Ambassador Robert Blackwill

But number two is that the trends are against us.

But the question which you imply, Chuck, is, and I don't know the answer is, well, what about if the next president says,

And President Trump, with three more years in office, I do not believe is going to change his view of the world or how he operates.

treats the European allies the way this one has, well, when is it that they finally give up on America?

I believe this is what you see is what you get.

And they're not going to do it to amplify their risk, but a Europe

He's believed many of these things.

He's detested the Europeans and their democracies for half a century or more.

And this is something that the administration seems not to accept.

He's not going to change.

He's not going to change his attraction to autocratic government and so forth.

A Europe which really is separated from the United States is a Europe which will go on its own, not just in dealing with European security issues, but with trade with China or

So we're powerful, but we are in this very dangerous

or treating Israel in the Middle East or whatever, it will have no incentives to care much about what the United States thinks or advises if we separate from them in the way that the president and the vice president seem to want.

next three years of the combination of the growth of Chinese power and a president who does not defend either traditional American national security, vital national interests or American values.

This curiosity in which the president can say nothing positive about Europe

while he emphasizes his close, quote, close friendships with Xi Jinping, who's trying to displace the United States as the principal power in Asia and beyond, and Vladimir Putin, who is seeking to murder as many innocent Ukrainians as he can, are close friends.

It is unfathomable for me, at least.

Well, in some places it's gotten better, but in some places it's gotten worse.

I do want to point out, and it's not because of American policies, it's because of the IDF and Israel, but that spark is much less likely in the Middle East now than it was before the Hamas attack on Israel.