A meltdown in the White House over Ukraine
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Quote, you're being disrespectful. You don't have the cards. Don't tell us how we'll feel. Among the many declarations that President Donald Trump made to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday, there was also this. You're gambling with the lives of millions of people. You're gambling with World War III. You're gambling with World War III.

World War III. Now, if that reference sounded familiar, it's because Trump has said it before. For example, in a meeting just last month with French President Emmanuel Macron. There's already such involvement from other countries, and it could really lead to a very big war, World War III. And in a campaign debate last summer with then-President Joe Biden. And he's going to drive us into World War III. There's another reason that point may sound familiar.

It's identical to the claim often made by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Quote, I have already said, and it's clear to everyone Putin is saying there, quote, possible conflict with NATO in Ukraine will be one step away from World War III, end quote.

Well, that comment came in March when Putin won reelection in Russia with 87 percent of the vote. It should be noted that most opposition candidates were either dead, jailed or exiled. Putin's own spokesman said the vote was, quote, not really democracy, but, quote, costly bureaucracy.

In any case, Putin's World War III claim was in response to a question about French President Emmanuel Macron's comment last year that he would not rule out sending European forces to Ukraine.

Now, getting back to last Friday, the global aftershocks of the unprecedented public blowup led by Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance led Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin spokesman, to say, quote, the Trump administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations. This largely aligns with our vision, end quote.

And then just this morning, as quoted by the Russian news agency Interfax, Peskov added, quote, the fragmentation of the collective West has begun, end quote.

So we're going to talk today about how to think through everything that has happened since Friday. And as I mentioned, the continuing aftershocks from that Oval Office meeting. And we're going to begin with Nina Khrushcheva. She is a professor of international affairs at the New School and also great granddaughter of former communist leader of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev. Professor Khrushcheva, welcome back to On Point.

Thank you very much. Hi. So first of all, let's start with what Dmitry Peskov just said this morning about the Kremlin seeing the fragmentation of the collective West has begun. What's your response to that?

Well, you don't need to be Dmitry Peskov not to see it. I mean, it's obvious to everybody. And apart from Peskov, the Finnish president said the same thing, and many others in the West said that the only person who wins from that debacle at the White House on Friday actually is Putin. And that's indeed very true, because the more fragmentation there is...

the more successful Putin is, is driving his point across that the West really has very little to offer in terms of unity, in terms of prosperity, and doesn't even understand how it's going to move forward except for its hatred of Russia and wanting Russia to be defeated.

So it seems like that right now Russia diplomatically is, or at least in terms of this global realignment, is getting everything it could possibly have wanted. Well, not in real terms so far because there have been a few meetings between the Russian and American diplomats, sort of the new generation of American diplomats, and the meetings from what we know from both sides have gone quite well. But

At this point, it's not clear if Putin gets everything he wants. But let's remember, and we always have to remember that he is a former or he is a KGB operative. So as a KGB operative, your job is to make sure that the West doesn't

doesn't present the unified front or not, or at least look for cracks in, in that unified front. So without almost doing anything at this particular moment, in fact, Putin got exactly what he learned in his KGB job or from his KGB predecessors, that that's how you look for weaknesses in, in,

in the Western unity. So he does have that. And ultimately, it's actually this time around, it's not of his creation, which of course makes it even sweeter for him. Well, Professor Khrushcheva, what I'd like to do is go back to what seems to me to be the critical moment from Friday's Oval Office meeting with Trump and

Vance and Zelensky. And I'm going to play a large chunk of it, about two minutes, because I think it's important to hear it in its entirety. And I would then love to sort of have your help in dissecting why this particular moment seemed to trigger the long blowup that followed between the three men. So here it is. This is when Vice President Vance all of a sudden really interjected himself

into the meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy.

For four years in the United States of America, we had a president who stood up at press conferences and talked tough about Vladimir Putin. And then Putin invaded Ukraine and destroyed a significant chunk of the country. The path to peace and the path to prosperity is maybe engaging in diplomacy. We tried the pathway of Joe Biden of thumping our chest and pretending that the president of the United States' words mattered more than the president of the United States' actions.

What makes America a good country is America engaging in diplomacy. That's what President Trump is doing. Can I ask you? Sure. Yeah? Yeah. Okay. So he occupied our parts, big parts of Ukraine, parts of East and Crimea. So he occupied it on 2014.

