There’s a script that people are meant to follow when in the presence of Trump. He didn’t follow it.
Sure Trump and Vance were looking for reasons to hate on Ukraine’s president.
But what struck me as really weird while watching the whole 50 or so minute exchange is where Vice-President Vance accuses Zelenskyy of not saying “thank you.” https://www.c-span.org/program/white-house-event/president-trump-meets-with-ukrainian-president-zelensky/656418
Vance:
“Have you said thank you once, this entire meeting?”
Well, yes!
Because if you watch the entire thing, which I did, and again after Vance says this, Zelenskyy actually says thank you a bunch of times before being accused of not saying it.
Then I realized what Vance meant: he’s reminding Ukraine’s president he hadn’t done the “Trump’s a Great Leader blah blah blah, unifier like no one’s ever s ever seen before, blah blah blah, Nobel Prize, blah blah blah”, thing. That’s come to be exprected when you’re meeting Trump. Whether you’re a member of congress, or world leader, or billionaire business magnate, or “journalist” of the ilk he likes, or just an ordinary American.
Like we saw at Trump’s first cabinet meeting last week except there it was plus he was chosen by God.
Zelenskyy–understandably in my view–doesn’t have time for niceties/fawning praise like that: he’s got a war to fight. And he says that.
Which reminds Trump he’s been to war too. With Putin at his side. Against Hillary Clinton and the “Russia hoax”. With no scars to show for it. Except clearly, emotional ones. Wounds that are the result of the thinnest skin imaginable.