Friday’s extraordinary Oval Office meeting between President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy went off the rails, leaving hopes for a U.S.-brokered peace deal between Russia and Ukraine in question. Here are some reasons why things went wrong, and where it leaves efforts to end the war.

Zelenskyy does not grasp—or deliberately ignores—the bitter truth: Those with whom he feels most affinity (Western globalists, the American Left, the Europeans) have little power in 2025 to help him. And those whom he obviously does not like or seeks to embarrass (as with his Scranton, Penn. campaign-like visit in September 2024) alone have the power to save him. For his own sake, I hope he is not being ‘briefed’ by the Obama-Clinton-Biden gang to confront Trump, given their interests are not really Ukraine’s as they feign.

. Zelenskyy acts as if his agenda and ours are identical. So, he keeps insisting that he is fighting for us despite our two-ocean-distance that he mocks. We do have many shared interests with Ukraine, but not all by any means: Trump wants to ‘reset’ with Russia and triangulate it against China. He seeks to avoid a 1962 DEFCON 2-like crisis over a proxy showdown in proximity to a nuclear rival. And he sincerely wants to end the deadlocked Stalingrad slaughterhouse for everyone’s sake.

. The Europeans (and Canada) are now talking loudly of a new muscular antithesis, independent of the U.S. Promises, promises—given that would require Europeans to prune back their social welfare state, frack, use nuclear, stop the green obsession, and spend 3-5% of their GDP on defense. The U.S. does not just pay 16% of NATO’s budget, but also puts up with asymmetrical tariffs that result in a European Union trade surplus of $160 billion, plays the world cop, patrolling sea-lanes and deterring terrorists and rogue states that otherwise might interrupt Europe’s commercial networks abroad, as well as de facto including Europe under a nuclear umbrella of 6,500 nukes.

. Zelenskyy must know that all of the once-deal-breaking impediments to peace have been settled. Ukraine is now better armed than most NATO nations, but will not be in NATO, and no president has or will ever supply Ukraine with the armed wherewithal to take back the Donbass and Crimea. So, the only two issues are a) how far will Putin be willing to withdraw to his 2022 borders and b) how will he be deterred? The first is answered by a commercial sector/tripwire, joint Ukrainian-US-Europe resource development corridor in Eastern Ukraine, coupled with a Korea-like DMZ; the second by the fact that Putin, unlike his 2008 and 2014 invasions, has now incurred a million dead and wounded to a Ukraine that will remain thusly armed. 

What are Zelenskyy’s alternatives without much U.S. help—wait for a return of the Democrats to the White House in four years? Hope for a rearmed Europe? Pray for a Democratic House and a third Vindman-like engineered Trump impeachment? Or swallow his pride, return to the White House, sign the rare-earth minerals deal, invite in the Euros (are they seriously willing to patrol a DMZ?), and hope Trump can warn Putin, as he did successfully between 2017-21, not to dare try it again?

. If there is a cease-fire, a commercial deal, a Euro ground presence, and influx of Western companies into Ukraine, would there be elections? And if so, would Zelenskyy and his party win? And if not, would there be a successor transparent government that would reveal exactly where all the Western financial aid money went? 

Zelenskyy might see a model in Netanyahu. The Biden Administration was far harder on him than Trump is on Ukraine, suspending arms shipments, demanding cease-fires, prodding for a wartime, bipartisan cabinet, hammering Israel on collateral damage—none of which Westerners have demanded of Zelenskyy. Yet Netanyahu managed a hostile President Biden, kept Israel close to its patron, and, when visiting, was gracious to his host. Netanyahu certainly would never before the global media have interrupted and berated a host and patron president in the White House. 

. If Ukraine has alienated the U.S., what then is its strategic victory plan? Wait around for more Euros? Hold off an increasingly invigorated Russian military? Cede more territory? What, then, exactly are Zelenskyy’s cards he seems to think form a winning hand? 

