The most surprising thing about Trump’s ambush of Zelensky last Friday is that so many people didn’t see it coming. I am no Jeremy Bowen, but even earlier in the week, I was messaging a friend saying that everything about it felt off.

Trump was already making noise about some supposed minerals deal with Ukraine except it came with no security guarantees. That immediately set alarm bells ringing. Either Zelensky was being wildly naive (unlikely), or he knew the deal was complete fiction but had to turn up anyway. The alternative? Let Trump accuse him of rejecting peace and say Ukraine deserved what was coming.

The Ambush in Plain Sight

Zelensky isn’t naive. He knew full well that Trump was setting a trap, but he showed up anyway probably clinging to the desperate hope that something, anything, might be salvaged from the meeting. What followed was exactly what those paying attention feared. Zelensky was ambushed, not just by Trump but by that odious piece of shit JD Vance, who took it upon himself to sneer at a man whose country is being flattened by Russian missiles.

The setup was crude, unsubtle, and entirely predictable. The moment Zelensky refused to play their ridiculous game, they lost their composure, and the event spiraled into chaos. But the message was loud and clear: Trump is working for Putin’s interests, not America’s.

The Fake Minerals Deal and the Great Gaslighting to Come

There was no minerals deal. There was never going to be a minerals deal. It was nothing more than a fabricated pretext. Something vague enough to be dangled in front of the gullible while setting up Ukraine as the villain when it inevitably rejected it. Now Trump, Vance, Musk, and the rest of the usual suspects will launch a full-scale gaslighting campaign, pushing the absurd notion that Putin is the victim and Ukraine is the aggressor.

Of course, outside of the MAGA cult and Putin’s usual lapdogs in Hungary and Belarus, the rest of the world saw it for what it was. Across the UK and Europe, the response was one of grim unity. Leaders like Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron are clinging to the fragile hope that Trump can either be brought onside or backed into a corner. The reality is increasingly clear: Trump isn’t just sympathetic to Putin, he looks to be compromised by him.

Can Trump Really Sell Putin to the American People?

The problem for Trump and his cronies is that, while 40% of Americans might still worship him, 70% don’t trust Putin. Selling the idea that Europe is the real enemy while Russia needs US financial backing to conquer Ukraine (and beyond) is going to take some serious mental gymnastics. Not impossible, delusion is a powerful force, but a tough sell nonetheless. Maybe hubris will be his undoing.

Where do we go from here? No one really knows. My uneducated guess? Europe is laying the groundwork to force Trump’s hand to give him every possible chance to prove he isn’t working for Putin. And if he can’t? Then the cracks in his government might start to show. I wonder if the European leaders know he’s compromised but they can’t say it, at least not yet.

For all of Trump’s bluster, I still believe that the US military and its citizens have no desire to go to war with Europe on Putin’s behalf. If it comes to that, the consequences would be seismic, not just for America, but for the entire world order.

No Longer a Democracy

What should be clear to everyone now is that Friday’s spectacle was a pre-planned ambush, orchestrated for the cameras. It wasn’t diplomacy and it wasn’t leadership. It was the behaviour of an authoritarian state, not a functioning democracy.

For anyone still clinging to the idea that America is a functioning democracy, consider this your final wake-up call.