Years ago, Democrats and their media mouthpieces were fond of calling Ronald Reagan a warmonger.

It was all a lie, of course. Any accurate reading of history shows that Reagan’s “secret war” was a war to save the world from nuclear annihilation. No one worked harder to pursue peace through strength than our 40th president. For evidence of this, one need only peruse Reagan’s address to the nation on November 22, 1982. In that speech alone, he uttered the word “peace” 26 times.

We mention this because our current president is also a believer in peace through strength and because his political opponents are doing everything they can to undermine his efforts to bring an end to the war in Ukraine, which already ranks among the deadliest conflicts of the 21st century.

To be clear, Friday afternoon’s White House blowup between Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was a train wreck caused not by the American president but by the Ukrainian one. At what was supposed to be an Oval Office press conference for the signing of a rare-earth mineral rights deal between the two countries, Zelensky decided it’d be a good idea to publicly lecture Donald Trump about what he sees as the failure of the United States to adequately provide for the security needs of Ukraine. It didn’t go well.

Perhaps the most woefully underreported part of the story, though, was the act of diplomatic sabotage that took place immediately beforehand: Zelensky met with Trump-hating Democrats such as Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy, who told him not to sign the mineral rights deal with Trump.

At 11:15 AM, Murphy posted to X a picture of himself at a table with Zelensky along with the following note: “Just finished a meeting with President Zelensky here in Washington. He confirmed that the Ukrainian people will not support a fake peace agreement where Putin gets everything he wants and there are no security arrangements for Ukraine.”

It’s unclear how many more people will die because of Murphy’s efforts to prolong this war, but Ukrainian blood will most certainly be on his hands and those of his Democrat co-conspirators. And for what? To make Donald Trump look bad and to further the tired leftist trope that he’s in Putin’s pocket.

It didn’t take long for Trump and Vice President JD Vance to figure out where their Oval Office meeting with Zelensky was going. About 42 minutes into it, an exasperated Vance took exception to Zelensky’s lack of gratitude toward Trump and the U.S. — especially his attempt to lump Trump in with his two weak-kneed Democrat predecessors, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, both of whom were trampled on by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Said Vance:

Mr. President, with respect, I think it’s disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office and try to litigate this in front of the American media. Right now, you guys are going around and forcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems. You should be thanking the president for trying to bring an end to this conflict.

Zelensky responded with a non sequitur, asking Vance if he’d ever been to Ukraine, to which Vance replied: “I’ve actually watched and seen the stories, and I know what happens is you bring people, you bring them on a propaganda tour, Mr. President. … And do you think that it’s respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to prevent the destruction of your country?”

Trump had kept his cool throughout, but when Zelensky talked about the “nice ocean” that has separated us from Europe and Russia and the ruinous land wars of the previous century, and when he warned that “you will feel it in the future,” Trump had heard enough.

“You don’t know that,” said a frustrated Trump, raising his hands as he does, with his index finger extended, when he wants to make a point. “Don’t tell us what we’re gonna feel. We’re trying to solve a problem. … Because you’re in no position to dictate that. Remember this. You’re in no position to dictate what we’re gonna feel. We’re gonna feel very good. We’re gonna feel very good and very strong. You’re right now not in a very good position. … You don’t have the cards right now. … You’re gambling with the lives of millions of people. You’re gambling with World War III. You’re gambling with World War III. And what you’re doing is very disrespectful to the country, this country.”

Vance then interjected: “Have you said ‘thank you’ once this entire time? No. … You went to Pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition in October. Offer some words of appreciation for the United States of America and the president who’s trying to save your country.”

“If you didn’t have our military equipment,” said Trump, “this war would’ve been over in two weeks.” Trump then looked away from Zelensky and toward the assembled media and said, “It’s going to be a very hard thing to do business like this.”

Zelensky again made the mistake of holding Trump to the failures of his Democrat predecessors and for the invasions of his country by Russia under their watch. And Trump wasn’t having any of it:

That wasn’t with me. That was with a guy named Biden, who was not a smart person. That was with Obama. Excuse me, that was with Obama, who gave you sheets. And I gave you Javelins. I gave you the Javelins to take out all those tanks. Obama gave you sheets. … You gotta be more thankful. Because, let me tell you, you don’t have the cards. With us, you have the cards. But without us, you don’t have any cards.

Trump concluded by saying to Zelensky, “Your people are very brave, but you’re either gonna make a deal, or we’re out. And if we’re out, you’ll fight it out. … But you’re not acting at all thankful. And that’s not a nice thing.”

Shortly afterward, Trump took to Truth Social to sum up the remarkable diplomatic theater that had just transpired:

We had a very meaningful meeting in the White House today. Much was learned that could never be understood without conversation under such fire and pressure. It’s amazing what comes out through emotion, and I have determined that President Zelenskyy is not ready for Peace if America is involved, because he feels our involvement gives him a big advantage in negotiations. I don’t want advantage, I want PEACE. He disrespected the United States of America in its cherished Oval Office. He can come back when he is ready for Peace.

The key point in all this is that Zelensky is learning the hard way that American presidents aren’t all the same. For the past four years, Zelensky has largely been able to dictate terms to the U.S. — to the sum of somewhere near $200 billion in taxpayer dollars. But those days are over. Donald Trump isn’t Joe Biden. Nor is JD Vance Kamala Harris. Nor is Marco Rubio Antony Blinken.

Our Mark Alexander assesses things this way: “The Ukrainian people have paid a very, very heavy price for the inept and vacuous ‘leadership’ of the Biden/Harris regime, who fully enabled Vladimir Putin’s 2022 ‘minor incursion’ much as Barack Obama enabled his 2014 invasion. That notwithstanding, it’s never good for a foreign leader to sit in the Oval Office with the president of the United States in a press conference and cast completely inappropriate assumptions and aspersions. The Ukrainian ambassador to the United States cupped her face in disbelief that Zelensky was trying to take on Trump and Vance, as if he was negotiating with Biden and Harris.”

Alexander added: “Zelensky had an opportunity to apologize and set the record straight a few hours later in a lengthy interview with Fox News’s Bret Baier, and much to the surprise of seasoned analysts like Brit Hume, he failed to do so. It has been Putin’s post-Soviet-era dream to 'reunite’ Ukraine with Mother Russia, and without the military assistance of the United States, Trump was absolutely correct in his assertion that this reunification would’ve been accomplished in ‘two weeks.’”

The dust from Friday’s events in the Oval Office is still settling, but Western Europe seems to have taken a new interest in the plight of its Eastern European neighbor. Yesterday, following a summit with European leaders, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced the freezing of Russian assets and $2.8 billion in loan support for Ukraine — which is a pittance compared to what the U.S. has coughed up, but it’s not nothing. A day earlier, he’d met Zelensky with “a warm hug and a handshake.”

Starmer now seems strangely committed to helping Ukraine negotiate peace from a position of power, which should’ve been the European position all along. But why take such a position when you can simply roll Joe Biden to cough up all those billions on behalf of the American taxpayer?

In the end, it might be that forcing Europe to step forward was part of Trump’s plan. Yes, a rare-earth minerals deal with Ukraine is still the goal, but so is an end to that awful war. And so is getting Europe to take a more active role in the fate of its neighbor.