Summary
Trump just presided over one of the greatest diplomatic disasters in modern history, with flared tempers, raised voices, and shredded protocol.
Never before has a U.S. president bullied and berated an adversary, never mind an ally, in such a public way.
During a tense Oval Office meeting, Trump and JD Vance attacked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, demanding he accept a peace deal with Russia or lose U.S. support.
The conversation devolved into shouting, with Trump accusing Zelenskyy of being ungrateful and “gambling with World War III.”
The meeting ended in chaos, with no agreement reached.
I’m glad we get to see this shameful display. I wouldn’t talk lto a dog like that, much less the democratically elected leader of another sovereign nation that’s an ally. The US used to be a beacon of freedom and diplomacy, but clearly we shouldn’t expect that from the current regime.
Europe will keep supporting Ukraine regardless, but it really is in the US’ interests to stay involved in this conflict. It’s disconcerting that Trump can’t seem to grasp that basic fact.
It’s also just so weak.
Not that macho’ism should be a major point or even desirable trait for a world leader IMO, but so many people like Trump because he’s allegedly strong. Yet when I watch the above clip I just keep thinking “he’s so weak and soft and overly sensitive to essentially everything.” Like how can you want a tough leader, then watch that exchange and think “Trump is tough.” What?
If the Europe had any sense of self respect the US embassies would be closing everywhere right now just like the russian ones.
Trump sucks, I hope Ukraine wins,and I hope Putin is judged by history for his aggression and the general incompetence of his government.
But very few Russian embassies were ever closed, and rightly so. Some were downsized and suspected spies were given the boot. If Europe wants to do that with Americans, yeah smart.
Outright closing embassies would be a massive misstep, completely warranted, and miss the entire point of diplomacy.
That was harder to watch than Isis beheadings
Good job America! Proud of y’all for once again standing up for your values of oppression and greed.
So true.
The democrats would rather have trump than Bernie.
“Democracy dies on live TV” - wow that headline hits hard.
It says Diplomacy, but both are fitting actually
Ah cheers, misread that!
First time i read it I thought it says “Democracy dies on live TV”… not far from it i guess…
“US chances at…”
Need to be added to the start. As if other countries aren’t somehow capable is such an USamericanism.
Democracy is just one word and a set of ideas connected to it.
Other than democracy there are meekness, dignity, wisdom and rationality, by the way, none of these contradicts any other, and a few even more important - faith and bravery and choice.
So, I see nothing wrong with democracy dying in any kind of public setting when the 7 things I’ve listed stop being even tolerated.
I just saw an ad for G20, a fiction where some terrorists kidnap all the leaders of the G20 at the meeting. But don’t worry, the US president frees herself, and she’s going full Liam Neeson to free everyone and get revenge.
LOL completely unbelievable
What would instead happen with the US president that is in charge now: if you free me I will help you with all your requests and I will personally execute the hostages
I’ve heard shows like Madam Secretary and The West Wing be considered, akin to Star Trek, “competence porn.”
The idea, the fantasy, that the people making the critical decisions that affect so many people are consulting experts, weighing heavy costs, consulting the law, and are kept up at night because they care so deeply for making the best call they can so they don’t let down all those who depend on them. These characters have been role models for leadership for generations at this point.
And here we are, in a complete fever dream of a failed state: With a convicted felon and failed reality show TV personality, his foreign billionaire handler, and a weak spineless, loud little dweeb we all forgot was even vice… burning the last vestiges of peace and goodwill all around themselves, handing us and our allies over in a competition with other fascists to be the world’s worst enemies, screaming at world leaders, destroying the environment out of spite, and heck, shilling beans from the oval office. Because why not.
Who’s close enough to this to do something about it? Where are the competent ones who will regain control of the bridge from these terrorists? Yeah, where’s our “G20 president”?
Well, I just remembered, we need to support people like Governor Janet Mills of Maine , and empower anyone any everyone who will stand up against this bullying.
Fucking Idiocracy is competence porn at this point, Camacho was an idiot but damn was he actually really competent if you think about the events of the movie.
