00:00Do you want to stand right in front of your hand?
00:03Right in front of your hand.
00:04Right in front of your hand.
00:05Okay.
00:06Hey, guys.
00:07How are you?
00:08Good.
00:09Look, I'd say we're more than open to walking away.
00:10The President is supposed to talk to President Putin of Russia and President Zelensky as well.
00:15And I'm sure he'll talk to a number of world leaders today because he always does that.
00:18But, you know, look, the President has been very clear.
00:20This is not — the United States is not going to spin its wheels here.
00:23We want to see outcomes.
00:25And the first major outcome that we wanted to see, which we were clad about, is that
00:28we wanted the Russians and the Ukrainians to put a real peace proposal on the table.
00:31What would you need to do in order to stop fighting?
00:34That happened.
00:35The second thing is they needed to agree to direct talks with one another.
00:38These sides hadn't talked in years.
00:39We thought that was a disgrace.
00:40That has now happened.
00:41But now, you know, the talks have been proceeding for a little while.
00:43We realize there's a bit of an impasse here.
00:45And I think the President is going to say to President Putin, look, are you serious?
00:49Are you real about this?
00:50Because the proposal from the United States has always been, look, there are a lot of economic
00:54benefits to thawing relations between Russia and the rest of the world.
00:59But you're not going to get those benefits.
01:00You can keep on killing a lot of innocent people.
01:02So if you're willing to stop the killing, the United States is willing to be a partner
01:06for peace.
01:07That's been the proposal to the Russians, to the Ukrainians, and frankly, to nations and
01:10other hotspots around the world.
01:12I won't prejudge the President's conversation.
01:14I actually was just on the phone with him.
01:15I know he's looking forward to it.
01:17And I wish him all the best.
01:18I think he's the right guy to negotiate for the country.
01:20And I'm excited about it.
01:23Yeah, I don't know.
01:24It's a good question.
01:25But there are so many different things that are obstacles that it's hard to pinpoint one
01:29in particular.
01:30Look, I think one open question is, is Vladimir Putin serious about negotiating peace, right?
01:36He has made some concessions.
01:38He has taken some serious steps in these conversations.
01:42But we feel like, you know, we're at a point where we're hitting an impasse.
01:45And that's why the President is talking to him on the phone.
01:47And I think, honestly, that President Putin, he doesn't quite know how to get out of the war.
01:52If you think about this, he's got a million men under arms.
01:54He's reengineered his entire economy, what used to be manufacturing facilities, making,
01:59you know, products for people to use in their civilian life.
02:02And now making tank shells and artillery shells and drones.
02:05And so this is a little bit of a guess.
02:07But I think the President would agree that part of this is I'm not sure that Vladimir Putin has a strategy himself
02:12for how to unwind the war, of course, that's been going on for a few years now.
02:17And I think there's also just a little bit of, look, there's fundamental mistrust between Russia and the West.
02:25It's one of the things the President thinks is frankly stupid, that we should be able to move beyond the mistakes that have been made in the past.
02:33But that takes two to tango.
02:35The President is willing to do that.
02:36But if Russia is not willing to do that, then we're eventually just going to have to say,
02:39this is not our war.
02:40It's Joe Biden's war.
02:41It's Vladimir Putin's war.
02:43It's not our war.
02:44We're going to try to end it.
02:45But if we can't end it, we're eventually going to say, you know what?
02:47That was worth a try.
02:48But we're not doing it anymore.
02:49Last question.
02:50I don't know you guys.
02:51Speaking of Joe Biden, sir, do you have any thoughts on...
