Russell Jones's Week Moment: Don Trumpito's Hillbilly Charm Offender

Russell Jones examines US Vice President JD Vance's incredibly busy week alienating every single one of America's closest allies

Of all the things that baffle me as we collectively doomscroll our way into World War Three, the media response to the behaviour of President Trump remains the most confusing. Did any of you not see this coming?

The man had already been impeached for doing basically the same thing in 2020, when he blocked military aid to Ukraine in an effort to force Zelensky to unlawfully interfere in the US elections. And as Maya Angelou famously said, when someone shows you who they are… why the hell isn’t he in prison?

So when the Presidents of Ukraine and the USA met for Trump’s latest bout of racketeering, I wasn’t the slightest bit shocked that things went badly wrong. After all, only one of them has a command of English, and it ain’t Don Trumpito, whose default incoherence surely led him to make Zelensky an offer he couldn't understand.

Fortunately, JD Vance was on hand to metaphorically load a weapon, hold it to Ukraine's head, and bellow into Zelensky’s face the remarkably similar demands of the Kremlin and the Oval Office.

For British readers not familiar with the Vice President Vance, just picture former Conservative MP Jonathan Gullis guest-starring as a domestic abuser on CSI: Arkansas. He seems to exist in a permanent holding pattern, one shot of moonshine away from starting a punch-up at a wedding, and his mood is eloquently revealed in his range of expressions, which go all the way from “I’m indignant but don’t fully understand why,” to “I’m struggling with a difficult bowel movement”.