The fireworks that happened in the Oval Office yesterday between Volodymyr Zelensky, Donald Trump, and J.D. Vance were unlike anything the public has ever seen.

If you happened to miss it, Toni wrote up the explosions right after it all went down. One thing that needs to be kept in mind is that this meeting between Zelensky, Trump, and Vance was nearly FIFTY MINUTES LONG. For 40 minutes, the conversation was mostly cordial, with both Trump and Vance pointing out how Ukraine had suffered as a result of the war. Unfortunately, the clips that have gone viral have been from the last several minutes of the meeting, which gives no context to the verbal battle. The entire meeting can be watched here, for context.

WATCH: Full Meeting between President Trump, Vice President Vance and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy in Oval Office. pic.twitter.com/Xf6cyErem7

— CSPAN (@cspan) February 28, 2025

As multiple people have noted, this was a poor decision by Zelensky. He was supposed to smile for the cameras, sign a rare minerals deal that had been negotiated to terms far more favorable to Ukraine than the United States – and had ALREADY BEEN APPROVED by Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers – and have lunch. None of that happened, and Zelensky is the one who made the choice to pick the fight.

My initial reaction to the Trump/Zelensky spat was based on the short clip. I've had a chance to watch the entire 53-minute press conference with Zelensky and Trump.

It's painful but I take back what I said earlier. Zelensky decided to attack Vance unnecessarily. He totally…

— Konstantin Kisin (@KonstantinKisin) February 28, 2025

Richard Hanania, in a long form post on X, came to a similar conclusion, which read in part:

In the first 40 minutes, Zelensky kept trying to go beyond what was negotiated in the deal. When Trump was asked a question, it was always “we’ll see.” Zelensky made blanket assertions that there would be no negotiating with Putin, and that Russia would pay for the war. When Trump said that it was a tragedy that people on both sides were dying, Zelensky interjected that the Russians were the invaders.

For his part, Trump made clear that the US would continue delivering military aid. All Zelensky had to do was remain calm for a few more minutes and they would’ve signed a deal.

The argument started when Trump pointed out that it would be hard to make a deal if you talk about Putin the way Zelensky does. Vance interjects to make the reasonable point that Biden called Putin names and that didn’t get us anywhere.

The Zelensky/Trump dynamic was calm and stable. It was when Vance spoke that Zelensky started to interrogate him. Throughout the press conference to that point, everyone was making their arguments directly to the audience. Zelensky decided to challenge Vance and ask him hostile questions. He went back to his point that Putin never sticks to ceasefires, once again implying that negotiations are pointless. Why on earth would you do this? Then came the fight we all saw.

Zelensky was minutes away from being home free, and he would have had the deal and new commitments from the Trump administration. The point Vance made was directed against Biden and the media, taking them to task for speaking in moralistic terms. This offended Zelensky, and that began the argument.

I’ve been a fan of Zelensky up to this point, but this showed so much incompetence, if not emotional instability, that I don’t see how he recovers from this. The relationship with the administration is broken. Ukraine should probably go with new leadership at this point.

And the relationship with the administration IS broken. We knew already from Secretary of State Rubio that Zelensky had been two-faced about this rare minerals deal to begin with. Rubio was at the meeting, and was obviously frustrated with how everything turned out.

In an exclusive interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, Rubio called on Zelensky to “apologize for turning this thing into the fiasco for him that it became,” after his White House meeting with Trump and Vice President JD Vance turned into a shouting match. “There was no need for him to go in there and become antagonistic,” he said Friday on “The Source.”

“When you start talking about that aggressively – and the president is a deal maker, he made deals his entire life – you’re not going to get people to the table,” Rubio said.

“And so you start to perceive that maybe Zelensky doesn’t want a peace deal. He says he does, but maybe he doesn’t,” Rubio added.

Rubio said the meeting went “off the rails” after that interaction.

“That active, open undermining of efforts to bring about peace is deeply frustrating for everyone who’s been involved in communications with them leading up to today, and I think he should apologize for wasting our time for a meeting that was going to end the way it did,” the secretary said.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent echoed Rubio in a different interview.

“It’s very difficult to do an economic deal with a leader who doesn’t want to do a peace deal,” Bessent said Friday in an interview with Bloomberg Television.

Bessent called the Zelenskiy argument “one of the great diplomatic own goals in history,” referring to the instance in soccer when a player accidentally scores a goal for the opposing side.

“I was shocked, shocked that President Zelenskiy would come into the Oval Office and behave like this, speak to the president, speak to the vice president — but more importantly, disrespect the American people — like this,” Bessent said.

The Treasury chief went on to say the proposed minerals agreement would have been a “fantastic deal.”

