Volodymyr Zelensky should have called me before he strolled into the White House on Friday. Talk about not being able to read the room. The Big Z is as clueless as a seal pup who waves a Polar Bear over.
If asked, I could have suggested to Zelensky the following facts of life.
- President Trump believes the $175 billion that the Biden administration has sent to Ukraine is not money well spent. He thinks the battered country is not trying hard enough to get a ceasefire deal.
- Mr. Trump and every single person in his administration knows Ukraine cannot defeat Putin on the battlefield, so Zelensky has no bargaining power whatsoever.
- In addition, the President wants to placate Putin to a certain extent to get him away from China's orbit. Trump sees massive problems ahead if Putin and Xi partner up to hurt the USA.
- And finally, President Trump has no emotion invested in Ukraine. In that, he's like President Obama when bad Vlad kidnapped Crimea.
Now, I am not arguing right and wrong here. Putin's a world-class monster. He's on the cover of my next book "Confronting Evil". I am telling you exactly what Donald Trump believes, and I'll state one more thing: he's not going to change his mind.
Knowing all that, it was simply foolish for Zelensky to publicly disagree with the man who controls his country's destiny. Any dissent should have been privately discussed. By challenging Trump and J.D. Vance publicly, Zelensky loses. Perhaps everything. NATO will quickly lose his phone number if Trump bails.
When things cool down, a deal may surface, but Trump will call the shots. Bad Vlad, of course, is a winner here, and that's a very bad thing.
But Putin has damaged Russia in a huge way and still needs a deal. So, one might happen.
But it won't be Volodymyr getting the credit. In fact, he'll be lucky to keep his job. Ukrainians cannot be happy even if morality is on their side.
We live in an unfair world where power rules.
Zelensky just found that out the hard way.
