BONUS EPISODE: Trump kicks Zelenskyy out of The White House

This is a Global Player original podcast. Don't tell us what we're going to feel. We're trying to solve a problem. Don't tell us what we're going to feel. I'm not telling you. Because you're in no position to dictate that. Remember this. You're in no position to dictate what we're going to feel.

There has never been anything like it in the Oval Office of the White House, where a spat was playing out in public, live around the world, and it was ugly, and it was hard to believe that these were two allies talking to each other. Because it looked to the world as though Donald Trump and the Vice President were beating up Vladimir Zelensky. It feels as if President Zelensky now has a big choice to make.

This was a meeting which will go down in history. What does it mean? Is there any hope for any reconciliation between these two men now?

Welcome to the News Agents. The News Agents. It's John. It's Lewis.

And earlier today, we recorded an episode looking back on Keir Starmer's visit to the Oval Office, in which we talked about how, for everything, Trump is a TV moment. But by God, has he exceeded anything with the TV drama that unfolded this afternoon in Washington, D.C., in the White House, where Vladimir Zelensky was not really in a mood to play sucking up in the way that maybe Keir Starmer had yesterday, or President Macron had done at the beginning of the week.

Zelensky didn't want to give ground. And he got beaten up by almost the bullying nature of Donald Trump and JD Vance, who wanted to pile in. God bless. You don't know that. God bless. You don't know that. God bless. You will not have a war.

Don't tell us what we're going to feel. We're trying to solve a problem. Don't tell us what we're going to feel. I'm not telling you. Because you're in no position to dictate that. Remember that. I'm not dictating. I'm not in a position to dictate what we're going to feel. We're going to feel very good. We're going to feel very good and very strong.

You're right now not in a very good position. You've allowed yourself to be in a very bad position. And he's absolutely right about the very beginning of the war. Not in a good position. I was. You don't have the cards right now. With us, you start having cars right now. You don't want to see it. It's a friend. You're playing. You're gambling with the lives of millions of people. You're gambling with World War III.

You're gambling with World War III. And what you're doing is very disrespectful to the country, this country. It's back to you. Far more than a lot of people said they should have. Have you said thank you once? A lot of times. No, in this entire meeting, have you said thank you? Even today.

John, you said that we've never seen anything like it in the Oval Office. I'm not sure we've ever seen anything like it full stop. Not in the history of diplomacy. I don't think there have ever been two leaders, certainly not one that comes to my mind, of two leaders who, as you say, are allies, who come to blows in quite such a public way.

We said today, earlier today, we wouldn't normally be interrupting people's feeds for this on a weekend, but we said earlier today, what we recorded that at 10 o'clock, half ten this morning. So we're talking about eight hours ago. We said that it couldn't have gone much better for Kirstame. That couldn't have gone any worse for Vladimir Zelensky.

Because whoever you think is responsible for this, and I think the way that Trump behaved in many ways, and behaved, allowed it to unfold, in many ways was disgraceful. He clearly would never have spoken to any other leader, I think, in that way. He certainly wouldn't have spoken to Vladimir Putin in that way. But even if you think Zelensky shouldn't have let it get that far, and you can have that argument, I don't think there's any doubt about who is the winner from this. There are two losers, Donald Trump, because it makes America look appalling in front of its allies.

It makes it look like he's on Russia's side, an autocrat's side, not a democratic country's side. It's obviously terrible for Zelensky, because whether he likes it or not, his country is supplicant to the United States. But they both lose. The person who wins is Vladimir Putin. And he will be ordering up the best Beluga caviar and the best Cristal champagne that he's got in the Kremlin tonight, because frankly, it was astonishing. And it's exactly what Putin wants. He wants to show the West divided. He wants to have Donald Trump at odds with Vladimir Zelensky. And it's so interesting, the sort of atmospherics that unfolded, which seemed to start off just about OK between Zelensky and Trump, but it just got worse and worse and worse.

It was like, why haven't you sent me a thank you letter? Why haven't you been more grateful to the American people for all we've done? And I thought that J.D. Vance was particularly, do I want to say the word obnoxious? Yeah, I think I do. I think that J.D. Vance was particularly over the top in the way that he said, you're disrespecting the president. Now, arguably, Zelensky should have been smarter and played it differently and might have won a bit more. There is another view, which I suppose is that Zelensky under pressure at home, he will have won a huge amount of support for standing firm, and it might have appealed to both their domestic audiences.

