What Trump supporters say they love about him is his ability to speak his mind clearly, even when his positions are deeply unpopular. Personally, I have never liked the way President Trump talks. Frankness is a desirable trait, but his incessant use of foul and abusive language is something that I find highly objectionable. In spite of that, I can understand why many of his supporters are drawn to him. Like them, I am frustrated by the inability of most politicians to get simple words out of their mouths. But Trump’s backers apparently want to have it both ways. Events this past week have revealed their blatant hypocrisy.

By now, everyone knows about the fiasco in the Oval Office during the meeting between Presidents Trump and Zelenskyy, with the U.S. Vice President JD Vance in attendance. The global debate about who is to blame for that implosion will likely go on for a long time. But in the meantime, Trump supporters need to be asked to look in the mirror.

Since last Friday, the day of the meeting, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham has been apoplectic that Zelenskyy was not delicate in his handling of Trump in the Oval Office, as he had advised him to do. Senator Graham has suggested to Zelenskyy that in the form of an apology for his “behavior,” he should convey the following message to Trump: “I screwed up big time for my country and for the U.S. relationship and if I had to do it over again, I’d have done it differently and I’m sorry.”

To be fair to Senator Graham, he has been one of the staunchest allies of Ukraine throughout this war. He means well for Ukraine, and is rightly disappointed by the outcome of last week’s meeting between the two leaders. I also agree with him that given what was at stake, President Zelenskyy could have shown a bit more restraint. But Senator Graham has to be honest and admit that the bulk of the blame should be placed at the feet of President Trump and Vice President Vance. He should also put himself in Zelenskyy’s shoes and ask himself how he would have reacted to those deliberate provocations by the vice president. Zelenskyy is a man who has presided over such a brutal war for three years and is under tremendous stress, both emotionally and physically. Containing oneself under such conditions is easier said than done.

I argued recently that if anything, President Zelenskyy, and Ukrainians in general, have been too polite in their pleas for military and other assistance from the U.S. and its Western allies during this war. Some people may disagree, but whatever the U.S. has provided Ukraine thus far cannot be seen as some charitable donation. America has an obligation to help defend Ukraine.

The increasing level of frustration that President Zelenskyy has shown in the last few months is absolutely legitimate. He is the leader of a country that the U.S. coerced to hand over its large cache of nuclear weapons to Russia, of all nations, in exchange for security assurances. As is happening today, no one in America was willing to use the term “security guarantee” in 1994 when we pressured the Ukrainians into doing that bad deal. That loose language was obviously crafted to give us the flexibility to shirk our future responsibility if we ever felt like doing so.

The Ukrainians have now seen the result of that deceitful arrangement. Hundreds of thousands of their citizens have been killed, injured, tortured, and taken prisoner to Russia. The Russians have deliberately destroyed their energy infrastructure in an effort to freeze them to death in the midst of Ukraine’s harsh winters. And we are blaming Ukrainians for being upset? Calling them disrespectful? We cannot be serious.

President Zelenskyy, in my view, is the most courageous leader on the planet today. He put his life on the line in February 2022 when Russian tanks were rolling menacingly into Kyiv. Every indication was that he was going to be captured and killed, and it prompted President Biden’s proposal to evacuate him out of Kyiv. Under those circumstances, 99.99 percent of the human population would accept such an offer in a heartbeat. But not Zelenskyy. He told Biden that he “needed ammunition, not a ride.” That decision to stay and fight for his country has forever etched his name in history—gloriously.

Six months before President Zelenskyy made that courageous stand, another head of state chose to flee his capital as a rebel group, not even an army, marched on it. We know how life has turned out for the citizens of that nation. An entire generation of girls have been banned from receiving education, and life under the new tyrannical regime is dire for everyone else in the country. The thing that we used to call international community, even if it still exists, pretends as if it doesn’t know about the desperation of the girls who want to do something as simple as sit in a classroom and learn. That kind of oppression was the fate that awaited Ukrainians had Zelenskyy not faced up to the Russians. No one, not even the president of the United States, has the right to lecture this brave man about how to show gratitude.

Senator Graham, at least, has his heart in the right place. The people who really have questions to answer are the Trump supporters who accuse Zelenskyy of being a total ingrate and disrespectful to the president. They hold up Trump as a model of the straight-talking politician they say this country has needed for a long time. If that is the case, then we should expect their man to be a little more tolerant of criticism than he has demonstrated during his time in public office.

French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer both visited the White House last week before President Zelenskyy arrived on Friday. Macron and Starmer both showered praises on Trump effusively, and fawned over him. We all know that deep down in their hearts, those cannot be their true feelings about our president. But they did so because that is what everyone says has to be done when dealing with Trump.

It is time for Trump supporters to tell us what they really want. Do they like all that flattery on display when people meet with him? Isn’t that duplicitousness what they have been saying over the last several years that they found absolutely abhorrent? Frankly, this endless toadyism is quite tacky. Those who claim to prefer straight-talking should refrain from asking others to perform choreographed dances around the president when dealing with him.