WASHINGTON — Vice President JD Vance said on the latest episode of “Pod Force One” Wednesday that the relationship between the US and Ukraine “is much more productive” since his infamous Oval Office blowup directed at Kyiv’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, this past February.
“That was six [eight] months ago,” Vance told Post columnist Miranda Devine. “We have turned over a new leaf.”
“We’re trying to have productive relationships with both the Ukrainians and the Russians, because we want to end this conflict, and I think the president has a very good working relationship — and so do I — with all the parties involved.”
Vance did admit that the Feb. 28 confrontation with Zelensky was “probably the most famous thing I’ve ever done, or maybe ever will do.”
Leading up to the fiery exchange, Zelensky had been publicly skeptical of Vance, calling the Republican “too radical” during the 2024 election campaign.
During his time in the Senate, Vance had been a staunch opponent of US aid to the war-torn country.
Zelensky had been invited to the White House to discuss a minerals deal with Trump. Initially, the meeting was warm, but tensions exploded after Vance told a reporter that Ukraine and Russia need to engage in diplomacy.
In front of TV cameras, the Ukrainian leader openly questioned Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin’s receptiveness to diplomacy.
From there, the meeting degenerated into a full-blown shouting match in front of the world’s media. At one point, Vance berated Zelensky for not saying “thank you” to the US for past assistance.
Trump backed up Vance and scolded Zelensky as well, insisting that Kyiv didn’t “have the cards” and was gambling with World War III.
“If you go back to that moment, I was getting frustrated because I perceived some rudeness,” Vance reflected.
“I think the takeaway from that for me, but also I think for any foreign leader who comes to the Oval Office, in particular … you try to basically respect the rules of the house that you’re in,” the veep added. “If you’re going to disagree … you can do it in a particularly productive way, or you can do it in an unproductive way.”
In recent months, Trump has constantly recalibrated his approach to ending the war. Last month, Trump chided Russia as a “paper tiger” and mused that Ukraine could regain its captured territory.
Then, following a call with Putin Oct. 16, the US president took a more pessimistic view of Ukraine’s chances during a meeting with Zelensky the following day.
Zelensky had pressed Trump to green-light the sale of long-range Tomahawk missiles that could strike deep inside Russia. So far, Trump has held off from giving Kyiv that firepower.
“I actually think airing everything out, doing it in public, actually articulating where there were disagreements and where there were common interests, actually was pretty productive,” Vance reflected eight months on from the dispute.
However, the vice president declined to guess what might come next in Europe’s deadliest conflict since the Second World War.
“If you asked me six months or so ago, I would have said, ‘They’re never going to stop fighting. This is going to be like Russia’s Vietnam,” Vance said. “’15 years later, they’re still going to be fighting.’ If you asked me a month ago, I would have said we’re making incredible progress [toward peace].”
“It’s hard to venture a prediction, but I do think that we have reached the point of diminishing returns for both sides.”
