick’ over Donald Trump’s treatment of Volodymyr Zelensky

Donald Trump’s treatment of Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office has left some Americans reeling.

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Well. What to say about that? The most ignoble day in recent American history. It looks no more edifying 24 hours later.

Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, the American President and Vice President, teamed up to harangue Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, in the Oval Office, for having the nerve to suggest that maybe, perhaps, possibly, one of the most notoriously dishonest and malicious actors in global politics should be approached with a degree of scepticism.

That was the catalyst for what happened at the White House yesterday. Mr Zelensky, clearly frustrated by Mr Trump’s credulity, when it comes to Vladimir Putin, sought to bring attention to the Russian dictator’s record of treachery. Of breaking agreements. Of lying.

Should he have done it in private, rather than in front of the cameras? Yeah, maybe. We can quibble about the manner in which he conveyed his point, in a foreign language he does not speak well, while being ganged up on in a room full of native speakers. But it’s a point Mr Zelensky could not have left Washington D.C. without making.

Not when Mr Trump has said, so recently and so often, that he trusts Putin’s word. That he genuinely thinks Russia will follow the terms of whatever peace agreement he might strike, presumably negotiated without Ukraine’s input, as though Putin has not flagrantly violated multiple such deals in the past.

The US President is, at the very, very, very, very best, being astonishingly naive here. And at the very least, Putin is treating him like a fool.

Mr Zelensky makes his point to Mr Vance, as Mr Trump listens. Picture: Saul Loeb/AFP

There’s a world of difference between seeking peace, a perfectly laudable goal, and actively taking Russia’s side in a war of conquest it started. Repeating its propaganda, and boosting its bogus complaints, and giving it the benefit of the doubt, and sucking up to its leader, while relentlessly chewing out and belittling its victim.

There’s also a reason spokespeople for essentially every country in the democratic world reiterated their support for Ukraine after the debacle. They can’t criticise Mr Trump directly without endangering their own interests, but they can get away with acknowledging basic reality, and doing it quite pointedly.

That basic reality shouldn’t need to be repeated, and yet, here we are: Putin invaded his neighbour in a war of expansion. He’s been repelled through a combination of aid, from the Western world, and the stubbornness of the Ukrainians themselves. Now he’s counting on the US to give him a peace deal he can spin as a victory.

America is completely isolated in its treatment of Mr Zelensky. Who shares the Trump stance on Ukraine? Russia, which celebrated yesterday’s events with its usual charm, calling Mr Zelensky an “insolent pig”. Belarus, where Putin’s puppet Lukashenko has ruled for decades. Maybe Viktor Orban’s government in Hungary, which is so popular among the alt-right Musk types despite, or perhaps because of, its eager curtailment of democratic institutions. And a handful of autocratic regimes beyond.

The part of the world we call free, including its conservative flank, is united, from Macron to Albanese to Boris Johnson, whose strong advocacy for Ukraine has continued since he left office. Trump’s America has morphed into the one exception.

Putin is supposedly going to visit the White House at some point in the near future. Will Mr Trump and Mr Vance speak to him with the same hostility they had for Mr Zelensky? The same naked contempt? Will they have the balls to call him out to his face, or will they be cowed, like Mr Trump was in Helsinki years ago? Watch. Take note. It should be instructive.

Will Don Jr, the President’s internet-drunk son of nearly 50 years, be mocking Putin on social media with juvenile memes, like someone a tenth of his age? You know damn well he won’t.

Don Jr is an enthusiastic subscriber to the "Zelensky doesn't want peace because he's in it for that sweet, sweet military aid money" theory. He's not the brightest Trump child.

Why the hell wouldn’t you be running out of patience, as Mr Zelensky? Three years as a reluctant wartime president. Dodging assassination attempts. Treading water to survive against an invader with far more resources than you. Endlessly seeking aid from your allies, and endlessly thanking them for their sacrifice.

And then you travel to the self-described head of the free world, and its leaders lecture you for being ungrateful. And, no joke here, for being too “negative” about the guy who invaded your country, and has murdered thousands of your people, and overseen horrific war crimes against your civilians, and who’s still bombing them every day.

No demand that Putin stop that violence, by the way, as a precondition for negotiations. No criticism of it at all. Ukraine is the obstacle to peace here. That is the Trump position.

How would you react? Would you sit there in obsequious silence? Would you thank Mr Trump and Mr Vance, personally, for all the aid America gave when someone else was in charge, and when they opposed it?

Honestly. The sheer gall of J.D. Vance, to demand gratitude for aid money he tried to stop, and to feign offence when that gratitude was insufficiently grovelling. And on top of that, to be outraged – to call it “disrespectful”, even – when Mr Zelensky tried to protect his own country’s interests.

