Washington, DC – Representative Gregory W. Meeks, Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, issued the following statement concerning President Trump’s embarrassing and dangerous conduct in his Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky: 

“The world just watched the supposed leader of the free world throw a temper tantrum in the Oval Office, lashing out at a war-time President fighting for his nation’s survival. Trump and Vance’s outburst did nothing to advance America’s interests or bring Ukraine closer to a just and sustainable peace.  

“This is just the latest in a string of alarming gestures made by Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin—excluding Ukraine and our allies from negotiations, refusing to hold Russia accountable for its invasion, parroting Kremlin propaganda, attempting to extort Ukraine at gunpoint, and siding with Russia at the UN. It’s a dangerous pattern of deference to a dictator who seeks to undermine democracy worldwide.  

“It is the duality of Trump that he is both a laughingstock and an existential danger. He is both a petulant child that demands displays of loyalty in court, and a tyrant with sympathies for autocrats and dictators, so long as they stroke his ego or enrich him and his family. Trump’s actions today undermined U.S. leadership, emboldened our adversaries, humiliated both himself and his Republican Party, and insulted the generations of Americans who fought and died to build America’s standing in the world.  

“It is not President Zelensky who disrespected the United States in the Oval Office. It was Donald Trump-behaving exactly like the two-bit mob boss we've known him to be.”