- 4 months ago
On "Forbes Newsroom," Cliff May, Founder and President of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, spoke about the current state of the Russia-Ukraine War, President Trump's approach to ending the war, and the upcoming summit between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
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00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis, a breaking news reporter here at Forbes.
00:07Joining me now is Cliff May, founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
00:12Cliff, thank you so much for joining me.
00:14Good to see you, Brittany.
00:16The last time you and I talked was about two weeks ago at the end of July,
00:20and we were talking about how President Trump moved up a deadline on Russia for them to agree
00:25to peace with Ukraine, or he was going to slap the country with pretty tough economic sanctions.
00:31Now it's a different tune here. We are talking about a meeting between President Trump and Russian
00:37President Putin. Talk to us about the summit. How did we go from sanctions to summit in two weeks?
00:44Well, just to be absolutely fair, some sanctions he has already imposed in the sense that they're
00:49secondary sanctions. He's imposed sanctions on India, which is one of the major buyers of
00:55Russian oil. The Indians are very angry about this, but he said, hey, you're supporting
00:59Russia's war against Ukraine. There could be more to come. But what delayed it is that the
01:05presidential envoy, Steve Witkoff, he went to Moscow. He met with Putin. They talked. Witkoff called
01:11Trump. And I think it was at Putin's suggestion that the two of them, Putin and Trump, get together.
01:18And the decision was made, and that's an interesting decision you might want to talk about,
01:22to meet in Alaska and have some talks. So that's how it sort of evolved. President Trump wants to
01:31meet with Putin. Various people, I believe Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, look, Trump likes to see
01:39the guy face to face and kind of feel him out and know what is possible. I'll just say this.
01:47I've followed summit meetings for a lot of years. This is different than anything I've seen in this
01:52sense. Usually when you have two world leaders like this meeting together, their deputies have
01:59met for weeks beforehand. They've worked everything out. By the time they get on the stage, it's
02:05choreographed. They know exactly what they're going to say and what they're going to come out with.
02:08This is not that. Usually someone like Trump or President of the States doesn't want to leave and
02:13say, you know what, I couldn't get anything done. Trump is different. He wants to look Putin in the
02:17eye. And I think, and we'll see, Brittany, he's willing to say, I tried. I couldn't get anything
02:22done. Putin wouldn't move an inch. Now I'm on to plan B. What do you make of that? Because as you
02:28said, summits are planned for months in advance. This was put together in about a week. I mean,
02:34do you think this slapdash in nature, is that going to help President Trump? Do you think,
02:38or will it hurt President Trump at the table with Putin? It's neither. Again, it's a different
02:44approach to summit tree, to summit diplomacy. It's very much Trump's approach, which is I'll see what
02:52I can do when I get there. Trump is a lifelong dealmaker. And the way he makes deals is not by
02:59having a deputy go and make them. And then he signs on the dotted line. What he wants to do,
03:04rightly or wrongly criticize, this is his approach to it, is he wants to sit across the table from
03:09Putin. He wants to look him in the eye. He wants to say, here's what I want you to do. We can talk
03:14about that. Putin will say, here's what I want. And they'll either agree or they'll not agree.
