Donald Trump scolded the president of Ukraine Friday afternoon for expressing excessive “hatred” for Vladimir Putin and inadequate gratitude for the United States.

This extraordinary dustup came at the tail end of a press conference featuring President Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and Vice President JD Vance. Zelenskyy had come to the White House with the hopes of burnishing relations with the US, in part by forging an agreement giving America a financial stake in Ukraine’s mineral wealth. Instead, the Ukrainian leader secured little from his American counterpart beyond public ridicule.

Tensions started flaring when Trump defended his reluctance to publicly criticize Putin, saying that Zelenskyy’s “hatred” of the Russian leader was an obstacle to peace. Vance buttressed Trump’s position by arguing that Joe Biden’s “tough” talk about Putin hadn’t done anything to prevent Russia’s invasion and that the path to peace lay through “engaging in diplomacy.”

Zelenskyy then expressed reservations about Vance’s reasoning. The Ukrainian president noted that his country had signed a ceasefire with Russia following its invasion of Crimea in 2014, yet this had not secured lasting peace. He was therefore not inclined to strike another peace agreement, absent security guarantees that would prevent Russia from re-invading to capture more Ukrainian territory in the future. On these grounds, Zelenskyy asked Vance, “What kind of diplomacy, JD, you are speaking about?”

The vice president took exception to this question and accused Zelenskyy of disrespecting the United States by trying to “litigate this in front of the American media.” He then told Zelenskky that he “should be thanking the president for trying to bring an end to this conflict.”

Trump proceeded to tell the Ukrainian president that he was “gambling with the lives of millions of people,” and that he didn’t “have the cards right now,” while Vance repeatedly demanded that the Ukrainian president say “thank you.”

To liberals, some Republican foreign policy hawks, and most European leaders, Trump and Vance’s conduct constituted a historic disgrace: The American president had publicly mocked a US ally fighting an invasion, thereby undermining its position in (hypothetical) diplomatic negotiations with its oppressor.

To Trump’s admirers on the right, however, his dressing down of Zelenskyy was cause for catharsis and pride. The American Conservative magazine hailed the dustup as “a great clarifying moment” in which a US president finally stood up to Washington’s warmongering foreign-policy “blob.” Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon lauded the administration’s performance as a “Master Class in How to Deal with an Entitled Punk.” Similar sentiments were issued from other conservative influencers, social media users, and politicians.

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