EXCERPT:
KEANE: "That is indisputable. Vladimir Putin from the outset was trying to do everything he could to separate Zelenskyy from the United States and also from European support and that is what he is about strategically, to break the transatlantic alliance and separate the United States from our European allies. you are absolutely right in that sense. But a couple things on this. I mean some president, president certainly to have this kind of grievances and frustration done in front of the media. There was a meeting prior to this where the press was not at it. I’m not sure how long it took because it was cordial, but this meeting was anything but cordial. The reality is many of the grievances existed the were displayed in front of the media sounds like what was really going on in that prior meeting. Trump and his team do not like Zelenskyy. That’s well knowd. Zelenskyy has two fundamental disagreements from a policy perspective going forward with the president, one he wants the president to be his partner going into negotiations with Russia.So he favors Ukraine in those negotiations, Trump takes a different stand, believes strongly in personal diplomacy. He sees himself in negotiations as a mediator between Zelenskyy and Ukraine and Putin and Russia, and China facilitates a deal as a mediator, he’s willing to promote his adversary, Vladimir Putin. Trump knows full well he is a thug, killer, a manipulator, he obviously invaded Ukraine. He wants to promote him to enhance the relationship so we can get a compromise. Zelenskyy resents that. Second thing is Zelenskyy, he’s talked about a lot, wants guarantees of security from a future attack by Vladimir Putin after a deal has taken place because that is what Vladimir Putin has done in the past, he will break the deal and Zelenskyy is concerned about that. Trump’s thought on that, we can get that after the deal is done and that’s not hard to do and interesting enough Paul, in this session, just about 20 minutes prior to the blowup, Trump mentions that the British and French will provide peacekeepers after the deal is done and conceivably that we could, what an opening in that meeting, Zelenskyy should have jumped in on that and certainly enforced that. It went by and that’s a departure from all previous statements Donald Trump has said by us troops after a deal has been made. The second thing, and I already think this is the things that started the blowup, Zelenskyy absolutely believes that when you go to a cease-fire, you’ve got to be prior to that some guarantees that there is going to be security. Certainly Trump as I mentioned believes it is after. What actually happened here is Zelenskyy in responding to a question Trump already answered began to lecture on cease-fires, he said there’s been 25 cease-fire’s that Putin has violated, he violated one when you were president, he said no, Zelenskyy said yes in 2016. At that point Trump stopped looking at Zelenskyy talking and began looking at the ground, Zelenskyy kept going on saying we would not go into a cease-fire knowing Zelenskyy is not going to accept a cease-fire that Trump is negotiating with Putin unless there are guarantees of security in his future. I am saying to myself after having going back and watched this thing two more times, is what is Zelenskyy thinking? He’s in a meeting with Trump and his staff and the media is attending it and he is rejecting a successful cease-fire that Trump would negotiate with Vladimir Putin and he is lecturing the president about it on top of all of that. I think that is what stimulated at some point some 20 minutes later Vance to intervene on the president’s behalf because he felt he was being insulted and Zelenskyy again as opposed to deflecting Vance, and just moving on, he’s began to debate him, went downhill from there and the president began to defend Vance."