Zelenskyy may give in to Mango Mussolini

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39. In the aftermath of Friday's Oval Office debacle, Team Trump apparently expects Volodymyr Zelenskyy to beg for forgivene

In the aftermath of Friday’s Oval Office debacle, Team Trump apparently expects Volodymyr Zelenskyy to beg for forgiveness — by some accounts, on camera.

The Trump White House presents Ukraine’s Zelenskyy with absurd demands.
In the aftermath of Friday’s Oval Office debacle, Team Trump apparently expects Volodymyr Zelenskyy to beg for forgiveness — by some accounts, on camera.
www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddo...

— hateGOP (@hategop.bsky.social) 2025-03-04T19:18:15.322Z

The Trump White House presents Ukraine’s Zelenskyy with absurd demands.
In the aftermath of Friday’s Oval Office debacle, Team Trump apparently expects Volodymyr Zelenskyy to beg for forgiveness — by some accounts, on camera.

Link to tweet

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-white-house-presents-ukraines-zelenskyy-absurd-demands-rcna194684

With this in mind, Fox News reported that the White House expects the Ukrainian leader to go “in front of cameras” in order to make “an explicit public apology for the way he behaved.”

It’s not altogether clear exactly what Zelenskyy did that was so offensive — it apparently has something to do with his “body language” and fashion choices — but the bottom line remains the same: The White House doesn’t just expect the Ukrainian president to go along with administration’s agenda, it expects Zelenskyy to grovel.

While the Fox News report hasn’t been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, we need not rely on not-for-attribution comments from the West Wing. On the contrary, White House national security adviser Mike Waltz made multiple on-air appearances, insisting that Team Trump expects Zelenskyy to express “regret,” adding that this is what “we need to hear.”

As for the vice president who helped instigate Friday’s fracas, NBC News reported on JD Vance’s expectations for the road ahead.

Vice President JD Vance said tonight that Zelenskyy can return to the White House when he has a “serious proposal” for peace between his country and Russia. “There are details that really matter, that we’re already working on with the Russians. We’ve already talked to some of our allies. He needs to engage seriously on the details. I think once that happens then, absolutely, we want to talk,” Vance said in a taped interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity.

The closer one looks at the comments, the worse they appear. To hear the Ohio Republican tell it, the White House has worked with Russia on details surrounding Ukraine’s future. He now wants Zelenskyy to come up with some kind of proposal, too.....

That outcome, evidently, is not in line with the White House’s expectations. Rather, Trump, Vance and their team have a different vision in which Ukraine’s president begs for forgiveness on camera, abandons its NATO ambitions, turns over access to his country's rare-earth resources to the United States, and rewards Russia with territory.

No wonder Trump, Vance and Zelenskyy struggled to get along.