There can be absolutely zero doubt that Trump is a Russian stooge
He doesn’t have to be Russian stooge to be evil, and to behave like one too
I know my meme game has died and ascended into Boomerdoom, for I’ve seen this about 12 times and IDK what’s up
Hi, just wanted you to know you’re a piece of shit.
Maybe some introspection to stop being a piece of shit would be in order.
Fuck off Ivan
I don’t know what it can be, but every ounce of me hates both of these men. I don’t even want to call them men. I can’t think of a possible way that they could suffer and feel the emotion of helplessness and sorrow. Whatever would happen, I don’t think they’d care. They literally wouldn’t care - because they have the mindset that they are invincible and can have whatever they want.
I think Tolkien has words for the corrupted, the lesser beings that are greedy agressive morons, “orcs”
I would say they are more like ringwraiths - twisted shadows of men bound to a larger evil, Putin.
Snotlings
I think “tried to bully Zelensky” would have been a little more accurate. Of course Trump and Vance failed at that too. All they’re good at is manipulating the most stupid people on the planet. If I was morally depraved, I bet I could do it pretty easily too.
Imagine calling a world leader, who’s kinda busy leading his nation through a brutal war against his nation, halfway across the planet, just to yell at him on camera like they’re on some Fox News shouting-heads hitpiece, for not selling out his country and giving in to the butchers.
Seriously, even for the world’s stupidest people, where is the “Okay, wow, you just don’t do that, sir.” Line?
When does “Defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign AND DOMESTIC.” come into play? Seriously, someone please tell me, what do these chodes gotta do to get treated as the terrorists they are?
When do the sworn-in armed forces say “Alright, that’s it.” and draw down on this gang of heinous criminals and execute them for treason to prevent the world from slipping any further into chaos?
Do we gotta hope for (a successful) Op: Valkyrie 2025??
remember you guys. peace day 1! trump never lies
This is genuinely one of the stupidest things I’ve seen. We all are used the the bar getting lower and lower but lordy it just accelerated.
I’m ready to protest this shit. Tell me when and where to show up, my local big city or state capital. This is some bullshit. Trump and Vance are egotistical dickheads. Ukraine are our allies! Imagine George Washington doing this with Marquis de Lafayette, or FDR with Churchill!! Unspeakable!
Ukraine is a US ally. Trump is a Russian ally. Of course he would attack his adversary.
Bro have you been in a coma? The US is now taking the side of Russia, North Korea, Iran and China. Our alliances with the free west are dead.
Our alliances with the free west are dead.
That’s a bit exaggerated.
Alliances with Middle-Eastern monarchies, Israel and such - are apparently becoming even stronger.
Alliances with European countries and the Commonwealth - yes, but doesn’t seem enough of a breakup to deprive both sides of the common R&D and weapons trade and logistics system.
North Korea is its own thing, Stalinism is not good, but it’s not an aggressive nation even against South Korea. It’s just their elite’s way of survival to threaten everyone around and to make themselves necessary to their neighbors, which are China, Russia and, well, South Korea.
Iran is strained the opposition it has in its conflicts, so it tries to deal with Russia and India and everyone, China included.
Russia is a gang of thieves scaled to a nation with nuclear weapons. Such an elite can’t stand a democratic nation with similar official language and half the population talking Russian, with decent level of life, nearby. They’d lose peace, so they chose war. And frankly I think that this was predicted by those supporting Ukraine. The idea was that Russia will kill itself against Ukraine, or take the L not accepting the price needed, and it turned out that Russia’s elite will rather pay that price.
So, I didn’t mention China itself. China is the nation everyone listed, including US, is heavily reliant upon economically. And war in Ukraine made Russia even more reliant on China, and destabilization in the Middle-East made Iran even more reliant on China, basically bad things make everyone even more reliant on China.
And China is an adversary. So what Trump&Vance&co are doing is to accept all kinds of scum into their allies’ ranks, except China. Allowing that scum to do as it pleases.
So - it’s “not allowing the better to be the enemy of the good” and at the same time cozying up to all kinds of gangsters, double win.
I wish your next election is an election.
That’s kinda what they said.
I thought they were making that typical American denialist point that “actually the US is still friends with Ukraine, it’s just trump that’s the problem”.
