| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
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Democratic Governor Wes Moore will give his take on Trump administration policies with the focus on the role of states in preserving U.S. democracy during an event hosted by Politics and Pros. | |
| You can also watch live coverage of these events on the C-SPAN Now app or online at c-span.org. | ||
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| Coming up on C-SPAN's Washington Journal, we'll take your calls and comments live. | ||
| Then a discussion about the Ukrainian president's meeting yesterday at the White House over a potential peace deal with Russia. | ||
| Ukrainian Member of Parliament Yevenya Kravchuk is our guest. | ||
| And we'll continue the conversation on the Trump administration's efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine war with Defense Priorities Senior Fellow Jennifer Kavanaugh and the American Enterprise Institute's Heather Conley. | ||
| Washington Journal starts now. | ||
| This is the Washington Journal for August the 19th. | ||
| President Trump hosted Ukrainian President Zelensky and several European leaders at the White House to discuss possible next steps in ending the Russia-Ukraine war. | ||
| Among the topics discussed, security guarantees for the country, support from European partners, and the hope for a bilateral meeting between Russia and Ukraine. | ||
| This comes after the president's meeting in Alaska with the Russian president. | ||
| And to start the show today, how would you rate President Trump's efforts to date to end the Russia-Ukraine war? | ||
| Here's how you can let us know. | ||
| 202-748-8001 for Republicans, 202-748-8000 for Democrats and Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| If you want to text us your thoughts on how you would rate the president's efforts on ending this war, you can do that at 202-748-8003. | ||
| And if you'd like, you can also post on our social media sites at facebook.com slash C-SPAN and on X at C-SPANWJ. | ||
| It was in the lead up to the meeting in Alaska with President Putin that Pew put out a poll taking a look and asking people about the president's efforts when it comes to ending this conflict between Russia and Ukraine. | ||
| Here's the question. | ||
| Majority of Americans are not confident in president's decision-making about the Russia-Ukraine war. | ||
| When asked about their level of confidence, 16% said they were very confident, 25% they were somewhat confident, 34% saying they were not at all confident and not too confident at 25%. | ||
| And then also asked when it becomes to this conflict, was the president favoring Russia too much? | ||
| 33% said that. | ||
| 28% said it striked about the right balance. | ||
| 6% said they were favoring too, he was favoring Ukraine too much, and 32% saying that they were not sure. | ||
| So use that if you wish when it comes to this effort on Russia and Ukraine, specifically after that meeting at the White House. | ||
| You can still see many elements of that in our website at c-span.org and our app at C-SPANNOW. | ||
| But the president meeting with the Russian president yesterday, also those European leaders talking about the future and the possibilities of ending this conflict between Russia and Ukraine. | ||
| One of those topics to come up, the topic of security agreements. | ||
| That was one of the topics in the Wall Street Journal this morning in their analysis, saying that the security assurances will have four components, a military presence, air defenses, armaments, and monitoring a cessation of hostilities, according to European officials. | ||
| There are a number of ways the U.S. might provide indirect military support to European peacekeepers to stop short of putting American boots on the ground, according to officials. | ||
| And then when it comes to that future summit between not only the Russian president, the Ukrainian president, but President Trump, that idea appeared to remain in flux. | ||
| An aide, a top foreign policy aide to President Putin, said the two leaders had discussed the idea of a meeting between higher-level Russian and Ukrainian negotiators, but that account didn't say if the Russian leader would meet with Zelensky and didn't mention the possibility of a three-way meeting. | ||
| So with that in mind and the president's overall efforts when it comes to this idea of ending the Ukraine-Russia war, what do you think of those efforts to date? | ||
| You can call the lines and let us know. | ||
| 202-748-8001 for Republicans. | ||
| 202-748-8000 for Democrats and Independents. | ||
| 202-748-8002. | ||
| If you wish to text us, you can do that at 202-748-8003. | ||
| Let's start with Andy. | ||
| In Missouri, Independent line, rating the president's efforts on ending this war. | ||
| Andy in Missouri, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, this is how you win a Nobel Peace Prize. | |
| So it's a 10 for 10 so far. | ||
| We're going to get this war ended as soon as we can. | ||
| And thank you. | ||
| Have a great day. | ||
| Well, Andy, elaborate on that. | ||
| Specifically, what do you think about the president's efforts? | ||
| What do you think specifically on what he's doing? | ||
|
unidentified
|
President Trump is doing all he can to end the war. | |
| I couldn't be more proud of my president. | ||
| And by the way, this is the first time I voted for the winner using a paper ballot, so I'm mighty proud of this president. | ||
| But I believe that you can see Europe's response to his efforts to end the war with Putin in Alaska on Friday. | ||
| You can see how they're also eager for a move, and we need to make this move. | ||
| We need to end the war as soon as we can. | ||
| That's Andy there in Missouri. | ||
| Let's hear from Tom. | ||
| Tom is in Maryland. | ||
| Democrats line. | ||
| You're next up. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Hi. | ||
| I generally think we haven't shown enough support for Ukraine. | ||
| Not even during the Biden administration do we show some enough support. | ||
| I mean, sure, Trump's behavior around Putin is absolutely abysmal. | ||
| His bringing up the red carpet for Putin and absolute softball behavior around him. | ||
| It's absolutely disgraceful how he treated Zelensky in the office. | ||
| It's absolutely disgraceful how Trump's been pushing this. | ||
| But what do you make of the efforts of yesterday in that idea? | ||
| What do you think about all that took place yesterday? | ||
|
unidentified
|
With Putin and Trump? | |
| No, with Zelensky and President Trump at the White House with those European leaders. | ||
|
unidentified
|
From what I understand, it was basically just Trump saying we should give Putin what he wants and nothing else. | |
| But also, I just want to say one more thing. | ||
| We basically should have just given the Ukrainians the Abrams and the F-18s right away, and the debate should have been whether to give them F-35 later on. | ||
| So, yeah, we should give them heavy stuff right away. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Tom there in Maryland and giving us his thoughts on the president's efforts at the White House yesterday, one of those topics, the idea of security agreements for Ukraine going forward and how that would fit into a bigger picture in ending the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. | ||
| Here's some of that exchange between the President and President Zelensky yesterday. | ||
|
unidentified
|
If the peace deal will be achieved, are you going to be willing to send American peacekeepers to Ukraine? | |
| Well, we're going to work with Ukraine. | ||
| We're going to work with everybody. | ||
| And we're going to make sure that if there's peace, the peace is going to stay long term. | ||
| This is very long term. | ||
| We're not talking about a two-year peace and then we end up in this mess again. | ||
| We're going to make sure that everything's good. | ||
| We'll work with Russia. | ||
| We're going to work with Ukraine. | ||
| We're going to make sure it works. | ||
| And I think if we can get to peace, it's going to work. | ||
| I have no doubt about it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Cretan Zelensky, go ahead. | |
| Your team is talking about security guarantees. | ||
| Could that involve U.S. troops? | ||
| Would you roll down in the future? | ||
| We'll let you know that maybe later today. | ||
| We're meeting with seven great leaders of great countries also, and we'll be talking about that. | ||
| They'll all be involved, but there'll be a lot of help. | ||
| When it comes to security, there's going to be a lot of help. | ||
| It's going to be good. | ||
| They are a first line of defense because they're there. | ||
| They're Europe. | ||
| But we're going to help them out also. | ||
| We'll be involved. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Martin Harpson mentioned that the war will not end without addressing the root causes of this war. | |
