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00:00Joining us now is former U.S. Ambassador to NATO, former U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations, Kurt Volker.
00:05Ambassador Volker, great to have you with us, and I want to start with Lindsey Graham and just give you
00:10the opportunity to talk about the relationship that you had with him over the years.
00:13I know that the work you were doing with NATO, with Ukraine, these were issues that Senator Graham cared deeply
00:18about, and I'm wondering how you're processing the news of his death on this Sunday morning.
00:24Well, thank you very much.
00:25It's really shocking to hear. You know, he was just so vibrant, such a big figure.
00:31I've known him really since the 90s when I worked one year as a detail in Senator John McCain's office,
00:38and I met him then.
00:39I traveled with him many times, including the Munich Security Conference, as part of the U.S. delegation there.
00:46And then on Ukraine, Senator Graham called me very early on after Russia's full-scale invasion,
00:51wanted to talk to me about what was happening, and then invited me to brief the Senate Republican Conference
00:57to talk about what was happening in Ukraine.
00:59So he really played a major and very direct role, and it's really shocking and saddening to hear the news
01:05of his passing.
01:06I do want to ask you, given your background as former U.S. Ambassador to NATO, about this Ankara summit
01:12we just had.
01:13Everyone was given a gun by the president at the end, and yet no one shot each other.
01:18It seemed to have been pretty amicable.
01:20What is your take out of that summit?
01:24We use this word very sparingly on this show, but the vibe seemed pretty positive,
01:28considering how worried folks were going into it.
01:31Do you think there was a bit of a sea change?
01:32Just give us your outlook.
01:35Yeah, well, first off, I agree.
01:37I think it was a very positive summit, and very good for President Erdogan, who was hosting,
01:42but also very good for President Trump and for NATO.
01:45And we can just tick off all the things that happened or didn't happen.
01:48President Trump came out of the meeting and said we had a great deal of unity.
01:52I don't think he's ever talked about the word unity with respect to NATO before.
01:56We had a lot of NATO unity, a lot of love in that room, he said.
02:00We had statements about freedom of navigation and support for the United States on Iran,
02:06something that I think President Trump wanted to hear.
02:09We had that meeting with President Zelensky, also very positive.
02:13You had the president making an announcement that we're going to allow Ukraine to use Patriot missiles
02:19or to build Patriot missiles under a license in Ukraine.
02:23That's a very big step, very important, very good for Ukraine,
02:27very tough messaging for Putin in that respect.
02:29You had the decisions on continued increases in defense spending by European allies,
02:37something President Trump has been pushing for.
02:39Some of that is going into defense industry development in Europe, which they desperately need.
02:45So all around, this was a very positive meeting and a very strong message to Vladimir Putin.
02:51What do you attribute that to?
02:53So for many NATO summits, the peculiarity of these summits is they happen every year and they're pretty short.
02:57But at most recent ones, the president has really hammered on this funding issue.
03:01He did that at this one, but it seems like perhaps he's moved on from that.
03:04I think also of what Congressman Michael McCaul told us yesterday from Kyiv when we spoke to him on the
03:09program,
03:09that President Trump likes a winner.
03:10And the fact that kind of the way that this war is being waged in Ukraine, how it's changed,
03:16how Ukraine kind of has the upper hand now, may have had President Trump come around to this.
03:19I'm curious how you see it.
03:21Why you think the rhetoric, why the president's position seems to have changed as much as it has.
03:25Right. Well, with respect to NATO, I would not say that President Trump has moved on from pushing allies on
03:31defense spending.
03:32He's going to do that every time somebody pushes his NATO button.
03:35He's going to say, Europe has to do more.
03:38That's just a given.
03:39And I think he's happy because they are doing more.
03:42So he's getting what he wanted, but he's going to keep pushing them as well.
03:46So that's one part.
03:48The other is the war against Iran didn't come out, at least not yet, the way that President Trump wanted.
03:55And I think you only want a certain number of problems at a time.
03:58So I think he wants to stabilize the war against Iran, keep oil and gas prices down.
04:04You don't need a problem with NATO at the same time.
04:06So that's a part of it.
04:07And also, he didn't want to do anything to embarrass President Erdogan, who was hosting this summit.
04:12So for a number of reasons, this was going to be a good NATO summit.
04:15It turned out to be a very good one.
04:17Now, with respect to President Zelensky, I think that's part of it.
04:20He does respect a winner.