Mr Vance has had a problem with aiding Ukraine for quite some time now. Picture: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images via AFP

Try to imagine, for a moment, how Mr Trump and Mr Vance would react if some foreign aggressor – Mexico, maybe – took control of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. And left their cities in ruins. Abducted 20,000 children. Claimed the US was not a real country and should have been part of Mexico all along.

You’ve heard how the President talks about a few thousand illegal immigrants crossing the border; he calls them “invaders”. Do you think he would react to an actual, real invasion by calling for peace, and for concessions not from the invader, but from the United States?

Would he publicly eviscerate the US military for defending its own territory? Would he call its leaders warmongers?

Listen to Mr Trump speak about Canada, or Greenland. He cannot seem to get it through his skull that other countries, not just the US, care about their sovereignty. A peace deal which doesn’t guarantee that sovereignty for Ukraine, or guarantee its protection from further Russian violence going forward, is worthless.

I’m making a genuine effort, here, to put this as charitably as possible, because believe me there are stronger words available: these people have ditched their moral compass. It’s not off target. It hasn’t gone haywire. It is gone. They’ve buried it in the ground somewhere, because that’s easier than consulting it, which would bring too much shame.

Look at Marco Rubio here. Secretary of State. A guy who understands the world far better than the man he’s working for. Look at his body language, during the Oval Office argument; he looks like a sheepish five-year-old watching his parents fight. He has sold his dignity for political advancement, and he knows it.

Little Marco.

That word above, by the way, is the one that kept popping up yesterday. Shame. I’m not an American citizen, though I am probably pale enough to escape much notice from the Trumps and Vances and Stephen Millers of the world. If you burn instead of tanning you’re generally safe from the anti-immigrant brigade.

I digress. The point is, I did spend some formative years in the American Midwest. I care about that country. Its character and its honour matter to me. The goodness of its people, as lauded by every drawling, pandering, self-interested politician of my lifetime, actually does matter to me.

And even if you share none of those sentiments, the direction of its leadership in the world matters too, to all of us.

So the shift in tone now, among Mr Trump’s critics, has resonated in a really disheartening way. It isn’t anger, not at its core. It isn’t concern about policy, or the usual high-minded lecture about the state of the republic. No, what we have today is horror; a bunch of Americans saying they feel sick, and worse than that, ashamed of their own country.

Jonathan V. Last, editor of The Bulwark, put it most succinctly, but you heard his remarks echoed elsewhere as well.

“It made me want to throw up,” he said.

“The most shameful moment in American history of my lifetime, I think.

“That we are led by this man, who does all this in our names, is shameful. It makes me feel deep, deep shame to be an American. Because we own this. It does not matter how much we disagree with it, or how angry it makes us. We own this. And it’s horrible.”

After the row, Mr Trump left Washington to go golfing at Mar-a-Lago. Mr Zelensky returned to Europe to meet with the British Prime Minister. Picture: Roberto Schmidt/AFP

It is horrible. How has the United States come to this? How has it become so predatory, and malicious, and disinterested in doing what’s right?

Sorry, so proudly predatory and malicious and disinterested in doing what’s right. The distinction there does matter.

The US has always made mistakes and failed to live up to its self-image. What we get from Mr Trump and Mr Vance is different; it’s a smug pride at the trashing of their own country’s moral standing, as though it should always have been a mercenary, and was a sucker because it didn’t sympathise with the bad guys sooner.

I think of the people I knew in Missouri – then a bit of a swing state, now deep red Republican – and wonder at their consent for this. They were deeply conservative, and deeply religious. More importantly they were kind, and hospitable, and fundamentally good.

Now many of those same people cheer this on. They cheerlead for the deliberate, mocking humiliation of a leader who has done his best, from a position of near-powerlessness, to fend off the aggression of a much greater foe.

Ask yourself: what has Donald Trump got, for all his bowing to Putin in the past fortnight? What concessions has he secured? None. He has won nothing. Nothing. He hasn’t even asked for anything. He has completely sold out a country fighting for its existence against a foreign invader, and in return he has secured, I repeat, nothing.

And he has the nerve to abuse Zelensky in the Oval Office. To patronise. Never even mind J.D. Vance, a man whose principles don’t extend beyond his nose, so finely attuned as it is to the chance to feature in a viral Elon Musk tweet.

These are small men running the United States, with an equally small vision of their country. You’ll meet a more impressive person than Vance when you go to shop at Woolies tomorrow. How dare he condescend to someone of Mr Zelensky’s substance.

It must be nice to have so little shame. The rest of us aren’t so lucky.

Twitter: @SamClench

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Originally published as ‘It made me want to throw up’: Americans ‘sick’ over Donald Trump’s treatment of Volodymyr Zelensky