03:20Now, from my, I'll just add this, from my point of view and the point of view of a lot of other
03:24people, I think we do not want to see Trump negotiating a fine deal or trying. What he should
03:32be saying, I think, is, look, I've been saying for a long time that I want a ceasefire. I want to stop
03:39the killing. Zelensky has agreed to that. I thought you were getting close to agreeing to that. You
03:44haven't. But what I'm going to tell you today is I want you to agree to a ceasefire. Otherwise, I'm
03:49going to put additional pressure on you in various ways. And then after we have a ceasefire, we can get
03:57into negotiations. You with Zelensky on a final arrangement. But you're not getting concessions
04:04in order to have a ceasefire. We have a ceasefire. And that brings us to negotiations. Now, again,
04:10I could be wrong, but that's what I'm hoping that Trump will say. And I mean, to be a fly on that wall
04:17during that meeting, I know. I mean, I would love to be there. But how do you think Putin then would
04:22respond to that? Because apparently, according to the White House press secretary, he was the one
04:27who wanted this meeting. So what do you think he's going to say? Is he going to say what President
04:31Trump wants to hear? Is he going to be honest? Because history suggests that Putin isn't very
04:37truthful and is a bad actor here. Look, Putin is a former KGB lieutenant colonel. He is a killer. And I
04:48say that in the most literal sense of the word. He has killed many of his enemies. They've fallen
04:53from hotel balconies. They've been shot to death in the streets of Moscow. He is a very much a tough
04:59guy. And he is going to, we know what he's going to do. He's going to do what he's going to try to
05:04demand. He is to say, you want a ceasefire? I want you to give me the following things in advance.
05:09And we kind of know the list of what he wants. I hope that Trump will say, I don't even, I know what
05:15you want. We're not talking about that. We're talking about a ceasefire that comes first. But
05:20what is Putin going to push for? He said, look, I have 20%, I'm occupying 20% of Ukraine. I want you
05:27to agree. That's mine. It's not going back. I want more of Ukraine than that. I want you to agree to
05:34that. I want to know that Ukraine will be demilitarized in the future. Why? So we can attack
05:40Ukraine again. Don't forget, his first attacks on Ukraine were 2014. He attacked Crimea. He occupied
05:47Crimea. He annexed Crimea. He also began at that point to incite insurgencies, I would say, with
05:55Russian soldiers not in uniform in the eastern part of Ukraine in Donbass. So he, you know, Putin may be
06:03willing to say, I've been doing, I've been eating this sausage in bites. I can take a pause. And
06:09you know, go for a walk, take a nap, and then have another bite. But I want to make sure I get what
06:15I want. And again, we should very understand what Putin wants. Putin wants Ukraine. He wants to end
06:22its independence, end its sovereignty, end its culture, end its language. He wants all that. He
06:28wants to drag Ukraine back into what he sees as the Russian Empire, which for a number of years was
06:35called the Soviet Empire. And he wants to make Ukraine like Belarus is, theoretically independent,
06:43but it's a basal state of Russia at this point, or what Chechnya and Tatarstan are, absolute colonies
06:50of Russia. That's what's going to be on his mind. Now, if he gets a lot of pushback from Trump and
06:55says, that's not what's going to happen, I'm not making these concessions, I can't, and I'm going to put
07:00real pressure on you. Putin may have a backup plan. He may have another position where he says,
07:06here's what I'll do, here's what I'll do. And that's where the negotiations will begin.
07:11And then let's say there is that backup plan. How would you want President Trump to respond?
07:16Because the White House press secretary said that this is a listening exercise for the president.
07:21Does that indicate to you then that he's not going there and to hammer out negotiations? He's there to
07:27hear what Putin says and bringing back that to Zelensky? I mean, what does that really mean? Read
07:31the tea leaves there. What I hope that means is he'll say, I'm not negotiating with you. I can't
07:38give you Ukrainian land. I can't tell you that this independent country is going to demilitarize. I
07:44can't tell you anything. I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about a ceasefire. I want to talk
07:49about stopping the killing. I want to talk about your soldiers. You're going to have, you have by now
07:54about a million casualties. You should want to stop that. I don't know that you do, but I want to see
07:59if we can bring that to a halt, a cessation of hostilities. I'm not talking about peace, not talking
08:05about a path to peace, cessation of hostilities. Maybe it becomes a truce. Maybe it becomes an
08:11armistice. Who knows? Zelensky has to be there for those negotiations. If Putin says, well, then you're not
08:18getting it. I'm going to continue to bomb Ukrainians as much as I want. Then Trump will say, and I'm
08:25going to do what I have to do. And what do I hope he'll do? Serious, serious economic sanctions on
08:31Russia, serious secondary sanctions to cut off the funds Putin needs for this war and a increased
08:37supply of munitions to the Ukrainians to defend themselves and fight. Those munitions will include
08:43Patriot missiles, which defend their cities from attacks from the air, but also long range
08:48missiles and permission, permission to use those long range missiles to target military sites
08:55inside Russia, not just on Ukrainian territory, but to cause pain to the military inside Russia.