| Have you had an understanding what are the root causes of this war? | ||
| Well, look, the war is going to end. | ||
| When it ends, I can't tell you, but the war is going to end. | ||
| And this gentleman wants it to end, and Vladimir Putin wants it to end. | ||
| I think the whole world is tired of it, and we're going to get it ended. | ||
| It was, you know, I've done six wars. | ||
| I've ended six wars, and I thought this maybe would be the easiest one. | ||
| And it's not the easiest one. | ||
| It's a tough one. | ||
| A lot of reasons for it. | ||
| And they'll be talking about it for a long time, but they'll be talking about the others. | ||
| Look, India, Pakistan, we're talking about the big places. | ||
| When you look at, you just take a look at some of these wars. | ||
| You go to Africa and take a look at that, Rwanda and the Congo, Republic of the Condo, Congo. | ||
| That's been going on for 31 years. | ||
| And so we've done a total of six, and we really have six, not including the fact that we obliterated, and it turned out to be a total obliteration, the nuclear in, as you said, the nuclear, the future nuclear capability of Iran. | ||
| And this one, I think, we're going to get solved also. | ||
| I feel confident we're going to get it solved. | ||
| That was at the White House yesterday. | ||
| More available to you via our website and our app. | ||
| And this idea of rating the president's efforts so far to end the Russia-Ukraine war 2027 8001 for Republicans. | ||
| Democrats 202-7488000. | ||
| Independents 202-748 8002. | ||
| Here's Jim. | ||
| Jim in Ohio, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Good morning, and thank you for taking my call. | ||
| In regards to what President Trump is doing and has done and has continued to do, it's 2025 and people are murdering each other over things that have gone on for years, years. | ||
| And the fact that Putin invaded Ukraine is a horrific concept. | ||
| And this happened under Barack Obama's watch and under Joe Biden's watch. | ||
| And to think that people can sit back and wag their finger at President Trump for saving countless lives across this globe. | ||
| It just amazes me, sir. | ||
| Well, specifically to Russia-Ukraine, how would you rate the individual or the president's efforts specifically on that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
You're not talking about two grade school children that are being disciplined. | |
| You're talking about grown adults that have set their minds to mass murder each other. | ||
| And the one that started it, you know, President Putin is a criminal. | ||
| President Trump is doing all he can, and I praise him tremendously. | ||
| I think he's the most amazing president our country's ever seen. | ||
| And I thank God for him every day. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Greg is in D.C., Democrats line. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, this, you know, I would grade him with a C so far because the devil's in the detail. | |
| He keeps saying that he stopped all these other wars. | ||
| And, you know, he's living in a fantasy. | ||
| And we'll see. | ||
| So he gets about a C because the devil's in the detail. | ||
| Well, what details do you think are lacking as far as the president's efforts? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, what is Putin going to say? | |
| What's his buddy going to say? | ||
| You know, he has never stood up to Putin really, who put the stuff in that is wrecking, you know, the stuff, the Europeans and Biden and all those other guys who tried to stop him from going into Crimea and then all the other stuff. | ||
| And what has Trump done so far? | ||
| You know, the stuff in Alaska is not the way it should have normally happened. | ||
| They should have had some negotiations before they met and things like that. | ||
| It's the way that it normally works. | ||
| So right now, he gets a C because there's more detail that needs to happen. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Greg, they're in D.C. Let's hear from Ed in Pennsylvania, Independent Line, on rating the president's effort on ending the Russia-Ukraine war. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, good morning. | |
| I would like to remind people that the previous administration in this country prided itself in repeatedly stating that it was not going to do any kind of negotiating with Russia. | ||
| I would also remind people that on a few occasions, Biden, Blinken, Sullivan, and the rest, Austin, proclaimed that they wanted regime change in Russia. | ||
| I would also like to remind people that this war has been going on for three and a half years now. | ||
| And any attempt, any attempt at all on the part of Donald Trump to negotiate, I would support. | ||
| I think that this war is a result of the expansion of NATO. | ||
| So I would encourage Donald Trump. | ||
| I don't know if he's going about it the best way, but he is doing some negotiating. | ||
| And hopefully, I'm not real optimistic about this, but at least there is some negotiating going on. | ||
| So I have to give him C, C plus for his efforts. | ||
| When you say he's not going about it the best way, what do you mean by that? | ||
| What do you think is the best way? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't really know. | |
| This is a situation where I don't think that Zelensky is going to concede any territory. | ||
| I don't think that the Russians are going to concede any territory. | ||
| I just, like I say, I think this war is a result of the expansion of NATO. | ||
| So this is actually a proxy war between the U.S. and Russia. | ||
| So the U.S. should figure out some way of ending this war. | ||
| So this is a rather complicated situation we have here with some very stubborn people involved. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Don is next. | ||
| He's in Arizona Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Hi. | ||
| Good morning, everybody. | ||
| You know, there's no negotiations going on at all. | ||
| Trump stops in the middle of a meeting to call Putin to see what he thinks about everything. | ||
| I'll tell you what, he won't put no pressure on the initiator of this war. | ||
| And I think it's shameful. | ||
| He rolls out the red carpet, treats Putin like a king, has a limousine flown to Alaska so he could give Putin a ride in it. | ||
| And I just think it's shameful. | ||
| Well, if there's no negotiation coming on, what do you call the events of yesterday? | ||
| How would you factor that into those events of yesterday? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't see no events. | |
| He stops in the middle of it. | ||
| He just kind of sat there like he's afraid to say anything because what I don't know what him and Putin talked about, but I'm sure Putin filled his head with all kinds of crap. | ||
| The man is not a deal maker. | ||
| He's worthless. | ||
| And that's all I got to say. | ||
| Don in Arizona giving us his thoughts. | ||
| Axios reporting on that call saying that the president did indeed call the Russian president on Monday while the Ukrainian president and seven European leaders were gathered in the White House, according to two sources. | ||
| Mr. Trump said earlier Monday that Mr. Putin was expecting the call from him after the talks concluded. | ||
| And Mr. Trump said he hoped to arrange, quickly arrange that trilateral meeting. | ||
| And then he also said that Mr. Trump also similarly called Zelensky after his summit with President Putin concluded. | ||
| In this case, though, the president took a break from the meeting with the Europeans to place the call. | ||
| It was the German publication Bill who first reported to that. | ||
| It's adding that the president expressed that optimism during his meeting with Zelensky and the larger meeting with European leaders. | ||
| You're getting your thoughts on rating the president's efforts on ending this conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Troy and Pittsburgh Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, C-SPAN. | |
| I was going to give him an A because one, he got Putin to come over, and then he got Zelensky to come over, and he got the Europeans on board also. | ||
| So in that aspect, I give him an A. | ||
| I believe a lot of the callers calling in don't realize where we are in the situation over there in Ukraine where as their front line is on the edge of breaking, and if it breaks, he takes the whole country. | ||
| And people don't realize that the Russians have lost enough soldiers to go to World War III. | ||
| So nobody wants that. | ||
| We all want peace. | ||
| We want it to end. | ||
| And as people are talking about going into Europe, you see that how close he is to Alaska to come to North America. | ||
| So unless you're ready to do what I'm pretty sure most people haven't served in the military to have to go up there and fight, I think we need to go with peace and follow what the president's going, his guidance, because he's trying to save the world. | ||
