Reaction to Friday's Oval Office shouting match that pitted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky against Donald Trump and J.D. Vance has been one of disbelief and disgust.
Trump and Zelensky were meant to sign a deal giving the U.S. a stake in Ukraine's rare minerals mining as "payback" for money given to support the war against Russia. That never happened.
After Vance accused Zelensky of not being "thankful enough" to Trump, and Trump poking his finger at Zelensky and accusing him of not being "ready" for peace, the rest of the official visit was over and the follow-up press conference was canceled.
Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), member of the House Armed Services Committee, gave a damning assessment of the meeting that Trump called "great television."
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"Let's just cut to the chase," Moulton told CNN. "The president of the United States is a coward who is Vladimir Putin's puppet. The vice president of the United States is a pogue and a coward who is Donald Trump's puppet. And, so, what we just witnessed was a meeting in the Oval Office between two cowardly puppets and a hero. And whether you voted for these puppets or not, just as an American, as a fellow American, it's just embarrassing that the only hero in the Oval Office, the only decent human being, for that matter, is the Ukrainian. I mean, this administration is going to go down as an embarrassment to American history."
CNN's Boris Sanchez asked, "Congressman, I wonder if you think that President Zelenskyy could have handled it differently the way that some of his European counterparts and Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer did, and perhaps been more deferential to Trump and Vance?"
"Deferential to what?" Moulton exploded. "Deferential to a president who allowed a deal in his first term to crumble because Putin just violated it. Deferential to to a vice president who didn't even bother to visit Ukraine? I hardly know anyone in in Congress who has any view on national security, who hasn't been to Ukraine during this war. Deferential to a draft dodger, who's our commander in chief? Zelenskyy doesn't deserve to be deferential to anyone in that Oval Office. In fact, I kind of wish he'd put them in their place a little bit stronger. I mean, this is just truly, truly embarrassing. And the vast majority, the vast, vast majority of my republican colleagues in congress completely agree with me. They know the truth here. They're just too scared to say it themselves."