What Trump Has Got Wrong—and Right—About the War in Ukraine
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What has Trump's relationship with Putin revealed?
Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. From his emergence on the political scene a decade ago, Donald Trump displayed what you could call a curious admiration for the Russian president and dictator Vladimir Putin. It was baffling and it was ominous, too. It remains so. Trump's lean toward Russia was investigated and it was psychoanalyzed.
How did Trump and Vance's actions affect Zelensky?
And his affinity for Putin is as vivid as his disdain for Ukraine's democratically elected leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. So now we're reckoning with the distinct possibility that the leadership of the United States has taken a moral and a strategic turn that puts us all on the side of Russia and blames Ukraine for provoking the invasion in the first place. That's how the Kremlin sees it as well. Over a week ago, Trump and J.D. Vance absolutely berated Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House. And then they announced a pause in military aid to Ukraine and a freeze on intelligence sharing. Those are moves that will surely hobble Ukraine's ability to defend itself. Zelensky is now trying to bolster more and more support from the leaders of Europe who met last week at a defense summit.
What was the significance of the Oval Office encounter?
For more than 30 years, since I was a reporter for The Washington Post in Moscow, I've been talking about Russia over and over again with Stephen Kotkin. Stephen Kotkin is a biographer of Joseph Stalin and a fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution. Three years ago, when Russia first launched its invasion of Ukraine, Steve was my first call. And this is the third time that we're talking here on the Radio Hour since the war began. Steve, let's begin with the most obvious thing. What did you make of that dramatic Oval Office encounter between Trump and Zelenskyy?
As I understand what happened based upon the commentary is that Trump's aides set up a situation where there was going to be a deal over minerals and the minerals deal was going to work because it was going to give the U.S. a vested interest in Ukraine. And in their mind, Putin was going to do the rest of the work. Because Putin is as nasty as nasty comes. He was going to continue to overreach and behave the way he's behaving, which was going to push Trump in the direction of not just protecting the minerals deal, but investing more and more in Ukraine because Russia was nastier and nastier. Anyway, this was the plan that the aides thought they had worked out and that had been pitched to Zelensky prior to the setting.
And then what happened evidently is J.D. Vance is trying to preempt a Republican primary in 2028. And so he made some provocations and Zelensky took the bait and proceeded to stake out a position claiming that they didn't understand a deal with Putin was not really a deal with Putin. So how do you manage Trump? Trump has certain views. He's the elected president of the United States. The aides might or might not share those views. Some do and some don't. But they're not the president. Trump is the president. So from their point of view, the minerals deal was an ingenious option. I thought the plan made sense.
You're hardly a fan of Donald Trump, but your tendency has been to try to look past or around his performances that you've compared to professional wrestling. When it comes to Ukraine and American policy, though, what's behind the performance? What do you think Trump actually wants in Ukraine? Or is that too hard to discern?
Trump's style is very off-putting. Some would say disgraceful. Trump behaves in ways that diminish American soft power, which is a usually important dimension of American power. In his mind, The means don't matter as long as you get to the ends, which is a massive rebalancing of U.S. relationships across the world.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What has Trump's relationship with Putin revealed?
0:54–1:18
2
How did Trump and Vance's actions affect Zelensky?
1:18–2:09
3
What was the significance of the Oval Office encounter?
2:09–11:14
4
What are the implications of Trump's foreign policy?
11:14–12:26
5
How does the war in Ukraine affect American power?
12:26–19:57
6
What are the potential outcomes of the Ukraine conflict?
19:57–23:57
7
How can political pressure influence the war's resolution?
23:57–34:09
8
What are the prospects for Russia's political future?
34:09–39:33
Speakers
4 identifiedMore from The New Yorker Radio Hour
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