U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy meet in the Oval Office of the White House on February 28, 2025. (Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
“An utter embarrassment for America. This whole sad scene,” wrote U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy.
A White House meeting on Friday between U.S. President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rapidly devolved into chaos as the two American leaders took turns berating Zelenskyy with television cameras rolling and the global public looking on.
Both Trump and Vance bizarrely demanded that Zelenskyy show more gratitude for the military aid the U.S. has provided Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022 and pressured him to accept an as-yet-undefined deal to end the war.
Vance told Zelenskyy he must “say thank you” and chided him for “trying to fight it out in the American media when you’re wrong,” but Trump intervened to say, “I think it’s good for the American people to see what’s going on here… that’s why I kept this going so long.”
“You have to be thankful,” Trump told the Ukrainian president, who has repeatedly thanked the American public for the U.S. government’s military assistance.
“You don’t have the cards,” Trump continued as Zelenskyy tried in vain to interject. “You’re buried there, your people are dying, you’re running low on soldiers.”
"You've gotta be more thankful" — remarkable scenes out of the White House as Trump and JD Vance team up to do Putin's bidding and demean Zelenskyy pic.twitter.com/wjp8UfqN0G
Insisting that Russian President Vladimir Putin can’t be trusted to uphold a bilateral cease-fire, Zelenskyy is demanding security guarantees against a future Russian attack in any agreement to end the conflict—a demand that Trump has thus far rejected.
“Your country is in big trouble,” Trump, who falsely suggested last week that Ukraine started the war, told Zelenskyy during the Oval Office meeting, which was meant to kick off talks regarding U.S. access Ukraine’s rare earth minerals.
Zelenskyy left the White House on Friday without signing a minerals deal.
“You’re either going to make a deal or we’re out,” Trump told Zelenskyy during Friday’s meeting, a clear threat to withdraw U.S. support for Ukraine. “And if we’re out, you’ll fight it out and I don’t think it’s going to be pretty.”
Trump to Zelensky: "Your country is in big trouble. No, no, you've done a lot of talking. Your country is in big trouble. You're not winning this." pic.twitter.com/SDmKGXMgNl
Observers were aghast at Trump and Vance’s conduct during Friday’s meeting, which was likened to an ambush. At one point, as Trump responded dismissively to Zelenskyy’s call for security guarantees as part of any cease-fire deal, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States was seen with her head in her hands.
“Wow. Just wow,” said CNN‘s Dana Bash following the meeting.
Zeteo‘s Mehdi Hasan wrote on social media that it is “insane that this just happened.”
“We are governed by children,” he added.
Watch the full exchange:
WATCH: Full Heated Exchange between President Trump, Vice President Vance and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy in the Oval Office. pic.twitter.com/oMJUGPqbSU
U.S. lawmakers also voiced disgust over Trump and Vance’s behavior, with Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) writing that the meeting was “an utter embarrassment for America.”
Shortly after the meeting concluded, Trump took to his social media platform to accuse Zelenskyy of disrespecting the U.S. “in its cherished Oval Office.”
“He can come back when he is ready for peace,” Trump added as backlash over his treatment of Zelenskyy continued to pour in.
“Trump berates Zelensky, the leader of a democratic country courageously fighting Russian imperialism, while he allies himself with Putin, a dictator who started the bloodiest European war in 80 years,” U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote on social media.
“Sorry, President Trump,” Sanders added. “We believe in democracy, not authoritarianism.”
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte meets with US Vice President JD Vance. Source: NATO/Flickr
Statements by US Vice President Vance and Defense Secretary Hegseth on the Ukraine war and transatlantic relations have left European leaders in shock
“If American democracy can survive ten years of Greta Thunberg’s scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk,” US Vice President JD Vance told European leaders at last week’s Munich Security Conference. His remarks came during a draining week for those leaders, as Trump officials announced peace talks with Russian authorities—without European or Ukrainian involvement—while signaling they expect Europe to handle peacekeeping and being paid for their support in minerals from Ukraine.
Speeches by Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth threw European leaders into disarray, seen as not-so-subtle indications of a cooling in transatlantic relations. These interventions attacked everything from the EU’s efforts to regulate social media platforms to its approach to far-right parties in parliamentary life. In response, French President Emmanuel Macron called for an emergency summit of select regional powers on Monday, February 17 – just a day before US and Russian representatives are expected to meet in Saudi Arabia.
