Journalists masking the Feb. 28, 2025, Oval Workplace assembly between U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described it as a “jaw-dropping” “spectacle” and a “striking breach of Oval Office comity.” Slate’s Fred Kaplan asserted, “Nobody has ever seen anything like it.”
Individuals shouldn’t have been shocked.
The Oval Workplace encounter was anticipated to be an on-camera assembly between the president and the Ukrainian head of state earlier than the signing of an important minerals deal between the 2 international locations that was meant to be a key step towards ending warfare in Ukraine.
However as reporters described it, the initially routine assembly devolved right into a “fiery exchange” wherein Trump and Vice President JD Vance “berated” and “harangued” Zelenskyy after he pushed again on Vance’s assertion that Trump’s diplomatic abilities would make sure that Russian president Vladimir Putin would honor a stop fireplace settlement.
Trump’s compulsion to dominate each allies and enemies appears to have induced him to jettison the negotiation the second that Zelenskyy declined to carry out subservient fealty. The assembly, which was ended by Trump with no settlement signed, illustrated why authoritarians are awful dealmakers, significantly when autocratic instincts are exacerbated by what’s generally known as poisonous masculinity.
Poisonous masculinity is a model of masculinity that daunts empathy, expresses power via dominance, normalizes violence in opposition to girls and associates management with white patriarchy. It devalues behaviors thought-about to be “feminine” and means that the best way to earn others’ respect is to accrue energy and standing.
As a communication scholar who research gender and politics, I’ve written about Trump’s shows of poisonous masculinity and authoritarian tendencies in a wide range of conditions, throughout and after his first presidential time period.
Trump’s response to Zelenskyy within the Oval Workplace illustrates how these inclinations stymie the president’s purported dealmaking skills, undermine democratic values and make the world a extra harmful place.
Excerpts from the Feb. 28 Oval Workplace assembly, that includes U.S. President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Diplomat, dealmaker or mafia don?
Trump staged the general public Oval Workplace assembly with Zelenskyy to showcase his ostensible prowess as – in his phrases – an “arbitrator” and “mediator.” Trump insisted throughout the first 40 minutes that “my whole life is deals” and asserted that he has what it takes to make Putin conform to a peace settlement with an embattled Ukraine.
Apparently desperate to venture a persona as a profitable diplomat and highly effective dealmaker, Trump rejected a reporter’s suggestion that “you align yourself too much with Putin” and never with democratic values.
Trump contended that with a view to efficiently negotiate, he couldn’t alienate both Putin or Zelenskyy. “If I didn’t align myself with both of them,” he stated, “you’d never have a deal.” As a substitute, he claimed, “I’m aligned with the United States of America and for the good of the world. I’m aligned with the world.”
Vance initially echoed Trump’s message, casting Trump as a consummate diplomat and arguing, “What makes America a good country is America engaging in diplomacy.”
However Vance’s tone shifted the second Zelenskyy challenged Trump’s framing.
Zelenskyy supplied historic examples of U.S. diplomatic failures and noticed that Trump and different presidents had been unable to include Putin. Vance responded by castigating Zelenskyy for not “thanking the president” and repeatedly instructed him to “say thank you” because the trade grew extra risky.
Trump, seemingly angered after Vance identified Zelenskyy’s lack of deference, dropped his diplomatic tone and knowledgeable Zelenskyy, “You’ve got to be more thankful because let me tell you, you don’t have the cards. With us, you have the cards, but without us, you don’t have any cards.”
After the assembly, each the New York Occasions columnist Thomas Friedman and Slate’s Kaplan in contrast Trump to a mafia don. The Every day Beast author David Rothkopf instructed he was extra like “the Luca Brasi for mob boss Vladimir Putin,” invoking Don Corleone’s henchman within the film “The Godfather.”
The comparability to well-known fictional mafiosos was apt. As a scholar who research each movie and politics, I’ve noticed how fictionalized depictions of each the mafia and MAGA Republicanism are deeply patriarchal and autocratic cultures that demand loyalty, breed abuse and foster corruption.
After Trump suspended negotiations, canceled lunch and expelled the Ukrainian delegation from the White Home, Reuters reported that “most Republicans rallied behind Trump and Vance.”
Democrats, a number of Republican outliers and the vast majority of European leaders backed Zelenskyy.
President Donald Trump, middle, and Vice President JD Vance meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the White Home on Feb. 28, 2025.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Photographs
The artwork of the deal’s demise
Donald Trump cemented his popularity as an achieved dealmaker within the Eighties, when he revealed the largely ghostwritten New York Occasions bestseller “Trump: The Art of the Deal.”
Lots of his supporters voted for Trump in 2016 as a result of they wished a “dealmaker in chief,” as one ballot characterised it, who might get issues executed in a fractured Congress.
In his second time period, regardless of having a Republican congressional majority, Trump has established himself because the nation’s sole authority, embracing poisonous masculinity’s concept of energy and respect. Doing an finish run round Congress and flouting the legislation, Trump initiated scores of coverage adjustments by way of government order and asserted that neither lawmakers nor judges have the authority to problem or constrain him.
Trump’s blow-up at Zelenskyy is far more than a international coverage snafu. It’s a preview of what’s going to occur when poisonous masculinity drives U.S. international coverage.
Poisonous masculinity on the world stage
A screenshot of assorted U.Okay. newspapers’ headlines in regards to the Oval Workplace assembly.
CBS Night Information
In his assembly with Trump, Zelenskyy modeled a model of masculine power characterised by empathy, self-discipline and mutual respect. Specializing in the wants of his folks, Zelenskyy confirmed Trump photos of Ukrainian prisoners of warfare abused in Russian custody and advocated for the return of hundreds of Ukrainian youngsters kidnapped by Russia.
Trump initially acknowledged that Russian abuses had been “tough stuff,” however concern for Ukrainians appears to have vanished after Zelenskyy politely challenged Trump.
Decrying Zelenskyy’s inadequate gratitude and escalating the battle, Trump asserted, “You’re gambling with World War III. And what you’re doing is very disrespectful to the country, this country, that’s backed you far more than a lot of people said they should have.”
Vance equally shifted focus from the wants of Ukrainian civilians to paying homage to Trump, demanding that Zelenskyy “offer some words of appreciation for the United States of America and the president who is trying to save your country.”
A standard tactic employed by abusers is to demand that the particular person they’re bullying present them gratitude.
Of their berating, bullying and humiliation of Zelenskyy, the president and vice chairman of the USA used the language and rhetoric of abusers in an obvious try and attempt to pressure the proud and dignified chief of a rustic at warfare to grovel and get in line.
Their lack of self-discipline and decorum additionally upended the negotiation, jeopardizing a deal aimed toward halting the combating in Ukraine and advancing U.S. pursuits.
In my opinion, the poisonous masculinity on show within the Oval Workplace on Feb. 28, 2025, was a bald demonstration of one thing new and alarming to a public accustomed to decorum and diplomacy in that formal setting.
For a lot of, the enduring picture of that assembly is an anxious Zelenskyy being hectored by a livid Trump.
However there’s one other picture that captures equally properly the dynamic unfolding within the room. Ukrainian Ambassador Oksana Markarova sat in a chair simply in entrance of the assembled members of the press. Papers held regular in her lap with one hand, the usually unflappable member of the diplomatic corps buried her head in her different hand, unable to even take a look at what was taking place.