Former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul and David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker and former Moscow correspondent for The Washington Post discuss the potentially disastrous consequences of Trump's Oval Office meeting with Zelenskyy.
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#Russia #MichaelMcFaul #DavidRemnick
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#Russia #MichaelMcFaul #DavidRemnick
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NewsTranscript
00:00David Remnick is the editor-in-chief of The New Yorker and the former Moscow bureau chief
00:03for The Washington Post.
00:05Michael McFaul is the former U.S. ambassador to Russia.
00:08And they both joined me.
00:09Now, I can't think of two better people to help us understand what just happened on Friday.
00:13Let me start with you, David.
00:15I mean, I want to start by just getting your reaction to what you saw on Friday.
00:21You've covered how many meetings in the United States, in Moscow and other places around
00:25the world.
00:27What were you thinking when you were watching that?
00:29I've never seen anything like this.
00:33It's absolutely unprecedented.
00:36And carried out, if this goes in the direction it seems to be going, this meeting will be
00:41remembered as a moral and a strategic disaster initiated by the president of the United States
00:47and his vice president.
00:49And it had all the uplift and spectacle of a mugging.
00:55This didn't happen by accident.
00:59Vice presidents and presidents don't pull off something like this spontaneously.
01:05They waited to the last question.
01:07It was apropos of almost nothing.
01:10The vice president got immediately in the face of Zelensky and asked him—demanded
01:16him—why didn't he thank him enough?
01:18And Zelensky had thanked the United States over and over again, including in this meeting,
01:23in private and in public.
01:25It was under totally false pretenses.
01:27It was a performance of the most—of a vile kind.
01:31And what are the consequences?
01:32The consequences are the possibility that the United States, after 80 years, is going,
01:38in a sense, to switch sides, to the autocracy, to the dictator, Vladimir Putin, and leave
01:46behind Europe to its own devices, not just Ukraine, but Europe itself.
01:51Thankfully, in Europe today, you've seen the leadership in France and in Britain do
01:57its best to clean up after the elephant, the United States.
02:01It's a shameful spectacle, and I have a hard time believing that it'll end there
02:07as just—as something of little consequence.
02:10It's going to have great ramifications.
02:13And I want to get into the substance of this, what I think is so important to discuss.
02:16Ambassador McFaul, though, I think we've heard the speculation David just mentioned
02:20that it was a setup.
02:21It felt like a bit of a setup.
02:23What do you think?
02:24And to what end?
02:26What do you think they're trying to achieve here?
02:28Well, they were trying to achieve messaging to their base.
02:34Vice President Vance is running for president, just as he did at the Munich Security Conference
02:3910 days ago or so I was there.
02:41That speech was a campaign speech for his base.
02:45It insulted the entire continent of Europe.
02:48And this was designed for that.
02:49And this incredibly insulting, why don't you thank us—again, with David, it was so
02:57embarrassing to me as an American.
02:59I just want to say that publicly.
03:02This is not the way our leaders have ever behaved.
03:04I've been in meetings with our former boss, Chen, that got heated from time to time with
03:10leaders, including with Russian leaders.
03:12But it was behind closed doors, and that's the way diplomacy is supposed to take place.
03:17And the fact that this took place with the cameras rolling suggests that it was for the
03:22cameras.
03:23And one last thing on the thank you.
03:25Why don't you thank us?
03:26I want to remind everybody that this team, Trump and Vance, has done absolutely nothing
03:34for President Zelensky and the Ukrainian people.
03:36The American people, yes.
03:38Thank you, thank you, thank you.
03:39He's said that a thousand times.
03:41But what have they done?
03:42They've told him he has to give up his territory.
03:44They told him he can't join NATO.
03:46They told him Americans will not participate in a peacekeeping force.
03:50They have not given new assistance.
03:52And by the way, the last package of assistance, their party delayed for six months while Ukrainians
03:58were being slaughtered on the battlefield, and Senator Vance voted against that package.
04:05So why in God's name should they be seeking a thank you from President Zelensky?
04:12Now, I want to say it ended badly for everyone.
04:15I think the Ukrainians regret this meeting, too.
04:18I hope they can get it back on track.
04:20But I'm not optimistic, because I don't think fundamentally Trump cares about a peace deal.
04:25He cares about his relationship with Putin.