09:03Zelensky has been doing some of that with drones. He can do that a lot better with such U.S. munitions
09:07as they attack them. It's a great word, attack them. President Trump has long ruminated that perhaps
09:16Putin is stringing me along a bit here because we have these great conversations. And then I
09:21talked to my wife and Melania says, what are you talking about? Russia just bombed Kiev or bombed a
09:27city. The bombs are dropping. Putin's all talk and isn't really acting in the same way that he's
09:33talking to you. I mean, do you get the sense based on what we know about the summit so far
09:38that Putin will string Trump along on Friday? Putin will absolutely attempt to string Trump
09:46along. That will be his goal in these talks. And the question is whether he can succeed at
09:53continuing to string him along. And you're right. Actually, I wrote a column about it exactly as for
09:58the Washington Times. Melania sees through Putin. Why? I think in part because Melania was born in a
10:05communist country and understands these people. And Melania knows such things as what Putin has done
10:11in stealing Ukrainian children and brainwashing them so they think of themselves as Russians,
10:17not Ukrainian. And she finds that just dreadful, as well she should. And so, yes, she had,
10:23so as you say, and Trump has recounted this on a couple of occasions, he'd think he had a good
10:28conversation and a productive conversation with Putin. And she'd say, no, you didn't. Because,
10:34and by the way, we at FDD, we've got, I can show you a chart we did, where pretty much every time
10:40there was one of these good conversations between Putin and Trump, the next night, residential apartment
10:46buildings, hospitals, kindergartens would be attacked by Putin, almost like clockwork.
10:54To that point then, to that trend that's alarming on Saturday night, do you think that's going to happen?
10:59Oh, it absolutely could. It depends on, unless they come out with a ceasefire, unless Trump gets what
11:07he wants, which is a good thing to want, a cessation of hostilities, a ceasefire, a pause,
11:14doesn't mean that they won't go back to fighting. If he doesn't get that, I absolutely expect Putin
11:19will say, okay, you've made me angry, and I'm going to take out my anger on Saturday,
11:23and I'm going to do it by killing Ukrainian men, women, and children. Again, his aerial attacks are not
11:30even aimed at the soldiers. They're aimed mostly at civilians. This is absolutely, I mean, so it's
11:37obviously a war crime. It's obviously outrageous. It obviously should not go unanswered. Putin is trying
11:43to wipe, to subjugate Ukrainians and wipe a neighboring country, a country that wants to be
11:52part of Europe and wants to be part of the free world, the fledgling democracy. I've been there,
11:58I've been an election monitor over there. They have political parties, they have free press.
12:03It's not a perfect country. It's a young country. They're doing, they have won a future where they
12:08are not ruled by essentially a dictator, a czar in the Kremlin. And this is a bilateral meeting
12:18between Trump and Putin. President Trump wants to be there to have a better understanding of how to
12:25end the war, according to Caroline Levitt, the White House press secretary. Do you think he will get
12:30that understanding without Zelensky being there? Do you think it's necessary for Zelensky to be there?
12:35What do you make of his absence? Look, in this meeting, Trump just wants to take Putin's measure,
12:45to see where he is now, to see whether he's any closer to being willing. It's possible that Putin
12:52wouldn't mind a pause. He can regroup, he can rearm, he can think, I've got 20 percent of the
12:58territory and I'll hold it. I'll come back and I'll get them later. It's possible he's willing to do
13:04that. He wants more if he can get it, but his fallback position may not be. But this is what
13:09Trump wants to figure out. Once Trump knows that, and particularly if he gets a ceasefire,
13:14then he can convene a trilateral meeting, bring in Zelensky and they can try to work something out.
