Jeffrey Sachs

She's probably—and I don't want to jinx anything—she's probably the most important appointment of the Trump administration. It does seem that way. She is incredibly intelligent, incredibly honest, incredibly committed to U.S. security, and would do a superb job. So that's why she's being opposed, because—

The forces that are worse than mediocre, that are right now on top of a $1.5 trillion a year machine, that have been running disastrous wars, that have been bringing us closer and closer to doom, don't want any accountability. And what Tulsi Gabbard would say, represent is competence, honesty, forthrightness, and not having been a party to all these failures.

Well, she's critical because this is the most important question facing the United States today. We have many important questions. We have major financial, social, political, economic, institutional questions. But the most important question facing us is this.

is a country that potentially is more secure than any country in the history of the world going to do itself in by a self-provoked World War III. And we're on that course. And five presidents have been on that course through their incompetence and their obedience to an unaccountable deep state. And President Trump is coming in saying that he's going to change direction.

He says every day that he wants to be president of peace. By the way, I think the greatest thing that could happen is four Nobel Peace Prizes for President Trump. He could end the war in Ukraine. He could end the war in the Middle East, not by bombing Iran. That would do the opposite.

But by enabling a two state solution in the Middle East and the wars would all end, he could end the talk of the war in Iran. East Asia, which would be the utter disaster and folly by recognizing that we shouldn't be meddling in China's internal affairs. And Taiwan is an internal affair of China. And he should be restoring a framework of of nuclear arms control.

I give him four Nobel Peace Prizes for that. If he chooses that direction, he'll be the most consequential president in our modern history, perhaps in our history, because he will reestablish security for the American people. If he follows the hardliners, he's just going to add yet another years of bringing us closer to doom. How is the Ukraine war settled?

The Ukraine war is settled literally in one call, just as he says, because all he has to do Really, all he has to do is pick up the phone and call President Putin and say, you know, that 30 year effort to expand NATO to Ukraine and to Georgia was ridiculous, unacceptable, unnecessary provocation. And it's led us to this juncture. I'm against it. I'm going to say it publicly.

We're going to end this adventurism. And you stop fighting today. And the fighting will stop that moment, actually. Then there will be details. And the details are where the borders will be drawn exactly. But the war will end. The war will not end, by the way, by saying, let's have a ceasefire. That's a meaningless statement. As you heard repeatedly from...

Foreign Minister Lavrov, and as I know and as anyone thinking about this knows, this isn't about a ceasefire. This is about a cause of this war. And the cause of this war is that Russia does not want the U.S. and its missile systems on its 1,200-kilometer border with Ukraine right now.

Biden was so stupid, and I'm using the term, of course it sounds, I don't know how it sounds, but it's true, that he couldn't say that and avoid the war, though it was obvious how to avoid this war. Obvious how to avoid this war. But Biden couldn't do it. He was stupid. That's why I say he's been such a terrible president. And I think that President Trump wants to do it this way.

Now, again, he's got people around him of many different views. Some say, promise him, just ask for a ceasefire. Freeze the conflict. Armistice. Korean solution, 1953. This is completely beside the point. Russia isn't going to freeze the conflict. It's actually winning on the ground. But why is it fighting?

It's fighting because it does not want this regime, which was installed by the United States in 2014, to have U.S. bases, NATO, U.S. weapons and missile systems on its border. And the fact that Biden just proved the point by saying, yeah, we'll fire the missiles into Russia, make it all the more clear why they're concerned about this. This isn't an idle threat. This isn't some dumb thing.

This is they're being hit right now. By US missile systems, by US personnel firing these missile systems. So it's not an idle threat. So people who say freeze the conflict, they don't get it. People say, and there was an initial statement, NATO will not enlarge for at least X years. Somebody said 10 years, somebody said 20 years. This is also completely ridiculous.

Then another idea, well, we'll give Russia this territory, Donetsk and Lugansk and maybe Kherson and Zaporizhia and Crimea, but all the rest of Ukraine will be part of NATO. Of course not, it's the same deal. This is ridiculous.

So if you understand what this is about, where it came from, why it continues to this moment, there is one phone call that ends it, which is get to the underlying cause of the war. The underlying cause of the war going back to a decision that Bill Clinton made in 1994 is the decision to expand NATO to Ukraine.

And by the way, they want to expand it to the South Caucasus, to Georgia, which is also in turmoil right now. It's very interesting, Tucker, that Zbigniew Brzezinski spelled this out to the letter in 1997. And it's fascinating to read his account. All wrong. He got it completely wrong, but he spelled it out. And what he said was in his book, The Grand Chessboard in 1997.

We should expand NATO eastward. We should expand Europe eastward. And we should ask the question, what will Russia do? Russia won't like it. So Brzezinski spends a whole chapter, what will Russia do? And he asked the question, well, could Russia ever align with China? Nope, that's not going to happen. Could Russia ever align with Iran? No, that's not going to happen.

Russia's only choice is to accede to the U.S. action. So in 1997, it was perfectly clearly understood what is the strategy, what are we going to do, and what will happen. The only problem is it was wrong. This is the only problem. He got it completely wrong. And you can go back and to his credit, he wrote his prediction. It's wrong. But why are we still playing that game until today?

Why did Biden exactly continue on that failed course? Because he's a failure. That's why. Because he didn't understand. Because he's surrounded by mediocrities at best.