. If one views carefully all the 50-minute tape, most of it was going quite well—until Zelenskyy started correcting Vance firstly, and Trump secondly. By Ukraine-splaining to his hosts, and by his gestures, tone, and interruptions, he made it clear that he assumed that Trump was just more of the same compliant, clueless moneybags Biden waxen effigy. And that was naïve for such a supposedly worldly leader. 

. March 2025 is not March 2022, after the heroic saving of Kyiv—but three years and 1.5 million dead and wounded later. Zelenskyy is no longer the international heartthrob with the glamorous entourage. He has postponed elections, outlawed opposition media and parties, suspended habeas corpus and walked out of negotiations when he had an even hand in spring 2022 and apparently even now when he does not in spring 2025.

Quo vadis, Volodymyr?

Months after war broke out between Russia and Ukraine, then-President Joe Biden had a fiery private phone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, which included Biden allegedly losing ‘his temper’ and calling on Ukraine to ‘show a little more gratitude’ towards the U.S. for its support, a resurfaced 2022 NBC News report shows. 

‘Biden had barely finished telling Zelenskyy that he had just greenlighted another $1 billion in U.S. military assistance for Ukraine when Zelenskyy started listing all the additional help he needed and wasn’t getting,’ according to an NBC report published in November 2022, recounting a prior June 2022 call that Biden and Zelenskyy shared. 

‘Biden lost his temper, the people familiar with the call said. The American people were being quite generous, and his administration and the U.S. military were working hard to help Ukraine, he said, raising his voice, and Zelenskyy could show a little more gratitude,’ the report continued. 

The reported tense exchange on the phone came just months after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. The pair’s relationship ‘only improved’ following the phone call, Biden administration officials told NBC at the time. 

Fox News Digital reached out to Biden’s office on Sunday morning for additional comment on the 2022 phone call but did not immediately receive a reply. 

The report resurfaced over the weekend, following President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance’s fiery meeting with Zelenskyy, which included the VP pressing the Ukraine leader on his gratitude for the U.S.’s assistance across the years, and Trump asking Zelenskyy to leave the White House – stipulating that he can return ‘when he is ready for Peace.’

The White House meeting grew tense in approximately its final 10 minutes, after Vance said that peace would be reached between Russia and Ukraine through U.S. diplomacy efforts.

‘Mr. President, with respect, I think it’s disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office to try to litigate this in front of the American media,’ Vance told Zelenskyy. ‘Right now, you guys are going around and forcing conscripts to the front lines, because you have manpower problems. You should be thanking the president for bringing it, to bring it into this country.’ 

‘Have you’ve ever been to Ukraine that you say what problems we have?’ Zelenskyy shot back. 

‘I’ve actually watched and seen the stories and I know that what happens is you bring people, you bring them on a propaganda tour,’ Vance continued. ‘Mr. President, do you disagree that you’ve had problems bringing people into your military? And do you think that it’s respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to, trying to prevent the destruction of your country?’ 

Zelenskyy continued that under war, ‘everybody has problems, even you,’ and that the U.S. would feel the war ‘in the future.’

‘Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel,’ Trump shot back at Zelenskyy. 

‘You’re gambling with the lives of millions of people,’ Trump added at another point during the exchange. ‘You’re gambling with World War III. You’re gambling with World War III. And what you’re doing is very disrespectful to the country, this country.’

Vance interjected, asking Zelenskyy whether he had ‘said thank you once this entire meeting.’ He also added that Zelenskyy ‘went to Pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition in October’ and that he should ‘offer some words of appreciation for the United States of America and the president who’s trying to save your country.’

Congress has appropriated $175 billion since 2022 for aid to Ukraine, according to the Council on Foreign Relations, though exact monetary figures on how much the U.S. has provided to Ukraine vary based on what is considered aid. 

Total European assistance to Ukraine between January 2022 and December 2024 totals roughly $138.7 billion, according to German think tank the Kiel Institute. The U.S. contributed $119.7 billion during that same timeframe, Fox Digital previously reported. 

Trump continued in his remarks to Zelenskyy that ‘the problem is, I’ve empowered you to be a tough guy, and I don’t think you’d be a tough guy without the United States.’

