White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino mockingly shared a video clip of Ukrainian Ambassador Oksana Markarova putting her head in her hands during Friday’s hostile exchange between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“Ukrainian Ambassador understands that Zelensky is a complete and total disaster…,” Scavino wrote in the post.
Earlier, a photo of Markarova from that same moment was shared by CNN reporter Kaitlin Collins on X and has been viewed more than 1.6 million times, as of about 5:30 p.m. Friday.
The cordial conversation between Trump and Zelensky turned contentious when Vice President Vance and the Ukrainian leader discussed diplomacy, erupting into an argument about Zelensky’s gratefulness for U.S. support and ending with Trump calling the foreign leader “disrespectful” and saying he was “not ready for peace.”
Collins, who was present in the Oval Office during the exchange, told CNN’s Dana Bash: “The Ukrainian ambassador had her head buried in her hands as this shouting match was going on between the three of them.”
“Talk about her worst nightmare. She was literally watching it unfold before her eyes in the Oval Office,” Bash commented.
Collins said there were moments when Zelensky tried to correct Trump when the president made misleading claims about the Ukraine-Russia conflict. “With Trump, all of his diplomacy is personal,” she said.
She added that other world leaders have tried to “flatter” Trump “to get what they want,” but Zelensky was straightforward in his opinions and talked about the “reality on the ground.”
