The Best Reality TV Is Actually in the Oval Office
Honestly with Bari Weiss
Intro
This chapter delves into a heated diplomatic exchange between the President, Vice President, and the Ukrainian President amidst a challenging conflict. It highlights the emotional weight of the discourse, the military implications, and the diverse perspectives of the leaders involved.
It’s been four days since the diplomatic earthquake went down in the Oval Office between President Trump, Vice President Vance, and Ukrainian president Zelensky. The world is still feeling the aftershocks.
In Europe, leaders have been jolted into action. Ukraine’s European allies, including British prime minister Keir Starmer and French president Emmanuel Macron, met in London on Sunday to forge their own peace plan and agree on additional support for Kyiv.
In Moscow, officials are celebrating Trump’s approach to the conflict—and his foreign policy more generally. “The new administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations. This largely coincides with our vision,” said a Kremlin spokesman. Russian state TV described a new world order with Trump in the White House.
In Washington, administration officials have made it clear that it is up to Zelensky to apologize and patch things up if there is any chance of a U.S.-Ukraine mineral deal. “The president believes Zelensky has to come back to the table and he has to be the one to come and make it right,” one official told NBC News.
The Zelensky-Trump bust-up—and the war in Ukraine in general—is one of those important subjects where people we respect (including inside The Free Press newsroom) passionately disagree. There are plenty of other outlets that will give you only one strongly expressed view. But it is our conviction that the only way we can get to the truth is by seriously considering multiple perspectives.
The differences of opinion start with the question of what, exactly, we all watched on Friday.
Were Trump and Vance bullying a besieged ally in public? Or were we watching the White House finally stand up for American taxpayers?
Then there are the bigger questions: Is Trump’s Ukraine policy a long-overdue acknowledgment of the limits of American power? Or an unforced error that endangers not just America’s allies but America itself? And what are the chances of peace with honor for Ukraine?
Today we’ve brought together a group of people who answer those questions quite differently: Free Press columnist Batya Ungar-Sargon, Democratic fundraiser and strategist Brianna Wu, and special guest Christopher Caldwell, author of multiple books, including The Age of Entitlement.
Both Batya and Christopher have pieces up in The Free Press right now:
“Zelensky’s Trumpian Trick” by Christopher Caldwell, and “What Average Americans Think of Trump’s Showdown with Zelensky” by Batya Ungar-Sargon.
Other must-reads in The Free Press:
"Trump’s Foreign Policy Revolution" by Matthew Continetti
"J.D. Vance’s Fighting Words—Against Me and Ukraine" by Niall Ferguson
"A Fiasco in the Oval Office" by Eli Lake
"Ten Reasons for the Zelensky-Trump Blowup" by Victor Davis Hanson
"What Zelensky Can Learn from Netanyahu" by Michael Oren
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