00:00Kurt, what do you think? Zelensky says the U.S. is putting unfair or disproportionate pressure on Ukraine. Is it?
00:07Is the U.S. being a fair mediator?
00:09I mean, I think generally speaking, I mean, Ukraine is welcome to negotiate on its own accord, but they're basically
00:15a protector of the United States and the West. And so there are conditions if they want continual U.S.
00:21military and diplomatic support.
00:22I will say this for the Russian demands, the Russian demands of territory they haven't conquered is a little bit
00:29curious, but I think there's an expectation that their conquests of them are inevitable.
00:33This war unfortunately drags on, which I think it will. I think for Trump, what you hear there is a
00:39default sympathy for ending the war and a default, you know, directionality towards the Russian point of view, perhaps way
00:47more than most American mainstream politicians.
00:49But what is a major stumbling block is that Trump is an underratedly agreeable personality, and it doesn't seem likely,
00:58you know, heading into 15 months of the Trump administration at this point, or 14 months of the Trump administration
01:03at this point, that Trump is just going to bail on Zelensky.
01:06He hasn't shown really the gumption to do that if he was going to do that. I think when you
01:12saw the sort of great showdown between VP Vance and the Ukrainian president last year, meanwhile, the war drags on.
01:19And so I think, you know, base case, Trump is going to sort of gesticulate or genuflect towards the Russian
01:26position, but he's not going to put the cup bait on the Ukrainians. And so we're just mired in this
01:30morass.
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