While Ukrainian officials and some European leaders have insisted they will not accept any deal that excludes Ukraine’s direct involvement, their stance appears to carry little weight.
At the same time, the new US administration has increased pressure on its European allies, demanding a ramping up of their defense budgets and taking on the responsibility of a potential peacekeeping mission in Ukraine. This comes as no surprise: a number of US officials, including Donald Trump himself, have said Europe does not contribute enough to NATO and essentially freeloads off the US. Vance’s speech in Munich only reaffirmed this stance, ultimately reducing high-ranking figures to tears over the apparent breakup between allies.
While the focus of European reactions to recent US statements has been on Ukraine, many leaders have admitted that more is at stake. “Yes, it is about Ukraine – but it is also about us,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote on X. Unfortunately, the conclusion she drew going further is upsetting: “We need an urgency mindset. We need a surge in defense. And we need both of them now.”
Unlike healthcare, education, or social programs—sectors where European governments are consistently told their budgets must remain limited—military spending is expected to face no such barriers. Many European countries have already embraced the shift, with Polish officials, for example, boasting about spending close to 5% of their GDP on defense and warning of looming “wider wars” to convince other states in the region to do the same.
Despite the apparent fracture in US-Europe relations, European leaders have shown no inclination to rethink their dependence on Washington. Instead, most have done exactly what the Trump presidency wants them to do and swiftly pledged to increase military spending. Some have even already expressed willingness to deploy troops for peacekeeping in Ukraine. What remains absent from their reactions is any consideration of a future less dictated by US interests and more aligned with the needs of the people living in Europe.
Since the beginning of the war three years ago, activists have urged Europe to reject NATO’s warmongering and prioritize peace in Ukraine alongside social justice at home. Instead, the coming surge in military budgets will almost certainly coincide with cuts to public services, further fueling the rise of the far-right—a political force that Trump officials, including Vance and Elon Musk, have (more or less) openly backed during interventions in Europe. From this perspective, unlike the conservative circles who “survived ten years of ’s scolding,” Europe’s liberal elite is unlikely to emerge from its current crisis unscathed. Whether their refusal to acknowledge the failure of their anti-people policies will push the entire region into the hands of parties like Brothers of Italy and Alternative for Germany remains to be seen.
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U.S. Vice President JD Vance speaks at the Munich Security Conference on February 14, 2025. (Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
Rebuking the U.S. vice president, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that “a commitment to ‘never again’ is not reconcilable with support for the AfD.”
U.S. Vice President JD Vance faced growing backlash on Saturday after scolding the European political establishment for shunning far-right parties and subsequently meeting with the leader of the neo-Nazi Alternative for Germany, just a week ahead of the country’s general election.
While Vance did not explicitly mention Alternative for Germany, or AfD, during his remarks Friday at the Munich Security Conference, he declared that “there is no room for firewalls”—a reference to mainstream German political parties’ refusal to work with AfD or include it in governing coalitions.
The Guardianreported that “a whisper of ‘Jesus Christ’ and the squirming in chairs could be heard in an overflow room” during the U.S. vice president’s remarks, which he delivered a week after hundreds of thousands took to the streets of Munich to protest far-right extremism.
Following his speech, Vance met with AfD leader Alice Weidel, who praised the vice president’s Munich address as “excellent” in a post on X—a social media platform owned by billionaire Elon Musk, who has also expressed support for AfD as he works to dismantle agencies throughout the U.S. government.
Reutersreported that Weidel—whose grandfather was a Nazi judge appointed directly by Adolf Hitler—met with Vance at his hotel “for about 30 minutes and discussed the Ukraine war, German domestic policy, and freedom of speech.”
On Saturday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz rebuked Vance and said that “we will not accept outsiders intervening in our democracy,” even “friends and allies.”
“Never again fascism, never again racism, never again aggressive war,” Scholz said in his speech at the Munich Security Conference. “That is why an overwhelming majority in our country opposes anyone who glorifies or justifies criminal National Socialism.”
“A commitment to ‘never again’ is not reconcilable with support for the AfD,” said Scholz.
