Was Zelenskyy's Oval Office Squabble Theater?

After watching the Trump-Zelenskyy meeting go sideways, I asked myself how Zelenskyy could blow a deal he and his country need so badly. The answer may be quite simple: he didn't.

Like seemingly everyone else, I watched yesterday as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with US President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance in the Oval Office.

The meeting was to discuss a mineral rights deal designed to stabilize the region of Ukraine, which has been at war since Russia’s invasion in February 2022—but somewhere during the 45-minute discussion things went off the rails.

Like many people, I began to watch the debate after fireworks erupted following an exchange between Vance and Zelenskyy, that included the Ukrainian president telling Vance that America, too, "will feel it in the future."

"You don't know that,” Trump responded. “Don't tell us what we're going to feel."

The exchange was tense, and I couldn’t understand what Zelenskyy was doing.

Trump and Zelenskyy have had a rocky relationship, but Trump had welcomed the Ukrainian president graciously and seemed committed to not just ending the war but guaranteeing Ukraine’s safety and helping the country regain its territory.

Instead of being deferential, warm, and diplomatic, Zelenskyy appeared surly and combative.

“Zelensky is acting like a man holding a full house when he's actually holding a busted straight,” I tweeted. “Not smart.”

Others on Twitter saw things differently.

“No visitor to the Oval Office should be treated with such contempt,” Elise Jordan tweeted.

“What a shameful episode for the US,” said Stephen Hayes, “berating a longtime ally whose population has been invaded and brutalized by an American adversary.”

The Oval Office showdown was a good example of how people watching the same event can have completely opposite interpretations, something I recall from my newspaper days when witnesses would have starkly different accounts of a crime they watched.

As I perused X for other takes, I came across one from Richard Hanania, a writer, political scientist, and former research fellow at Columbia’s.

Hanania, whom I’ve read for years, is someone I see as a hit-or-miss guy. He has some great takes, and some horrible ones.

His tweet on the Zelenskyy’s Oval Office visit strikes me as a very good one, so I share it here at length.

“I watched the entire press conference with Zelensky. There was 40 minutes of discussion up to the argument. Most people saw at most the last ten minutes. The whole video gives the proper context.

When I first watched the argument without the proper context, I thought it was possible that Trump and Vance ambushed Zelensky or were even trying to humiliate him. That's not what happened.

You had 40 minutes of calm conversation. Vance made a point that didn't attack Zelensky and wasn't even addressed to him, and Zelensky clearly started the argument.

In the first 40 minutes, Zelensky kept trying to go beyond what was negotiated in the deal. When Trump was asked a question, it was always "we'll see." Zelensky made blanket assertions that there would be no negotiating with Putin, and that Russia would pay for the war. When Trump said that it was a tragedy that people on both sides were dying, Zelensky interjected that the Russians were the invaders.

For his part, Trump made clear that the US would continue delivering military aid. All Zelensky had to do was remain calm for a few more minutes and they would've signed a deal.”

Hanania describes himself as someone who has “been a fan of Zelenskyy,” which is why he couldn’t understand what he saw as gross incompetence or a lack of self control.

US media saw things differently, of course. They described Zelenskyy “walking into an ambush.”

Yet Hanania described events very differently.

“The Zelensky/Trump dynamic was calm and stable. It was when Vance spoke that Zelensky started to interrogate him. Throughout the press conference to that point, everyone was making their arguments directly to the audience. Zelensky decided to challenge Vance and ask him hostile questions. He went back to his point that Putin never sticks to ceasefires, once again implying that negotiations are pointless. Why on earth would you do this? Then came the fight we all saw.

Zelensky was minutes away from being home free, and he would have had the deal and new commitments from the Trump administration.”

After watching the entire meeting, it’s clear to me that Hanania’s analysis is basically spot on.

Yet the whole thing still seemed so bizarre to me. How could Zelenskyy blow it so bad? He needs this deal. His country needs this deal.

“How does Zelenskyy limp home with no deal?” a friend of mine asked shortly after the Ukrainian president was ordered to leave the White House, even though the deal hadn’t been signed.

After thinking about it for a while—and reading a message from a thoughtful Twitter user—I think I have the answer. Here’s what a user on X wrote to me.

“I think it was theatre that allows Zelensky to not look like a traitor to his people. He couldn't sign with a smile or he would be finished back home. He'll sign. American contractors will mean no attacks from Russia... without US soldiers or Ukraine joining NATO... win win win.”

I have to say, this makes a lot of sense. (It makes even more sense if Zelenskyy spoke to former State Department officials on his call to DC, as some have insinuated.)

Zelenskyy staging a White House fight that allows him to save face (and stick it to Trump) makes a lot more sense than Zelenskyy losing his cool and blowing a deal that would save his country.

So yeah, I think it was theater. My prediction is that Zelenskyy signs a deal within a month, perhaps within the week.

After doing so, Zelenskyy will return to Ukraine looking less weak having spit on the deal offered by the Americans. The US, meanwhile, will get mineral rights to Ukraine that will help offset the cost of rebuilding, which will also assure peace, since Russia isn’t going to risk attacking American contractors. Russia will see the end of a war that has devastated Russians nearly as much as Ukrainians, and Russian leaders will no longer have to worry about Ukraine joining NATO, a military alliance that Putin has long seen as a threat.

Could I be wrong? Of course. Maybe Zelenskyy continues to refuse the deal. Maybe Trump pulls his “big beautiful offer.” But I don’t think I am, and I hope I’m not.

The Ukraine War was an avoidable mistake. It never should have happened. It’s time to end it.