Donald Trump acknowledged that his relationship with Volodymyr Zelenskyy had grown “a little bit testy” ahead of the Ukrainian president’s visit to the White House this week.
But that simmering stress in the connection between the two men erupted on Friday into a full-blown brawl in the Oval Office, reflecting the bad blood that Trump has harboured towards Zelenskyy for nearly six years.
The extraordinary diplomatic meltdown in Washington will raise new questions about Trump’s ability to broker peace talks with Russia — and will trigger fresh doubts about America’s commitment to guarantee security for its European allies.
But it has also exposed a level of personal animosity that dates back to their initial interactions during the US president’s first term, and has led Washington to call for new elections in Ukraine that could lead to Zelenskyy being ousted.
Trump’s disdain for the Ukrainian president has its roots in their first phone call in 2019, when he unsuccessfully pushed Zelenskyy to dig up dirt on Joe Biden’s son Hunter’s business dealings in the country.
Trump dubbed the conversation “perfect”, but it formed the basis of his first impeachment by the House of Representatives. After Russia’s full-blown invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with Biden in the White House, Trump emerged as a leading critic of Kyiv from the sidelines. JD Vance, who is now vice-president, made scepticism of aid to Ukraine a leitmotif of his own political rise, initially as an Ohio senator.
On Friday in the Oval Office, both Trump and Vance subjected Zelenskyy to a series of scathing, public rebukes and then forced him to leave the White House before even signing a deal to hand over a share of Ukraine’s natural resources that was key to paving the way for continued US support amid the peace talks with Russia.
Zelenskyy had tried to patch things up with Trump during the 2024 presidential campaign as it appeared increasingly likely that he would make a return to the White House, but some of his efforts backfired.
On one visit last year, Zelenskyy visited an arms factory in Scranton, Pennsylvania, only accompanied by Democrats during the tour of a key swing state. This triggered a protest from Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, who called it “election interference” at the time, with resentment over the visit finding its way into the White House on Friday.
“You went to Pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition in October. Offer some words of appreciation for the United States of America and the President who’s trying to save your country,” Vance jeered at Zelenskyy in one exchange in the Oval Office.
Trump piled on, blasting the Ukrainian for a lack of gratitude. “I gave you the javelins to take out all of those tanks. Obama gave you sheets . . . you gotta be more thankful.”
The exchange took place with television cameras rolling and top officials, including secretary of state Marco Rubio, sitting down and witnessing the spat.
Vance’s intervention was particularly striking — it is highly unusual for a vice-president to jump into a discussion so forcefully with a foreign leader in front of the president.
Jeffrey Engel, a presidential historian at Southern Methodist University, said the fact that Trump “sat quietly” while Vance argued with Zelenskyy suggests that he approved of the vice-president being the “attack dog” in the conversation. “It appeared to be quite orchestrated,” Engel added.
White House officials and Trump allies insist Zelenskyy triggered the spat by “disrespecting” the president during the discussion.
“I talked to Zelenskyy this morning . . . President Trump was in a very good mood last night,” Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina senator, told reporters after the meeting on Friday.
“Am I embarrassed about Trump? I have never been more proud of the President. I was very proud of JD Vance standing up for our country,” Graham added.
US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent, who had led negotiations on a US-Ukraine minerals deal that was left unsigned, told Bloomberg TV: “I was shocked, shocked that President Zelenskyy would come into the Oval Office and behave like this.”
Meanwhile, Dan Scavino, a top administration official, openly mocked Zelenskyy by posting the menu of the lunch with Trump that the Ukrainian delegation did not attend, saying that White House staff would eat it instead.
The scrap in the Oval Office has triggered outrage among many US allies in Europe. It will be especially disturbing to Emmanuel Macron, the French president, and Sir Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister, who both visited Trump this week in an effort to nudge him towards positions that would be more favourable for Kyiv — including US security guarantees for the country that Trump has batted away as unnecessary.
In the US Democrats blasted what they saw as a new low in Trump’s month-old, second-term foreign policy, accusing his administration of lurching towards Moscow and berating a partner in a way that would make even traditional conservatives shudder.
“Former President Ronald Reagan and the late Senator John McCain are rolling over in their graves”, said Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democratic senator.
