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   The Real Reason Trump Berated Zelensky   
   He simply likes Vladimir Putin better.   
   By Jonathan Chait   
   Photo-illustration of a cutout black-and-white image of Volodymyr Zelensky   
   (left) and Donald Trump (right) sitting next to each other, seemingly mid-   
   argument.   
   Illustration by The Atlantic. Source: Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty.   
   February 28, 2025   
   Of the many bizarre and uncomfortable moments during today’s Oval Office   
   meeting between Donald Trump, J. D. Vance, and Volodymyr Zelensky—during   
   which Trump finally shattered the American alliance with Ukraine—one was   
   particularly revealing: What, a reporter asked, would happen if the cease-   
   fire Trump is trying to negotiate were to be violated by Russia? “What if   
   anything? What if a bomb drops on your head right now?” Trump spat back, as   
   if Russia violating a neighbor’s sovereignty were the wildest and most   
   unlikely possibility, rather than a frequently recurring event.   
   Then Trump explained just why he deemed such an event so unlikely. “They   
   respect me,” he thundered. “Let me tell you, Putin went through a hell of a   
   lot with me. He went through a phony witch hunt, where they used him and   
   Russia. Russia, Russia, Russia, you ever hear of that deal? … It was a   
   phony Democrat scam. He had to go through it. And he did go through it.”   
   Trump seems to genuinely feel that he and Vladimir Putin forged a personal   
   bond through the shared trauma of being persecuted by the Democratic Party.   
   Trump is known for his cold-eyed, transactional approach, and yet here he   
   was, displaying affection and loyalty. (At another point, Trump complained   
   that Zelensky has “tremendous hatred” toward Putin and insisted, “It’s very   
   tough for me to make a deal with that kind of hate.”) He was not explaining   
   why a deal with Russia would advance America’s interests, or why honoring   
   it would advance Russia’s. He was defending Russia’s integrity by vouching   
   for Putin’s character.   
   In recent years, the kinship between Trump and Putin has become somewhat   
   unfashionable to point out. After Robert Mueller disappointed liberals by   
   failing to prove a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and   
   Russia, conventional wisdom on much of the center and left of the political   
   spectrum came to treat the scandal as overblown. But even the facts Mueller   
   was able to produce, despite noncooperation from Trump’s top lieutenants,   
   were astonishing. Putin dangled a Moscow building deal in front of the   
   Trump Organization worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and Trump lied   
   about it, giving Putin leverage over him. Trump’s campaign chair, Paul   
   Manafort, was in business with a Russian intelligence officer. Russia   
   published hacked Democratic emails at a time when they were maximally   
   useful to Trump’s campaign, and made another hacking attempt after he asked   
   it on television to find missing emails from Hillary Clinton. The pattern   
   of cooperation between Trump and Putin may not have been provably criminal,   
   but it was extraordinarily damning.   
   Conservatives have invested even more heavily in denying any basis for the   
   Trump-Russia scandal. A handful of MAGA devotees have openly endorsed   
   Russian propaganda, but more Republicans have explained away Trump’s   
   behavior as reflecting some motivation other than outright sympathy for   
   Moscow: He is transactional, he is a nationalist, he admires strength and   
   holds weakness in contempt.   
   And it is all true: Trump does admire dictators. He does instinctively side   
   with bullies over victims. He does lack any values-based framework for   
   American foreign policy. But many Republicans who acknowledged these traits   
   nonetheless believed that Trump could be persuaded to stay in Ukraine’s   
   corner. They were wrong. The reason they were wrong is that, in addition to   
   his generalized amorality, Trump exhibits a particular affection for Putin   
   and Russia.   
   Immediately after Zelensky left the Oval Office, Trump posted to Truth   
   Social, “I have determined that President Zelenskyy is not ready for Peace   
   if America is involved.” The clear implication is that the United States   
   will cut off its support for the Ukrainian war effort. Trump’s allies have   
   already tried to foist the blame for that momentous decision onto Zelensky.   
   Trump “felt disrespected” by the Ukrainian leader’s body language and   
   argumentative manner, White House officials told Fox News. “Zelensky was in   
   a terrible position,” National Review editor in chief Rich Lowry   
   acknowledged on X, “but he never should have gotten sucked into making   
   argumentative points.” And, he added, “he should have worn a suit.”   
   All of this ignores the much more plausible explanation of what happened   
   today: It was a setup. Trump and Vance appear to have entered the meeting   
   with the intention of berating Zelensky and drawing him into an argument as   
   a pretext for the diplomatic break. Why should anyone have expected   
   anything different? Trump has been regurgitating Russian propaganda, not   
   only regarding Ukraine, since before Zelensky even assumed office. In 2018,   
   the year preceding Zelensky’s election, he defended Russia’s seizure of   
   Crimea; he has repeatedly refused to acknowledge Russian guilt for various   
   murders; and he has even stuck to Russian talking points on such   
   idiosyncratic topics as the Soviets’ supposedly defensive rationale for   
   invading Afghanistan in 1979 and their fear that an “aggressive” Montenegro   
   would attack Russia, dragging NATO into war.   
   In the past few weeks, Trump has made very little effort to conceal his   
   pro-Russian tilt. He called Zelensky a dictator, and when asked if he would   
   say the same about Putin, refused, insisting, “I don’t use those words   
   lightly.” (No president in American history has used words more lightly   
   than Trump.) He said Ukraine “may be Russian someday” and blamed Ukraine   
   for starting the war. The U.S. even joined Russia, North Korea, and a tiny   
   bloc of Russian allies to vote against a United Nations resolution   
   condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.   
   The less damning explanations for Trump’s pattern of pro-Russia positions   
   have all collapsed in the face of evidence. One line of defense, hauled out   
   by Republican hawks to explain away Trump’s consistent efforts to undermine   
   NATO, is that Trump actually wants to prod Europe into spending more on its   
   own defense. Like a tough football coach, he is merely berating his team to   
   become the best version of itself.   
   Except when European countries declared themselves ready to increase their   
   defense spending to 2 percent of GDP, the level Trump claimed to have   
   wanted, he upped the demand to 5 percent. More recently, he advocated for   
   the election of the right-wing, pro-Russian, anti-NATO AfD party in   
   Germany. That is a strange thing to do if your goal is to push allies to   
   stand up for themselves against Russia, but a perfectly sensible position   
      
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