To understand just how shockingly pathetic and childish JD Vance and Trump acted in their meeting with Zelensky today, it's important to understand the background for the meeting.
Zelensky came in person to negotiate a rare Earth minerals deal, a $500b deal that involves rare Earth minerals currently in and close to conflict zones, including regions Russia currently occupies. Signing over the rights to those resources would be a big deal for Ukraine, they're valuable resources and war is expensive, not only do they need to rebuild their own country, they have loans to pay back. But despite the fact that the US so far has only provided ~120b in aid since 2021, Trump is trying to get his grubby hands on all of those resources. What's far worse is that Trump is not providing any security guarantees in exchange for those resources while pushing for a ceasefire deal.
Zelensky, being a good steward of Ukraine's resources and negotiate this deal, is asking 1) what he gets in exchange for signing over those resources, and 2) what happens if Russia does not stop invading and continues to take over regions with those resources? What guarantees will the US provide to make sure they maintain access to those minerals to continue to satisfy the deal? These are important details to iron out, particularly as Trump is pushing for a ceasefire which could mean Russia continues to occupy the land some of these minerals are on for the foreseeable future.
This is the backdrop for the meeting today and questions about this were peppered throughout the whole press conference (in between questions asked by pathetic, groveling, sycophantic propagandist outlets).
So where did it all go wrong?
JD Vance, interjecting himself, decides to try to tear down Biden, bashing him for not engaging with Putin, says it's time for "Diplomacy". Now, people might be thinking, well doesn't he have a point here, isn't diplomacy good? Shouldn't we be talking about this? And the answer is, of course! We love diplomacy, that's the ideal way to solve things rather than with war. But there should be a little voice in your head that asks "well why haven't we tried that yet?" And the answer to that very good question is, "WE FUCKING HAVE!!!".
Important to keep in mind here is that it is in Russia's interests, which happen to align with Trump and Vance's interest, to make it seem like everyone involved is a rational actor, but fuckup senile Biden and elitist Europe simply don't want peace and provoked Russia into invading Ukraine out of fear for it's future. Putin especially wants the American people to believe he's not such a bad guy and letting him continue his invasion and occupation of Ukraine isn't such a bad thing afterall, as it gives him more time to continue on to his ultimate goal of rebuilding the Soviet empire.
Zelensky, of course, knows this, and currently being the victim of the invasion and needing to stand up for his own people and ultimately for truth and justice in this situation raises the historical record. He mentions that Putin has been invading and taking land from Ukraine since 2014, and how every single agreement made via diplomacy since then has been broken by Putin. He could have, but doesn't mention the Budapest Memorandum, in which Ukraine denuclearized in 1994 in exchange for security and autonomy guarantees from the US, UK, France, and Russia, which would further bolster his point that Russia is not a good faith or reliable actor in all of this, and we have no reason to believe any agreement or ceasefire will be followed by Putin.
He then, rather calmly, flips it back to JD Vance, asking him to explain how he thinks diplomacy can be achieved.
JD Vance, being the snowflake whining bitch that he is, blows up, accuses Zelensky of campaigning with the Democrats (he visited an arms factory in PA in September 2024), calls him disrespectful, ungrateful, and then he and Trump proceed to attempt to humiliate Zelensky without letting him respond.
So as you read a multitude of takes and propaganda on this, many of which will try to blame Zelensky in order to save face for Vance and Trump, and will be pushed by the Kremlin, keep in mind this context, understand that Zelensky asked a very understandable question, and it was Vance and Trump who got nasty, personal, and acted like a pair of whining toddlers.