2015.

2014. 2014. I was not here. That's exactly right. Yes, but during 2014 until 2022...

The situation was the same. People have been dying on the contact line. Nobody stopped him. You know that we had conversations with him, a lot of conversations, bilateral conversations. And we signed with him, me, like a new president in 2019, I signed with him the deal. I signed with him, Macron and Merkel, we signed ceasefire.

Ceasefire. All of them told me that he will never go. We signed him with gas contract. Gas contract. Yes, but after that he broken the ceasefire. He killed our people and he didn't exchange prisoners. We signed the exchange of prisoners, but he didn't do it.

What kind of diplomacy, J.D., you are speaking about? What do you mean? I'm talking about the kind of diplomacy that's going to end the destruction of your country. So that is from last Friday in that Oval Office meeting. Professor Khrushcheva, the reason why I wanted to play it is because, to me, this moment when Ukrainian President Zelensky has, perhaps in the White House's eyes, the temerity to say,

explain in front of cameras the reason, the detailed reason why Ukraine is unwilling to sign any ceasefire agreement without that security guarantee. That's the thing that seemed to inflame both Vice President Vance and President Donald Trump. How do you judge or read Zelensky's decision to do that?

Well, there are many different explanations. I mean, one of them is both Donald Trump and Vladimir Zelensky did not follow any diplomatic protocol, which is kind of shocking because they've been talking over each other. And usually this kind of meetings are all...

written up in minutes, and suddenly it was not. Then why Vladimir Zelensky is speaking English? Who decided that he's going to speak English? Because normally, once again, his English is not native. I mean, he's been in tremendous progress since he first became president, but it's not his native language. So that's certainly a disadvantage. So I'm not understanding who decided not to follow protocol. J.D. Vance

Frank had no business interjecting to that meeting altogether, regardless of how he felt about Vladimir Zelensky's behavior. And he's not gratitude to Trump because he's vice president. The two presidents talking. So there's so many.

I almost feel like it was scripted on both sides to create a scandal, because in some ways, actually, the scandal potentially is useful to both sides. I don't know if you've heard that kind of explanation, because Trump wanted Europe to take more responsibility, and Zelensky, in fact, offered him his support.

That suggestion is saying, well, next, now they're in Europe or we'll be in Europe. The Russians, we are defending Europe. But then next thing, you'll feel their influence across the ocean. That's when Trump started screaming, don't tell us how you feel. So basically...

let's send it. Trump wants Europe to get involved, and Vladimir Zelensky wants Europe to be involved, because if the United States steps out, he is going to be faced with Russia, and then he needs Europe to speed up and potentially having boots on the ground and, in fact,

potentially will get to that third world war, um, uh, that everybody's talking about, but both sides need Europe. And that scandal made Europe, which, which was quite reluctant for a long time because there was a lot of talk on European side, but not, but less action. And now here they are, they met in London before they met in Paris. Uh, so they are now involved. Okay. So, uh,

Professor Kruscheva, we have to take a quick break here. When we come back, we're going to hear from a European voice. But I also just want to follow up with you quickly about how Zelensky explained, again, as you say, critically, in English, why he desires or cannot negotiate without a security agreement, why that was particularly important. So we'll cover all of that. And then later on in the show today, we're going to hear from a former U.S. ambassador.

ambassador to Russia about his view regarding America's role, if any, moving forward regarding not just the war in Ukraine, but global geopolitics and this realignment of the West. So we'll have a lot more in a moment. This is On Point.

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Of bugs. Regardless of whether we're looking at science or not science, we bring a rigorous curiosity to get you the answers. And hopefully make you see the world anew. Radiolab, adventures on the edge of what we think we know. Wherever you get your podcasts. You're back with On Point. I'm Meghna Chakrabarty. And today we are trying to understand the continuing aftershocks of last Friday's historic meeting, an unprecedented meeting between scientists

President Donald Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, historic because of the shocking break in protocol that came with the blowup between the three men. I'm joined today by Nina Krusheva. She's a professor of international affairs at the New School. And Professor Krusheva, let me play another moment here from this meeting. And this is when Vice President J.D. Vance began telling President Zelensky repeatedly that he should be more thankful.