| He put two nuclear subs out there. | ||
| Subs are for the subs for the Soviets. | ||
| I mean, for the Russians, they're already out. | ||
| So hopefully we don't go to World War III, and hopefully Donald Trump will get this peace in Ukraine done and keep the lines where they are because I don't think anybody's giving up anything. | ||
| Okay, Fred is next. | ||
| He's in Pennsylvania. | ||
| Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, sir. | |
| I would give the president an F. | ||
| He doesn't, the only way you can get across to Vladimir Putin is through strength. | ||
| And he should have given more military power to Ukraine when they needed it, instead of letting the MAGA Republicans say, no, you can't give money or spend money on Ukraine. | ||
| Now it's out of control. | ||
| This goes back to 2018 when Vladimir Putin met in Helsinki with Donald Trump. | ||
| And Vladimir Putin, two months before that, Ukraine is not a sovereign nation. | ||
| It belongs to Russia. | ||
| I can do anything I want with it. | ||
| And it's none of the United States' business. | ||
| Two months later, he meets with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki. | ||
| And after the meeting, he comes out and a reporter says, Mr. President, what about Ukraine? | ||
| And the president says, why, it's not a sovereign nation. | ||
| It belongs to Russia. | ||
| Putin can do anything he wants with it. | ||
| It's not the United States' business. | ||
| If you want to check this, go to frontline investigations, Putin and the presidency, and you'll see it come right out of their own mouths. | ||
| Another thing that's going on right now. | ||
| Well, but how does that all add up to the events of the last couple of weeks? | ||
| The meeting in Russia with the president and President Putin, the meeting yesterday with President Zelensky, factor that in. | ||
|
unidentified
|
President Lewinsky wants to end the war, but he needs military advantage. | |
| And he can't get the military advantage unless he goes up and talks to President Trump. | ||
| NATO is also saying we need more help if we're going to bring Putin to the table. | ||
| And we have to see that you're serious about protecting us in Europe and like in Latvia and Lithuania, where they're building tank traps called the dragon's teeth right now, all across the border because they're afraid of invasion themselves. | ||
| And they're wondering and looking at this, saying, well, what is Donald Trump going to do? | ||
| Is he going to be friends with Vladimir Putin, who's already said that Recane is not a sovereign nation and that it belongs to Russia back in 2018? | ||
| And now here he is. | ||
| What he wants is to get the Nobel Prize. | ||
| And that's the only thing Donald Trump wants. | ||
| And the wars that he said he stopped, he didn't stop them. | ||
| Let's go to Pennsylvania Republican line. | ||
| Good morning, rating the president's efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine war. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, good morning, Pedro. | |
| I'd give him an A-plus. | ||
| I think what he's doing is wonderful to bring world peace. | ||
| But what I would say to all the Democrats that are calling in is if they could tell me in the last hundred years what Democratic president has done anything that Donald Trump has done in the over six months that he's been in office or any war that a president in the last hundred years that was Democrat ended. | ||
| I know history. | ||
| I've lived a while here, and I can't think of any of them that have done anything close to what Donald Trump has done. | ||
| Well, when it comes to Russia-Ukraine, what rates of the A-plus then specifically he got involved. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He's at least doing something. | |
| Look at the leaders he brought over from Europe yesterday, and look at how they praised him for what he's doing. | ||
| Joe Biden did nothing. | ||
| He went on the beach and fell asleep. | ||
| He was just throwing money at this thing. | ||
| He wasn't doing anything to try to end this war. | ||
| And Trump doesn't like to see people die, contrary to what all the Democrats that call in here every day and say, that he's a Nazi, a fascist. | ||
| This guy is trying to make peace around the world, and he's doing it. | ||
| And people better just start waking up that he's going to be known as the greatest president of all time. | ||
| Okay, that's John in Pennsylvania calling in, rating the president's effort to end the war between Russia and Ukraine. | ||
| The president putting out a post on Troop Social yesterday listing those various European leaders that were invited to the White House, but also adding this. | ||
| During the meeting, we discussed security guarantees for Ukraine, which guarantees will be provided by the various European countries with a coordination with the United States of America. | ||
| Everyone is very happy about the possibility of peace for Russia-Ukraine. | ||
| At the conclusion of the meetings, I called President Putin and began the arrangements for a meeting at a location to be determined between President Putin and President Zelensky. | ||
| After that meeting takes place, we'll have a tri-lot, which will be the two presidents plus myself. | ||
| Again, this was a very good early step for a war that has been going on for almost four years. | ||
| Again, there's more there. | ||
| That's the president's troop social site. | ||
| If you want to read that post when it comes to the events of yesterday, you can give your thoughts on that specific event, the event in Russia with the Russian president overall, rating the president's efforts on this idea of ending the Russia-Ukraine war. | ||
| Democrats line in Georgia. | ||
| Brenda, next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Hello, and thank you for letting me speak. | ||
| I think that Donald Trump is a failure, not only in this, but in all ways. | ||
| And I think, why can't Ukraine and all these other little countries that's worried about him become part of NATO? | ||
| And then they can sign a pact of some kind that they won't bother Russia. | ||
| Russia always wants to be the one whose word we take. | ||
| And he lies like a dog. | ||
| And Donald Trump gives him all the respect in the world. | ||
| And I just think that's wrong for America. | ||
| And I think he's isolating America. | ||
| And one of these days, we're going to need some of these people, and they're not going to be there to help us. | ||
| And I just think he's a failure all the way around, even in the United States and all the other things he's done. | ||
| Well, Brenda, specifically when it comes to Russia-Ukraine, where has he failed on a specific front? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, he lets Russia dictate what's going on. | |
| He should have made those extra sanctions already. | ||
| But he's not doing it because he loves these dictators. | ||
| He even mentioned them when he was talking with Putin that day about so-and-so dictator and how smart he was. | ||
| He cows tail to them, and I just think it's not right. | ||
| He gives Putin all respect. | ||
| And you can tell by the way he looks at Ukraine's president, Zelensky, he can't even stand to look at him. | ||
| I think they all should be NATO. | ||
| And if Russia, and then they could sign a pact and keep Russia safe instead of Russia trying to keep everybody else safe, which we know is a lie. | ||
| And I don't think they should give up any land. | ||
| What if that time we had the Cuban crisis and somebody took Florida? | ||
| Would we give it up? | ||
| I know. | ||
| Okay, Brenda there in Georgia, giving her thoughts. | ||
| Let's hear from Darrell. | ||
| He's in North Carolina, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Hey, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| So I think we need to understand historical aspects of what's going on. | ||
| So the biggest threat Russia poses is to Europe, Western Europe. | ||
| And the one thing I will agree with Trump on is that they need to mass their forces. | ||
| You need to be the buffer zone, not America. | ||
| We're across the water. | ||
| We are physically, geographically isolated from this situation. | ||
| So the fact that you're coming to America to be your warhound is kind of misrepresents where you stand at this point. | ||
| But there's a sidestep to that. | ||
| I believe a lot of the countries in Europe and the EU, I think they believe America owes them something because of the 20-year mistake that involved their armies and their soldiers that might have lost their lives when it came to Iraq and Afghanistan. | ||
| So we have to understand, regardless of what's going on, Ukraine is not a part of the UN. | ||
| If anything, America should have been weaponizing their allies and allowing them to do what they please with those weapons once they were purchased by America. | ||
