TRUMP UNLOADS ON ZELENSKY: They say nothing good comes after the words “with all due respect.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, after prefacing with that qualifier and insisting that as the leader of the American people, President Donald Trump is someone “who we respect a lot,” went on to defend himself against Trump’s false claims about the amount of U.S. aid sent to Ukraine and Zelensky’s approval ratings by suggesting Trump “lives in this disinformation space.”

That triggered Trump to unleash the kind of hyperbolic invective usually reserved for whatever political opponent he’s attempting to vanquish on any given day. In a post first on Truth Social and then on X, Trump called Zelensky a “modestly successful comedian” who “talked the U.S. into a war that couldn’t be won” and is a “dictator without elections” who played President Joe Biden “like a fiddle” and wants to “keep the gravy train going.” He included a not-so-subtle threat: “Zelensky better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left,” and claimed he alone is capable of ending the war in Ukraine by negotiating with Russia.