Bullying Donald Trump and JD Vance chose soap opera over diplomacy in bullying of Zelensky: Yorkshire Post Letters

If the people of Europe and the free world had a slight feeling of disquiet about the November re-election of Donald Trump as their supreme leader I suspect that, following the ‘diplomatic’ meeting in the Oval Office last Friday, their disquiet will now have turned to acute alarm.

For the past few weeks, since becoming President, Mr Trump has been rewriting history, seeking, it seems, to offer up his interpretation of the start of the Ukraine War, currently being fought at great human cost between (in his totally unbiased opinion!) Mr Putin, the saintly, wronged war hero and Mr/President Zelensky, the instigator, dictator and warmonger, who must, it seems, carry total responsibility for its outbreak.

Could this new take on history have come directly from the mouths of the Russian delegation as it met in a bilateral summit with the Americans to discuss Ukraine’s future (capitulation?) – or perhaps even from the saintly, wronged war hero himself?

In effect, what happened in the Oval Office, in front of the world’s press and a worldwide audience was that two loud mouthed bullies in the form of the US President and Vice-President set about their very public task of beating into submission one embattled and war-weary victim (apparently disrespectfully dressed so he deserved it!), with the sole intention of getting him to bow to their demands.

They had, after all, promised the world that they could end the Ukraine War in days so it was just another of the many deals to be done! President Zelensky struggled to be heard over the double onslaught of abuse directed towards him and yet, as he was quickly ejected from the White House following his public ‘shaming’, he was actually accused by the two bullies of being disrespectful towards them!

It is President Zelensky who deserves respect. He has shown himself to be a brave and diligent leader in what has clearly been three years of hell for himself and Ukraine. He could have fled; he had the option of a flight out of the country for himself and his family at the start of the war and chose to remain to lead the fight. He truly deserves better than to be publicly abused for trying to defend his people and his country.

President Trump seems to feel the need to make a televised soap opera of his role as President, desperate to demonstrate to a watching world his ability to wield power and deliver deals. Sadly, quiet diplomacy, out of the public eye, often so successful in the past at delivering compromise and agreement, has no place in the Trump White House.

President Zelensky, amongst his many other perceived ‘sins’, was accused by his abusers of ‘disrespecting’ the Oval Office.

Perhaps if Mr Trump could discover how to talk less and think more, he might realise that making a soap opera out of governing the greatest country in the free world is the most shameful disrespect of all.

Peter Rickaby, West Park, Selby.

Listening to Trump berating President Zelensky in the White House Oval Office, a stranger would have thought Ukraine started the war against Russia. President Putin watching on TV must have been consumed with laughter. Drinks all round in the Kremlin.