We’ve learned to expect the unexpected from Trump. But the president’s televised Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday was a shock, no matter who you thought was right. Joint press events with world leaders are normally stage-managed affairs, with talking points and narratives rehearsed before the fact. Sometimes polite disagreements emerge, but never the kind of open conflict we saw on Friday. Could Trump and JD Vance have handled it more gracefully? Perhaps. But they stuck to their positions, and I happen to think they were right to do so.
John and I begin by debating what we witnessed. John thinks Trump and Vance callously bullied the Ukrainian president, while I think they were being blunt but honest. The war has to end, and Ukraine is not in a position to dictate terms. It’s in America’s interest to bring it to a close as soon as possible—as I see it, that’s what Trump is trying to do. Meanwhile, my final semester at Brown is also coming to a close. Rather than coast through, I’m preparing myself for a lively classroom debate about reparations. John and I discuss how that conversation has become more complicated after Ta-Nehisi Coates recanted part of his—like it or not—classic essay on the topic. And we wrap up the episode by bidding adieu to Joy Reid, whose long run on MSNBC has come to an end.
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0:00 Intro
1:55 Did Trump and Vance bully Zelenskyy or give him a dose of reality?
5:16 Glenn: Trump is trying to wind down an unnecessary war
13:49 - Ground News ad
28:58 The “deep game” of European security
32:06 Glenn: America First appeals to me, World War III doesn’t
36:40 Teaching the reparations debate in a post-October 7 world
43:06 MSNBC axes Joy Reid’s show
Recorded March 1, 2025
Links and Readings
Trump and Zelensky’s Oval Office meeting
Tucker Carlson’s onstage interview with Hungarian president Victor Orbán
The latest episode of Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi’s podcast, America This Week
Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Atlantic essay, “The Case for Reparations”
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