Donald Trump Jr. posted a childish taunt aimed at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, suggesting his father will soon cut off U.S. support to help fend off Russia’s illegal invasion of the country.
President-elect Donald Trump‘s eldest son shared a video, originally posted by former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, in his Instagram stories on Saturday, that includes a clip of a stoic-looking Zelensky standing next to Trump.
“POV: You’re 38 Days from losing your allowance,” reads a caption.
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Trump’s team has reportedly been considering cutting off Kyiv from military aid since the summer.
During the election, the president-elect repeatedly claimed—without offering specifics—that he would quickly end the conflict in Ukraine were he to regain office. He also insisted Russia never would have invaded in the first place had he been president.
Trump’s running mate, Vice President-elect JD Vance, set off alarm bells when he laid out a supposed peace plan in September that essentially described a Russian victory, calling on Ukraine to cede territory captured by the Kremlin’s forces and pledge neutrality.
Those terms are not dissimilar from what the belligerent Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed.
And it’s not just Don Jr. who has slung insults—Trump himself has belittled the Ukrainian president, so it’s little surprise that his lapdog MAGA son would echo his rhetoric.
“I see Zelenskyy is here,“ Trump told a September campaign rally ahead of the United Nations General Assembly. “I think Zelenskyy is the greatest salesman in history – every time he comes into the country, he walks away with $60 billion.”
Before Trump takes office in January, the Biden administration is reportedly planning to rush billions in aid to Ukraine to give Kyiv a buffer before it has to deal with Trump.
Experts told Polish network TVP World that, despite his reams of confidence that he will end the war in a near-instant and without breaking a sweat, the president-elect is likely to find reality more complicated.
“It is very unlikely that he will be immediately successful,” said Sergiy Kudelia, a political science professor at Baylor University. “So the big question is when he sees and realizes that Putin doesn’t want to start negotiations with Ukraine and Putin wants to continue waging his war against Ukraine, what will be Trump’s response then?”
