VIDEO: Historian analyzes devolving relations between U.S. and Ukraine after Oval Office spat 28FEB25

Historian analyzes devolving relations between U.S. and Ukraine after Oval Office spat

Feb 28, 2025 President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy argued in the Oval Office in a stunning public display of devolving relations. Geoff Bennett discussed the developments with Timothy Snyder, one of the country's leading historians of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union who has written widely on Ukraine, Russia and the war.

Timothy Snyder has no problem pointing out in very polite terms just how poorly NOT MY pres drumpf / trump, NOT MY vice-pres vance and little marco rubio performed in this meeting in the Oval Office with Ukrainian Pres Zelensky. Watch the video, his analysis is fascinating and also a warning of  the damage being done to America on the World stage because of drumpf's / trump's and vance's kow-towing to putin. I know Mr Snyder will never say this but I will. NOT MY pres drumpf / trump, fascist fotze musk, NOT MY vice-pres vance, their entire cabinet and the vast majority of the gop / greed over people-republican party in congress are drippings, the best part of each and every one of them ran down somebody's leg. Transcript is below.

TRANSCRIPT

GEOFF BENNETT: Let's turn now to one of the  country's leading historians on Eastern Europe  

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and the former Soviet Union, who has written  widely on Ukraine, Russia, and this war.

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Timothy Snyder is the Richard C. Levin  professor of history at Yale University.

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Thank you for being with us.

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From your perspective, as one who  has written extensively on Ukraine,  

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its struggle for independence,  its role in European geopolitics,  

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what did you see in that spectacle  in the Oval Office earlier today?

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TIMOTHY SNYDER, Yale Historian: Well, what you  see is that the president of the United States  

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has a little bit of trouble controlling political  reality once he gets beyond the United States.

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The premise was that we are working  towards a peace arrangement between  

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Russia and Ukraine. But, thus far,  all we have done is make concessions  

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to Russia. That's all we have done. And  then the second thing we have done now is,  

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we brought the Ukrainian president to the  White House and tried to humiliate him.

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So we have created a situation where we have  favored the aggressor and weakened the defender.  

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You can't really get to peace on that logic.  You have to do exactly the opposite. There's  

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a lot of wisdom in what Representative  Lawler just said, but in order to have  

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the right people at the table, though, you  have to have the right balance of strength.

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And encouraging the aggressor and attacking the  

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country that's trying to defend  itself is not going to get you.

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GEOFF BENNETT: Well, after the meeting,  the White House put out a press release  

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with the subject line: "President Trump and  V.P. Vance are standing up for Americans."

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To hear White House officials tell it, they  got what they wanted out of this meeting.  

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From their view, it was a projection  of strength and that Trump and Vance  

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castigating Zelenskyy is what it looks  like to stand up for American interests.

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I know you have a different  view. How do you see it?

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TIMOTHY SNYDER: Well, I mean, I think you're  setting a pretty low bar for yourself when  

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you think that yelling across the room  at your guest is a show of strength,  

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regardless of whether it's the Oval Office or not.

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And I think you're setting a pretty low bar  for yourself internationally if you think  

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that doing things that please countries that  wish to destroy you is a show of strength,  

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which is, of course, what just happened.

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Strategically, what we are doing, what the United  States is doing, is trading a set of Western  

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alliances for an alliance with Russia. Now, the  main way Russia engages with us is by stealing our  

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technology and by hacking into our infrastructure.  The Russian economy is smaller than Canada's,  

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but we are nevertheless going to trade 80 years  of alliance with reliable partners that are 15,  

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16, 17 times bigger than Russia as an  economy for an alliance with Russia.

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There is no way that that is a show of  strength, in any other than perhaps some  

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kind of distant psychological way that  I'm afraid I can't really understand.

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GEOFF BENNETT: Well, let's talk more about that,  

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because we saw European leaders today side  with Ukraine in tweets and written statements.

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Our Nick Schifrin reports that European leaders  are coming up now with security guarantees. What  

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are the real-world implications for the U.S. if  Europe no longer sees us as a reliable partner?

