Donald Trump and J.D. Vance decided to form a tag team in the Oval Office, taking turns bashing Volodymyr Zelenskyy as he came to D.C. ostensibly to sign a mineral-rights deal with the United States.
What the Ukrainian president received instead was a shameful and unconscionable hectoring from the U.S. president and vice president who stunningly decided to stand with the dictator who unleashed his army on Ukraine three years ago.
Trump and Vance made a bit of notoriety with their lecture of Zelenskyy, who has stood firm with his troops who have inflicted tremendous injury and death on the invaders. They became the first American president and VP to turn their backs on an ally while he is fighting quite literally a hostile force intending to do this nation harm.
The tag-team approach was particularly galling, it appears, even to congressional conservatives who have been talking up their displeasure over what they witnessed in the Oval Office.
The true measure of their displeasure will come when they have to cast votes on Trump policies. Newfound anger at Trump well could be just so much bluster and bravado. The validation could come when they propose tangible measures to strike back at what many of them have called a betrayal of an ally fighting for democracy.
Indeed, what we witnessed was a sickening display by the former leader of the Free World.