04:22Remember a year and a half ago when President Zelensky was in the Oval Office and President Trump said,
04:28you don't have any cards.
04:29Well, that is not true.
04:31It wasn't true then, but it's certainly visibly not true now.
04:34President Zelensky has an advantage over Russia when it comes to drones, counter drones, electronic warfare,
04:41defense technology and innovation, logistics, many things that he is doing that Putin is not able to do.
04:50And by bringing the long-range strikes into Russia and hitting Russia's source of money,
04:55which is the oil and gas industry, and their ability to refine, to provide fuel,
05:00both for the Russian people but also for the military,
05:03this is having a real impact on the finances and the military of Russia.
05:07So it is changing the dynamic there.
05:10And I think President Zelensky himself also has learned a lot about how to deal with President Trump.
05:16In that meeting again a year and a half ago,
05:19it seemed like he was trying to argue and convince President Trump and J.D. Vance that he's right.
05:25That's not something that you want to do,
05:27and not something you certainly don't want to do on camera and disagree in public with President Trump.
05:32This time, it was clear that he was disciplined.
05:36He didn't want to talk too much in public.
05:38They were going to have their private meeting.
05:39He wanted it to be a positive tone.
05:41He joked a little bit.
05:43That's the right way to handle things.
05:44And possibly due to some coaching by some NATO allies,
05:47including Mark Ruta, who got some flack from a reporter asking how he maintains his self-respect
05:52by this appeasement policy.
05:54But to your point, it does seem to be working.
05:56I want to ask you about those cards that Ukraine now feels it has.
05:59There was a very interesting video this week of a multimillion-dollar Russian tank
06:03abandoned by its crew, hatches left open,
06:05and a $150 Ukrainian drone flying in and destroying it.
06:09When you look at the asymmetric cost of this warfare,
06:12I'm wondering how long that's sustainable for Russia.
06:15And the other part of this is, of course, the hits on the oil refineries
06:18and the gas lines in Moscow,
06:20because Russia has been able to insulate itself pretty well
06:23from the impact of those sanctions and being kicked off SWIFT,
06:26possibly better than people expected.
06:27Is this really where we're going to start to see an impact on the economy?
06:32Yes, you're absolutely right.
06:34So those are the factors.
06:36And you put it the right way.
06:38It's how long can Russia do this?
06:40It is not sustainable.
06:42You can't lose more people on the battlefield than you can recruit.
06:46You can't spend more money than you have.
06:50At some point, this is going to have to stop.
06:55What Ukraine is doing is trying to accelerate the timeline
06:59and say, we've got to get Russia to the point of decision
07:02where they say, okay, we have to stop this.
07:05Russia is not there.
07:06Putin is not there.
07:07Putin really wants to continue the war.
07:09He really wants to subjugate Ukraine to Russia.
07:12He's going to keep fighting.
07:13He probably wants to have another shot at the winter.
07:16Remember, last winter, they tried to shut off Ukraine's electricity.
07:20They probably want to do that again and see if they can bring Ukraine down.
07:24It's not going to work.
07:25I think Ukraine's in a stronger position this winter than last winter.
07:30But Putin may want to try that.
07:31The idea is shortening the timeline.
07:33And this is why measures, steps, decisions,
07:37such as letting Ukraine produce its own Patriot missiles,
07:40such as the European Union, giving them a 90 billion euro loan for defense,
07:45those things are signals to Putin that the future is going to be worse,
07:49not better for Russia.
07:51Ambassador, we have about a minute left.
07:52I just want to ask about the counsel you'd give the president
07:54on engagement with President Putin.
07:55In the run-up to this summit, he had an 85-minute phone call with Vladimir Putin.
08:00Would you counsel more engagement, less?
08:02Or how do you see this kind of ending, if in a diplomatic space?
08:07Right.
08:08Well, President Trump talks to Vladimir Putin.
08:10You know, that's a choice.
08:11He thinks it's important to have a channel of dialogue.
08:13I think he has begun to realize that Putin lies to him all the time,
08:17that Putin says one thing about the battlefield.
08:20It's not true.
08:21He says he wants peace, but then he goes and kills Ukrainian civilians.
08:25So he says he wants to negotiate, but then you try to create a negotiation
08:29and he won't meet with Zelensky and he won't give up anything.
08:32He just wants even more in the negotiation that he has on the ground.
08:36So I think President Trump has gotten very frustrated with Putin
08:38for really not playing it straight.
08:40I think so.
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