Mr. President, Mr. President, with respect, I think it's disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office and try to litigate this in front of the American media. Right now, you guys are going around and forcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems. You should be thanking the president for trying to bring it into this conflict. Have you ever been to Ukraine that you say what problems we have?

I have been to... And come what? I've actually watched and seen the stories, and I know that what happens is you bring people, you bring them on a propaganda tour, Mr. President. Do you disagree that you've had problems?

Okay, so that once again was Vice President J.D. Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. And as a historical note, the United States, too, has used a draft on several occasions.

in world wars, in Vietnam, in Korea. But of course, we have never had a war post-Civil War on our own soil. So the idea of using conscripts to go to war isn't exactly uniquely Ukrainian. Now, Professor Kruscheva, the reason why I wanted to play that is where Vance says, it's disrespectful for you to come to the Oval Office and try to litigate this in front of the American media.

And he said that after, again, Zelensky made that long explanation of why he must have a security guarantee in order to move forward with any peace talks with Russia. So regarding what Zelensky said in terms of his description of what happened in 2014, I couldn't detect any inaccuracy in what Zelensky said. I just wanted to check that with you. Well, it's incompletion because certainly there was –

Russia took over Crimea and other territories and then withdrew a little bit in 2014. And then there was the Minsk agreements, this Normandy format in which France, Germany, and Ukraine and Russia were...

Both sides broke ceasefires and both sides did not exchange prisoners. So both sides are guilty. The difference, of course, is that Russia is an aggressor and Ukraine is a victim of this. And therefore, we forgive Ukraine for breaking those rules. And we, of course, hold Russia responsible. It doesn't seem to me J.D. Vance's

view of that, because from what we know, because also I think what it showed is personal relationship or the lack of the lack thereof, because they certainly think that Zelensky is not the equal. He didn't come prepared enough. He didn't come dressed up enough. And we've seen that Trump's quip that, oh, you're dressed up today.

because Zelensky was not in his suit and somebody ought to question from a blogger. So there was a lot of breakout and protocol, and both sides kept pushing their narrative. My problem with all – I mean, first of all, as I said, I think J.D. Vance just had no business speaking there, period, on any question, because it wasn't the meeting about him. But what was remarkable about this –

that usually pre-signing of an agreement, you have a polite conversation with the media saying we're hopeful that everything will get resolved. And suddenly we got lectures, in a sense, on both sides, which were to derail this meeting because both of them live as, I mean, they're different genres. One is a reality TV and another one is a,

blockbuster Marvel movies. So Zelensky is a Marvel hero and Donald Trump is the apprentice. And these two genres collapsed because both of them insisted they're equally important. So it just seemed, as I said, it seemed it was scripted on many different sides with whatever, I'm not sure what the result is supposed to be, but probably the result is to get

to get Europe more involved. Okay. Well, just as a note about that minerals deal, it wasn't actually signed. I'm seeing here that as of yesterday, President Zelensky said Ukraine is still ready to sign that minerals deal with President Trump. But to your point, Professor Khrushcheva, about Ukraine,

Europe and getting Europe more heavily involved. That seems to be happening moment by moment as we speak. For example, here's Prime Minister Keir Starmer of the United Kingdom graciously welcoming President Zelensky on Saturday just after the White House meeting as the two met at Downing Street in London. Well, let me just say that you're very, very welcome here in Downing Street. And

And as you heard from the cheers on the street outside, you have full backing across the United Kingdom. And we stand with you, with Ukraine, for as long as it may take. And I hope you heard some of that cheering in the street. That is the people of the United Kingdom coming out to demonstrate.

how much they support you, how much they support Ukraine, and our absolute determination to stand with you, unwavering determination, and to achieve what we both want to achieve, which is a lasting peace. Prime Minister Starmer also said on Saturday that it's time for European nations to step up and back Ukraine. We are at a crossroads in history today.

This is not a moment for more talk. It's time to act, time to step up and lead, and to unite around a new plan for a just and enduring peace. Okay, well, I want to bring in Wolfgang Ischinger now. He's the president of the Munich Security Conference Foundation Council. He joined the German Foreign Service back in 1975 and served as Germany's ambassador to the United States and also to the United Kingdom. Ambassador Ischinger, welcome back to On Point.

