Vice President JD Vance implored Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to listen to the United States’s stance surrounding the Russia-Ukraine war, saying he needs to respect President Donald Trump as “the only game in town.”
In an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity, Vance gave his perspective on Friday’s contentious Oval Office meeting that upended U.S.-Ukraine relations.
THE TRUMP-ZELENSKY MEETING EXPLAINED
“For the first 25 or 30 minutes, [Trump] tried to bend over backwards to be gracious and kind to Zelensky, even when he was needling him and saying things that I thought were untrue,” Vance said of the Ukrainian leader. “The president tried to be diplomatic. That’s his natural instinct in that situation. Then when it really went off the rails is when … a Polish journalist had asked a question. … Something about my answer set [Zelensky] off.”
“He came at me, and then I went back at him, and what I tried to do originally was try to defuse the situation a little bit,” Vance continued, saying that Zelensky’s apparent insistence that they have the conversation publicly was viewed as a “lack of respect, a sense of entitlement.”
“I really don’t care what [Zelensky] says about me or anybody else, but he showed a clear unwillingness to engage in the peace process that President Trump has said is the policy of the American people and of their president,” Vance added.
The vice president said he believes Zelensky will have to come to the table eventually, as “he has to.”
After Hannity brought up Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) about-face on the conflict, going from a major backer of Zelensky to an opponent, Vance said it illustrated a wider point.
“Once you’ve lost Lindsey Graham, that means you need to come to the negotiating table and recognize Donald Trump is the only game in town,” he said.
“He’s the only person who I think has a meaningful plan to save that country,” Vance added, saying that Europe can’t fund or supply the Ukrainians to anywhere near the extent the U.S. can.
Vance then accused European leaders of being unrealistic and claimed that many who had publicly said they’re with Ukraine as long as it takes have told him in private that it “can’t go on forever.”
Friday’s Oval Office spat has not only ruptured U.S. relations with Ukraine, but strained the U.S.’s relations with European allies as well, to an extent not seen in recent history. The European Union’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, even suggested that the “free world needs a new leader.”
Leaders from nearly every EU head of state voiced support for Zelensky on Friday, implicitly siding against the U.S. in the process. Zelensky thanked at least 38 heads of state, former heads of state, bureaucrats, ministers, and other officials from 26 countries, quoting their statements of support.
Zelensky thanked officials from Poland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Estonia, Finland, Slovakia, Latvia, Norway, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Belgium, Ireland, Austria, Denmark, Romania, Croatia, Luxembourg, France, Portugal, Sweden, Germany, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Moldova, Montenegro, and Spain. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico sided with Trump and the U.S.
TRUMP ORDERS HALT ON US MILITARY AID TO UKRAINE
Despite European leaders’ strong statements of support, their reliance on the U.S. was illustrated nakedly on Sunday, when a conference between Zelensky and European leaders in London ended in the leaders insisting that any security guarantee needed American backing, which Trump indicated was off the table.
The breakdown in U.S.-Ukraine relations escalated on Tuesday when Trump halted all further shipments of military aid to Ukraine.
