The way Trump ambushed Zelensky in the White House today was shocking. But no regular reader of this blog should’ve been surprised.

Trump was motivated by his “Russia, Russia, Russia” petty grievance. That was embarrassingly obvious. Moreover, his ambush was clearly intended to humiliate the incorruptible Zelensky as a prelude to withdrawing US support so Russia can have its way with Ukraine.

Humiliating Zelensky to appease Putin

I rarely find anything politicians say worth quoting. Today is a laudable exception. Nobody characterized this ambush better than Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy did on X:

What just happened in the Oval office was a planned ambush, designed to embarrass President Zelensky in order to help a brutal Russian dictator and hurt America’s security. Trump has become Putin’s lapdog. And America’s global power is hemorrhaging as America sides with dictators over democracy. What an embarrassment.

Zelensky came desperately seeking US security guarantees to protect his country from the existential war Russia is waging against it. But I warned here on Sunday that those guarantees are not worth the paper they’re written on. I had in mind: what price is a US alliance? After all, the Vietnam War, Iran nuclear deal, Afghanistan, and now Ukraine are all marked by the US betraying promises and abandoning allies.

Russia and China are reveling in the fallout

This is why, when the Russians and Chinese whisper that Americans can’t be trusted, it resonates throughout the developing world. I ended that commentary by admonishing Taiwan to beware…

More important, though, I urged at The Daily Beast just yesterday that Zelensky should forget about Trump. Instead, he should press Germany-led Europe—not just for NATO-like security guarantees (which the UK has already pledged) but to spearhead Ukraine’s reconstruction, funded by frozen Russian assets.

I noted that Germany’s new chancellor, Merz, has already staked his claim as the new leader of the free world, declaring that making the EU militarily independent of the US is his top priority. I hope this is because Merz understands that it will redound to Germany’s eternal shame that it alone could not supply Ukraine with enough arms to outgun Russia.