It went well enough for the first 23 minutes, a polite if stiff meeting between an American president and a foreign leader. Then their differences started to be aired, unmistakably though not too contentiously. Then after 39 minutes, it really came off the rails.
The verbal brawl in the Oval Office on Friday between President Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine startled Washington, unnerved Europe, outraged Kyiv and delighted Moscow. By the end, the Ukrainian ambassador to Washington had her head in her hands in dismay.
But what really seemed to get under Mr. Trump’s skin during the discussion-turned-donnybrook were Mr. Zelensky’s harsh words about President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Mr. Trump, who had nothing but good things to say about the master of the Kremlin, seemed offended on his behalf and scolded Mr. Zelensky for hostility toward the man who had invaded his country.
“He hates us,” Mr. Zelensky told Mr. Trump, trying to explain that Mr. Putin was the aggressor, not the victim. “It’s not about me. He hates Ukrainians. He thinks we are not a nation.” While Mr. Trump last week falsely said that Ukraine “started” the war, Mr. Zelensky made clear that the president had that exactly wrong. “Putin began this war,” the Ukrainian leader said.
Mr. Trump did not concur, and proceeded to chide Mr. Zelensky for being mean. “It’s wonderful to speak badly about somebody else,” said Mr. Trump, scorn in his voice, “but I want to get it solved.”
Mr. Trump, who has been known to speak badly about plenty of somebody-elses, including Mr. Zelensky, whom he called a “dictator” just last week, offered no sympathy for the Ukrainian view.
“This is not a love match,” he said, making clear he considered Mr. Zelensky to blame. “This is why you’re in this situation.”
A few moments later, Mr. Zelensky again cited Mr. Putin’s role in the war and suggested that Mr. Trump was listening to the Russian leader too much. In response to Mr. Trump’s comment that Ukrainian cities were destroyed, Mr. Zelensky said no, they had survived despite Russian bombardment.
“Maybe it’s Putin who’s sharing this disinformation that he destroyed us,” Mr. Zelensky said.
Mr. Trump came to Mr. Putin’s defense. “He had to suffer through the Russia hoax,” he said, referring to the investigation during his first term into Russian interference on Mr. Trump’s behalf during the 2016 election. “I think that he wants to make a deal and he’d like to see an end.”
In fact, the investigation by the special counsel Robert S. Mueller III was no hoax and concluded definitively that Mr. Putin ordered an intelligence operation to tilt the election eight years ago to Mr. Trump. Although Mr. Mueller said in his final report in 2019 that “the evidence was not sufficient to support criminal charges,” he made clear that Mr. Trump’s campaign benefited from Russian assistance.
The Oval Office meeting on Friday soon degenerated into a virtual showdown as Vice President JD Vance dispensed with any formalities and accused Mr. Zelensky of being “disrespectful” by offering the Ukrainian view of the war and what would be required for peace in the Oval Office with news cameras present. From there, Mr. Vance and Mr. Trump pummeled Mr. Zelensky for being insufficiently grateful, while he tried to get a word in.
Never in the past few decades at least has a president engaged in such an angry, scathing attack on a visiting foreign leader in the Oval Office. Their argument culminated with a threat that if Mr. Zelensky did not accept whatever peace deal Mr. Trump brokered with Russia, the United States would abandon Ukraine. The fracas led Mr. Trump to kick Mr. Zelensky out of the White House. The schism upended plans to sign a deal giving the United States rights to Ukrainian rare minerals, a concession Mr. Trump had demanded as payback for help with the war.
Mr. Trump often exhibits anger in public in ways other presidents have rarely done, particularly at rallies or in interviews. Just the other day, he snapped at the governor of Maine about transgender athletes. But he has never appeared so enraged and combative with a foreign visitor, especially a putative ally in the middle of a war for his country’s survival.
The closest analogy might be a few meetings he had with congressional Democrats during his first term when he quarreled with Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker at the time, and Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic majority leader. At one of them, in fact, Ms. Pelosi famously stood, pointed a finger at him and snapped, “All roads with you lead to Putin.”
Even so, that meeting was not on camera and those sessions never blew up quite like this one did, especially with so much at stake.
To be sure, Mr. Zelensky is not always a suave diplomatic player. He often irritated President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his team, who similarly chafed that the Ukrainian kept pushing them for more weapons without being grateful enough in their view for what they had done.
Mr. Zelensky does not have the defer-and-flatter gene that leads counterparts like President Emmanuel Macron of France and Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain to play to the volatile Mr. Trump’s ego and minimize their differences, as both did at the White House in separate meetings this week. Mr. Zelensky, leading a country that has been under attack for 11 years, even before the 2022 full-scale invasion, has little patience or instinct for diplomatic niceties.
But what was particularly striking in their exchange was how much Mr. Trump seemed insulted on Mr. Putin’s behalf. He has long been an open admirer of Mr. Putin and has rarely offered any criticism of his own. Just this week, he called Mr. Putin “smart” and “cunning,” and declined to call him a dictator even after calling Mr. Zelensky that.
“You want me to say really terrible things about Putin and then say, ‘Hi, Vladimir, how are we doing on the deal?’” Mr. Trump told Mr. Zelensky on Friday. “It doesn’t work that way.”
He did not explain why it was OK to say terrible things to Mr. Zelensky while pursuing a deal. Instead, he portrayed the Ukrainian leader as unreasonably distrustful of Mr. Putin, who has broken multiple agreements guaranteeing Ukrainian sovereignty and calling for cease-fires and now faces an international arrest warrant for war crimes.
“You see the hatred he’s got for Putin,” Mr. Trump said with a tone of indignation as cameras recorded the exchange. “It’s very tough for me to make a deal with that kind of hate. He’s got tremendous hatred. And I understand that. But I can tell you the other side’s not exactly in love with him either.”
He came back to Mr. Putin and the Russia investigation again near the end of the session, describing the Russian leader as if they had bonded through a shared ordeal. “Putin went through a hell of a lot with me,” Mr. Trump said. “He went through a phony witch hunt where they used him and Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia.”
The affront to Mr. Putin seemed to stick with Mr. Trump. By evening, hours after tossing Mr. Zelensky out of the White House, Mr. Trump stopped to talk with reporters as he left for a weekend in Florida and again outlined his grievance with the Ukrainian president.
“He’s got to say, ‘I want to make peace,’” Mr. Trump said. “He doesn’t have to stand there and say about, ‘Putin this, Putin that,’ all negative things. He’s got to say, ‘I want to make peace.’”