‘And your people are very brave. But you’re either going to make a deal or we’re out. And if we’re out, you’ll fight it out. I don’t think it’s going to be pretty, but you’ll fight it out. But you don’t have the cards. But once we sign that deal, you’re in a much better position. But you’re not acting at all thankful. And that’s not a nice thing. I’ll be honest. That’s not a nice thing,’ Trump said. 

Zelenskyy left the White House shortly after. The Trump administration canceled a planned press conference with Zelenskyy later that day, while a planned speaking event featuring the Ukraine leader at a Washington, D.C.-based think tank was canceled.  

Zelenskyy did join Fox News’ Bret Baier for an exclusive interview on Friday evening, where he was pressed on whether he would apologize to Trump. U.S. leaders, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, called on Zelenskyy to apologize for the Oval Office meeting, but the Ukraine president bucked the calls during the Baier interview, while adding that he respects Trump and the U.S.

‘I’m very thankful to Americans for all your support. You did a lot. I’m thankful to President Trump and to Congress for bipartisan support,’ he responded when asked about an apology. ‘You helped us a lot from the very beginning, during three years of full-scale invasion, you helped us to survive.’

‘No, I respect the president and I respect American people. . . . I think that we have to be very open and very honest, and I’m not sure that we did something bad,’ he added when asked again whether he believes he owes Trump an apology. 

Zelenskyy traveled to the UK over the weekend, meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who told local media that he had spoken with Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron regarding the UK and France taking the reins on crafting a plan for peace that will eventually be presented to the U.S. 

European leaders are slated to travel to London on Sunday to further discuss a peace plan. 

Fox News Digital’s Diana Stancy contributed to this report. 

Late Saturday, Washington D.C. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that President Donald Trump violated federal law in firing Hampton Dellinger, head of the Office of Special Counsel. Jackson’s decision is forceful, well-written, and arguably wrong under existing precedent. Indeed, it may have just set up an appeal that both presidents and professors have long waited for to reinforce presidential powers.

Appointed by President Joe Biden, and the son of the respected liberal scholar and Clinton acting Solicitor General Walter Dellinger, Hampton Dellinger was confirmed by the Senate for a five-year term beginning in 2024. He sued after receiving an email with a perfunctory termination notice shortly after Trump’s inauguration. The various inspector generals were also terminated and, at the time, some of us raised concerns over compliance with underlying federal statutes. The issue was not likely the outcome, but the process for such removals. However, while many objected to the helter-skelter approach to such terminations, there may be a method to this madness. Indeed, this ruling may be precisely what the Trump administration is seeking as the foundation for a major new constitutional challenge.

Dellinger’s claim is based in large part on the Civil Service Reform Act, which provides that the Special Counsel ‘may be removed by the President only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.’ 5 U.S.C. 1211(b). The notice gave none of these grounds for the termination even though ‘inefficiency’ and ‘neglect’ are a fairly ambiguous and malleable rationale.

Judge Jackson held that the firing clearly violated the controlling statute and that the Act itself was constitutional. She emphasized that, while there are grounds for presidents to claim the power for at-will terminations, those cases have tended to be offices that carry out executive functions. Jackson described the Special Counsel as an essentially harmless office vis-à-vis executive authority.

‘Special Counsel acts as an ombudsman, a clearinghouse for complaints and allegations, and after looking into them, he can encourage the parties to resolve the matter among themselves,’ she wrote. ‘But if that fails, he must direct them elsewhere.’

She noted that earlier cases supporting the executive power to fire executive officials involved ‘restrictions on the President’s ability to remove an official who wields significant executive authority. The Special Counsel simply does not.’

Judge Jackson has a good-faith reliance on her narrow reading of existing precedent. However, it is far from conclusive and brushes over some striking conflicts with prior rulings of the Supreme Court. Jackson insisted that a contrary ruling would undermine the very point of the special counsel office, which she identified as its independence. However, that is the very point that has irked both Democratic and Republican presidents for years.

In 1978, President Jimmy Carter objected on these grounds. The Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel explained that, ‘[b]ecause the Special Counsel [would] be performing largely executive functions, the Congress [could] not restrict the President’s power to remove him.’ 2 Op. O.L.C. 120, 121 (1978).

