Veteran newsman Dan Rather described his reaction to the fiasco in the Oval Office, when Trump and Vance berated our ally, Volodymyr Zelensky, while praising Vladimir Putin.
You must watch the video of the encounter, which is linked at the end. I cringed as I watched. Trump and Vance bullied Zelensky. They pounded him with attacks and questions but never let him respond.
When you watch it, you see that they came into the meeting intending to humiliate Zelensky.
Trump even talked about how Putin had suffered alongside him because of the allegations that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. A bipartisan Senate committee, led by Republicans, concluded that Putin did interfere in that election, specifically to help Trump.
Here is Dan Rather:
We try not to react to every White House event involving the new president, as we like to take a little time to digest what has happened and provide thoughtful analysis. But there’s not much to analyze about the president’s shocking behavior on Friday.
It was a new low for American diplomacy in my lifetime. There are few words that are family-friendly enough to describe what happened. Embarrassing. Horrifying. Mortifying.
People who witnessed or have watched Trump and JD Vance’s behavior toward a visiting head of state have said it made them everything from appalled to nauseous.
Here’s what happened: Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was scheduled to meet with Trump and Vance at the White House before a joint news conference and then a signing ceremony for a minerals-for-money deal. It never got past a one-sided shouting match in the Oval Office.
In what looked like a rehearsed and choreographed tag-team effort, Trump berated and lectured Zelenskyy while Vance egged him on. In front of cameras, Trump harangued Zelenskyy for supposedly not being grateful for U.S. aid and not acceding to American demands to end the war.
According to CNN’s fact checkers, Zelenskyy has thanked presidents Biden and Trump, and the American people, 33 times since the war began three years ago.
The whole thing today appeared to be a setup, a trap sprung on a wounded ally. Whatever it was, it will remain, through history, a stain on America’s reputation.
This reporter has covered hundreds of photo opportunities in the Oval Office over many administrations. Such are almost always dignified occasions. Today this tradition was sullied for the benefit of the MAGA faithful and the Kremlin.
Peter Baker of The New York Times described the meeting in shocked terms. “I have covered the White House since 1996. There has never been an Oval Office meeting in front of cameras like this one in all that time. Never has an American president lectured the leader of an ally in public like this, much less a leader that is fighting off invaders.”
If the point was for Trump’s friends in Russia to see his performance, message received. Cheers erupted in Moscow. A former Russian president praised Trump for his treatment of Zelenskyy.
At one point, Trump openly threatened the Ukrainian president. “You’re either going to make a deal or you’re out,” Trump yelled. A short time later, Zelenskyy left the White House.
The absurdity of the moment concluded with Trump, a former reality TV actor, saying, “This is going to make great television.”
To think the world’s security rests on this man’s judgment.
Even if you’ve seen the exchange or pieces of it, you may want to watch it again. And ponder anew what kind of country we are becoming.
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/v_kTNIYsFnQ?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0
Diane Ravitch's blog 
❝It will make good TV❞
The 2-bit actor tells his whole motivation …
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Absolutely, Jon. I just went back to find the wording of that TV comment.
Talk about obscene.
Here’s Ukraine fighting for its life….innocent children being killed
And, our wanna be leader of the NOT free world jokes about creating “great TV”.
Talk about a metaphor for so much of what is wrong with the United States.
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If you listen closely to the White House exchange, at one point, Zelinsky was trying to tell Trump and the second-hand blank slate on the other couch that they were going to regret having sided with Putin, . . . I took that as Zelinsky warning him, because Z knows how Putin works, which everyone in the world also knows.
But Trump took it as a great insult, as if Zelinsky were directing Trump how to feel about it–you don’t tell US what to think . . . you don’t hold any cards, . . . betraying a brute-power view that cannot even think in terms of someone talking about what might occur beyond what one’s wants, and rather as a reasonable prediction, in this case from Z, who knows the past and now-present situation, and so it was a cautionary comment and a reminder aimed at helping US and Trump to not act without that caution, if you see what I mean.
But not for Trump, who cannot see past a competition of egos–a ME against YOU attitude that cannot think of truth that stands on its own according to the evidence. Besides having a gutter for a brain, Trump holds a sharpie through which he writes the world and others according not to truth but to his own reductionist desires and fears. The result on the larger scale that Trump occupies is a deranged political tribalism. CBK
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Rather is on the right track. But Democrats need to exploit this political ammunition. Dense Americans do not respond to subtlety. So many in this country are “concrete learners.” Democrats need to be blunt and incisive. They should use the GOP demagoguery tool against them. They should start calling the GOP Russian sympathizers and portray them and their podcast “bros” as anti-American. They should repeat this message at every opportunity in the media. Trump has a long motley and questionable history with Russia. There is more than enough fuel to light a backlash fire. All Democrats need is the guts to do it and a “mouthpiece” like Rahm Emanuel to start it. This is a moment when Democrats could beat the GOP at their own game in the court of public opinion.
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Peter Baker is one of the absolutely WORST reporters at the NYT.
“Peter Baker of The New York Times described the meeting in shocked terms. “I have covered the White House since 1996. There has never been an Oval Office meeting in front of cameras like this one in all that time. Never has an American president lectured the leader of an ally in public like this, much less a leader that is fighting off invaders.”
Peter Baker tells the public that Trump LECTURED an ally in public – and he was very shocked that Trump “lectured” in public and not private.
What Trump did at that meeting was NOT Trump “lecturing”, Mr. Baker. Why is it that NYT reporters like Peter Baker are so embarrassingly sycophantic that he would use the same words that Fox News and News Max would happily agree very “accurately” describes what Trump did?
Is there anyone on the far right who would object to Peter Baker’s “accurately” reporting that Trump “lectured” Zelensky? What’s the big deal that Trump was “lecturing” Zelensky to instruct him about the facts or “lecturing” him to correct Zelensky’s bad behavior?
Peter Baker is shocked, shocked that Trump would “lecture” Zelensky in public instead of “lecturing” him in private. Peter Baker is not shocked that Trump spewed nonsense, lies and Putin propaganda because as far as Peter Baker witnessed, THAT DID NOT HAPPEN. It was “lecturing”, a perfectly innocuous term.
Baker’s comment uses the right wing framing of what happened: “Trump lectured Zelensky in public – is that good or bad that Trump lectured Zelensky in public or should Trump have lectured Zelensky in private?”. Now that Peter Baker has reported what is “newsworthy” in his eyes – that Trump “lectured” in public and not private – NYT will now ask Trump voters in a diner to weigh in on the issue that NYT believes is of vital importance – should Trump – in order to achieve what the NYT refers to as a “peace deal” – lecture Zelensky in public or private? Wow, how shocking that Trump voters at a diner are not bothered by Trump lecturing Zelensky in public instead of private in pursuit of what the NYT always describes as a “peace deal” that is Trump’s worthy goal.
And one wonders why our democracy is failing, when our liberal newspapers are embracing the most Orwellian language to intentionally misinform the public about the extreme danger our democracy is in.
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Musk wore a T-shirt, pea coat, and baseball cap to Trump’s Cabinet meeting, and CS Vance (the “C” stands for “Chicken”, and you know what the “S” stands for), didn’t dare accuse Musk of being “disrespectful”.
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