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TIMOTHY SNYDER: I think there's a sort of mode  here, which is very important to understand.

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In domestic politics, Trump has gone a long way  by bullying people and by bluffing. And that when  

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it comes to our allies only works negatively. They  just draw the conclusion that we can't be trusted.  

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And then, when it comes to our  enemies, like Russia and China,  

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or countries within which we're in a rivalry,  

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it doesn't work at all. It simply has no effect  on them because they are not afraid of Trump.

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They have no reason to be afraid of Trump  until he can marshal some kind of American  

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policy instrument, which he doesn't seem  to be able to do with respect to them. So,  

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where we are now is that we have created  the world very quickly, four or five weeks,  

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in which the level of American strength is  incomparably lower than it was in late 2024,  

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and in which it's hard to imagine how we  would get that level of strength back up.

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Because it's very easy to have --  it's very easy to break relationships,  

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but it's very hard to build them back up  again. And it's very easy to fantasize  

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about some kind of wonderful relationship  with a country like Russia, but it's very  

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hard to imagine how that relationship, in fact  could benefit the United States as a whole.

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GEOFF BENNETT: Let's talk about what might come  next, because, after the meeting, President  

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Trump posted on social media that Zelenskyy  can come back when he is ready for peace.

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The president, when he was leaving for  Florida earlier tonight, he told reporters:  

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"I want anybody that's going to make peace."

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Is it possible that cooler heads  could prevail and that Trump and  

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Zelenskyy could arrive at some sort of  wary agreement, or is the damage done here?

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TIMOTHY SNYDER: Well, I mean, I would like to  -- I would disagree with Representative Lawler,  

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I'm sure, about many, many things, but there  was something important about what he said.

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The only way you can get to peace is  to have the Ukrainians at the table,  

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because they're the country that is  being attacked. You have to create a  

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situation in which the Ukrainians believe  that Russia might, in fact, stop killing  

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them. That can be done. American power could  be applied. European power could be applied.

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We could change the structure of the situation  such that Russia wouldn't just pretend, which they  

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have done numerous times already, as President  Zelenskyy, by the way, quite rightly said in  

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the White House to J.D. Vance, who I'm afraid  just doesn't know his history of these things.

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We could do that, and it would be the  right thing to do, and it's, of course,  

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not unimaginable. But I'm afraid what it  requires is that the leadership of our country,  

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of the United States, get away from these very  predictable psychological vulnerabilities,  

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where we can be goaded on and prodded and provoked  by one another, or by the Russians, or whatever  

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it might be into doing things that don't make  sense for us, let alone for the world as a whole.

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And that's what we saw today. We saw a lot  of psychological vulnerability. We saw a  

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lot of people not able to maintain  any kind of poise. We saw people  

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who were representing their momentary  impulses or their feelings of strength,  

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rather than the interests of  the United States of America.

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And it's easy to criticize other  countries and other people, but,  

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frankly, we're going to have to  have a much better game if we're  

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going to do the sorts of things that you're  talking about, like bringing about peace.

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GEOFF BENNETT: A final question about President  Zelenskyy's role and responsibility in all of  

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this, because Lindsey Graham, who has spoken in  support of Ukraine in the past, said that he spoke  

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to Zelenskyy this morning, told him, don't take  the bait. Donald Trump is in a mood to do a deal.

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President Zelenskyy is a wartime leader  who clearly did not take kindly to being  

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lectured and lied to in the Oval Office.  But what responsibility does he have to  

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make sure that future meetings don't  go off the rails? Donald Trump is a  

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known quantity. It's clear to many people  what angers him and what animates him.

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TIMOTHY SNYDER: A deal which is a result of  being intimidated and the precedent of being  

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publicly humiliated can't be in the interest,  not only of the president, but of the country.

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Of course, President Zelenskyy should be open  to peace process led by the United States,  

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but if we are leading it by openly  humiliating him, that is a bad sign,  

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which a wise leader can't fail to recognize.

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GEOFF BENNETT: Timothy Snyder, our thanks to you  for joining us this evening. We appreciate it.