Political Memes

No, they mostly succeasfully bullied him into giving away their mineral rights, and then when he showed up and said "this will guarantee peace, right?" they started screaming at him like enraged babboons on live television.

The whole thing was a setup, designed to catch Zelensky on TV being ungrateful and uncooperative, but he played them like fiddles and absolutely destroyed any standing the administration may have had left with Europe.

If you find the full unedited versions you can watch two terrible US elected officials try to treat Zelenskyy like an adversary, talking down to him, talking over him, and spreading Putin's talking points. Zelenskyy handled it well, probably biting his tongue, and showed what an actual leader looks like.

As he said a cease fire with Russia means nothing, because Putin didn't honour it previously.

Trump and Vance lack any balls at all, so of course they don't recognize someone who does.

They assume that they are good at being bullies.

Just because they try to be bullies and act like tough guys doesn't mean that people are going to just sit there and take it, though. Especially when they're dealing with someone who actually is both tough and smart.

They're not familiar with testicular fortitude so no, they had no idea.

They probably still think they "showed him" or something.