| So that aspect, he is correct. | ||
| I in no way support Trump, but I don't think he realizes how strong their strategy is. | ||
| And a lot of the people that are around him, the military minds aren't there anymore because they will tell you, you need to buff up our allies and maybe help them with strategizing. | ||
| But Ukraine isn't a part of the UN. | ||
| Now, it's crazy because when you have issues in Africa, what countries go down there to try and get spoils of war and utilities and resources? | ||
| You'll see France down there. | ||
| You'll see Belgium down there. | ||
| You'll see their soldiers down there. | ||
| You'll see NATO down there in Africa when it comes that you're going to get access to resources. | ||
| But with Ukraine, for some reason, we can't get those same, so that same type of emphasis on soldierizing. | ||
| So I feel like when you step back, take a look at the history. | ||
| America, there is a recompense for, okay, you did assist us in this issue, but you're a part of NATO, so that's your job. | ||
| Ukraine isn't a part of NATO. | ||
| It's not our job to physically send our soldiers there. | ||
| But geographically, you're in trouble. | ||
| You need to send your soldiers. | ||
| They should be postured in Poland. | ||
| That's not even a question. | ||
| That should already be happening. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Darrell there in North Carolina giving us his thoughts. | ||
| You can continue to do the same, if you wish, on the events of the president when it comes to ending this Russia-Ukraine war. | ||
| You can call us on the lines, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, 202-748-8000 for Democrats, and Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| You can also text us those thoughts, too, at 202-748-8003. | ||
| We'll continue taking those calls. | ||
| If you are in the process of calling in, we invite you to do so. | ||
| If you're on the lines, we ask you to hold just for a few minutes. | ||
| Right now, joining us via Zoom is Yevenya Kravchuk of the Ukrainian parliament. | ||
| She's a member, joining us to give her perspective when it comes to the events of yesterday or in Washington. | ||
| We welcome you to the program. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you for having me. | |
| A little bit about your party, if I understand it correctly, it is the same party of President Zelensky's. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That is correct. | |
| I'm Deputy Chair of Zelensky Party in the Parliament. | ||
| When it comes to the events of yesterday, for what you saw in the White House, what do you think? | ||
| What was the end result of yesterday? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, we're getting closer to ending this war. | |
| And hopefully, it will not, this negotiation going back and forth will not be too long. | ||
| Because actually, now we expect the next step from Vladimir Putin and the leaders meeting. | ||
| Bilateral, trilateral, together with Europe. | ||
| Ukraine is open to any of the format. | ||
| Extremely important that we saw also European leaders in the White House. | ||
| We were talking together about the security guarantees because no one in Ukraine, and hopefully, President Trump, as well, he mentioned that for numerous times, that he wants to have a stable peace. | ||
| You know, we cannot just sort of be sure that Russia will not attack, you know, until I mean, as long as he is president, we need a long-term solution. | ||
| So, we need security guarantees. | ||
| And, of course, in February 2022, during the full-scale invasion, we didn't have all that support from different countries. | ||
| We just had us. | ||
| We had our army, we had our soldiers, we had people who volunteered to go and fight for its land. | ||
| So, obviously, for us, having a strong army with weapons also produced and probably sold by America is extremely important. | ||
| It's extremely important to have the United States at the table and part of these security guarantees. | ||
| What's your level of confidence as of today of the things you brought up that a meeting will take place between the you lead two leaders that you'll get those security guarantees and that you'll get those supports for an army that you talked about? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, first of all, in Ukraine, we do not believe Putin because in 1994, Ukraine is gave up our nukes, we gave one of the biggest arsenal of nuclear weapons, and actually, Russia was co-signature to guarantee the territorial integrity. | |
| In 2014, Russia started invasion, annexed Crimea, war in Donbas, and then in 2022, full-scale invasion. | ||
| So, anything that Russia signs or says or puts into the constitution, it doesn't matter. | ||
| You cannot believe them. | ||
| So, we have to believe our partners, United States, European countries, you know, not just the EU, but there are a bigger number of players on the European continent. | ||
| So, I do strongly believe that Europe is interested in mutual security. | ||
| But, of course, it has to be side by side with the United States. | ||
| But obviously, Europe has to take more responsibility because it is the European continent. | ||
| And, of course, Ukraine wants to end the war as no other country in the world. | ||
| But we also want to secure that there will be no repetition. | ||
| And also, it will be based on the international world order. | ||
| And it's not just about us, it's about all nations in the world because we did build a security architecture after the Second World War that meant that the borders cannot be changed by force. | ||
| That was the biggest thing after the end of the Second World War war. | ||
| So, we do understand that Ukraine probably cannot deoccupy all the territories in a military way, but at the same time, we cannot just close eyes and say it's Russian territory. | ||
| But obviously, we cannot deoccupy it in the military way, and it will be de facto occupation. | ||
| What's your level of confidence then? | ||
| You talked about the European leaders and the president as far as your level of confidence as players in this. | ||
| What's your level of confidence as it stands for President Trump? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think it's a common cause, and I think it was extremely important for President Trump to see all of these leaders that actually came to Washington, D.C. and said what they said. | |
| And basically, they were saying in different words, but the same things. | ||
| And I think the biggest dream of Putin would be to divide the United States and European partners, because that's obviously what he wants, to divide and conquer. | ||
| So, I think it's important to stay together. | ||
| And actually, I'm thankful to President Trump, for example, pushing on NATO, on members of the NATO, to spend more, to go up to 5%. | ||
| Right now, Ukraine spends from 20 to 25% of GDP on military. | ||
| And that's because of the war. | ||
| But you can spend less and avoid the war, obviously. | ||
| If some type of deal does come forth, what's the role of the parliament in ratifying that deal? | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's hard to tell because we don't see the details. | |
| But obviously, parliament will have to stay and should stay in also the constitutional frame. | ||
| And that's what I mean about the borders, official borders of the country. | ||
| Parliament ratified the investment deal with the United States. | ||
| So the international treaties should be ratified in the parliament. | ||
| But again, we have to see what is in the security guarantees as well. | ||
| If we need to ratify that in the parliament, we'll do that. | ||
| We'll be ratifying, for example, a 100-year treaty with Great Britain just in coming days, one session right now. | ||
| When it comes to the president, did he reach out to members of your party about the events of yesterday? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, he's obviously busy and traveling, and we know all of the, you know, all of the base where he's based. | |
| And we're based on the same red lines, the same interests. | ||
| So we fully support President Zelensky. | ||
| And it's not just about our party, just I want to mention, although I am deputy chair of Zelensky Party, but in the terms of the external politics, in the terms of anything that comes to the war and the long-standing peace for Ukraine, all of the parties support and people support because they want to, on the one side, to end the bloodshed, but also to make sure that our kids will not have to fight the same war. | ||
| You can speak for yourself. | ||
| You can speak for your party. | ||
| What's the message to your president right now? | ||
| What's the message on the larger scale to those leaders in Europe and President Trump? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, now we have to go to the details. | |
| We need to see the security guarantees structure. | ||