Great to be on your show. Okay, so just today we're seeing reporting that Britain and France are promising to muster what they're calling, quote, a coalition of the willing, perhaps an unfortunate turn of phrase hearkening back to the Iraq war, but in order to secure a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia. So as Professor Khrushcheva has been saying recently,

In a sense, has Europe been more forcefully put into the center of peace talks by what happened between Trump and Zelensky on Friday?

Well, I guess we on the European side had no choice. This wasn't the intention. The intention was to work, of course, with Ukraine, with the United States, to create a situation that would bring

bring the Russian side to the negotiating table. So we've actually achieved the opposite. Let me be quite frank and say from my vantage point, there has been one victim of this episode, an episode which comprises not just the White House meeting last week, but a number of statements that have

come out over the last couple of weeks or so, including about the Riyadh meeting between the United States and Russia and statements made at our conference, the Munich Security Conference, two weeks ago. The victim

The victim is transatlantic trust. The last time I remember something remotely similar to this was in 2003, 22 years ago, during the starting phase of the Iraq war.

And quite frankly, if I may just share this with you, when I saw the vice president speak about how Zelensky should be more grateful and should express his gratitude, et cetera, I remember that as a German ambassador to the United States in

In the spring of 2003, I was on the show of the Fox television network, and I was on live television accused of representing a country of ungrateful bastards, verbatim.

So in other words, I've gone through this kind of thing myself, and I believe that this is not the end of the world. These are things, these are accidents that can be repaired depending on the goodwill, but we have a victim, and that is transatlantic trust. And that's going to be pretty hard to repair, I tell you. Building trust is...

is much harder than losing it. Well, so, but to that point, I completely understand what you're saying because of the real rift. I mean, as we started the show, even the Kremlin is saying this is basically the beginning of the collapse of the collective West. But in the immediate future, even if European nations...

bring together some kind of coalition to support Ukraine even more than Europe already has. This would be continued military aid, a seat at the table for Ukraine to actually be involved in any peace negotiations and critically helping with defense capabilities. Okay.

I wonder, though, how effective this can be regarding negotiations, given my understanding is that Russia has said clearly from for quite some time now that they would reject any such European coalition as part of a settlement to end the fighting in Ukraine. Ambassador, your response to that?

Well, I certainly agree with you. I'm not aware of any expression of interest by the Russian side in meaningful negotiations, point one. Point two, I have certainly not seen any expression of interest by the Russian side in

in negotiating with us, with the Europeans. Point two. Point three, I have seen a Russian interest in discussions and negotiations with the United States, but I have not seen any sign of

a Russian willingness of meaningful compromise on any of the issues involved, whether this is, you know, the line of contact or the territorial issues, the security guarantee issues. And my fourth point would be simply to underline what you just said. There is no

at all. On the contrary, there is strong signaling by Russia that the one thing which they would reject is the presence of certainly Western troops in whatever shape or form. Look, I mean, if the

The Russians claim that one of their principal objectives in all of this is to prevent a membership by Ukraine in NATO. The presence of troops

from France, the United Kingdom, maybe Germany, Spain, Estonia, what have you, as peacekeepers or regardless of how we wish to define it, would from the point of view of any intelligent Russian negotiator be the hidden, the veiled presence of

of NATO in Ukraine. This is exactly what they didn't want to have in the first place. In other words, I think we are...

extremely far from reaching a point where the presence of troops, which we are discussing very intensively here on the European side, Coalition of the Willing, you've just mentioned that in your earlier segment, we're very, very far from seeing the light at the end of the tunnel that would actually allow that kind of a

that kind of a decision to go forward. So let me bring Professor Khrushcheva back into the conversation. And Professor, this is an interesting sort of nexus between your analysis and Ambassador Ishinger's, because as you had said earlier,

Perhaps this could be a win-win for the U.S. and Zelensky and Ukraine in terms of further activating European involvement. But then as Ambassador Isinger just said and pointed out, that greater European involvement, especially if it included some kind of European-sponsored security agreement...

would in fact be the opposite of what Putin wants because he continues to claim that it was NATO knocking at his doorstep that forced him to invade Ukraine. So in terms of a stalemate of interests, I don't see that fundamentally having changed, Professor.

