Trump may have called it 'great TV', but even some allies were turned off

The president's public row with Volodymyr Zelenskyy has split the US commentariat, with many regretting the cameras were running at all.

- Edward Helmore

One television-star-turned-president visits another, far more powerful one on a stage set and attempts to introduce a plot twist of sorts. What could go wrong?

The high-stakes White House showdown that unfolded on Friday between the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and Donald Trump was deemed a damaging setback to the US president's goal of forging a peace deal - and a win for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin - by some US political commentators.

Others in the US who are closely aligned with Trump cast his meeting with Zelenskyy as a win for his "America first" realignment goals.

"It is bewildering to see Mr Trump's allies defending this debacle as some show of American strength," the conservative-leaning Wall Street Journal editorial board said yesterday, noting that US aims of limiting Russian expansionism without the use of US forces was now "harder to achieve".

The outlet warned that "turning Ukraine over to Mr Putin would be catastrophic for that country and Europe, but it would be a political calamity for Mr Trump too. "Friday's spectacle won't make [Putin] any more willing to stop his onslaught" after invading Ukraine in 2022, it said.

The New York Times said the derailed meeting pointed to Trump's "determination to scrap America's traditional sources of power - its alliances among like-minded democracies and return the country to an era of raw great-power negotiations."

"The three-year wartime partnership between Washington and Kyiv was shattered," the paper added.