President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance's admonishment Friday of Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy for being ungrateful was not a first.
There was, in fact, also a tongue-lashing delivered by former President Joe Biden in June 2022, just months after the war began, as noted in a story circulating on social media since the dramatic scene played out in the Oval Office.
Biden reportedly "lost his temper" and demanded Zelenskyy show "more gratitude" after Zelenskyy accepted a $1 billion aid offering in June 2022 and then proceeded to tick down his wish-list items he was not receiving in the first six months of Russia's war in Ukraine.
The NBC News report of the call came months after.
"Biden had barely finished telling Zelenskyy he'd just greenlighted another $1 billion in U.S. military assistance for Ukraine when Zelenskyy started listing all the additional help he needed and wasn't getting," NBC reported Oct. 31, 2022. "Biden lost his temper, the people familiar with the call said.
"The American people were being quite generous, and his administration and the U.S. military were working hard to help Ukraine, he said, raising his voice, and Zelenskyy could show a little more gratitude."
Friday's Oval Office dress-down by Vance and then Trump arose when Zelenskyy attempted to fact-check the vice president on Russia's Vladimir Putin not abiding by past terms of "diplomacy." Trump responded to Zelenskyy, interpreting the comments as not being amenable to a ceasefire to achieve peace instead of ongoing war.
After the "diplomacy" quip and Zelenskyy's exchanges with Vance and then Trump, Vance asked, "Have you ever said thank you once?"
Zelenskyy said he always does, but Vance reminded him he had not done so in that sitting.
"You have to be thankful," Trump said.
Trump reportedly kicked Zelenskyy out of the Oval Office and the White House and shut down previous plans to sign a mineral deal with Ukraine that would have provided de facto security with Americans on the ground in Ukraine.
But Zelenskyy was demanding security guarantees in the deal before formalizing it with Trump, which led to the White House dismissal.
Zelenskyy reportedly is still interested in the mineral deal with the U.S., but a strained relationship with Trump put the deal on ice for now.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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