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Protesters rally against U.S. President Donald Trump and Elon Musk outside the Michigan Capitol in Lansing, Michigan on February 5, 2025. (Photo: Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images)
“We are in the midst of a constitutional crisis right now,” said one legal expert. “We never have seen anything like this.”
The Trump administration’s defiance of court orders that threaten to hamper the president and unelected billionaire Elon Musk’s assault on federal agencies and basic rights has legal experts and other observers warning of a perilous new phase in the United States’ rolling constitutional crisis.
On Monday, the Revolving Door Project (RDP) launched an effort to track the Trump administration’s refusal to comply with orders from the federal judiciary and detail the impact that obstinance is having across the country.
The watchdog group pointed to several specific examples, including the Environmental Protection Agency’s refusal to “disperse already-awarded grants funded by the Inflation Reduction Act, in apparent defiance of” federal judges’ orders against the Trump administration’s sweeping funding freeze.
“NOTHING is more important than civil society pressuring judges to have a spine in the face of Musk and Trump’s intransigence,” Jeff Hauser, RDP’s executive director, wrote on social media late Monday. “Judicial orders must be enforced!”
Journalists Judd Legum and Noel Sims highlighted another example on Tuesday, noting that the administration is “prohibiting National Institutes of Health (NIH) staff from issuing virtually all grant funding” despite two federal court injunctions against the freeze.
David Super, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, told Legum and Sims that the Trump administration is “in contempt of court,” calling the continued freeze on NIH grants “completely unlawful.”
“The administration cannot choose which law it will follow or ignore. These are not partisan or political issues. These are rule of law and process issues. We cannot afford to remain silent.”
Super is among a growing number of legal experts sounding the alarm about the nation’s descent into a full-blown constitutional emergency.
“We are in the midst of a constitutional crisis right now,” Erwin Chemerinsky, a constitutional law expert and dean of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, told The New York Times late last week. “There have been so many unconstitutional and illegal actions in the first 18 days of the Trump presidency. We never have seen anything like this.”
“Systematic unconstitutional and illegal acts create a constitutional crisis,” Chemerinsky added.
Both President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance have levied criticism at the federal judiciary in recent days as it has put up roadblocks that have hindered the new administration’s ability to lawlessly impose its will.
“Certain activists and highly political judges want us to slow down, or stop,” Trump wrote in a social media post early Tuesday, just days after Musk floated allowing “elected bodies” to terminate “the worst 1% of appointed judges.”
In a statement on Monday, American Bar Association (ABA) president William Bay noted that “in the last 21 days, more than a dozen lawsuits have been filed alleging that the administration’s actions violate the rule of law and are contrary to the Constitution or laws of the United States.”
“The administration cannot choose which law it will follow or ignore,” said Bay. “These are not partisan or political issues. These are rule of law and process issues. We cannot afford to remain silent. We must stand up for the values we hold dear. The ABA will do its part and act to protect the rule of law.”
“We urge every attorney to join us and insist that our government, a government of the people, follow the law,” he added. “It is part of the oath we took when we became lawyers. Whatever your political party or your views, change must be made in the right way. Americans expect no less.”
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Vice president elect JD Vance and Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch. Credit: JD Vance / X
The Conservative leader, who attacked “radical green absolutism” in a Washington DC speech, recently met with a host of influential anti-climate figures.
Speaking to an audience in Washington DC last week, Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch declared that the conservative desire to “protect the natural world” had been “hacked, replaced by a radical green absolutism”.
“Looking after our planet became an exclusive discussion about net zero and reducing emissions, and alongside it the growth of activist government to regulate it,” she said.
Badenoch was giving the keynote speech at the centre-right International Democracy Union (IDU) Forum on 5 December. According to her team, she was in the U.S. to build ties with the Republican Party following the election of Donald Trump as the next president.
In keeping with her speech, the new friends that Badenoch spent time with during the trip – vice president elect JD Vance, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, and Canadian Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre – have spread climate science denial and received funding from the fossil fuel industry.
Badenoch describes herself as a “net zero sceptic” and has suggested that the UK’s 2050 target for achieving net zero emissions would “bankrupt the country”. As DeSmog has reported, her political advisors have attacked the UK’s climate goals, and her campaign for Tory leader was backed by Neil Record, chair of Net Zero Watch, an arm of the Global Warming Policy Foundation climate denial group.
