A Liberal Reporter Destroyed the Left's Narrative About Zelensky's Meeting with Trump

The left once again showed its true colors after President Trump’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday. The pearl-clutching commentators, be they in Congress or the media, immediately ran with their favorite narrative: the explosive meeting was Trump’s fault, Trump embarrassed America, and he “ambushed” the poor Ukrainian leader in an orchestrated setup.

There’s just one problem—it’s complete nonsense.

But don’t take my word for it. Even some voices on the left couldn’t stomach the blatant mischaracterization of what actually happened. Independent journalist Michael Tracey, who’s certainly no MAGA fan, called out the absurdity of the “ambush” narrative being pushed by the mainstream media.

“Anyone who rationally watches the full 50 minutes will see it was not an ‘ambush,'” Tracey wrote in a post on X. “The first 40 minutes were normal and cordial. Then came the self-inflicted meltdown by Zelensky. If you can’t rationally describe the meeting, perhaps your policy extrapolations are also irrational.”

Related: It Looks As If the Media Missed the Real Story Behind Trump and Zelenskyy’s Tense Meeting

Tracey didn’t stop there. He explained exactly how Zelenskyy torpedoed his own diplomatic mission.

Zelensky had two explicit verbal commitments from Trump that he was going to continue arming Ukraine, which is the most acute policy issue from Ukraine’s perspective. But then later he decided to stupidly interject with Vance, and everything went haywire. Epic diplomatic meltdown pic.twitter.com/J4t5HVtNia

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) February 28, 2025

The reality is that Zelenskyy had already secured what he came for—assurances that military support would continue under Trump’s second term—and then proceeded to shoot himself in the foot.  

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“An irony of that meeting was they were on the cusp of formalizing Ukraine as sort of US protectorship, with continued US military ‘aid’ and a framework for deployment of NATO troops. All of which are major US commitments under the circumstances. But it wasn’t enough for Zelensky,” Tracey continued. “Another irony is the paranoid EU over-reactions to every Trump tiff — ‘End of the Western Alliance!’ etc. — could impel at least some of them to take rash action vis-a-vis Ukraine, potentially ensnaring the US. (The same frenzied over-reactions happened all the time in term 1).”

Democrats have less than zero standing to object to anything on Ukraine. They’ve spent the past 3 years systematically refusing to do any reappraisal whatsoever of a policy that’s culminated in absurd WWI trench warfare. They still demand theatrical cliches over critical thinking

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) March 1, 2025

The most revealing aspect of this entire episode is how quickly the media jumped to construct a fantasy version of events. Rather than reporting what actually happened—a cordial meeting that deteriorated after Zelenskyy’s poor diplomatic choices—they spun tales of Trump setting “traps” and staging “humiliations” because they refused to acknowledge the fact that Zelenskyy was at fault.