President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance drew bipartisan criticism after they berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in an extraordinary meeting at the White House on Friday.
In the shocking Oval Office exchange, Trump and Vance ganged up on Zelenskyy, calling him “disrespectful” and telling him he has “no cards” with which to negotiate a deal to end the brutal invasion of his country by Russia. The White House then canceled a scheduled press conference and appeared to boot the Ukrainian president from the building without signing an expected rare minerals agreement.
“Trump and Vance are doing Putin’s dirty work,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) wrote in a social media post, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Senate Democrats will never stop fighting for freedom and democracy.”
“What an utter embarrassment for America. This whole sad scene,” added Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.).
“Shame. Shame. Shame,” wrote Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii).
Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), meanwhile, appeared to criticize Vance after he characterized the war as the result of a failure of diplomacy. “Some want to whitewash the truth, but we cannot ignore the truth. Russia is at fault for this war,” Bacon wrote.
The Nebraska Republican later called it a “bad day for America’s foreign policy.”
“Ukraine wants independence, free markets and rule of law. It wants to be part of the West. Russia hates us and our Western values. We should be clear that we stand for freedom,” he said in a statement.
One lawmaker who met with Zelenskyy at the U.S. Capitol before his sit-down with Trump also took issue with Vance complaining that Zelenskyy had not shown enough appreciation for U.S. support for Ukraine.
“Have you said ‘thank you’ once in this entire meeting?” Vance asked Zelenskyy.
But Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) noted Friday that Zelenskyy “has thanked our country over and over again both privately and publicly.”
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“And our country thanks HIM and the Ukrainian patriots who have stood up to a dictator, buried their own & stopped Putin from marching right into the rest of Europe. Shame on you,” the Minnesota Democrat wrote in a social media post.
And Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) called Trump a “coward” who was beholden to Putin.
“What we just witnessed in the Oval Office was a meeting between two cowardly puppets and a hero,” he said during an interview on CNN.