But how you put this train wreck that you now have back on the tracks, it's really hard to see. It's extremely difficult to see. And I don't like saying this, and we can talk about how it descended, particularly with Vance. And yes, I know a lot of people listening to this will be saying and believing, I think rightly, that it looked like bullying, that it looked premeditated, that it looked like a sort of ambush from Vance and Trump and the team, and maybe it was. But nonetheless, I think that there will be real question marks about Zelensky's future now.

Because Zelensky, as you say, John, look, in doing this, in being seen to defend Ukraine in this way, in my instant judgment, maybe I'll prove to be wrong about this, but it feels to me that his position at home is unassailable. But there is the potential it could be untenable in the medium term. And the reason for that, and it's a chilling reason, and again, I don't like saying it, but ultimately, the Ukrainian position is dependent on American resources and arms, at least in the short term.

And not only that, but there is currently a deal, quote unquote, maybe being negotiated between Trump and Putin. Now, you might say Zelensky was having little input into it anyway. Maybe he wasn't. But right now, it feels as if the White House might be in a position where it refuses to deal with him. And there is a question mark, therefore, I think, as unpalatable and uncomfortable as it is, about whether Zelensky can actually do his job.

So just a little bit of the detail of what unfolded at the White House. And I've sat in on these sort of what they call the pool spree, when you've got a president visiting the president of the United States or a prime minister, and you watch it and you get ushered in and you get ushered out. The White House team stay in the Oval Office, the visiting president or prime minister go to an anteroom in the West Wing, and then you come together for the press conference or whatever it is.

Zelensky and his team are taken off to an anteroom, and they are kind of keen to try and put the train back on the tracks. And apparently, Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, and Mike Waltz, the National Security Advisor, go into the anteroom where Zelensky is and say, this meeting is over, you're to leave the White House. And at that point, President Zelensky's car is brought round to the front of the West Wing of the White House, and they all get into their vehicle, and off they go, and the meeting has ended. No agreement, no deal signed, and just a whole heap of acrimony.

And it really does feel that you have got something unfolding now, which is of a different order altogether from anything we have ever seen before. We said earlier on the first episode today, John, that although it had gone well for Keir Starmer, that at some point, I think I said that there would be a crunch moment, a crunch point. Yesterday, for Starmer, wasn't a crunch moment. And I said at some point, there will be a crunch moment, maybe when there's an agreement or whenever, when Starmer would be forced to choose. I did not anticipate, despite my scepticism about the meeting yesterday, I did not anticipate that that would come, what, eight hours later? And yet it's already come. Because what you're seeing, the net effect of this, you said Russia wants Europe to be divided. It is already happening.

And it is happening over this spectacular, extraordinary exchange and altercation that they have in the Oval Office. So for example, just a few, just in the time we're recording this on Friday night, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gjartore has said, we stand by Ukraine in their fair struggle for just and lasting peace. Swedish Prime Minister, Lithuanian President, the Irish Foreign Minister Simon Harris has said, Ukraine is not to blame for this war brought about by Russia's illegal invasion. We stand by Ukraine, Poland's Donald Tusk, Spain's Sanchez, France's Emmanuel Macron, and on and on it goes. And they're all siding with Ukraine.

I think there was hope in Europe, hope in Europe, and first of all, Starmer is going to have to say something, right? His offer of a state visit now looks difficult and stinging and a bit of a nightmare. He literally made it like a few hours ago, and we're already here. But if there was any hope in European capitals over the last 24 hours, that after Macron's quite successful visit and Starmer's what it felt like was a very successful visit, if there was any hope that maybe the corner had been turned on the Europe-US relationship in the short term, it's already done. It's already gone. The divisions are deeper than ever after eight to 12 hours.

We can't help but keep referencing back some of the discussion we had, you and me, eight hours ago. But one of the things I said was that, you know, it's always in a pub quiz, when do you play the joker? And Keir Starmer played the joker at the get go to give Trump this unprecedented second state visit. All I can see on my social media feeds now is what the hell is Trump doing coming to Britain to be entertained by the king, given that farce that we've just seen unfold in the Oval Office?

