Donald Trump and that argument

 Donald Trump and that argument.

So there we were minding our business on the first weekend of March when, suddenly, it all kicked off. You've never seen anything like it. It was almost as if somebody had set light to one of the biggest fireworks parties in the world. There were rockets, ferris wheels, sparklers, catherine wheels and things that blow up and soar into the night air and, under normal circumstances, this would have been a spectacular sight but on Friday morning in downtown Washington, it must have felt as if all the grenades had exploded at once. 

Huddled together in the Oval Office in the White House, the President of the United States of America Donald Trump delivered his most lethal and most ferocious metaphorical punch at the President of Ukraine Volodymyr  Zelensky who used to be a comedian in another incarnation. But at no point during a violently combustible Press conference, was there anything remotely funny or hilarious about the verbal boxing match that was the hostile showdown between Trump and Zelensky. 

There have probably been moments in political history when two men have almost come to blows over a tragic and lengthy war. But there are now thousands of innocent civilians who have been brutally killed, murdered and shot down in cold blood over that old chestnut of territorial domination. Fists have been raised and they even assassinated a former American president for just mixing in the wrong social company. But this latest ugly development in the continuing war of words between both America, Russia and the Ukraine is a symptom of a world that is both fractured, fractious, troubled and never at peace. 

On Friday evening, the world's Press, hungry cameramen and women, photographers, radio and TV microphones assembled for one of the most horrendous bust ups ever seen by two powerful and, in hindsight, two thoroughly incensed men who would willingly have put on gloves if they thought it would sort out this unseemly and unsavoury mess. 

The irony, of course, is that both Zelensky and Trump were sitting next to each other, in what turned out faux harmony, all of the pent up frustration of the last three years erupting in front of the rest of the world like some deliberate act of sabotage. In fact so staged and premeditated was the whole Friday charade, that Trump had the gall and chutzpah to declare that this had been great TV. And so it had been but probably for the wrong reasons. 

And yet it had all started so promisingly. Both Zelensky and Trump exchanged pleasant jovialities, Trump perhaps sarcastically congratulating Zelensky for dressing up smartly for the occasion. Then we went through the formalities of a peace agreement being reached and how we were all ready to celebrate a permanent ceasefire. The important documents were about to be signed, confirming that both President Putin and Zelensky had finally recognised that enough death and destruction had been inflicted on the people of both Russia and the Ukraine. So far so good. 

But then as the questions were fired from the Fourth Estate and journalists had exhausted their battery of questions, the air became poisonous. An American gentleman from the Press piped up with perhaps the most crass inquiry ever heard at a gathering such as this. Why, he asked, wasn't President Zelensky wearing a suit and, more to the point, did he even own a suit because the good people of America were anxious to know why and had a right to be informed?

You could almost see the dark clouds hovering over a crowded and tense room of politicians and journalists. A Polish broadcaster thought the time was right to ask Trump whether military action would intensify to such an extent that eventually Poland would be dragged into conflict. Now it was that the volcanic atmosphere would simmer and boil threateningly before just steaming over. Things would spiral dramatically out of control. 

Vice President Vance, conveniently situated on a chaise longue from a middle class living room in California, joined in with the bun fight. Landing savage hooks and jabs into Zelensky's head metaphorically once again, Vance seriously wondered whether Zelensky would ever thank his so called American allies for busting a gut in the relentless quest for peace. For everything that Vance and his colleagues had done to save Ukraine from complete annihilation, the least Ukraine could do was show their gratitude. 

At this point, the American president with the ridiculously long red tie, bristling orange hair and a navy suit that Robert Redford once wore in one of his films, started raising his voice. Before long, Donald Trump simply went berserk. So angry, inflamed and impassioned did Trump become that it wasn't long that his fingers and hands were in full confrontational mode. The body language became tiresomely familiar and there was the old fashioned routine of gesturing, gesticulating, stretching his hands to make a pertinent point and then glancing around the room with those sinister glares.

Trump just kept going on and on about the deals he was famous for doing, the non existent wars he'd stopped and then perhaps the most outrageous comment. In the middle of another raucous rant about the Ukranian insistence on continuing the war, Trump became convinced that Zelensky was quite happy to gamble with millions of lives with a Third World War repeatedly.

Shortly, after another heated exchange of facts and the obvious statements, both men looked as if they were just eye balling each other contemptuously. Trump looked just fed up with the whole occasion before claiming once again that Zelensky just wasn't co-operating and that wasn't a nice thing. He then resorted to that celebrated vocabulary where the whole act of being disrespectful to America and the world, was driving him around the bend. 

And after what seemed an eternity, Trump just engaged with his audience with one of those looks that suggested that butter hadn't melted in his mouth. He kept looking for approval and rapturous applause but didn't get it. The President of the United States had just concluded one of the most astonishing and memorable political Press conferences ever heard or seen. 

It could be said that we'd just witnessed the gaudiest, cheapest and sleaziest political scenes but then we must have known this to be the case. Donald Trump had behaved with all the politeness and decorum of one of those individuals at Speakers Corner at Hyde Park who do nothing but shout, expostulate, holler at the the top of their voices, spouting seeming nonsense, insulting invective and contempt for everybody. 

But of course Trump had the vested interests of peace and pacifism at heart, a buccaneering hero who should win the Nobel Peace Prize and be widely acclaimed for being the perfect gentleman. Sadly, we turned our eyes away from last Friday night in shock and horror, bafflement and confusion, hardly believing the evidence of our eyes. It was truly terrifying TV and certainly not one of Trump's finest hours. We may hope and pray that we never ever see its like ever again.