It is unclear whether the current Supreme Court would agree with an exception for minor or de minimus intrusions. Many scholars and judges believe that a president either has Article II authority to fire executive branch officials or he does not.

Notably, there are only four single agency heads who were given tenure protection by Congress: the directors of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), the commissioner of Social Security, and the Special Counsel. In 2020, the Court ruled in Seila Law LLC v. CFPB that Congress had violated Article II by granting tenure protection to that sole agency head, writing:

‘The CFPB’s single-Director structure contravene[d] [Article II’s] carefully calibrated system by vesting significant governmental power in the hands of a single individual accountable to no one.’ Id. at 224.

Then, in 2021, in Collins v. Yellen, the Court rejected the same claim as to the director of the FHFA. That opinion came with language that directly opposes Jackson’s rationale. The Court found Seila Law to be ‘all but dispositive’ on the question and expressly rejected the argument that this would change depending upon ‘the nature and breadth of an agency’s authority.’ The Court held that the ‘[c]ourts are not well-suited to weigh the relative importance of the regulatory and enforcement authorities of disparate agencies.’

Given these cases, lower courts clearly got the message – a message amplified by President Joe Biden, who appointed Dellinger. On the third ‘independent’ position, the commissioner of Social Security, Biden’s Office of Legal Counsel declared that ‘the best reading of Collins and Seila Law‘ is that ‘the President need not heed the Commissioner’s statutory tenure protection.’ Two circuits (the Ninth and Eleventh) have ruled consistently with that interpretation in favor of executive authority to remove such officers.

Ultimately, Dellinger can be removed even if this decision stands. The Trump Administration could have easily cited a basis like inefficiency or neglect. The question is why it decided not to do so. Clearly, it could just be a chainsaw approach to cutting positions. However, it may also reflect a desire for some in the administration to challenge lingering case law limiting executive powers. In other words, they seem to be spoiling for a fight.

The reason may be Humphrey’s Executor v. United States (1935), which established the right of Congress to create independent agencies. It found that Congress could, without violating Article II powers, provide tenure protection to ‘a multimember body of experts, balanced along partisan lines, that performed legislative and judicial functions and was said not to exercise any executive power.’ The Court in cases like Seila Law cited that precedent for one of the exceptions to executive power. It also cited an exception for giving tenure protection to ‘certain inferior officers with narrowly defined duties,’ under Morrison v. Olson (1988). Jackson cited both cases and those exceptions in shoehorning the Special Counsel into a narrow band of quasi-executive positions.

What may be overlooked in the filings of the administration before the Supreme Court in the Dellinger case was this line in a footnote: ‘Humphrey’s Executor appears to have misapprehended the powers of ‘the New Deal-era [Federal Trade Commission]’ and misclassified those powers as primarily legislative and judicial.’ It went on to suggest that the case is not only wrongly decided but that the Justice Department ‘intends to urge this Court to overrule that decision.’

Described by the Court as ‘the outer-most constitutional limits of permissible congressional restrictions on the President’s removal power,’ the Trump Administration appears set to try to redraw that constitutional map.

That is why Jackson’s opinion may not only be expected but welcomed by the Trump administration. It is hunting for bigger game than Dellinger and Judge Jackson just gave it a clear shot for the Supreme Court.

Ric Grenell, the Trump administration’s special presidential envoy for special missions, slammed Obama and Biden-era diplomat Susan Rice for the Democratic Party’s years of foreign policies that he said landed the U.S. in two different wars under the Biden administration alone.  

‘Your guy couldn’t even talk to Putin. For 3.5 years! Your policies helped usher in a war in Ukraine, Gaza…and Rwanda if you remember,’ Grenell posted to X on Saturday afternoon. 

‘And then you lied about Libya – it wasn’t caused by a video,’ he continued, referring to claims in 2012 that an anti-Islam video led to the Benghazi terror attack on U.S. government facilities in the Libyan city. ‘You made that up…. Donald Trump handed you peace in the Middle East and Europe – you handed us two wars. We see you,’ he added. 