13:19Again, what do I mean by work something out? Zelensky and the Ukrainians do not want to,
13:23the most important for them is that they retain their independence, their freedom,
13:27their sovereignty. If they lose some land, that's bad, but it's not, it's not my mortal wound.
13:35Why do I say that? I'm going to give you a little quick history. In 1939, the Soviet Union attacked
13:41Finland, tried to take over Finland. Everybody thought, anybody was watching, this won't be hard.
13:47Finland's a tiny little country. What can they do? They fought like crazy. And at the end of the day,
13:52they retained their independence, but they lost a good 10% of their territory, particularly Karelia,
14:00which was an important thing. And they never got it back. In this case, if I'm a Ukrainian,
14:05I might think, okay, he's going to hold it. But at some time, Putin's going to die. Putin's going
14:11to move on. There's going to be a succession. And it may not be a smooth succession because
14:16they don't have that kind of system. There are no obvious successors to Putin. At that time,
14:22maybe we get to take our territory back. That could be the case. Or it could not be. They could
14:28lose part of their territory, but retain their independence. And I do think that's the bottom
14:34line if you're a Ukrainian, because you don't want to be ruled by Russia. And you don't want to be
14:39ruled by Putin, who's been putting Stalin monuments up around the country. And you know that in the 1930s,
14:45Stalin made a famine in Ukraine to punish Ukrainian farmers who were against being collectivized under
14:55socialism and killed something like 3 million Ukrainians. By the way, there's one other thing
15:01I just want to point out to you because I think it's fun. They're meeting in Alaska. What did Alaska used
15:06to be a Russian colony? In the 19th century, it was Russian. And the U.S. bought Alaska from the
15:15Russians. Now, ultra-Russian nationalists say, just like they say, Ukraine is really ours. It's part of
15:21Russia. You know what else they say? Alaska is really ours. America shouldn't have it. We didn't
15:27settle to them. Maybe we leased it to them for a while. We should get it back. And they would if they
15:31could. And I just want to point out, the Russian imperialists came all the way through Alaska and
15:36all the way down to Northern California. In fact, they had a fort 90 miles or so north of San
15:43Francisco. If you go visit it, it's interesting. It's called Fort Russ, but that's really from Fort
15:51Russ. What do you make of that location then? Because do you think that would even come up in
15:57the conversation? Is Putin one of those Russians that wants Alaska back? I doubt Putin is going to
16:05put that into the negotiations. But I could imagine him saying, you know, good to see you here. This
16:11used to be ours. And, you know, maybe they have a kind of a laugh over it. I don't know. I think it's
16:19an interesting location to have. It's in the U.S. It's not far from Russia. I'm not sure how much
16:28that'll be discussed. Who knows how long the conversation will be and what other topics will
16:32come up. But I think it's interesting historically and interesting for listeners and viewers to
16:38realize that we bought Alaska. It was a pretty good deal. I think it was $7.5 million. Of course,
16:43invested properly, that money would be worth that would be worth a lot more today.
16:46Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And it is an interesting tidbit. Zelensky, though, he had a meeting today
16:53with European leaders as well as President Trump. And this is what he said about it. He said,
16:57I told President Trump and all our European allies that Putin is bluffing. He also added that Russia
17:03wants to occupy the whole of Ukraine and that Putin does not want peace. Do you think that President
17:10Trump is going to take that to heart? I mean, what do you make of that statement?
17:13Look, Zelensky's statement is simply factually accurate. The Europeans are not at this meeting
17:20either. I think they would like to be. They have a role to play. But I think mostly that role is
17:25for the NATO members to spend the money to purchase American arms and transfer them to the Ukrainians.