Her ministers Priti Patel and Robert Jenrick have ties to the Heritage Foundation, the U.S. think tank behind the Project 2025 blueprint for a second Trump term, which proposes the rollback of climate policies and environmental protections.
Here’s what you need to know about Badenoch’s new anti-green allies.
JD Vance
Badenoch reportedly had an hour-long dinner with vice president elect JD Vance, during which they “renewed their friendship”.
Vance has a history of dismissing human-caused climate change. In 2021, he told the American Leadership Forum, a U.S. Christian group: “I’m skeptical of the idea that climate change is caused purely by man”. He added: “It’s been changing, as others pointed out, it’s been changing for millennia.”
During this year’s U.S. presidential election, Vance repeatedly attacked the Biden administration’s climate policies as “the Green new scam”.
Former venture capitalist Vance received a total of $352,000 (around £276,000) from the fossil fuel industry between 2019 and 2024, according to campaign finance database OpenSecrets.
Ron DeSantis
The Tory leader also met with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who ran to be the Republican nominee for president this year.
DeSantis, who endorsed Badenoch to be Conservative leader, has described climate change as a “religion” and has passed laws to curb action to tackle it.
In October, when asked about the role of climate change in two hurricanes off the Florida Gulf Coast, DeSantis said: “I don’t subscribe to your religion.”
Hurricanes are fuelled by warmer waters, meaning that more devastating hurricanes are directly linked to rising temperatures. Consequently, as the Florida Climate Center has pointed out: “A larger proportion of storms have reached major hurricane strength in recent years, along with an increase in rapid intensification events.”
DeSantis went on to defend the continued extraction of fossil fuels, saying climate action would involve: “Taxing [people] to smithereens, stopping oil and gas, making people pay dramatically more for energy; we would collapse as a country.”
Earlier this year, DeSantis signed a bill into law that would delete references to climate change from all state legislation. In May he posted on X in support of the bill: “Florida rejects the designs of the left to weaken our energy grid [and] pursue a radical climate agenda”.
Mike Johnson
Badenoch also reportedly met with Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives.
In 2017, Johnson told a public meeting with constituents: “I am not a big proponent of the climate change data because I have seen data on the other side.”
He added: “The climate is changing, but the question is, is climate changing because of natural cycles in the atmosphere over the span of history, or is it changing because we drive SUVs? I don’t believe in the latter. I don’t think that’s the primary driver.”
In reality, authors working for the world’s foremost climate science body, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), have said that “it is a statement of fact, we cannot be any more certain; it is unequivocal and indisputable that humans are warming the planet”.
The IPCC has also stated that carbon dioxide “is responsible for most of global warming” since the late 19th century, which has increased the “severity and frequency of weather and climate extremes, like heat waves, heavy rains, and drought” – all of which “will put a disproportionate burden on low-income households and thus increase poverty levels.”
Johnson has repeatedly voted against action to tackle rising temperatures, including laws that would require oil and gas companies to disclose the climate risks of their activities, while supporting cuts to the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
He has also received around $240,000 (more than £118,000) in campaign donations from the oil and gas industry, according to OpenSecrets.
Pierre Poilievre
Badenoch’s North American trip also saw her visit Toronto, where she met with Pierre Poilievre, leader of the Canadian Conservative Party.
Declaring that conservative leaders in Canada and the UK were “uniting over shared values”, Badenoch posted on X calling Poilievre “an impressive and thoughtful figure” and “a new friend and ally”.
As DeSmog reported in March, Poilievre has voted against climate and environmental legislation nearly 400 times during his parliamentary career.
Poilievre has also campaigned against a carbon tax in Canada, and has supported Canadian oil and gas extraction, calling it “the most ethical and environmentally sound in the world”.
The Free Press
Badenoch also recorded a podcast with The Free Press, a conservative platform which has published attacks on climate science and action.
In 2022, it ran an article by climate crisis denier Michael Shellenberger arguing that the West’s “green delusions”, and its attempts to transition away from fossil fuels, had “empowered” Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin.
In September 2023, the platform published an article by U.S. scientist Patrick Brown, who heads a climate unit at Shellenberger’s Breakthrough Institute, claiming he had been pressured by Nature magazine to make a paper on wildfires fit a climate change “narrative” – claims rejected by the magazine and other scientists.