| And what I read from the press that Marko Rubio will be sort of chairing this group who will be drafting the security guarantees architecture. | ||
| And of course, we need pressure from President Trump actually to drag Putin to the table of negotiations because President Zelensky was going to meet Putin in Istanbul or like in Turkey here two months ago, but Putin just sent a very low-ranking delegation. | ||
| So we have to see what is the next step from Russia and whether Russia is clearly genuine. | ||
| Because during the meetings in Oval Office and in DC, we had other drones. | ||
| We had air alert in Kiev, in other regions, we had attacks, so it never stopped. | ||
| We hear about the conflict from our perspective, from what we get from the media and otherwise. | ||
| From where you are in Kyiv, what would you tell those here in the United States about what's been going on over the last four years that perhaps they don't see via our media or because they don't have a first-hand perspective? | ||
|
unidentified
|
We just have to understand that under all numbers, if you look at numbers, you know, five more dad or ten more dads, there are people behind that. | |
| And kids, you know, never will walk to school, but we still have the abducted kids. | ||
| And by the way, it's very important that the First Lady, Melania Trump, sent this letter about Ukrainian kids. | ||
| And there was an answer from the First Lady of Ukraine sending a letter to Melania Trump. | ||
| It's, you know, it's human beings. | ||
| Some, you know, these kids will never go to school because they were killed in their beds because of the missiles. | ||
| So basically, we cannot just look at the territories. | ||
| And about the territories, you know, our viewers, just Google, look at Russia, how it looks on the map. | ||
| It's one-fifth of the soil of the world. | ||
| And they still say they need more. | ||
| So I want to look into the people's faith. | ||
| And it's all about people, not just resources and territories. | ||
| This is Yvinya Kragchuk of the Ukrainian parliament joining us for this discussion. | ||
| If you want to find out more about her and her party, rada.gov.ua is the website. | ||
| Member of Kravchuk, thank you for giving us your time. | ||
| We do appreciate it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you for having me. | |
| Again, viewers, if you want to call in and rate the president's efforts on ending the Russia-Ukraine war, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, 202-748-8000 for Democrats, Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| And you can text us, too, at 202-748-8003. | ||
| We'll hear from Marlene in Ohio, Republican line. | ||
| Marlene, thank you for waiting. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think 100% rating for President Trump, 100% A plus. | |
| I give him, I mean, he treats everybody, not just Russia. | ||
| He treats everybody with respect and with dignity. | ||
| Everybody. | ||
| And I used to be years ago, used to be, not years ago, I used to be a Democrat. | ||
| But ever since Trump came in off, came in, showed up, I turned to him and I turned Republic all the way. | ||
| And I voted for him the first time, second time, and third time. | ||
| So when it comes to the A plus, you gave specifically, when it comes to the efforts on Russia-Ukraine, specifically, why does he get an A-plus? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think it's right. | |
| I think he's great trying to stop wars. | ||
| I mean, we don't need them, and no one does. | ||
| And these poor people that have died in these wars, both sides, they don't need that. | ||
| It's, I mean, Trump, all he's trying to do is trying to protect what he can. | ||
| And he's trying to do that, and he's doing that. | ||
| So why in the heck can't Democrats understand and respect and be happy about that? | ||
| That at least he's trying to save the world what he can. | ||
| Okay, let's hear from Roy. | ||
| Roy's in California, Democrats line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I give him an F. If I could give him an F minus, I will. | ||
| And I'll explain why. | ||
| He's been engaged, or it looks like he's engaged, in a treasonous alliance with our most geopolitical adversary. | ||
| All the presidents that have preceded him, even the Republican ones, have had hands-off of Putin. | ||
| Now, all of a sudden, he comes in and an example of the optics of the Alaska situation. | ||
| He's out on the tarmac with the red carpet, and yet you have the European leaders come. | ||
| He sends a staffer to meet him at the door. | ||
| He couldn't even go there and greet them at the entrance to the White House. | ||
| It's pathetic. | ||
| Is successfully convinced his galactically gullible, intellectually deficient, and morally challenged supporters that they were the same people for 20 years who were supportive of killing people in Iraq. | ||
| Our troops were in Iraq. | ||
| Our troops were in Afghanistan, and they were always talking about, well, what's victory look like? | ||
| How come we have to win? | ||
| And right now, we have no troops there, and we're not concerned about sending weapons to help a democracy. | ||
| And it's ironic to me that these people call in here every day talking this nonsense. | ||
| And I will give them an F. Thank you very much. | ||
| Danny up next. | ||
| He's in Kentucky, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Dan. | |
| Danny. | ||
| Yeah, that says Danny on the screen. | ||
| Are you Dan or Danny? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Danny. | |
| Okay, Danny, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Yeah, so much for that last caller, I tell you. | ||
| I don't know why they're worrying about the red carpet and all that so much. | ||
| Well, they want to roll out purple. | ||
| But, you know, I don't know how we're supposed to get peace if we're going to be sarcastic and disrespectful. | ||
| You know, we're trying to get peace, and I think he's doing a great job. | ||
| I think he should get an AA. | ||
| You know, these people got F-s-you know, they just got TDS so bad they need to commit themselves to hospital or something and try to get that out of their system. | ||
| Specifically, why would you give him that grade then when it comes to Russia and Ukraine? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, he's trying to bring people together to get peace. | |
| You know, he's just tired of seeing people killed. | ||
| I mean, you know, figure a million people, that's a lot. | ||
| You know, it seemed like the leaders will say, you know, it's enough. | ||
| You know, and I think he's doing good and he's getting everybody to come together. | ||
| You know, he's trying to get a deal. | ||
| And, you know, I just think he's doing a great job. | ||
| I'm all behind him. | ||
| If he'd run for 28 and 32, I'd still be behind him. | ||
| Okay, that's Danny there, Republican line. | ||
| You just saw a video there from the meeting of European leaders that took place after the initial meeting between the President and President Zelensky in the White House. | ||
| During that meeting, it was the German Chancellor, Frederick Murz, talking about the possibility in the future and also talking and emphasizing this idea of a ceasefire as part of whatever goes forward for what the leaders are discussing. | ||
| Here's some of that from the White House yesterday. | ||
| Mr. President, Donald, many thanks for having us today. | ||
| I think this is extremely helpful that we are meeting and hearing that the two of you are having such a good meeting today here in Washington. | ||
| The next steps ahead are the more complicated ones now. | ||
| The path is open. | ||
| You opened it last Friday. | ||
| But now the way is open for complicated negotiations. | ||
| And to be honest, we all would like to see a ceasefire, the latest from the next meeting on. | ||
| I can't imagine that the next meeting would take place without a ceasefire. | ||
| So let's work on that and let's try to put pressure on Russia because the credibility of these efforts, these efforts we are undertaking today, are depending on at least a ceasefire from the beginning of the serious negotiations from next step on. | ||
| So I would like to emphasize this aspect and would like to see a ceasefire from the next meeting, which should be a trilateral meeting wherever it takes place. | ||
| Well, we're going to let the president go over and talk to the president, and we'll see how that works out and if we can do that. | ||
| I will say, and again, I say it in the six wars that I've settled, I haven't had a ceasefire. | ||
| We just got into negotiations, and one of the wars was, as you know, in the Congo was 30 years, 31 years long. | ||
| Another one that we settled last week with two great countries was 35 years going on, and we had no ceasefires. | ||
| So if we can do this ceasefire, great. | ||