Well, yes. I mean, you just answered your own question. Indeed. I mean, it is. Trump doesn't want to be involved. Zelensky wants Europe more involved. Europe has to get involved. And that's what I said in realistic terms for Putin. This is not a win-win. It's just in kind of ideological proof that, you know, the West is ultimately going to collapse and we are going to jump quickly.

on its rubble so that that's the way in but it doesn't get certainly doesn't get uh... doesn't get uh... the war closer to solution because i don't see how russia would would agree to the peacekeeping of uh... nato forces separately or either full made the or in separate countries they may agree to say forces from serbia forces from near the united nations

India, some other countries, but not northwestern Europe, northeastern Europe. And so, yes, I mean, we are in a certain crossroad, as Keir Starmer pointed out, but it still doesn't get us closer to a solution. Also because in London, when they were meeting, they kept going back to the necessity of the United States' involvement. So ultimately, this Friday meeting

scandal still got back to we cannot do it without the United States. That means why then the scandal even happened. So we've got another minute with you, Professor Khrushcheva. To Ambassador Isinger's point about the long-term damage that comes with the degradation of transatlantic trust, what do you think the consequences could be of that?

Well, I'm much more hopeful about transatlantic trust. I think Trump will go away unless, of course, the country collapses and there is indeed a war, which I hope doesn't happen. And it will be repaired because the West is the West. The values are there. The enlightenment is there. It's a process of. In fact, I hope that when this period of Russian history ends,

uh... and and the new person comes in in fact they could be we built which is going to be even much harder than than this transatlantic trust will be transferred bill between western europe between america and and the future russia but trust in fact is the first casualty of confrontations and that's really very unfortunate

Nina Krusheva is a professor of international affairs at the New School and author of In Putin's Footsteps, searching for the soul of an empire across Russia's 11 time zones. Professor Krusheva, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Ambassador Ishinger, hang on for just a moment. We have much more to discuss again about that transatlantic degradation of trust. We'll do it in a moment. This is On Point. On Point.

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You're back with On Point. I'm Meghna Chakrabarty. And before we return to our conversation today about those aftershocks regarding Friday's

disastrous meeting between President Donald Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. We will return to that in just a second. I want to give you a quick heads up about a really important show that we're working on for later this week. It's about the multi-billion dollar industry of ed tech or education technology. All not all those laptops, Chromebooks, not just the hardware, but perhaps more importantly, the software, the ed apps. And

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All right. So back to today's conversation. Let's just hear another moment. Again, it's about that breakdown in diplomatic protocol and not just the fact that it happened. But again, we're trying to understand what the long term implications are. So here is that big back and forth that was all about whether or not Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had thanked the United States. It starts with Vice President J.D. Vance.

Have you said thank you once this entire meeting? No, in this entire meeting, have you said thank you? You went to Pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition in October. Offer some words of appreciation for the United States of America and the president who's trying to save your country.

Please, you think that if you will speak very loudly about the war you can... He's not speaking loudly. He's not speaking loudly. Your country is in big trouble. Can I ask, sir? No, no. You've done a lot of talking. Your country is in big trouble. I know. You're not winning. You're not winning this.

You have a damn good chance of coming out okay because of us. Mr. President, we are staying in our country, staying strong from the very beginning of the war. We've been alone, and we are thankful. I said thanks in this cabinet. You haven't been alone. We gave you, through this stupid president, $350.

billion dollars you will we gave you military equipment you and your men are brave but they had to use our military what about us if you didn't have our military equipment you invited me to have our military equipment this war would have been over in two weeks in three days I heard it from Putin in three days this is something maybe less in two weeks of course yes it's gonna be a very hard thing to do business like this I tell you say thank you and

I said a lot of times to American people. Except that there are disagreements, and let's go litigate those disagreements rather than trying to fight it out in the American media when you're wrong. So to a couple points of clarification, you heard Vice President J.D. Vance demand that Zelensky say thank you in that meeting.

Zelensky has said thank you many times, including before a joint session of Congress. And also when President Donald Trump said that we, meaning the United States, gave Ukraine $350 billion, it should be noted that much of that money went to U.S. contractors. Okay, so immediately after the disagreement in the Oval Office, Zelensky went to Fox News. It was a previously planned interview, which he gave. And Fox News chief political anchor Brett Baier asked if Zelensky, in fact, planned to apologize. Yes.

