Zelensky made his first trip to Washington, DC, in early September of 2021 to meet with Biden. While the Ukrainian leader had been in office for three years by that point, he had only met Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City and never visited the US capital city some 200 miles to the southwest.
The visit was recounted by Atlantic staff writer Franklin Foer in his new book “The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden’s White House and the Struggle for America’s Future,” which will hit shelves next week.
“Even Zelensky’s most ardent sympathizers in the administration agreed that he had bombed,” Foer said of the meeting, according to news outlets that received advance copies of the book.
According to Foer’s recounting, Zelensky “pissed off” Biden with his demand to join NATO and his “absurd analysis” of alliance dynamics.
“Zelensky’s frustration occluded his capacity for logic. After begging to join NATO, he began to lecture that the organization is, in fact, a historic relic, with waning significance. He told Biden that France and Germany were going to exit NATO,” Foer wrote. “It was an absurd analysis - and a blatant contradiction. And it pissed Biden off.”
“It suggested more difficult conversations to come,” Foer added.
According to Foer, Zelensky seemed to blame Biden for the “humiliation” he suffered during Trump’s first impeachment, which centered around claims Trump had abused his power by threatening to withhold military aid for Kiev until Zelensky’s government relaunched a probe into Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, who in 2014 had been the head of Washington’s Ukraine policy and a board member of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, respectively. This, Foer said, contributed to the “political awkwardness” of the 2021 encounter.
Foer also writes that Zelensky saw Biden as weak after having decided to waive sanctions against the Russian company building the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which was part of an attempt to assuage the government of then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel, which had banked heavily on the new gas line to meet German energy needs.
Foer added that Biden saw Zelensky, who had previously been an actor and not a politician, as an “amateur” for having unwittingly played a part in US Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) antics regarding blocking State Department nominees over the sanctions waiver.
“To be fair, Biden didn’t think much of his Ukrainian counterpart, either,” Foer added, noting that Biden was more comfortable with fellow lifelong politicians than slapstick comedians.
In his book, Foer does not use direct quotes or cite sources, but according to the book’s publisher, Penguin Random House, the text is based on “unparalleled access to the tight inner circle of advisers who have surrounded Biden for decades.”
The book covers Biden's presidency from January 2021 up to the present, shedding light on the events following the January 6, 2021, insurrection, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, Biden's political sparring with Republicans, and the beginnings of the conflict in Ukraine, among other events.