US deliberately orchestrated Zelensky-Trump Oval Office clash, Friedrich Merz says
The American side deliberately orchestrated the confrontation during President Volodymyr Zelensky's visit to the White House, Friedrich Merz, the head of Germany's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the likely chancellor, said on March 3.
"It was not a spontaneous reaction to interventions by Zelensky, but obviously a manufactured escalation in this meeting in the Oval Office," Merz said at a press conference in Hamburg.
The visit was expected to mark the signing of a long-debated agreement between Ukraine and the U.S. on jointly developing Ukraine's mineral resources.
https://kyivindependent.com/us-deliberately-escalated-tensions-during-zelenskys-white-house-visit-merz-says/Open linkView original on lemmy.ca840
Comments68
It was blatantly obvious that it was planned, and good to see people calling it out.
It was my very first thought too. Well, second after what a complete twat JD Vance was. But it just seemed so oddly paced. Like I've never seen a conversation go like that it was so strange. It felt really contrived. Course it could be chalked up to insane immaturity too so idk.
I mean Trump's answer to what if Russia breaks the ceasefire was
So essentially his answer to what happens if they break the ceasefire was... they won't break it? But no, zelensky is the world's biggest asshole for wanting to know about securities.
Vance going on about how the goal is a ceasefire to end the war, Zelensky relying that ceasefires haven't been followed by Russia, and the Trump.and Vance going off on 'disrepect' was just wild. Like reality tv scripted argument level wild. Saturday Night Live parodied the meeting and the parody was toned down compared to the actual meeting!
It felt like Jerry Springer.
After already being the worlds biggest asshole for not wearing a suit, he may as well ask for securities. For the millionth time. Although that’s only 2% of the deal and he doesn’t have the cards. But he has raw earth. I think I’ve said enough, except thank you.
/s
Watching zelensky die inside while contributing to this shitshow was hard. I can’t imagine how bad that poor guy must have felt. And I’m sure he’s already seen a lot of bad things.
The pain in his expression was the most relatable thing I've seen from a world leader possibly ever.
It was like an episode of Veep except more obnoxious.
You must have missed the donut shop "pop in"
Ok, good.
"hello fellow human female, I require a dozen of you confectionary,manufactured wheat based breads in the shape of a doughnuts, we require for human consumption"
I’m not the biggest fan of Merz by any means, but credit where it’s due - it’s fantastic that he specifically and unambiguously called this out on the geopolitical stage.
His stance on Ukraine and the European Union is the silver lining for me with the CDU win tbh. Things might actually improve on these topics over Olaf Scholz.
Right? I have been consistently underwhelmed at how… well, flaccid Scholz has been on the European leadership front. Dude comes off like he wants everything signed in triplicate before he’s willing to consider appointing a discussion board to evaluate possibility of thinking about making a decision.
Especially because he has always been a staunch atlanticist with a ton of connections in the US. That and the fact this comes from Germany, the most pro-US country, barring the UK, in Europe, gives his words extra gravitas.
Poland and the baltics would like to have a word.
Speaking of Poland, I sure hope Trump doesn't decide that they have something he wants. The Fanta Menace might just invade. It seems to be par for the course when it comes to world wars.
Hey, ww1 was the Serbs!
Yeah Merz seems reasonable geopolitically speaking, and seems willing to make the hard choices. I'm not terribly sad about Scholz losing to him, especially as another GroKo is most likely to happen.
I thought it made Zelenskyy look good.
He was pleading for his people's protection, while calling the US out on it's bullshit.
Trump and co just looked like a bunch of dick heads.
Trump is a weak person's view of a strong person. It only looked good to those weak people.
Daddy issues on a society-wide scale, ffs.
It definitely increased the respect for Zelenskyy across the world.
This was absolutely an ambush. Trump and Vance had a script and reactions ready to go, thinking they were going to get under Zelensky's skin, justifying Vance's angry reaction. But Zelensky stayed calm and reserved and Vance still has his angry outburst. Trump and Vance embarrassed the country, looking like toddlers screaming when they don't get their way.
And every Republican who backs this is vile scum, but that's to be expected from the GOP. Trump and Vance taking America to new lows every day and the GOP just doubling down on it.
Lets be honest here, Trump and Vance didn't orchestrate anything.
Putin did.
He wanted the weapons stopped, and he gave them a script.
Now the weapons have stopped as of a couple hours ago.
Just finally watched it, he actually deflected most of their accusations on the spot 💪 These guys are making deals, lying on their part and not giving a flying fuck on the very probable future events. All Trump got was that he is special, and that is why the truce will hold this time 🫨
Edit. I don't know what to make of this, they and everybody sure need peace, it is also bold to not see that card...
Zelenski has the patience of a demigod for not slapping the shit out of Vance.
He handled the no-win situation as best as he could; I hope it raises Europe's will to back Ukraine since it was obvious how he was ambushed by a supposed ally.