I think that this can and probably will backfire on Starmer. He's got to find the words that somehow square this. Now, maybe there will be something that will happen over the weekend. I think that by the look of it, I think what it would take for Zelensky to get back into the White House is a full surrender in the sense of not the Ukrainian people, but Zelensky having to offer a full and grovelling apology to J.D. Vance and President Trump for having disrespected the Oval Office and disrespected the presidency. I don't think Zelensky is going to do that. And so you do have this rupture that is now there. It was always on the cards. It has happened. It has happened in a more spectacular manner than anyone could have possibly envisaged.

Yeah. And it feels as if, unless as you say, John, there is a full, full confession almost from Zelensky's part and a grovelling and a humiliation, which as you say, it feels like it's impossible for him to accept and maintain any kind of authority. It feels in the absence of that, that the Trump-Zelensky relationship is probably irreparably damaged, right? It would be hard to know just as two ordinary people sort of having a conversation like that, you know, hard to repair a relationship if an argument is had in public. That is on the most public stage possible and imaginable.

And I think that the way, I mean, clearly it's going to become a huge part of the sort of culture war. You can already see the sort of two rival camps and interpretations, competing realities about what happened in the Oval Office already starting to unfold online about who was rude to whom and who was disrespectful to him. But I think there is absolutely no doubt whatsoever. It wasn't just Trump and Vance that was acting in that way.

And one of the reasons it felt uncomfortable is it felt at times, given that there were handpicked journalists from some very pro-Trump media outlets there, which has been a sort of subtext story, that subplot story, which has been going on for a few weeks, the White House press pool has become more dominated by kind of MAGA loyalists. It started to feel almost like a baiting at various moments because you had very hostile questions towards Zelensky in particular coming in, including this one from a Trump allied White House reporter, which I think took people's breath away.

My second question for President Zelensky, do you ever, why don't you wear a suit? Why don't you wear a suit? You're the highest level in this country's office and you refuse to wear a suit. Just want to see if you do own a suit. Yeah. Yeah. Problems. A lot of Americans have problems with you. I don't have such. I will wear a costume after this war will finish. Yes. Maybe one, maybe something like yours. Yes. Maybe some, something better. I don't, I don't know. We will see. Maybe something cheaper. I mean, why don't you wear a suit? I mean, it's so, so disrespectful.

I doubt that White House report would have asked Elon Musk why he doesn't wear a suit in the middle of the Oval Office somehow. It's so trivial as well. I mean, look, there is history. One of the things that has been consistent that I have seen through the years of covering Trump is that he nurses a grievance and he has a grievance going back to the first impeachment in the first term of Donald Trump's office when Zelensky had a phone call with Trump and what Trump had was two big asks.

One, can you investigate what was going on with Hunter Biden because he wanted to damage Joe Biden's chances over Hunter Biden having the directorship of an energy company in Ukraine and Trump wanted that to be investigated and to be exposed. And when Zelensky was worried about this being tied to aid that had been agreed and passed by Congress, that is when a whistleblower in the White House pulled the plug on the call and Trump got indicted. That is where the bad blood stems from.

And also, you just have to see Trump with Putin. Trump is not a great poker player. He cannot help but give you exactly what he feels about any given person. We had the love for Kirstein yesterday and we had the cold antipathy that he feels towards Zelensky today. It is hard to think that Trump is a neutral player in any of this. He wants a peace and it seems that he wants it more on Vladimir Putin's terms than he does on the Ukrainians.

And that's the point John, right, is that no one could imagine, I certainly can't imagine Trump ever speaking to Putin like that, which is one of the reasons that that just happened, right? There is clear personal animus, as you say, and in some ways rightly so on Zelensky's part that you can understand. He is a democratically elected leader of a country which has seen more sorrow and heartbreak and political angst than any of us could imagine over the last three years.

And yet here he is basically being treated very bullishly, very aggressively by the incumbent president at a time when he is dovish towards an authoritarian leader, i.e. Vladimir Putin. So maybe this in some form or other was always going to happen. But I don't think that anyone quite anticipated that it would happen in a way that might leave that gulf irreparable.