| And if we don't do a ceasefire, because many other points were given to us, many, many points were given to us. | ||
| Great points. | ||
| Again, more of that if you want to see it. | ||
| A couple of ways you could do that. | ||
| Our app at C-SPAN Now, one way, and you can also watch on our website, c-span.org, for all those exchanges that took place yesterday. | ||
| You heard the leaders talk about next steps. | ||
| When it comes to a meeting, one of the expected next steps, or at least the thing to look for, is a possible meeting between President Zelensky and President Putin over these matters. | ||
| President Zelensky asked about that outside of the White House after the events of yesterday. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Is there a date for you to meet with President Putin? | |
| Date? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| No, no, we don't have any date. | ||
| We don't have any date. | ||
| We just conformed after this productive meeting with President and then with all our colleagues, with the partners, we confirmed that we are ready for a trilateral meeting. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And if Russia proposed to President of the United States, bilateral and then, we will see that the result of bilateral and then it can be trilateral. | |
| So I said always so Ukraine will never stop on the way to peace and we are ready for any kind of format, but on the level of leaders. | ||
| That was from yesterday. | ||
| Here is Patty in Kentucky. | ||
| Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Hi, Pedro. | ||
| I give him an F. | ||
| And I'm going to tell you first thing someone said earlier is the way he greeted Putin when he came. | ||
| Yes, it was important, that red carpet, that meant something. | ||
| And then today, when the other European leaders came, he didn't greet them at all. | ||
| Secondly, he says he stopped six wars. | ||
| I don't know which wars he's talking about that he stopped because we have terrible wars going on. | ||
| Two really bad ones with Russia and Ukraine and with Israel and Gaza. | ||
| He's not stopping those. | ||
| He is siding with Putin. | ||
| The reason he hasn't stopped this war, and he has the capability to stop it, he could make it so hard on Putin that he'd have no choice to stop it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He invaded a sovereign country, and Trump is waiting on him to decide what he will take to stop this war. | |
| That's not right. | ||
| He is not our ally. | ||
| He never has been our ally. | ||
| He says Ukraine belongs to Russia because it was taken part from him during the war. | ||
| Okay, we had a Spanish-American war where Texas took part of Mexico. | ||
| What would it be in this country? | ||
| What would people think if Mexico decided they want Texas back because it was theirs? | ||
| And they start dropping bombs in our country. | ||
| That wouldn't go over very well. | ||
| And it shouldn't go over with this president that Putin has done this to Ukraine. | ||
| I'm very upset with this. | ||
| And there's nothing that I see this man is doing for the good of the world or the good of this country. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| That's in Kentucky. | ||
| Our viewer in Kentucky, she had brought up this idea of six wars that the president said and talked about his role in conflict or ending conflicts there. | ||
| Axios takes a look at that in a story that you can find online at their website. | ||
| Under their section of reality check, Axios reporting that Trump really has overseen at least temporary or partial agreements in six conflicts if you include his first term. | ||
| When Axios sent a list of the conflicts that the president and the White House had mentioned to confirm those were the six Trump that we're referring to, a spokesperson confirmed and then added a seventh. | ||
| However, two on the White House list date back to his first term, and an agreement was not actually signed in one of those cases, that between Ethiopia and Egypt. | ||
| Many of the conflicts have not been entirely resolved, and the wars in Ukraine and Gaza are still ongoing, despite his promises to end them. | ||
| Axios adding that still, the president has indeed scored several diplomatic breakthroughs at the start of his second term. | ||
| More there if you want to read that, that's Axios reporting that this morning on their website. | ||
| Let's hear from Edward. | ||
| Edward is in Florida, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, hey, good morning. | |
| Can you hear me okay? | ||
| You are on. | ||
| Yeah, we can hear you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| Terrific. | ||
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I just want to say something that came from by way of my grandmother quite a while ago with regard to what people are commenting about how Trump greeted Putin. | ||
| Was the old expression used to be, you can catch more flies with honey than you ever do with vinegar. | ||
| And this man, he respects the president and he showed that respect back to Putin, which was due. | ||
| He is actually accomplishing more to stop this war than has been done in three years of worth of time. | ||
| And that's about all I want to say. | ||
| When you say he's accomplishing more, do you mean by the actual visits, or is there more to that? | ||
| How would you define that or elaborate on that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
He let him know that he was flirting with World War III at one point, and he brought Putin in. | |
| And no one knows for sure what was spoken on, but the Democrats to say that he greeted him like a king is wrong. | ||
| That's just wrong. | ||
| And that's about all I want to say. | ||
| Gabriel, up next in Pennsylvania, Independent Line. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I got to give Trump credit. | |
| He's doing everything he could to try to prevent World War III. | ||
| The people better wake up in this country and be prepared. | ||
| Because what I see is an evil man in Putin, and he is going to take everything he could. | ||
| He don't stop after these meetings with Trump. | ||
| He doesn't stop his warfare. | ||
| He keeps attacking. | ||
| And people better get back to the good Lord and start praying because World War III is right on the cuff. | ||
| That is Gabriel in Pennsylvania. | ||
| Part of your calls when talking about this topic specifically yesterday, but the idea of raiding the president when it comes to efforts on Russia and Ukraine. | ||
| Some of the international reporting yesterday, the Times of London, this is on their website this morning, Ukraine latest coalition of willing discuss boots on the ground reassurance, adding that it was the NATO, UK Prime Minister Starmer, and Macron, the French president, chairing an online meeting of leaders and U.S. officials to discuss support for Zelensky after the talks with the president at the White House. | ||
| Sorry about that, folks. | ||
| That's the headline there. | ||
| Also, if you go to the France newspaper, Le Monde, their English version, this is their headline. | ||
| Macron suggests Geneva for Putin-Zelensky peace talks. | ||
| The sub-head saying that with U.S., European, and Ukrainian leaders appearing Monday to lay the groundwork for talks between the Ukrainian president and the French the Russian president. | ||
| It is the French president suggesting the Swiss city would provide a neutral setting for those peace efforts. | ||
| That's the English version of the Londe, if you want to pick up that story. | ||
| Lena in Maryland, Democrats line. | ||
| Hi. | ||
|
unidentified
|
A caller said something about catching more flies with honey than with vinegar. | |
| I think you can probably catch more flies with a big old shoe than with any amount of honey. | ||
| To me, the negotiating tactic seems all wrong. | ||
| Putin's not interested in negotiating. | ||
| It seems that they should clear the decks, start all over again, start from the beginning, and say Putin is the aggressor. | ||
| He understands the language of force. | ||
| The idea should be to add Ukraine into NATO, where he would be protected by the whole force of NATO. | ||
| The United States doesn't have to go it alone. | ||
| What would Putin do when facing down 30 other nations? | ||
| What would he do? | ||
| Would he, yes, he'd be angry. | ||
| Would he bomb hospitals? | ||
| Would he bomb playgrounds? | ||
| Would he steal children? | ||
| He's done that. | ||
| The time now is to add Ukraine into NATO. | ||
| Have everyone united against Russia? | ||
| Yes, it would be terrible at first. | ||
| Okay, we'd have to gear up for war, perhaps. | ||
| It would frighten the hell out of Putin. | ||
| He would stop. | ||
| We'd tell him to give back the territories already taken, start a ceasefire, give back the children that have been taken, protect Ukraine from now on into the future, or else. | ||
| We would be strong in the united front. | ||
