Journalists overlaying the Feb. 28, 2025, Oval Office meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described it as a “jaw-dropping” “spectacle” and a “striking breach of Oval Office comity.” Slate’s Fred Kaplan asserted, “No person has ever seen something prefer it.”
Folks shouldn’t have been shocked.
The Oval Workplace encounter was anticipated to be an on-camera assembly between the president and the Ukrainian head of state earlier than the signing of a vital minerals deal between the 2 nations that was meant to be a key step towards ending the battle in Ukraine.
However as reporters described it, the initially routine assembly devolved right into a “fiery exchange” during which Trump and Vice President JD Vance “berated” and “harangued” Zelenskyy after he pushed again on Vance’s assertion that Trump’s diplomatic expertise would make sure that Russian President Vladimir Putin would honor a ceasefire settlement.
Trump’s compulsion to dominate both allies and enemies appears to have brought on him to jettison the negotiation the second that Zelenskyy declined to carry out subservient fealty. The assembly, which was ended by Trump with no settlement signed, illustrated why authoritarians are awful dealmakers, notably when autocratic instincts are exacerbated by what’s generally known as toxic masculinity.
Poisonous masculinity is a version of masculinity that daunts empathy, expresses power by means of dominance, normalizes violence towards ladies and associates management with white patriarchy. It devalues behaviors thought-about to be “female” and means that the best way to earn others’ respect is to accrue energy and standing.
As a communication scholar who research gender and politics, I’ve written about Trump’s displays of toxic masculinity and authoritarian tendencies in quite a lot of conditions, throughout and after his first presidential time period.
Trump’s response to Zelenskyy within the Oval Workplace illustrates how these inclinations stymie the president’s purported dealmaking talents, undermine democratic values and make the world a extra harmful place.
Diplomat, dealmaker or mafia don?
Trump staged the general public Oval Workplace assembly with Zelenskyy to showcase his ostensible prowess as – in his phrases – an “arbitrator” and “mediator.” Trump insisted throughout the first 40 minutes that “my whole life is deals” and asserted that he has what it takes to make Putin conform to a peace settlement with an embattled Ukraine.
Apparently desirous to mission a persona as a profitable diplomat and highly effective dealmaker, Trump rejected a reporter’s suggestion that “you align yourself too much with Putin” and never with democratic values.
Trump contended that with a purpose to efficiently negotiate, he couldn’t alienate both Putin or Zelenskyy. “If I didn’t align myself with each of them,” he mentioned, “you’d by no means have a deal.” As a substitute, he claimed, “I’m aligned with the US of America and for the great of the world. I’m aligned with the world.”
Vance initially echoed Trump’s message, casting Trump as a consummate diplomat and arguing, “What makes America a great nation is America participating in diplomacy.”
However Vance’s tone shifted the second Zelenskyy challenged Trump’s framing.
Zelenskyy offered historic examples of U.S. diplomatic failures and noticed that Trump and different presidents had been unable to comprise Putin. Vance responded by castigating Zelenskyy for not “thanking the president” and repeatedly instructed him to “say thanks” because the change grew extra unstable.
Trump, seemingly angered after Vance identified Zelenskyy’s lack of deference, dropped his diplomatic tone and knowledgeable Zelenskyy: “You’ve obtained to be extra grateful as a result of let me inform you, you don’t have the playing cards. With us, you might have the playing cards, however with out us, you don’t have any playing cards.”
After the assembly, each the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman and Slate’s Kaplan in contrast Trump to a mafia don. The Each day Beast author David Rothkopf suggested he was extra like “the Luca Brasi for mob boss Vladimir Putin,” invoking Don Corleone’s henchman within the film “The Godfather.”
The comparability to well-known fictional mafiosos was apt. As a scholar who research each movie and politics, I’ve noticed how each fictionalized depictions of the mafia and MAGA Republicanism are deeply patriarchal and autocratic cultures that demand loyalty, breed abuse and foster corruption.
After Trump suspended negotiations, canceled lunch and expelled the Ukrainian delegation from the White Home, Reuters reported that “most Republicans rallied behind Trump and Vance.”
Democrats, a few Republican outliers and the majority of European leaders backed Zelenskyy.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
The artwork of the deal’s demise
Trump cemented his status as an achieved dealmaker within the Nineteen Eighties, when he printed the largely ghostwritten New York Occasions bestseller “Trump: The Art of the Deal.”
A lot of his supporters voted for Trump in 2016 as a result of they wanted a “dealmaker in chief,” as one ballot characterised it, who may get issues completed in a fractured Congress.
In his second time period, regardless of having a Republican congressional majority, Trump has established himself because the nation’s sole authority, embracing poisonous masculinity’s concept of energy and respect. Doing an finish run round Congress and flouting the law, Trump initiated scores of coverage modifications through government order and asserted that neither lawmakers nor judges have the authority to problem or constrain him.
Trump’s blow-up at Zelenskyy is rather more than a international coverage snafu. It’s a preview of what’s going to occur when poisonous masculinity drives U.S. international coverage.
Poisonous masculinity on the world stage
CBS Evening News
In his assembly with Trump, Zelenskyy modeled a model of masculine power characterised by empathy, self-discipline and mutual respect. Specializing in the wants of his individuals, Zelenskyy confirmed Trump footage of Ukrainian prisoners of war abused in Russian custody and advocated for the return of thousands of Ukrainian children kidnapped by Russia.
Trump initially acknowledged that Russian abuses have been “robust stuff,” however concern for Ukrainians appears to have vanished after Zelenskyy politely challenged Trump.
Decrying Zelenskyy’s inadequate gratitude and escalating the battle, Trump asserted: “You’re playing with World Conflict III. And what you’re doing could be very disrespectful to the nation, this nation, that’s backed you excess of lots of people mentioned they need to have.”
Vance equally shifted focus from the wants of Ukrainian civilians to paying homage to Trump, demanding that Zelenskyy “supply some phrases of appreciation for the US of America and the president who’s making an attempt to avoid wasting your nation.”
A typical tactic employed by abusers is to demand that the particular person they’re bullying show them gratitude.
Of their berating, bullying and humiliation of Zelenskyy, the president and vice chairman used the language and rhetoric of abusers in an obvious try and attempt to pressure the proud and dignified chief of a rustic at battle to grovel and get in line.
Their lack of self-discipline and decorum additionally upended the negotiation, jeopardizing a deal geared toward halting the preventing in Ukraine and advancing U.S. pursuits.
For my part, the poisonous masculinity on show within the Oval Workplace on Feb. 28 was a bald demonstration of one thing new and alarming to a public accustomed to decorum and diplomacy in that formal setting.
For a lot of, the enduring picture of that assembly is an anxious Zelenskyy being hectored by a livid Trump.
However there’s another image that captures equally properly the dynamic unfolding within the room. Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S. Oksana Markarova sat in a chair simply in entrance of the assembled members of the media. Papers held regular in her lap with one hand, the usually unflappable member of the diplomatic corps buried her head in her different hand, unable to even take a look at what was taking place.