Trump, for his part, is done with Zelensky for now. Before leaving for Florida, the president had a few more things to say about what went down in the Oval Office.

WATCH IN FULL: President Donald J. Trump speaks to the press on the South Lawn of the White House pic.twitter.com/49lQwAi8dM

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 28, 2025

“We had a meeting today as you know with Zelenskyy, and I would say it didn’t work out exactly great from his standpoint. I think he very much overplayed his hand,” Trump told reporters at the White House as he prepared to depart for a weekend in Florida.

Asked what Zelensky would have to do to restart talks, Trump said the Ukrainian leader would have to say, “I want to make peace,” instead of criticizing Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“He’s got to say, ‘I want to make peace,’” Trump said. “He doesn’t have to stand there and say about ‘Putin this, Putin that.’ All negative things. He’s got to say ‘I want to make peace. I don’t want to fight a war any longer.’”

Trump indicated the U.S. would not continue to support Ukraine if Zelensky did not come to the negotiating table to end the war.

“I just want to get a deal done, and if a deal happens, good. But you can’t embolden somebody that does not have the cards and all of a sudden that person says, ‘Oh, well now I can keep fighting.’ We are not going to keep fighting. We’re going to get the war done, or let them go and see what happens, let them fight it out.”

But Zelensky wasn’t quite done in Washington. He had a scheduled interview with Fox News’s Bret Baier, which did take place. After watching this interview, there are only two possible conclusions: Zelensky is either the most oblivious person to ever walk the earth, or he deliberately sabotaged today’s meeting because he thinks Europe will back him in continuing a war with Russia.

“Mr. President, do you think your relationship with Donald Trump — President Trump — after today can be salvaged?” Fox News chief political anchor Bret Baier asked Zelenskyy.

“Yes, of course, because it’s relations more than two presidents. It’s the historical relations, strong relations between our people, and that’s why I always began… to thank your people from our people,” Zelenskyy said during an exclusive interview Friday on “Special Report.”

“Of course, thankful to the president, and, of course, to Congress, but first of all, to your people. Your people helped save our people… we wanted very much to have all these strong relations, and where it counted, we will have it.”

Zelenskyy said he was “not sure that we did something bad” when asked about the heated exchange but conceded the dustup was “bad for both sides.”

“I just want to be honest, and I just want our partners to understand the situation correctly, and I want to understand everything correctly. That’s about us not to lose our friendship,” he later said.

Zelensky is acting like he doesn’t understand Trump at all. You don’t get to walk into the Oval Office and pick a fight with the president of the United States. Zelensky does indeed sound like he wants the war to continue, because he wants the Donbas region and the Crimea back. European leaders decided to tweet out their support for Zelensky (almost in a way that looks… planned or coordinated?), but that doesn’t mean that they are going to provide the cash to keep the war going. However, Zelensky informed Bret Baier that Europe is going to do EXACTLY that.

I think Europe is ready to help us with financing a big army … now we want just to find a place for our biggest strategic partner.

We don’t have enough weapon to push them out and we don’t see now very big volume of new support from the United States, with all due respect, again. With security guarantee we will be ready.

That “security guarantee” was tied up in the rare minerals deal – which, again, Ukraine’s goverment APPROVED – and then Zelensky trashed it, and burned his relationships with Rubio and Bessent in the process. Does he really think that after having a temper tantrum in the Oval Office, ANYONE from this administration is going to be falling all over themselves to help re-negotiate this deal again? Does he really think that just because Biden reportedly demanded a little gratitude from him during a phone call, and then still gave him blank checks, that Trump would do the same thing? If he did think that, then he has seriously misread Donald Trump.

Zelensky has crapped the bed and now he gets to lie in it. He apparently thinks Europe is going to change the sheets on the bed and come to Ukraine’s rescue. The entire ceasefire negotiation process is now at an impasse of his doing. While European leaders may be verbally supporting Zelensky and sending tweets, that’s not the same thing as sending money. Does Zelensky think that Europe’s loathing of Trump is going to make them open their wallets for him? That’s a bet with very long odds, and a high risk of failure.

Trump made the right decision to end everything, not go forward with the press conference, and kick Zelensky out – if for no other reason than to let tempers cool. Zelensky needs to finish his tantrum, stew in his own juices, and face whatever reaction will be coming from his own people and the Cabinet of Ministers. If he thinks he has secured Europe’s help and can keep going without the United States, he’s welcome to try. But the “Bank of America” is closed to him after that spectacle, and if he does end up coming back to President Trump, should Europe not give him what he wants… well, that rare minerals deal is not going to be as good for Ukraine the second time around. And Zelensky will be served up some crow to consume as well.

Featured image: original Victory Girls art by Darleen Click