| The peace would be long-lasting. | ||
| Putin would be forced to give up. | ||
| It's worked before. | ||
| Other nations have joined NATO for the same reasons. | ||
| It seems to me that that would be the way to go. | ||
| So many people have called and saying Trump is the great negotiator. | ||
| No, Putin does not want to negotiate. | ||
| This is NAMBY-PAMBY. | ||
| It's too weak. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Lena, there in Maryland. | ||
| Let's hear from Kevin in Boston, Republican line. | ||
| You're next up. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, how are you doing? | |
| I'd like to also make a statement about the lady from Maryland. | ||
| I mean, I respect old people, but they just don't understand what's happening today. | ||
| This is not the Twilight Zone. | ||
| No one likes to keep repeating stuff every day. | ||
| Russia's not our enemy. | ||
| I don't blame Russians for doing what they're doing when NATO's trying to surround them. | ||
| They've been doing it for years. | ||
| It's costly Russia, Russia, Russia. | ||
| I never seen so many people hate one man. | ||
| It's ridiculous. | ||
| United States would do great if we had a president like Vladimir Putin. | ||
| You know, if it was me in Russia, I wouldn't have been so nice to Ukraine. | ||
| No one's going to surround my country and my people. | ||
| So how does that all relate to the president's efforts, our president? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, our president, our president is doing the best he can do with all these neocons and our government as it is who hate Russia. | |
| You know, he's at least trying to reach out and fix this situation with Ukraine and Russia. | ||
| But then you got the situation where Ukraine, they were Hitler's collaborators in World War II. | ||
| I don't even know why. | ||
| You got a lot of people in Europe who were related to Nazi officers like the Chancellor. | ||
| His grandfather was a Nazi officer. | ||
| I don't know what Ursula is, but I could tell she was an ugly person. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Eric in New Jersey up next, Independent Line. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| You're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We all need to negotiate. | |
| We're human beings. | ||
| And what I think we should do is we should have a delegation every year to do for checks and balances. | ||
| You know, we're human beings. | ||
| You know, we put our pants like us one at a time and negotiate is the only answer. | ||
| Okay, one more call, and this will be from Elizabeth, who joins us from California, Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, C-SPAN. | |
| Earlier, you had a caller that said that there was no Democratic president that did anything with regard to wars. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I guess they forgot about World War II when we had wars in two theaters, the European and the Pacific, and we did a phenomenal job of also securing the post-war environment. | |
| And I want to remind people: Adolf Hitler did declare war on the United States about a few days after Pearl Harbor was bombed. | ||
| What does all that mean for the president's efforts on Russia and Ukraine currently? | ||
|
unidentified
|
NATO is a defensive organization, and that's something that gets left out. | |
| And I think that needs to be reminded. | ||
| It's not an offensive organization. | ||
| It's meant for defense only. | ||
| And then here, regarding Trump's grade, I don't think he's getting good advice. | ||
| If you listen to Pete Seth after the bombing in Iran, Pete Seth said this nonsensical thing. | ||
| He said, President Trump directed the most complex and secretive military operation in history. | ||
| That's gibberish, and everybody knows it. | ||
| And if Trump is getting that kind of fawning advice, how could he make good decisions? | ||
| And finally, his grade. | ||
| Trump is approaching everything with ego about himself. | ||
| And I think, just given that, he definitely gets an F. | ||
| And regarding the Nobel Prize, if he keeps running around nominating himself, I doubt anybody's going to win. | ||
| Okay, Elizabeth in California, finishing off this hour of your calls. | ||
| I appreciate for those who participated today. | ||
| We'll continue on in the conversation of those events at the White House, the longer scope of what happens next when it comes to Russia and Ukraine. | ||
| Two guests joining us for that discussion, Defense Priorities Jennifer Kavanaugh, who will join us alongside or with Heather Conley of the American Enterprise Institute. | ||
| That conversation coming up on Washington Journal. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This August, tune in to C-SPAN for highlights of our America 250 coverage. | |
| Join us as we continue to explore the American story through the voices, sites, and stories that shaped it. | ||
| This is a front site. | ||
| So the military manuals of the day call this a front site that also acts as a bayonet lug. | ||
| And the soldiers were trained in marksmanship. | ||
| Tonight, we'll visit George Washington's Mount Vernon for a reenactment of a revolutionary war camp and a battle between American colonists and British soldiers. | ||
| Watch C-SPAN's America 250 highlights tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN. | ||
| So you interviewed the other night. | ||
| I watched it about 2 o'clock in the morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
There was a little thing called C-SPAN, which I don't know how many people were watching. | |
| Don't worry, you were on primetime too, but they happened to have a little rerun. | ||
| Do you really think that we don't remember what just happened last week? | ||
| Thank goodness for C-SPAN, and we all should review the tape. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Everyone wonders when they're watching C-SPAN what the conversations are on the floor. | |
| I'm about to read to you something that was published by C-SPAN. | ||
| There's a lot of things that Congress fights about, that they disagree on. | ||
| We can all watch that on C-SPAN. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Millions of people across the country tuned into C-SPAN. | |
| That was a major C-SPAN moment. | ||
| If you watch on C-SPAN, you're going to see me physically across the aisle every day, just trying to build relationships and try to understand their perspective and find common ground. | ||
| And welcome aboard to everybody watching at home. | ||
| We know C-SPAN covers this live as well. | ||
| We appreciate that. | ||
| And one can only hope that he's able to watch C-SPAN on a black and white television set in his prison cell. | ||
| This is being carried live by C-SPAN. | ||
| It's being watched not only in this country, it's being watched around the world right now. | ||
| Mike said before, I happened to listen to him, he was on C-SPAN 1. | ||
| That's a big upgrade, right? | ||
|
unidentified
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| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| We continue our conversation, taking a look at the events between Russia and Ukraine, specifically the events of yesterday at the White House with two guests joining us. | ||
| Heather Conley from the American Enterprise Institute serves as their non-resident senior fellow. | ||
| And joining us here in studio, Jennifer Kavanaugh of Defense Priorities. | ||
| She is their senior fellow and director of military analyses. | ||
| To both of you, thank you for giving us your time this morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks for having me. | |
| I'll ask both of you the same question to start when it comes to yesterday's event at the White House. | ||
| At the end of the day, what did you think of it? | ||
| Ms. Kavanaugh, you go first. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, there was a lot of discussion, but I'm not sure all that much changed or was really decided. | |
| President Trump was pretty vague in his language. | ||
| Europeans were pretty enthusiastic, but it doesn't seem like they made all that much progress in getting specific commitments from the United States. | ||
| And to me, the big takeaway here is that a lot of this conversation that's happening in Washington seems to be divorced from the reality that ultimately whatever's decided here has to be acceptable to Putin, who has the advantage on the battlefield. | ||
| So in my view, the discussion of security guarantees is a distraction. | ||
| It's not something that Russia is going to accept, and it's likely to prolong the war because it's a non-starter as a condition for peace. | ||
| Ms. Conley, same question to you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I agree with Jennifer. | |
| I mean, the White House, the objective for yesterday's meeting was to get another meeting between Presidents Putin and Zelensky and then having President Trump join that meeting. | ||
