The news of the day is the big blowup at the White House between President Trump, VP Vance and President Zelensky. Ed and Beege have already weighed in on that and I generally agree that, after watching the interaction devolve in real time, it seems to me that Zelensky badly miscalculated what he was going to achieve today and wound up setting back his own cause.

Of course the divide on this is just like the divide on everything else. It's mostly Trump supporters and people on the right who think Trump was right to get angry and it's mostly people on the left who are saying Trump was completely in the wrong. Maybe there are some exceptions but I'm not seeing many at this moment. People on the left are suggesting this was all planned in advance to humiliate Zelensky. People on the right are suggesting Zelensky was put up to this by European leaders who egged him on to confront Trump in front of the media.

We'll find out if any of that is true. My own take is that Trump seemed to be on best behavior for quite a while and didn't seem to have planned for this kind of meltdown. As for Zelensky, I don't see any evidence he planned to create a show. He was also trying to show some deference to Trump at first, but he really didn't read the room very well. Once you're trying to talk over the Vice President and the President in the Oval, you're losing no matter what it is you have to say. At some point, he just needed to stop arguing and dial it back. You may not like what the President is saying but he is in charge in that office and contradicting him in front of the media is asking for trouble. The Ukrainian Ambassador looked horrified.

WATCH: The moment the Ukranian Ambassador to the United States realized Zelenskyy f*¢k3d up 💀 pic.twitter.com/lHqHOQWFmI

— Jessica 🇺🇸 (@RealJessica05) February 28, 2025

After Zelensky left the White House, he went to Fox News where he gave an interview to Bret Baier about what had just happened. This clip goes on for more than 20 minutes so it's not easy to summarize, but what I took from it is that Zelensky agrees it would have been better to have this conversation with the President in private rather than in front of the media. He says he came to the US to sign the deal and that he still thinks it will be signed at some point.

But Baier's first question was whether he felt he owed an apology to Trump and the American people. On that point, he refused to offer one and instead suggested he was just being honest with a strategic partner.

Baier follows up, pressing him on whether he owes Trump an apology. Zelensky, once again, declines to apologize. “I think that we have to be very open and very honest,” he says. “And I’m not sure that we did something bad.”

Later he rejected the suggestion from Sen. Graham that he should step down, saying that was something for the Ukrainian people to decide.

Over and over he brings up security guarantees as the crucial point which led to the disagreement today. Apparently, the White House was aware this was the main issue for Ukraine as the deal was being worked out. Zelensky wanted to see some guarantees in the agreement and the White House wanted them to sign the minerals deal today and negotiate the guarantees later. Clearly, that wasn't enough for Zelensky who framed this as something that regular Ukrainians want to know from him, i.e. what can the US do to ensure any peace will be a lasting one and that Putin won't just launch another invasion a year or two from now.

Here's the full interview. It's a bit tough to follow at times because Zelensky's English is somewhat limited. At one point he even clarified a question with a member of his staff off screen. But I think the gist is that he didn't feel he could accept the deal as offered and wanted to discuss/argue about it more. But because he did that in front of the whole world I don't think it has helped his case.