Zelensky Has Behaved Honorably. He Should Now Resign.

The Ukrainian president had one job. He failed at it.

After I criticized Zelensky’s performance at the White House yesterday, pointing out that this wasn’t an ambush and the Ukrainian president was the one who escalated the situation by breaking the norm that participants address the media instead of one another, one of the responses asked why I was focusing so much on him and not considering the actions of Trump. It’s funny someone would still wonder this in 2025. We know who Trump is. I like the way Sam Harris put it: “We witnessed President Trump acting like a handmaiden to a Russian dictator, while processing everything — US foreign policy, world history, the fate of millions — through the lens of his own grandiosity, pettiness, and personal grievances.” It was true when people said stuff like this in 2016, and it remains true today. But the job of statesmen who want to get something from Trump is to understand who he is and what motivates him.

There are no surprises anymore when it comes to the man and his conduct. If we criticize Zelensky and not Trump, it is because we are operating under the assumption that one of them has the capacity to act like an adult and do what is best for his country.

Zelensky needed to get Trump to agree to continue providing military, diplomatic, and financial support to Ukraine. By now, we know that arguments based in morality or maintaining the rules based international order do not work on Trump. What works is flattery and appealing to his vanity and sense of self-interest.

The minerals deal looked like it was a brilliant way to get Trump to support Ukraine through a logic that appealed to him. Trump wants to be seen as competent and tough, and also a guy who is good at “making deals.” He likes comparing himself favorably to other American leaders. The Ukrainians and hawks within the US like Lindsey Graham decided that they could get Trump to support the Zelensky government by encouraging him to sign an agreement that appealed to naked self-interest. The idea that the minerals deal was going to be a positive-sum proposition for the US from a financial perspective never made much sense. The agreement didn’t even apply to current Ukrainian sources of revenue, and any future president could rework the deal more to the advantage of Kiev, as any Democrat certainly would have. But this reality didn’t matter. Trump could now tell himself and the world that we were “getting something” out of our support for Ukraine. And since ideas like Pax Americana or protecting international norms are too abstract for MAGA brains, this is what the deal had to look like.

The fight that took place in front of the cameras Friday was a personality clash, but its most substantive component was a disagreement over whether the deal would include a security guarantee. Zelensky has reasonably argued that without the US making some kind of commitment to defend Ukraine in the case of further Russian aggression, a minerals agreement would not be worth much. Yet even without an explicit security guarantee, the deal would have made Trump’s ego invested in maintaining the agreement, and any subsequent one made with the Russians. This is how Trump thinks. The Iran nuclear deal had to go because it was Obama’s. NAFTA was bad because it was negotiated before Trump came along, but then he decided to make minor changes and sign a new trade deal in his first administration, and that deal was good because it was negotiated by Trump.

The fact that Trump keeps comparing himself to other presidents on the Ukraine issue, as on everything else, is telling here. He says Obama didn’t give lethal aid, but I did. Putin would’ve never invaded if I had been president. When during the press conference yesterday Zelensky said that Putin has broken agreements in the past, Trump responded that he only dares to do so under other American leaders. This was a sign that Trump’s ego was becoming invested in the minerals deal that was about to be signed. In the days leading up to the disastrous press conference, Trump was beginning to say nice things about Zelensky, and giving the first signs that he was fully committed to taking the side of Ukraine in the war and wanted to help it regain lost territory.

Yes, from Zelensky’s perspective, it would have been nice to have a security guarantee from the beginning. And it would have been fine for the Ukrainians to push for that in private and after the minerals deal was signed and during the subsequent negotiations with Russia for a peace settlement. Even if no guarantee was coming, Trump was signalling that he was going to start letting money and arms flow to Ukraine. And if Zelensky is right that without a solid US commitment to defend his country, Russia would invade again, then the thing to do was sign the deal, let Trump take pride in the agreement, and let Putin be the one who destroys it. During the press conference, Zelensky should have been encouraged by Trump making it a point to say that Putin doesn’t break deals when he is in office. The obvious path to take then was to shut up and go sign the agreement.

There was of course no guarantee that this would have worked out in the end. Perhaps Putin would’ve flattered Trump at the negotiations and this would have led to a complete sellout of Ukraine. But given the attitudes of Trump and Vance towards the conflict, gambling on the minerals deal was certainly a better strategy than blowing the whole relationship up before it was signed and turning not only the president but most influential Republicans decisively against Zelensky.

After the press conference, it was reported that aides had warned the Ukrainian president that he would make a better impression if he wore a suit to the White House. Again, here was another missed opportunity to psychologically manipulate Trump. Zelensky has been wearing street clothes since the February 2022 invasion. Imagine him coming to the White House in a suit and dressing up for Trump after three years of not doing so for Biden or any other world leader. The MAGA focus on the suit thing is of course dumb, but the fact that Zelensky didn’t see that this was an easy way to ingratiate himself with Trump indicates that he has bad judgment and either doesn’t know how to manipulate the American president or is too proud to do so.

The relationship between Zelensky and the Trump administration is likely beyond repair. MAGAs hated the president of Ukraine before. Now most prominent Republicans have rallied around the idea that he was disrespectful and ungrateful to their leader. The fact that the GOP is now a cult of personality meant that if Trump and Zelensky had gotten along and Trump’s ego became wrapped up in the idea of achieving peace, the minerals deal could’ve changed the entire discourse around Ukraine on the right. Instead, Zelensky has angered Trump, and riled up his base. They would now demand even more obsequious displays of subservience if the relationship is ever going to be reestablished.

Zelensky recently said that he would resign if it meant that Ukraine could join NATO. After the fight in the Oval Office, it is clearer than ever that his presence is an obstacle to maintaining US support. Zelensky had gone through 40 minutes of a relatively amiable press conference that was winding down. All he had to do was nod along for a little longer and he would’ve signed a deal that would have given Trump a psychological stake in the continuing survival of Ukraine, and the maintenance of whatever borders it ended up with at the conclusion of a peace deal. The best hope for Ukraine now is for Zelensky to step aside to be replaced by a new leader who is capable of turning Trump’s massive and obvious personality flaws to their own advantage.