Just show up, invite others, everyone is waiting for someone else to do something (present company included).
Why would any nation that does not have nukes not start making nukes right now?
The USA has shown over and over, it’s the only thing we take seriously. We don’t give a fuck until you have nukes. We don’t care about treaties, alliances, deals. We only care if you can start the nuke wars. Anything else is just “how can we take advantage of you?”
Also … World, I understand you’re not reading this, but for the three of ya that do, boycott us. Tariff the shit out of us. You got this, and thanks for all the fish.
Unfortunately Ukraine was part of the Budapest Memorandum. With this they gave up their nuclear armament in an agreement that "prohibited Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom and France from threatening or using military force or economic coercion against Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, “except in self-defence or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.”
So they gave up their nukes with the agreement that they would be safe from these 4 groups. However that didn’t do shit for them, thus a huge reason why any SeasFire would have to have some big security backing. As Russia has ignored all prior agreements.
Exactly why the lesson any other non-nuclear armed country should learn is to get the nukes
I mean at this point all that’d be left is the IAEA, and the US’s nuclear inspectors are probably all fired by now so yeah sure what’s stopping them?
What you say feels right, and it is breaking my heart
Prof. John Mearshmeyer have been talking about great power’s expansionism and it’s relation to nuclear armament since at least 2015.
Yup. And when Russia invaded Ukraine, everyone called him a Russian puppet because of course America would never!
It’s too hard. Yeah, we understand the required specs, but the precision machines and rare ores are internationally monitored. Tom Clancy’s The Sum of All Fears was eye opening as to what the terrorists had to go through to make a single bomb. And it fizzled into a “normal” atom bomb.
And I’m not even talking about the experts involved, a physics degree ain’t gonna get it. The precision machining for the tooling alone is mind blowing, then you gotta fab the actual parts. Again, you’re not getting people like that in a room with a LinkedIn ad, and it would be noticed, very noticed, if you tried.
Now if you want to skip 3-stage hydrogen bombs and just roll an atom bomb, still tough, but much more doable.
tl;dr: The nuclear powers would come down on you like a ton of bricks if a country even tried starting a program. See: Iran.
I really need to check out Sum of All Fears again.
That truly is mind blowing to think about, the level of expertise you mentioned and the tooling. Imagine, just think about it, if it were put to use for something other than the potential to obliterate millions in an instant…
Makes a man shed a tear, a bit.
See Pakistan.
Shit can work out. Russia has plenty of peeps looking for seedy revenue streams
As an American,
As much as this makes me hate Donald Trump more than I already did, which was already more than I hate almost anyone, the really horrific thing is that a decent fraction of Americans will look at this and think Trump made the right decision, or at least a brave, or reasonable, decision.
The only brave man in that room was zelensky.
Heck, the only man in that room was Zelenskyy.
Might have been a good cameraman back there
True, but I don’t think it matters any more what they think. They are a cult, and we cannot salvage this situation by swaying them. We have to act accordingly. They just need to be mowed down if they get in the way.
I‘m trying to think of ways other than a civil war to salvage this situation but I’m coming up blank. Maybe someone more optimistic than me can chime in.
… Ways other than a civil war to salvage the situation.
This, but a lot sooner, and more successful, could put an end to it and save countless lives.
Let them perish from their own eugenics program!
There is no reason to brainstorm optimistic outcomes. We can see what they are doing. It’s an authoritarian takeover, they are allies with Russia, and they are parroting all of the same things about Canada, that Putin was saying about Ukraine. Like there is no reason not to believe them. They are telling us exactly what the plan is. There has to be a civil war, or we are fucked. Canada should be helping the real Americans win their civil war. It’s in our interest to go down there and burn down the white house again.
I agree and it probably truly is the only option going forward. Let’s hope the left is sufficiently armed or you guys will live in a real life enactment of Handmaids Tale soon.
Well, don’t be a bitch about it, pull a Fort Sumter or shut it lmfao
I’m European. We have other wars to deal with right now, but I suggest you sort your shit out rather sooner than later.
european
I see, opinion discarded!
Insta edit: only cowards need a /s
Perfect response, enjoy your fall of Rome era.
I do enjoy the fiddle!