The dude literally invited Russian state media and said “this will be great TV”.
I’m not a conspiracy theorist but…
Getting a script right from RT via Putin no doubt on what to say
It’s not a conspiracy if it’s true haha
"It's easier to fool a man than to convince him he'd been fooled." - Mark Twain
We have our work cut out for us when dealing with republicans.
Yeah, it's amazing. He's not a "Republican" he's Trump. He's not your friend/ally/supporter no matter who you are, he only supports himself. Your welfare is only vaguely relevant so long as it directly supports his status, the instant you aren't useful, you will get backstabbed hard.
Unfortunately that's not a particularly useful fact to highlight to republicans, and democrats bet too heavily on that being a talking point and it won them no favors.
I don't think anyone capable of seeing it doesn't already see it. We have to make it through these four years as a nation and somehow move forward despite them all.
If congress somehow gets Trump removed via impeachment or similar means (I know the chances are near zero) I fully expect magas to be shooting people in the streets a day later, or a much more violent Jan 6 style event.
It was obviously performative when Trump said, "you don't get to tell us what we're going to feel" when Zelensky said that the US will feel the effect of the war.
It's was after JD already escalated and Trump had to grab something to be a critical about, and that was the arbitrary point he decided to cling onto. He had to because JD upped the ante and Trump HAD to do something to keep up
No shit. They sat him down like a naughty schoolboy and took turns berating him into selling half his country to the yanks for no guarantees on stopping the Russians.
You could tell. Vance is an awful actor ..
👶 I'm going to be a bad ass today ! My pee pee feels funny just thinking about it. I'm so excited
I blame the couch for that
Trump and Vance aren't actors, it shows.
Yeah I think that was pretty obvious. I mean they were clearly looking for an excuse to attack him. They chose the most inane metaphor they could have to take offense at. Just waiting for their opportunity.
His faithful MAGAts are probably waiting for him to tell other elected world leaders that they're fired. Just because it'll be funny to hear him say his catchphrase in his weird little voice. And that's as seriously as they'll take it until the lights go out and it's blighted poultry rations for dinner again.
Rotten state of things.
It looked like an episode of the Apprentice and a bad one at that
I want to point out that a very small fraction of the US deliberately did this. Like less than 100 out of 300M. Most of us, and when I say most, I mean nearly ALL of US citizens, and more, are horrified.
The US is a representative democracy, and those were its chosen representatives. Sorry, but you can't collectively vote Trump into office and then immediately go "woah, we have nothing to do with any of this!" When he turns out to be exactly what everyone expected him to be.
It's also extremely disingenous to claim that our country doesn't support Trump. A majority of Americans are happy to support the status quo that Trump represents. They're just mad that the billionaires have dropped the mask and stopped using lube while fucking them, but they still want to be fucked. They voted for neoliberal exploitation this election, just like they voted for neoliberal exploitation in the last dozen elections. If Americans really wanted to avoid fascism, they should have started doing something about it at least 40 years ago.
personally, I wasn't around 40 years ago to put on the brakes
It's actually looking pretty likely that they didn't actually win. How very odd that Musk is suddenly buddy buddy with Trump, when he oh so very coincidentally has a team of programmer man children who have a number of proof of concept examples for invisibly changing votes on voting machines.
While obviously if presented with sufficient evidence I’m willing to change my position, I would be shocked if this turns out to be the case. The result was well-within a normal polling error. No reason to act like the Qaninnies and start throwing around vote fraud conspiracies without proof.
https://www.newsweek.com/2024-election-rigged-donald-trump-elon-musk-2019482 https://apnews.com/article/voting-machines-voting-custodio-elections-philadelphia-f8a6453dc9e211ef20e9412d003511b1 https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/voting-experts-warn-of-serious-threats-for-2024-from-election-equipment-software-breaches https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/online-vulnerable-experts-find-nearly-three-dozen-u-s-voting-n1112436
etc etc. There's a lot of stuff parroting the company line of 'Oh, well starlink couldn't have done anything to change the vote, these machines aren't online!'
Except we already know they're vulnerable, we already know that if you get into one of the machines, you can spread the malicious to code to offline machines, we know that secure USBs and drives WERE stolen and modified, we know they're online despite countless claims they aren't, we know they were going through starlink, and (while i was no longer able to find proof of it, because they went through and scrubbed their resumes, work history, online presence) last I saw at least one of the DOGE team goons was part of a research group for voting machines. Admittedly, I can no longer find the proof of that, so you may take that as you wish.
Fact is though, computer and security scientists have been desperately crying out for years that these machines are compromised in ways that do not get caught by standard checks.
Finally, saying something is 'within polling error' is kind of a red flag in and of itself, in my opinion- the polling was HEAVILY democrat, prior to the vote, and the dropoff was absolutely not what we have ever seen before.
