Diplomacy usually happens behind closed doors with polite smiles and carefully drafted press releases. But a massive leak from an upcoming book reveals exactly how chaotic things get when the cameras turn off. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tried to block Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy from entering the White House by calling him a "little fucker," a "special-needs child," and "Mr Bean on crack."
These aren't anonymous internet comments. They're the alleged words of America's top financial official, detailed in the upcoming book Regime Change by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. Set for global release on Tuesday, the book pulls back the curtain on a disastrous February 28, 2025, Oval Office meeting that changed the dynamic of US-Ukraine relations.
If you want to understand why Washington's foreign policy feels so volatile right now, you have to look at what went down during these secret mineral negotiations.
The Secret Shouting Match in Kyiv
Before the explosive White House meeting, Bessent flew to Kyiv to finalize a critical raw materials deal. It didn't take long for the diplomatic veneer to crack. Bessent had only been on the job for a few days, yet he quickly found himself in a 45-minute screaming match with a wartime president.
According to the book, Bessent grew furious with Zelenskyy's negotiating tactics. "I've dealt with this little fucker," Bessent later told his associates. "He's tricky. He's like the special-needs child for the Europeans. And he's acting like Mr Bean on crack."
The high-stakes conflict boiled down to basic trust. Bessent didn't want Zelenskyy setting foot in the White House until the ink was dry on the mineral rights contract. He explicitly warned Donald Trump to bar the Ukrainian leader from the Oval Office.
When the Oval Office Turned Red
Trump ignored the warning and hosted the meeting anyway. It quickly turned into a complete train wreck.
Instead of sticking to the pre-approved economic agenda, Zelenskyy pushed hard for American security guarantees. That pivot immediately angered Vice President JD Vance. Onlookers watched Vance turn visibly red as Zelenskyy kept talking. To Vance and Trump, the demands didn't sound like statecraft. They sounded like pure ingratitude for billions of dollars in American military aid.
National Security Adviser Mike Waltz even tried to fix the optics before the meeting began, begging Zelenskyy's team to ensure their president wore a formal suit instead of his signature military fatigues. Zelenskyy refused. Between the casual wardrobe and the aggressive demands, the meeting went off the rails.
Bessent later went on Bloomberg to publicly distance himself from the disaster, calling Zelenskyy's performance "one of the great diplomatic own goals."
The Real Foreign Policy Power Brokers
The book reveals that the chaos wasn't just between the US and Ukraine. It was tearing through the administration itself.
Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick spent weeks fighting over the exact wording of the Ukrainian mineral deal, gridlocking the entire process. The internal dysfunction grew so severe that Trump bypassed his own cabinet secretaries. He handed the Ukrainian edits to JD Vance’s wife, Usha Vance.
Usha Vance, a Yale Law School graduate, read through the documents, labeled the paperwork "awful," and took a heavy pencil to rewrite the terms herself.
The Soros Comparison That Will Sting
While the insults aimed at Ukraine will dominate international headlines, Bessent's private comments about his own boss might cause the deepest political damage at home.
Before joining the administration, Bessent worked as an investor for billionaire Democratic donor George Soros. The book reveals that Bessent told associates that Trump heavily reminded him of his former progressive employer.
"They are the same animal," Bessent reportedly said.
For a Treasury Secretary serving a conservative populist movement, comparing Trump to the ultimate right-wing boogeyman is a massive political liability. It exposes the transaction-first mindset driving current US economic and foreign policy.
If you're trying to read the tea leaves on where US aid and international trade go from here, watch how the White House handles these leaks over the next 48 hours. Expect immediate efforts to downplay the comments, but look closely at whether Bessent keeps his tight grip on international trade negotiations or gets quietly sidelined.
