BACKGROUND
1)”Marc A. Thiessen, “Zelensky must mend the breach with Trump — or resign; Zelensky’s stubbornness has badly hurt Ukraine,” Washington Post, March 2, 2025 (6:07 p.m. ET);
2)Minho Kim, “Rubio Attacks Zelensky, Firmly Defending Trump and Vance; Facing a wave of criticism from his former Senate colleagues, Secretary of State Marco Rubio backed the complaints lobbed by President Trump and Vice President JD Vance against Ukraine’s leader,” New York Times, March 2, 2025 (Updated 2:43 p.m. ET);
Marc A. Thiessen, a right-wing columnist who can be reliably counted on to shill for Donald Trump and the Republicans, though he occasionally come up with a balanced opinion, is a strong contender for First Place in this week’s “the Best of the Worst” contest.
After the brutal assault on Ukraian President Wolodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office on Friday, February 28, 2025, by Vice-President J.D. Vance and President Donald Trump, in which they heaped massive “disrespect” on the elected President of Ukraine charging him with disrespecting the President and the Oval Office, Thiessen has offered up an op-ed opinion which almost as shameful and sickening as the blow-up which is the subject of the column.
Who disrespected who, Mr. Thiessen?
Thiessen wrote:
The blowup was Zelensky’s fault. To understand why, one needs to watch the entire 50-minute meeting unfold. Trump greeted Zelensky graciously, praising the courage and resilience of the Ukrainian people, and dismissed their earlier rift as “a little negotiations spat.”
Even after Zelensky refused a White House request to wear a suit, Trump praised his outfit, saying, “I think he’s dressed beautifully.” Trump extolled the minerals deal they had reached and said, “We look forward to getting in and digging, digging, digging.” He publicly pledged to continue military aid to Ukraine and even held out the possibility that he “could conceivably” commit U.S. troops alongside British and French troops to provide security after a peace deal was reached.
This should have been music to Zelensky’s ears. He should have taken the win. Instead, about 24 minutes in — long before his terse exchange with Vice President JD Vance — Zelensky started criticizing Trump in front of the assembled reporters.
Zelensky’s intervention was reckless and unnecessary. He was in Washington to heal a breach that began with his public suggestion that Trump was living in a Russian “disinformation space” — a suggestion that prompted Trump to lash out and call Zelensky a “dictator without elections.” Why would he do it again? You could see Trump’s demeanor stiffening with every public contradiction from Zelenski.
So, according to Thiessen, Zelensky was at fault because he provoked the blow-up by speaking forthrightly about the history of the Russian aggression against his country, and the failure of diplomacy to stop Putin’s war aimed at the elimination of Ukraine.
Moreover, he dared to refer to the facts, which Vance took to be the ultimate offense of criticizing the Kin in the presence of the King–the ultimate expression of lèse majesté.
Not to be outdone by Thiessen, Secretary of State Marco Rubio debased himself by doubling down on J.D. Vance’s and Donald Trump’s shameful attack on Zelensky. If the U.S. doesn not become a completely fascist state, if the Republican Party is ever recaptured by non pro-Russian Republicans, Rubio’s Sunday morning TV appearance may foreclose any ambitions tge Secretary of State may have for higher office.
Trump us a grand master of the art of inciting supporters to debase themselves in a career-ending manner.
On ABC’s Sunday Morning” talk shiw, Rubio asserted:
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday fiercely defended President Trump’s sharp turn against Ukraine’s leader, accusing President Volodymyr Zelensky of trying to derail the peace process with Russia by openly challenging Mr. Trump and Vice President JD Vance in a heated televised exchange from the Oval Office.
“What Zelensky did, unfortunately, is that he found every opportunity to try to ‘Ukraine-splain’ on every issue,” Mr. Rubio said on ABC’s “This Week.” “Then he confronts the vice president.”
Mr. Rubio was in the Oval Office when Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance launched a public attack on Mr. Zelensky on Friday after the Ukrainian president, seeking to underscore Ukraine’s need for U.S. security guarantees in any cease-fire agreement with Russia, began running through Russia’s repeated aggressions on his country since 2014.
Mr. Vance interrupted, characterizing Mr. Zelensky’s efforts to elaborate the Ukrainian perspective in front of reporters and television cameras as “disrespectful” and scolding him for not being sufficiently grateful for U.S. support. Mr. Trump, his voice raised, then accused Mr. Zelensky of “gambling with World War III.”