So I'm not hearing from you, Mr. President, a thought that you owe the president an apology. No, I respect the president and I respect American people. And if I don't know if

I think that we have to be very open and very honest. And I'm not sure that we did something bad. I think maybe sometimes some things we have to discuss out of media with all respect to democracy and to free media. But there are things where we have to understand the position of Ukraine and Ukrainians. And I think that is the most important thing.

So let's bring in Michael McFaul into the conversation. He served as United States ambassador to Russia between 2012 to 2014. He's currently a professor of international relations at Stanford University. Ambassador McFaul, welcome back to the show.

Thanks for having me.

But on the other hand, is there any validity to the argument that the art of diplomacy is in fact finding a means to get the people on the other side of the table to you over to you? And perhaps there, did President Zelensky lose an opportunity?

No, I don't think so. So let's break down those two statements. So the juvenile thing did nothing to reassure Zelensky that President Trump and his team are going to act as a good faith mediator when it comes to Vladimir Putin.

So if your objective is to achieve peace, and I want to be crystal clear, I am very unsure if Trump actually wants to negotiate a peace deal. We'll get back to that later. But if your goal is to do that, then you don't disparage the president of Ukraine in the Oval Office the way they did. And I want to just say two more things on this. First of all, as an American, I am embarrassed for my country. We should not treat guests like that.

Second, this notion that the president of Ukraine needs to give J.D. Vance a personal thank you in the Oval Office is ridiculous. You know why? Because President Trump and Mr. Vance, they've been giving Putin all kinds of gifts. They've told the Ukrainians, you can't join NATO. They've told Ukrainians, you got to give land to Putin. They've invited Putin to join the G7. They've restarted relations with Ukraine.

Russia. They've done nothing for the Ukrainians. The American people have. Yes, thank you, American people. And Zelensky said that a hundred times. But you know the last assistance package? You know what happened? The GOP, their party, delayed it for six months as Ukrainians were being slaughtered on the battlefield and Senator Vance voted against it. So I'm

I have to say, it's hard-pressed for me to see why Mr. Zelensky owes those two particular gentlemen thank you at this point. I hope they get around to doing their job of trying to advance America's national security interests and put aside their egos

But their job is to advance our security interests. We have a security interest in ending this war, and they need to focus on that rather than these petty things about their egos. OK, so then take me to your what you were saying a second ago about you're not sure whether President Trump even wants any kind of peace agreements.

Obviously, thus far, he keeps saying that he does. What do you see that makes you think the opposite?

Well, we all know that President Trump says a lot of things, right? And I counted six things that he said that were untrue in that clip he just posted. Just so everybody remembers, we did not give the Ukrainians $350 billion. Just go to Google or go to your favorite AI app and just look for the facts. But here's if, you know, I used to work in the government. I used to negotiate with Vladimir Putin.

And by the way, we used to organize press sprays. I worked for President Obama. The fact that they had that press spray for 50 minutes rather than 45 seconds, which is the norm, was also extremely unusual and, in my view, not good diplomacy. Diplomacy takes place behind closed doors, not with the cameras rolling. But if you were serious, here's the first thing you would do.

You need wars end in two ways, more or less. Either one side wins and they dictate the terms to the other, or there's a stalemate on the battlefield and both sides can no longer achieve their maximalist objectives and they have to negotiate a peace treaty. Right now, there's not a stalemate on the battlefield. President Trump said that.

And so if you wanted to create the permissive conditions for an enduring peace settlement, you would provide more aid to Ukraine, more sanctions against Russia to help create that stalemate. He's not doing that. Second, I've negotiated with the Russians, really tough negotiators. I want to emphasize that. You give them a concession, they put it in their pocket and they say, what are you going to do for me now?

And what I'm struck by, just purely diplomacy 101. I mean, I don't know how real estate deals work in New York, but I know how diplomacy works. It's about trading concessions for other concessions. Right?

Right. So, OK, maybe Ukraine has to give up some territory. But what will Putin give in return for that concession? Same with NATO membership. OK, we're taking that off the table. But Mr. Putin, you have to do X, Y and Z. And so I've watched this pretty closely. I've seen no evidence whatsoever that

that the Trump administration is even articulating concessions, let alone demanding them from Vladimir Putin, which suggests to me that the relationship with Putin, getting that on track, is much more important to them than actually negotiating a peace deal with Ukrainians. Okay, excellent analysis. Ambassador Ishinger, let me go back to you.

