Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
—John F. Kennedy, January 20, 1961
Hello and happy Saturday. Jonah quoted the above passage from JFK’s banger of an inaugural address in his Friday G-File, in response to what he described as “50-minute debacle of Trumpist foreign policy.” On Friday afternoon, President Donald Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office. The two were expected to finalize the details of a minerals deal, which would have set up a “reconstruction investment fund with joint U.S. and Ukraine ownership.” Ukraine would contribute revenues from the sale of natural gas, oil, critical minerals, and other natural resources. But those talks never happened.
Instead, Trump welcomed the media into the Oval Office for what in most cases would have been a brief photo op. Instead, he took questions for about 40 minutes, deemphasizing Europe’s contributions to the war effort, overstating how much the U.S. had contributed, and saying he didn’t think Ukraine would need much security after any peace deal. One reporter asked Zelensky why he hadn’t worn a suit. Another asked Trump, “What gave you the moral courage and conviction to step forward” and engage with Russian President Vladimir Putin on an end to the war.
Still, things proceeded fairly normally until Vice President J.D. Vance spoke up, criticizing “the pathway of Joe Biden, of thumping our chest and pretending that the president of the United States’ words mattered more than the president of the United States’ actions” and calling for diplomacy.
Thus far, the Trump administration’s diplomacy on the Ukraine war has involved sending a delegation led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio to Saudi Arabia to meet with the Russians, a speech by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in Europe in which he took NATO membership for Ukraine off the table (a statement he later walked back), and a speech by Vance himself at the Munich Security Conference in which he called on European leaders to prepare to “step in a big way” to defend their own interests.
Which makes it easy to understand why Zelensky responded to Vance’s comments by reminding him and Trump that Putin has a habit of not honoring his agreements. That in turn prompted Vance to tell Zelensky that he was being disrespectful and that he should be thanking President Trump.
Things only went downhill from there, and eventually, as CNN has reported, the two sides went to separate rooms before National Security Adviser Mike Waltz asked Zelensky to leave. The video of the Oval Office meeting is hard to watch, but here it is if you want to subject yourself to it.
Jonah acknowledged in his G-File that Zelensky could have avoided the trap, but he has a few words for the vice president.
Vance, the champion of diplomacy, shouldn’t have baited a war-weary man fighting for the survival of his country in the first place. If he wanted a deal, his job should have been to prevent Trump from being goaded, not to goad Trump. He should have been the one to nudge Trump to call an end to the presser. That’s what Mike Pence would have done. But Vance has his own agenda, and he poorly served his president in service to it. What is his agenda? To be America’s foremost troll.
Jonah had a few more things to say after he filed the G-File, so he put together an emergency podcast, which you can watch here.
As I’m saying often these days, stay tuned for more next week. Thanks for reading and have a good weekend.
Not Quite Yet Gone With the Wind
Donald Trump, Woodrow Wilson, and the Problems of a Free Press
Throne in the Oval
And here’s the best of the rest:
In Ukraine, Foreign Fighters Warn of Russian Betrayal
Young Man, There’s No Need to Feel Down
Want to Contain Iran? Don’t Abandon Ukraine.
Overshadowed or Oversharing?
Parents Need Power to Set Better Online Boundaries
The High Costs of Cutting Intelligence Spending
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