Do you have any sources I can read up on? This is the first I hear of this.
https://www.newsweek.com/2024-election-rigged-donald-trump-elon-musk-2019482 https://apnews.com/article/voting-machines-voting-custodio-elections-philadelphia-f8a6453dc9e211ef20e9412d003511b1 https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/voting-experts-warn-of-serious-threats-for-2024-from-election-equipment-software-breaches https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/online-vulnerable-experts-find-nearly-three-dozen-u-s-voting-n1112436
etc etc. There's a lot of stuff parroting the company line of 'Oh, well starlink couldn't have done anything to change the vote, these machines aren't online!'
Except we already know they're vulnerable, we already know that if you get into one of the machines, you can spread the malicious to code to offline machines, we know that secure USBs and drives WERE stolen and modified, we know they're online despite countless claims they aren't, we know they were going through starlink, and (while i was no longer able to find proof of it, because they went through and scrubbed their resumes, work history, online presence) last I saw at least one of the DOGE team goons was part of a research group for voting machines. Admittedly, I can no longer find the proof of that, so you may take that as you wish.
Fact is though, computer and security scientists have been desperately crying out for years that these machines are compromised in ways that do not get caught by standard checks.
(sorry for the copy paste, but yeah. This isn't even touching the literal known billions spent on voter suppression, gerrymandering, advertising, concerted media sanewashing, etc etc.)
I wanted to get back to you on this to thank you for the sources. Much appreciated.
No problem!
... for the second time.
lol the voters are not who gets represented in American “democracy”, it’s the donors. One of them is literally occupying the office of the president and wreaking absolute havoc.
Is it ok, with you if I'm horrified? Just curious, as your reply will certainly not affect my feeling of being horrified. Were you involved, I mean in any way whatsoever in the events in the Oval Office? I sure as hell wasn't, I have been minding my own business on the far side of the NA continent. And voted against ALL of this shitshow, in case you are interested. BTW, I never said, ""woah, we have nothing to do with any of this!", just in case you somehow misread me. Cheers. Also Happy Cake Day!!
Happy cakes
I’d also like to point out that, of those remaining 200 million or so, 90 million decided to sit out the election altogether. They, in my mind, are just as responsible for letting all of this happen as are those who voted for it.
It’s your country, your attempt at a democratic system and your mess to deal with internally. That it’s a fundamentally broken system you have over there has been known (and in some cases mathematically proven) for a long time now. Personally, I’m getting tired of the ”Not all americans”-stuff. It kinda worked the first time around, but you had four years to deal with him peacefully through your legal system, demonstrations, manifestations and public pressure. He got reelected and there was a peaceful transition of power, possibly the last.
Enough people voted for him. The margins weren’t even that thin. You are now represented by President Orange in your international affairs and force projection. We can’t really help you that much either, as you have positioned yourselves as a dominant global power, with economical, soft and hard power.
My entirely unqualified guess - we’ll start accepting political refugees from the US, fearing for their lives, fairly soon. I’m guessing LGBTQ+, some ethnicities, some scientists and some public servants are in the danger zone. Stop being ”horrified” and start being ”absolutely fucking terrified”.
In short, go deal with your carrot man, we can’t do it for you. We can hopefully provide some refuge. But we can only deal with you as a nation, represented by Trump. Sorry.
With the growing anti-intellectualism in the US, scientists and would be stem would have to go to other countries for their research opportunities, it's already bad that you have to chase grant money in the US for research, and there is very little support for undergrads to become scientist in general, other than "hope you can find wet lab work somewhere".
Yeah, American research is absolutely screwed.
Some 60% of Americans feel that what Zelenskyy said was 'offensive'.
We're fucked on a societal level.
Where do those numbers come from? I can't find any source.
But I did find that 46% think no one won the exchange, perhaps unsurprisingly strongly split along party lines https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5173356-trump-zelensky-meeting-poll/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/03/ukraine-russia-support-poll
Calculated escalation or not, this public spat weakens Ukraine’s global standing against Russia. Well-supported and credible analysis of the situation but lacks conclusive proof for Merz's claim.
😺😺😺🐱
It's a known tactic that has got its own meme.
I think this gives this office too much credits.
The whole thing seems more spontaneous dysfunction than planned, Vance overplaying his troll role, and Rubio did not show up for job.
This is obviously aligned with their long term vision regardless, but I don’t think they were planning to hit the gas at that day.
Vance clearly walked in with an agenda to blow it up - his comments were tactless and incendiary while Vance has many times shown a willingness to hold his nose or backtrack former statements fir political gains. Vance, from the comments on wearing a suite (has he ever criticized Elon for his shitheel dress code) to saying "You should be thanking us" - there is no more universal thing you can say to an adult to instantly shutdown communication.
Things like requesting for emotional value in a serious conversation is such an unsophisticated tactic in arguments, just hard to believe it’s planned by a long time blogger and book writer who should be good at words.