Grenell was responding to a post from Susan Rice, who served as an Obama administration national security advisor and U.N. ambassador, that claimed conservatives ‘are up to the same old tired crap’ following President Donald Trump’s tense meeting with Ukraine President Volodomyr Zelenskyy on Friday. 

The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway had posted to X speculating that Rice and other Democrats may have ‘personally’ advised Zelenskyy on acting ‘hostile and to try to goad Trump into blowing up’ during the meeting, sparking Rice to weigh in. 

‘You clowns are up to the same old tired crap,’ Rice posted to X. ‘When your guy screws up and royally embarrasses himself and the U.S., you try to change the subject and lie about a favorite target to distract and deflect. For the record, I have never met Zelenskyy and never spoken to him. Ever. Or advised him or anybody around him. It’s a shame that you contend that it is in the U.S. national interest to sell out Ukraine and suck up to Putin.’

Hemingway shot back, ‘Thank you for your response. Where would we place this denial, compared to your oft-repeated lie that the Benghazi debacle was due to a YouTube video, and your lie that you ‘knew nothing’ about the unmasking of Trump officials before being forced to admit you did it widely?’

Last week, Rice joined MSNBC and declared ‘there’s no question’ that the Trump-Vance meeting with Zelenskyy ‘was a setup.’

‘It’s a very sad day and an embarrassment for the United States on the world stage. But let’s step back and analyze what’s happened here. I think there’s no question that this was a setup,’ she said on MSNBC. 

‘Soon after [Zelenskyy] got there, the vice president of the United States lit into him and started a confrontation. Now, I’ve been in countless Oval Office meetings with heads of state, presidents and vice presidents, as national security advisor, as U.N. ambassador, and in other roles. I can tell you that the vice president or the secretary of state or anybody else, they don’t jump in, hijack a conversation without the express blessing of the president of the United States. So JD Vance did that deliberately. Donald Trump knew what he was going to do,’ she continued. 

Ahead of his meeting with Trump, Zelenskyy also met with a group of bipartisan Senate lawmakers, including Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Chris Coons, D-Del., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. Zelenskyy reportedly told the group that he would not ‘support a fake peace agreement’ during that meeting.  

‘Just finished a meeting with President Zelensky (sic) here in Washington. He confirmed that the Ukrainian people will not support a fake peace agreement where Putin gets everything he wants and there are no security arrangements for Ukraine,’ Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., posted to X on Friday morning. 

Zelenskyy joined Trump and his team in the Oval Office shortly after the Senate meeting, where political fireworks were on full display following Zelenskyy taking issue with Vice President JD Vance arguing the path to securing peace between Russia and Ukraine was through the U.S. engaging in diplomacy.

‘You’re gambling with the lives of millions of people,’ Trump said at one point during the meeting. ‘You’re gambling with World War III. You’re gambling with World War III. And what you’re doing is very disrespectful to the country, this country.’

Vance also interjected, asking Zelenskyy whether he had ‘said thank you once this entire meeting.’ 

Congress has appropriated $175 billion since 2022 for aid to Ukraine, according to the Council on Foreign Relations, though exact monetary figures on how much the U.S. has provided to Ukraine vary based on what is considered aid. 

Total European assistance to Ukraine between January 2022 and December 2024 totals $138.7 billion, according to German think tank the Kiel Institute. The U.S. contributed $119.7 billion during that same timeframe, Fox Digital previously reported.

‘Your people are very brave,’ Trump continued in the meeting. ‘But you’re either going to make a deal or we’re out. And if we’re out, you’ll fight it out. I don’t think it’s going to be pretty, but you’ll fight it out. But you don’t have the cards. But once we sign that deal, you’re in a much better position. But you’re not acting at all thankful. And that’s not a nice thing. I’ll be honest. That’s not a nice thing.’

Zelenskyy traveled to the U.K. over the weekend, meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who told local media that he had spoken with Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron regarding the U.K. and France taking the reins on crafting a plan for peace that will eventually be presented to the U.S. 

European leaders are meeting in London on Sunday to continue peace talks.