Following the Threads

There was a major rebrand on display yesterday—and I’m not talking about MSNBC’s baffling rebirth as “MS NOW.” In news coverage ahead of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s meeting with his US counterpart, Donald Trump, at the White House, one subplot revolved around what Zelensky would wear; the last time that he was in town, in February, he dressed from his wartime wardrobe (on this occasion, a black buttoned top with Ukraine’s distinctive trident on the breast), and Brian Glenn, a correspondent for the right-wing streamer Real America’s Voice (and boyfriend of Marjorie Taylor Greene), put it to him that he was disrespecting the US presidency by refusing to wear a suit—part of a broader public thrashing that Zelensky would receive, mostly at the hands of Trump and his vice president, JD Vance. Ahead of yesterday’s meeting, US officials reportedly asked their Ukrainian counterparts whether, this time, Zelensky might suit up, and were told that he would—sort of, anyway. “It is going to be ‘suit-style’ but not a full suit,” a source told Axios. “It would be great if he wore a tie,” a Trump adviser told the same outlet, “but we don’t expect him to.”