00:00Basically, when it comes down to Donald Trump changing his mind on and off,
00:03this doesn't mean that it's a fixed target anyway, does it?
00:07I don't think it does.
00:09I mean, consider the fact he started off with a 50-day target.
00:13A lot of us were very skeptical.
00:14A lot of commentators, I think, were very skeptical about that.
00:18I certainly was.
00:20We've seen again and again and again that his deadlines and ultimatums
00:23are actually sort of sliding targets.
00:25You know, there's this phrase going around Washington
00:30that Trump is maybe, you know, always chickens out.
00:35I don't know that that's necessarily true,
00:37but he's certainly very fluid about the goals that he sets.
00:41I think he's always trying to leave himself space to declare victory, right?
00:45He likes to set up complicated situations,
00:48and then when there's some progress in his favor,
00:51he can make a big statement.
00:52He's very, very good at proclaiming his own successes.
00:56He's a real master at that.
00:58So I think what he often does is he sets up a complicated time frame
01:02or a complicated target or a target he knows is unrealistically high,
01:06and then when he achieves part of it, he claims a great victory.
01:11And he may very well do that in this case, too.
01:14But the main thing, again, is that we see serious sanctions
01:17against the people who have been supporting the Russian economy
01:20by buying its energy.
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