04:28Whether there's peace in Ukraine or not is entirely a secondary or tertiary concern of
04:33his.
04:34David, let me ask you about the kind of the what next of this all, because there are reports
04:39over the course of the last 24 hours the Europeans are going to present a plan.
04:43Obviously, the United States has long been a huge provider of security, equipment, financial
04:48assistance.
04:50What are the European, what are they, what do they have the capacity to do and what gaps
04:55can they fill?
04:56Will there still be big ones here?
04:58Well, the Europeans have great wealth, and it's quite possible that they're going to
05:03kick in even more.
05:04And it should be said that they have contributed mightily in the effort to hold off the Russians
05:10so far.
05:11So, it shouldn't be discounted at all.
05:14And the United States—also, we haven't mentioned why there was a meeting in the first
05:19place in Washington.
05:21The Trump administration was basically extorting the Ukrainians, saying, we want half your
05:26mineral wealth.
05:27Nice country you got there.
05:30That deal ultimately did not get signed, not least because Zelensky was kicked out of the
05:34White House unceremoniously.
05:37It's just one humiliation after another.
05:41It should be noted that Volodymyr Zelensky will be counted in the annals of history as
05:46an immense hero, and not just a hero to his own people, the Ukrainians, but a hero to
05:53what we call the West, the free world.
05:56He is right.
05:58He never demanded that the United States send troops.
06:01He never demanded the Europeans send troops.
06:04He asked for as much assistance as he could get, even as he was watching tens of thousands
06:10of his citizens being killed on the battlefield.
06:14And the other dynamic here is the opponent, Vladimir Putin, has seen hundreds of thousands—we
06:21don't know the exact casualty rate, but certainly several hundred thousand have been
06:26killed and wounded combined.
06:28We don't know—again, we don't know the exact numbers.
06:31But the damage to his people is immense.
06:34And here's the punchline.
06:36He does not care.
06:37He is willing to put as much meat into the meat grinder as it takes to subdue and conquer
06:44Ukraine, because he sees that as his historical duty.
06:51He wants to reestablish greater Russia in the 19th century sense, and he's willing
06:57to let as much blood flow as possible.
07:00That's the dynamic here.
07:01Ambassador McFaul, we kind of saw—I mean, Dmitry Peskov, you're very familiar with
07:06him.
07:08The three of us.
07:09But he came out and said today that the Trump administration's foreign policy largely
07:14coincides with our vision.
07:17That to me was a pretty chilling statement to hear from him, a longtime spokesperson
07:21for Vladimir Putin.
07:23How did you read those comments?
07:24How should people read them?
07:26I'm so glad you put that up and acknowledge that.
07:29Yes, I used to deal with Mr. Peskov.
07:31He used to talk about you, Jen, back in the day.
07:35He chooses his words.
07:36Very familiar.
07:38He chooses his words very, very carefully.
07:42They all do.
07:43Ushakov, Lavrov, they all chose his words carefully.
07:45And note what he said.
07:47He didn't say, oh, I'm glad that U.S.-Russian relations are on to a new footing based on
07:54win-win outcomes, right, the kind of normal diplomatic thing you might hear even from
07:58like the Chinese leaders.
08:00No, what he said is Trump is adopting our side, our worldview.
08:06In other words, he's talking about capitulation.
08:09We're coming over to their side.
08:11And I think this is really important for the American people to focus on.
08:15So let's just even leave aside what's good for Ukraine or not, and let's talk about what's
08:19good for America.
08:21What happened on Friday was not good for the United States of America.
08:25It isolates us.
08:26It's not America great.
08:28It's America alone.
08:30And this play to try to be friends with Vladimir Putin will end in disaster, because Putin
08:36has no love for our country.
08:38He hates our country.
08:40He wants to destroy our country.
08:42He wants to destroy the free world that David was talking about.
08:46And he sees Trump as a useful instrument for that.
08:49He's not going to abandon Xi Jinping, this crazy idea that some are floating, he's going
08:54to come to our camp.
08:55That is entirely hogwash.
08:57And I think the American people need to understand just how dangerous this is for us, not just
09:03for Ukraine, but for America's long-term national security interests.
09:09David Remnick and Ambassador Michael McFaul, a little dark conversation, but important
09:13for people to hear.
09:14Thank you so much for joining me this morning.