On Friday morning, President Donald Trump welcomed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the White House for a meeting to discuss moving toward a peaceful resolution between Ukraine and Russia. However, things quickly devolved into a very fiery exchange in the Oval Office, which was being broadcast all over the world.
Zelenskyy, who was extremely rude during the meeting, got sized down over and over again by both President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance. The man’s behavior was so bad, he even lost the support of Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina who is known to be a war hawk not too fond of Russia.
When you lose this guy, you know you screwed up.
Graham made an appearance on Fox News where he weighed in on the meeting saying, “Americans witnessing this would not want Zelenskyy to be their business partner including me. I’ve never been more proud of Trump for showing the American people and the world, you don’t trifle with this man.”
He followed up with praise for the vice president, saying, “Vance was awesome!”
🚨 WOW! Zelensky behaved SO BADLY in the Oval Office that he even lost Lindsey Graham
“Americans witnessing this would not want Zelenskyy to be their business partner including me. I've never been more proud of Trump for showing the American people and the world, you don't… pic.twitter.com/f0PH4CaOFu
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) February 28, 2025
And that’s not all that’s going down with Graham. On Thursday, he backed the president’s pending mineral deal with Ukraine, referring to it as a “game changer” during a chat with the media.
Graham has been a long time advocate of providing Ukraine with money and defense. Which is what makes his shift against Zelenskyy following the meeting earlier today all the more significant. He’s making it clear he’s on Trump’s side.
“I think it will change the narrative, particularly on our side, and we’ll have a major investment in Ukraine,” Graham went on to say during an appearance on CNN yesterday. “I think it is the most important thing we could do. I’ve been working on this for two years, trying to get President Biden to do it. But I think with President Trump doing it, it will change the narrative.”
Things did not unfold the way Graham and many others were hoping, though most of that lays at the feet of Zelenskyy for his behavior toward the men who are actually trying to save his country from being annihilated.
“The Republican president has long complained that the United States has spent too much taxpayer money to support Ukraine in the war with Russia that began when the Kremlin invaded three years ago. Trump has framed the emerging deal that would give the U.S. access to Ukraine’s deposits of so-called rare earth minerals — used in the aerospace, defense and nuclear industries — as a chance for Kyiv to pay back the U.S. for aid already sent for the war effort under Democratic President Joe Biden,” ABC 15 News said.
“The previous administration put us in a very bad position, but we’ve been able to make a deal where we’re going to get the money back and a lot of money in the future,” Trump said at the time.
Let’s hope he can still accomplish that goal.