An astonishing scene played out in the Oval Office on Friday as President Trump and Vice President Vance got into a shouting match with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Amid angry crosstalk, Trump told Zelensky “without us, you don’t have any cards” and “you’re gambling with World War III.” Vance, for his part, accused Zelensky of being “disrespectful.”
Zelensky had taken issue with Trump’s depiction of him as having so much “hatred” for Russian President Vladimir Putin that it made it hard to end the conflict.
The Ukrainian president also pushed back on Vance’s suggestion that diplomacy could end the war – insisting that his nation had previously adopted that approach after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, only for Putin to launch a full-scale invasion in 2022.
The clash derailed the proposed signing of a deal granting the U.S. some rights over Ukraine’s mineral deposits. A news conference between Trump and Zelensky that had been scheduled was abruptly canceled and Zelensky left the White House without further comment.
Here are five big takeaways.
A row heard around the world
It’s hard to exaggerate the seismic shock created by the squabble in the Oval Office.
The political world, in the U.S. and internationally, was instantly aflame over what had taken place. On cable news, usually loquacious anchors were left struggling for words.
It’s been years, if ever, since such a spectacle was seen on public display at the White House
Inevitably, the shock spurred fevered speculation. One big question was whether Trump and Vance had intentionally provoked Zelensky, whom Trump recently dubbed a “dictator,” into a confrontation.
The other was whether the Ukrainian leader had reacted too intemperately in the moment, to the detriment of his national interests.
Certainly, Trump’s initial comments about Zelensky’s “hatred” for Putin carried a disparaging tone that it is hard to imagine being expressed toward any other U.S. ally who was trying to repel an invasion.
Likewise, Vance’s role will be closely dissected, especially his reference to Zelensky being “disrespectful” and his demands that the Ukrainian president say “thank you” for U.S. aid.
But Zelensky’s volleys back made it clear he was not going to adopt the mollifying tone used by the week’s other high-profile visitors to the White House, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
The White House has seemed to celebrate the encounter.
Meanwhile, a photo posted by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins of the Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S. with her head in her hands during the encounter told its own story.
Now what?
The big question is where things go from here.
The minerals deal was presented, at least in some quarters, as a way to reimburse the U.S. for future assistance to Ukraine, but Trump had been conspicuously vague on the key point of whether Washington would offer firm security guarantees in return.
Now, with that deal presumably shelved for the foreseeable future, nobody honestly knows what happens.
Zelensky could lean more heavily on Europe for both military and diplomatic support. Macron and Starmer have far more pro-Ukrainian viewpoints than does Trump.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has more of a Trump-like worldview, called on Friday for an immediate summit between the U.S. and European nations to discuss Ukraine.
If the spigot of U.S. aid is to be choked off and a piqued Trump is now fully embittered against Zelensky, the future looks bleak from a Ukrainian perspective.
It’s also worth nothing that neither the U.S. nor its European allies are willing to put boots on the ground during the war itself, for fear of being drawn into their own war with Russia.
The suggestion so far is that the Europeans might help shore up a peace agreement — it one is reached.
Democrats, Trump critics blast Trump for helping Putin
Prominent Democrats blasted Trump and Vance for how they conducted the meeting with Zelensky, and some other Trump foes joined in.
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on social media accused Trump and Vance of “doing Putin’s dirty work” and pledged that “Senate Democrats will never stop fighting for freedom and democracy.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) contended that it was “shameful and dangerous” for Trump to engage, as she saw it, in “treating the destruction of a democracy as a political show — throwing Ukraine to the wolves and doing a favor for Putin.”
Meanwhile, former Republican congresswoman and leading Trump critic Liz Cheney said on social media that Trump and Vance had “attacked Zelenskyy and pressured him to surrender the freedom of his people to the KGB war criminal who invaded Ukraine.”
Cheney added: “History will remember this day— when an American President and Vice President abandoned all we stand for.”
Trump loyalists wear such disapproval as a badge of honor, of course. But there is no mistaking how deep the dismay runs on the other side.
Republicans counter that Trump stood up for American interests.
GOP voices rushed to acclaim Trump — and often bash Zelensky — for the way the Oval Office drama went down.
Broadly, the chorus of Republican approval viewed Trump as standing up for American interests and cast Zelensky as an ingrate.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Bloomberg that the Ukrainian president “chose to let things go into a downward spiral on worldwide television.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said he had “never been more proud” of Trump and blamed Zelensky for a “disrespectful” display.
“I don’t know if we can ever do business with Zelensky again,” Graham said.
Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), alluding to the contrast with the Biden presidency, wrote on social media: “The United States of America will no longer be taken for granted. The contrast between the last four years and now could not be more clear. Thank you, Mr. President.”
The White House Office of Communications collated many such responses and sent them out in an email with the subject line: “Support Pours in for President Trump, VP Vance’s America First Strength.”
Happiest of all: Russia
For all the delight expressed by some of Trump’s domestic allies, the real gloating seemed to come from Moscow.
Putin ally Dmitry Medvedev, who served as Russia’s president more than a decade ago, celebrated on social media that “the insolent pig finally got a proper slap down in the Oval Office.”
Medvedev also endorsed Trump’s view that Zelensky was gambling with World War Three.
The Associated Press (AP) quoted a Russian lawmaker, Andrei Klishas, as describing the outcome of the meeting as “a brilliant result.”
Klishas, per the AP, wrote on Telegram that Zelensky had “played his role of a ‘president’ poorly in the White House and was thrown out for bad behavior and disrespect towards the U.S.”
Whatever Trump’s intentions, the current picture could hardly look rosier from the Kremlin’s perspective.
Russia has been advancing on the battlefield, Ukraine is now starkly at odds with its chief benefactor and it’s not at all clear Trump will press Putin for major concessions in any peace deal.
