Transcript of Fareed on how Zelensky should've handled Trump

The strangest aspect of the last few weeks of American diplomacy that culminated in the disaster at the White House on Friday is that the President of the United States has seemed utterly unwilling to say plainly that he supports the victim of aggression against the aggressor and that he admires Ukrainian democracy more than Russian dictatorship. Instead, he and Vice President Vance spent Friday's photo up at the White House publicly scolding Ukraine's President, Zelensky, telling him to say thank you, which he has said repeatedly, and accusing him of being disrespectful. Zelensky's fault was simply to point out that Ukraine had, in fact, signed a ceasefire deal with Putin in 2015 in Minsky, but that Putin had continually violated it ever since then. Trump used the occasion to remind all that he felt a special bond with Vladimir Putin. Zelensky did not handle himself well. He got emotional, responded too often, and took the bait that Vice President Vance laid for him. He should have studied how President Macron and Prime Minister Starmer handled Trump. Constant flattery and deference. Churchill said of his relationship with his American counterpart, No lover ever studied every whim of his mistress, as I did those of Franklin Roosevelt.

But he's a man leading a nation at war that has lost tens of thousands of people. He is fighting for his very survival, and he and his nation are fighting for the values of freedom and democracy that America has supported since its founding, against a rapacious dictatorship, in this case, that actively seeks to undermine the United States, its interests, and its allies at every turn. It shouldn't be hard to figure out where your sympathies lie.