As the Europeans, you know, again, as we speak, are saying that they're going to try to come up with some way to come up with a peace deal, bring the United States back into the fold on this. To Ambassador McFaul's point, what are possible things that could be demanded of Putin and Russia?

Well, if I may, let me just, before I try to answer your question, let me just reiterate and underline a point made by Ambassador McFaul. You know, I've been in meetings with the White House as long ago as President Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, President

President Clinton, President Bush, 43. I don't know how many times. And we've always had the same procedure with foreign visitors, in this case, usually the German chancellor or other senior leaders. A 45-second or one or two-minute brief, you know, press pool conversation and

Then the real meaning the press leaves the room and then maybe lunch if that's appropriate and then finally a press conference I cannot understand why the

The American side, in this case, did not stop this conversation at the moment when it started to become controversial. It would have been so easy for either the president or the vice president to say, look, before we get into any kind of argument here, this is actually not the thing, as Vice President Vance said, we're going to have a conversation.

Why do we need to litigate this in front of the American public? Let's go. Let's throw out the press. Let's have a meaningful conversation. And then we'll talk to the media about the result afterwards. In other words, the management of this meeting is what makes my hair stand up. It would have.

It could have been avoided so easily.

But Ambassador Isinger, let me follow up with this because, again, I'm trying to figure out sort of if and how any kind of transatlantic balance has shifted. I have to ask you what you think about a post that Senator Lindsey Graham put on Twitter on Saturday. He said, quote, to the hand-wringing Europeans who felt offended by President Trump rejecting being lectured by President Zelenskyy,

Be my guest to defend Ukraine from Putin. And then Graham keeps posting, he says, it's long past time for Europeans to show they are capable of defending their own continent. They've allowed their militaries to be hollowed out. And when Europe speaks, no bad guy listens. I say this with great sadness. Again, this is Lindsey Graham, Senator Graham. The last group of people that I would count on to defend freedom are the Europeans, end quote. Your thoughts?

Well, Senator Graham, of course, has a point. Europe hasn't carried the ball of its own defense in the required manner for many years, including my own country. There's no doubt about that. We know that. But we've started to correct that.

over the last decade and certainly more recently since the full-scale invasion three years ago, a significant effort has started. Look, my own country, Germany, had as a fundamental dogma of post-World War II Germany

you know, as a consequence of the Nazi era of the Holocaust. We had a dogma, which I learned as a young diplomat 50 years ago, never ever will Germany send weapons to an area of conflict.

And that dogma stood until quite recently for more than 50, 60 years. We have changed it 180 degrees because of what happened in Ukraine. We are now right behind the United States, the number one supplier of military equipment, including lethal weapons, to Ukraine. In other words, significant equipment.

has happened, I believe that needs to be recognized and appreciated. Once again, let me say, I think if the United States and Europe can collaborate

continue to work together in the manner which we have done successfully over five, six decades, we can handle this. But if we allow this kind of spectacle to go forward, the only beneficiary will be Putin, will be Moscow, and the victim will be Ukraine. Yes. Ambassador McFaul, I'm so sorry, we have only a minute left to go. I'm just wondering, you yourself asked this question about what would...

what could be demanded of Putin. What realistically do you think that answer should be?

Well, realistically, you mean that Trump would do, not what Mike McFaul would do, right? That's what you mean by that? Well, I think you answered the Trump question earlier. So I do actually, what would Mike McFaul ask? Well, but the first thing I would do, just before I get to that, and if we run out of time, I'm sorry. We've got 45 seconds, sir. So sorry. We're focusing on what we should do to end the war. We need to focus on what America's national security interests are. And our interests are to be with our European allies.

allies. This is catastrophic what we're doing by alienating our allies because there's as Churchill once said, there's nothing worse than going to war than going alone. And if we are not with our allies in the long run, it has dire consequences for us, not just in Ukraine, but in Asia as well. Well, Ambassador Michael McFaul and Ambassador Wolfgang Isinger, thank you both so very much. I'm Meghna Chakrabarty. This is On Point.

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