And what a total nightmare for European leaders, for Kirstein in particular, who is enjoying one of his rare days of positive press coverage, who, as I say, less than eight hours after we spoke talking about it, already the advantage of it looks completely different. Look, we just don't know whether there is any way that diplomats will be able to get this back on board, whether there can be another meeting between Zelensky and Trump tomorrow, or whether Trump is playing golf, which is probably the more likely scenario. But in the absence of that, we're supposedly having this big summit this weekend in London with Zelensky due to attend. And Kirstein, as you say, is going to have to find the words that somehow keeps America sweet and somehow keeps the rest of Europe sweet. Because everything that we have been talking about for the past month, about the possibility that there is going to be a breach between America and the rest of Europe, and whether in the words of the man who's likely to be the new chancellor of Germany, Friedrich Merz, whether America can be trusted as a reliable ally, those questions are back in the sharpest focus that we have seen them following this debacle at the White House.

You see what the Kremlin said in one form or another, where I was talking about European leaders who have credited or sort of come to the assistance of Zelensky and defended him. One European leader or former leader who hasn't is Dmitry Medvedev, the former president of Russia in the brief period where Vladimir Putin kindly handed over power, albeit in a sort of Potemkin kind of way. Medvedev has tweeted, the insolent pig finally got a proper slap down in the Oval Office. And real Donald Trump is right. The Kiev regime is gambling with World War Three. I mean, that is ultimately the point right here, which is that if there was any doubt about whose side Donald Trump was on in this war, whether it was on Ukraine's side or Russia's side, maybe before today, you could still just about argue with some credibility, although I think not much, that he might be largely indifferent, if not maybe slightly towards Russia. I think there is absolutely no doubt. If this isn't repaired, which it feels as we're saying, it's difficult to see he's on Putin's side or will be throughout this war.

I was in the room in Helsinki when Trump and Putin had their news conference together and it couldn't have been more loving, more fawning, more respectful. It was Donald Trump with a guy who he clearly looked up to and that was not what we saw today. He looked down on Zelensky with utter contempt and this, the leader of a country that was invaded three years ago with brute force of the might of the Russian military machine coming in and it has been unrelenting and whatever else you might say about Zelensky, he has been brave, he has been forceful and he has tried to defend the idea of sovereign nations not being invaded by brutal allies and Donald Trump seems to have chosen a side.

And John, I think in a way, the last minute of that exchange, I think you're exactly right, is perhaps the most insightful about what really motivates Trump here. What was so telling in that, it wasn't just all the stuff that will get the headlines, it is as you say, when Trump starts to bring up Zelensky's kind of convoluted role in what happened back in 2019 and 20 when Trump was trying to ask him for material on Hunter Biden. The fact that Trump brings that up to his face, Maggie Haberman, the New York Times reporter saying tonight, you know, she spent endless amount of time with Trump saying that she has not seen him so angry for years. This is personal for Trump, right? And that is why he was spitting acid and bile, however, mistakenly, ridiculously seems to actually blame Zelensky for various things connected with what he thinks is the witch trial against himself and seems to view Russia as a kind of ally in that fight.

So for Trump, as with so many things, it feels so personal, and he's not going to let it go. And I just don't see how you put this back together. Humpty Dumpty has been smashed into a million small little pieces. And Trump doesn't seem interested. He wants the Nobel Peace Prize. We know that. We know that with absolute certainty. But he just wanted Zelensky to play along and say, okay, Russia can have whatever it likes. We'll take half your minerals and you won't complain at all about it. And Zelensky has said, sorry, no.

This is obviously a very moving story. Who knows what might have happened by the time that you're listening to this. As you can tell, we've done it on the hoof on a Friday night just because we thought that we wanted to get our instant reaction of this to you. It feels to me like a really big live question now is whether the White House itself even maybe make some hint that it thinks, you know, Zelensky should go. It's going to move. But this is our instant reaction and analysis. So forgive us if it is already seems even slightly out of date, but that is the nature of the Trump, the second Trump administration right now.

We will see you. I was going to say on Monday, but who knows? We'll see you when we see you. Bye bye. Bye.

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