Why are the American president and vice president so reluctant to visit Ukraine?

After all, both are fearless, or act as if they were. The ongoing war can’t possibly faze them. President Trump even has God, who supposedly saved him from assassination, on his side.

And Ukraine surely matters, both on its own terms and in the president’s agenda. The country is now generally acknowledged to be the only thing standing between Russian imperialism and Western democracy, while the administration insists that it will end Russia’s war, perhaps even by the end of April.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky implicitly invited both of them during his disastrous Feb. 28 meeting in the Oval Office. More recently, Zelensky repeated the invitation explicitly on “60 Minutes,” saying, “We want you to come, to come and to see. You think you understand what’s going on here. Okay, we respect your position. ... But, please, before any kind of decisions, any kind of forms of negotiations, come to see people, civilians, warriors, hospitals, churches, children destroyed or dead. ... Come, look, and then let’s — let’s move with a plan how to finish the war. You will understand with whom you have a deal. You will understand what Putin did.”

So what’s holding Trump and Vance back? There are several possible answers.

The first is discomfort. Living in Mar-al-Lago or Trump Tower can spoil a person, and even though Vance may have experienced hardship as a boy in Appalachia, he’s put those days well........

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