Susan Rice: Trump-Zelensky Shouting Match Was a ‘Setup’

Wallace: “— being thankful. Donald Trump to the leader of Ukraine. Joining our ongoing coverage, former United States ambassador to the United Nations, former National Security Adviser to President Obama, Ambassador Susan Rice is here. Ambassador, your reaction?”

RICE: “Well, Nicolle, obviously it’s a very sad day and an embarrassment for the United States on the world stage. But let’s step back and analyze what’s happened here. I think there’s no question that this was a setup. You heard Donald Trump say at the end of that clip you played, this is great television. This was a setup. Vladimir — I mean, excuse me, Volodymyr Zelenskyy was compelled to agree to a horrible deal that would have sent Ukraine’s minerals to the United States without any concrete security guarantees. And yet, because he was trying to improve a relationship with Donald Trump, he came to Washington, he came to the Oval Office and sat down for a meeting hat in hand. Soon after he got there, the vice president of the United States lit into him and started a confrontation. Now, I’ve been in countless Oval Office meetings with heads of state, presidents and vice presidents, as national security adviser, as UN ambassador, and in other roles. I can tell you that the vice president or the secretary of state or anybody else, they don’t jump in, hijack a conversation without the express blessing of the president of the United States. So, J.D. Vance did that deliberately. Donald Trump knew what he was going to do. And I think, as he said at the end, because he can’t help himself, this was a setup for the cameras. It was a play to his base, but above all, it was a play to Vladimir Putin to show fealty to Vladimir Putin and to try to humiliate Zelenskyy.”