17:33That's good work. That's what they should do. That's what they can do. There is one other thing
17:37that Trump will be considering. I hope he does. And that is something like $300 billion in Russian funds
17:44in Europe right now that are essentially frozen. If these war crimes are going to continue,
17:50if Putin is going to refuse even a ceasefire, those funds should be taken and they should be used
17:55for two purposes, to rearm Ukraine and for reparations to Ukraine for the damage that has been done
18:01by Russia. That money should be gone and should no longer, they should not go back to Russia
18:07under any circumstances. And that should be part of the pressure. And if Trump likes and he wants to
18:13tell Putin, you know the things I can do to you, if you are not going to come along,
18:19that's what he should do. He should specify, if he wants to, all the measures he can take
18:25to make life uncomfortable for Putin. And he didn't fully express all of those
18:31measures today. He had a back and forth exchange with a reporter. I want to read that full exchange.
18:37A reporter asked Trump, will Russia face any consequences if Vladimir Putin does not agree
18:41to stop the war after your meeting on Friday? Trump says, yes, they will. The reporter says,
18:46what will they be? Sanctions, tariffs. And then Trump said, I don't have to say there will be very
18:52severe consequences. What, A, what do you think those consequences should be? I know you said
18:56they should be severe economic pressures. And B, do you think that President Trump should lay out all
19:02of those consequences on the table on Friday during that meeting? I don't, look, I understand why he
19:08didn't want to do it to a reporter. It's fine. I think I can guess pretty well, and I just have for
19:13you, sanctions, secondary sanctions, taking the Russian wealth in Europe, using it for Ukraine,
19:19supplying munitions. Those are the obvious things. Anybody can, should be able to figure that out.
19:26Trump doesn't need to say it to the press. He could say it privately to Putin. He could say,
19:32use your imagination, Vladimir. You know what I can do. And I'm going to do it if I have to.
19:37Don't make me. All I'm asking for is a ceasefire and the start of some negotiations between you
19:44and Zelensky so that we can end the killing. I'm a humanitarian. I want, my job is to end wars when I
19:52can. I have, in a few months I've been president, I've ended several conflicts. At least I put a halt
19:58to them. Let's see if we can get a ceasefire. Let's see if we can extend that into some kind of
20:02armistice. But right now I'm telling you, here's what I want. You can walk away and tell me no,
20:08and then I'll have to do what I have to do. I don't know. I can't say whether it's best for Trump
20:14to be very specific. Probably not, I would say. Again, Putin knows what's up Trump's sleeve.
20:23And best case scenario, I think, from this meeting is there's an immediate ceasefire.
20:27But what do you think the most likely outcome is from Friday's meeting?
20:31There will either be a ceasefire or there won't. I think it's very binary here. What I hope not to
20:42see is Trump making concessions to Putin that have to do with Ukrainian land or promises to demilitarize
20:52or other things like that, giving concessions in exchange for a ceasefire. If that happens,
20:57then we would have to conclude that Trump had not succeeded in this negotiation. And Trump is a
21:05pretty good negotiator. I think he's quite well aware of what it means to walk out of the room
21:11having done well, having done better than his adversary. He's negotiated against a lot of people,
21:19none, probably quite as tough, certainly none, with the kind of homicidal background that Putin has.
21:27So I think we should wish Trump well. I think it's important for Ukrainians. I think it's important
21:33for Russians, too. Again, a lot of Russians are getting killed because Putin wants the legacy
21:39of having restored an important part of the Russian slash Soviet empire.
21:45Well, there's certainly a lot to look out for. And unfortunately, we won't be flies on the wall
21:50in that room. But I'm sure and I hope that you can join me again and we can talk about the
21:55developments as they come out. Cliff May, thank you so much for joining me. I appreciate your
21:59conversations. You're welcome back anytime. I look forward to seeing you again. Thanks, Brittany.
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