President Donald Trump's shouting match with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House on Friday led some observers to speculate the whole thing was staged to give Trump pretext to terminate the United States' longstanding commitments to support Ukraine's military defense against the Russian invasion.
But to hear it from Trump administration Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Fox News with Laura Ingraham later that evening, maybe it was Zelensky who ambushed Trump, not the other way around.
"I have to tell you, Laura, I was shocked that he would behave like this on camera in front of the world," said Bessent. "If he had issues he wanted to bring up with President Trump, the proper venue for that would have been 15 minutes later. We were going to walk into the White House dining room and have lunch, just 16 of us, and he could have voiced his concerns privately."
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Bessent did not appear to acknowledge that Trump and Vance cut him off and raised their voices on camera.
"The Democratic side of the ledger is saying 'Oh, this was a setup, Vice Presidence Vance and President Trump set up President Zelensky,'" Bessent continued. "I actually think he was always going to do this, and I think he was surprised with the forceful reaction he got back."
Outside of Trump's circle of administration officials and advisers, the reaction to his handling of the Zelensky meeting has been broadly negative, with even many traditionally conservative foreign policy analysts warning that the administration has put America in a weaker position with its allies.
Watch the video below or at the link here.