| It is absolutely unclear if that next meeting will happen. | ||
| President Trump spoke to President Putin in the middle of the meeting. | ||
| The European leaders had to wait about 40 minutes in order for that call to happen. | ||
| But the Russians have been very clear that, you know, they may up the level of the delegation to attend future talks, but it didn't seem like that would materialize. | ||
| We'll see. | ||
| The president has given it two weeks. | ||
| And then the second one, to Jennifer's point, and we can unpack this a little bit more, what security guarantees would Europe and then with the support of the United States provide to Ukraine? | ||
| And we don't really have much clarity on that either. | ||
| So the two objectives of yesterday's meeting are still quite uncertain. | ||
| Since both of you wrote it up, I'll follow up with security guarantees since that was part of the discussion. | ||
| What is the best case scenario, Ms. Conley, to start with you, of security guarantees from the United States? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, and you're absolutely right. | |
| We are not sure what the U.S. will commit at the end of the day. | ||
| The President did suggest, I mean, left open the possibility of boots on the ground in Ukraine to last evening suggesting that maybe the United States would have a coordinating role and that the Europeans would play the front line of defense. | ||
| I mean, my own personal view, the only way you can protect Ukraine, and this would be protecting a divided Ukraine, would be Ukraine's entrance into NATO. | ||
| The fact that they're flirting with NATO-like security guarantees or Article 5-like security guarantees is just one step shy of that. | ||
| That's certainly not anywhere on anyone's political horizon, but that is the only way to guarantee that Russia will not attack Ukraine again, because I assure you, anything less than that, Russia will rearm, reconstitute, and will attack again in the future. | ||
| Ms. Kavanaugh, as far as the idea of security, you talked about it initially, but elaborate, please. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I agree with Heather's characterization of where we ended up yesterday in terms of the lack of clarity and the sort of the options on the table. | |
| But in my view, security guarantees aren't realistic, and they're not credible. | ||
| The United States has already shown that it's not willing to fight for Ukraine, as has Europe. | ||
| If the United States was willing to fight for Ukraine, they'd be doing it now, and they're not. | ||
| So any sort of security guarantee isn't credible and doesn't really provide Ukraine any sort of assurance that the United States would come if there were another crisis. | ||
| So it's really not in Ukraine's best interest. | ||
| It's not in U.S. interests. | ||
| The United States is already overextended militarily, cannot afford to take on more military burdens. | ||
| And it's not something that Putin's going to accept. | ||
| He's fought for over three years to keep the United States from integrating more closely with Ukraine, to keep Ukraine out of NATO. | ||
| Why would he now settle for an arrangement that allows Ukraine to have anything close to a NATO-like security guarantee from the United States and Europe? | ||
| So all it really does, all the focus on security guarantees really does is prolong the war. | ||
| In my view, the only way Ukraine is secure in the long term is if it can defend itself. | ||
| If it's a neutral country outside of NATO without clear, what we talk about, Article 5 type security guarantees, with a military that's able to defend its current territory. | ||
| And that military doesn't exist in its current form. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, it would need to be reshaped. | |
| I mean, right now, Ukraine's military is actually much larger than it would probably need in peacetime, but they're at a war. | ||
| So you'd need to reform their military, reorganize it so you have the types of forces you need, and then make sure they have the capabilities they need to defend their borders. | ||
| Some of that they have now. | ||
| Some of it they can build indigenously with their own defense production capabilities. | ||
| And then they need help from the West to build stocks of munitions. | ||
| But over the medium term, I'm pretty confident based on my research that Ukraine would be able to support its own military needs with support from the West over the next five years. | ||
| And there's a gray area here in terms of what Russia would accept. | ||
| So to me, that's the only real option. | ||
| And the focus on security guarantees prolongs the war, doesn't help Ukraine, because Ukraine's battlefield situation is quite dire. | ||
| So having time is not on Ukraine's side. | ||
| Ms. Conley, then, to Ukraine's military, your assessment of its future, what it needs to defend itself in a positive way. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I think it's just important just to take a quick step back at what the Ukrainian military has accomplished over the last three and a half years. | |
| They have held Russia to an attritional war, a much larger and more sophisticated military. | ||
| They have basically denied Russia naval access to the Black Sea. | ||
| They pushed them back. | ||
| Now, at great cost, and let's be very clear on that. | ||
| But what we're seeing now is the Ukrainian military is perhaps the most capable European military force, well practiced for well over a decade in fighting Russia. | ||
| You're absolutely right, and Jennifer noted it. | ||
| You know, 40% of Ukraine's military-industrial complex is developing. | ||
| In fact, many U.S. startup firms, particularly on drone warfare, are investing heavily in Ukraine because their adaptation of drone warfare has been extraordinary. | ||
| Tragically, the Russians are adapting even faster. | ||
| So I think what we need to do is continue to strongly invest in Ukraine's military. | ||
| And exactly as Jennifer pointed out, you have a short and a medium and a long-term scenario. | ||
| Right now, what Ukraine needs the most is manpower. | ||
| You know, estimates are one to, you know, one Ukrainian soldier to every five Russian soldiers. | ||
| And this is the attritional part. | ||
| They just don't have enough manpower to keep those very stretched lines manned. | ||
| They do need ammunition, and we know, which has been critical, they need air defense capabilities. | ||
| But that has been very slow. | ||
| The U.S. production is not what it needs to ensure Ukrainians and the Europeans will buy this equipment. | ||
| It's been very slow to be produced. | ||
| So if we can sort of allow Ukraine to continue to strengthen itself militarily, defend itself, provide that support, I believe in the next year or so, the Russian economy is really going to feel the true impact of sanctions. | ||
| But we've got a long way to go here. | ||
| And again, the costs are enormous. | ||
| And while I salute President Trump's attempts to negotiate this, it has to be a Ukraine that is defendable in the future. | ||
| And we have to ensure that Russia cannot do this again. | ||
| And Russia has violated every international agreement, including providing security guarantees to Ukraine in 1994. | ||
| We just cannot have faith in any agreement that they negotiate. | ||
| Our guests will be with us, and we'll take your questions when it comes to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. | ||
| And you can call on the lines 202-748-8001 for Republicans, 202-748-8000 for Democrats, and Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| If you want to text us those questions or comments, you can do that at 202-748-8003. | ||
| And you can also post on our social media sites on Facebook and on X. Ms. Conley, when it comes to these negotiations, I think of the term carrots and sticks. | ||
| When it comes to what the United States has offered, have there been enough of either? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So it's a great, great way of putting it. | |
| In the beginning, when President Trump really began to embark on this diplomatic route, he used plenty of sticks, but it was initially against Ukraine, using leverage, and certainly Ukraine does rely on American intelligence and support to encourage and force the Ukrainians to accept an agreement. | ||
| And then he sort of moved more to potential sticks against Russia in the form of more impactful sanctions and demanding a ceasefire. | ||
| But in the Anchorage Summit, those dissipated as well. | ||
| So, right now, it's unclear to me exactly where the president is at the moment. | ||
| He's not imposing punishment on Russia for continuing to intensify the war over the last seven months and certainly defying President Trump in many ways and not agreeing to a ceasefire. | ||
| Yet he has also continued to provide and allowed Ukrainians to purchase U.S. military equipment. | ||
| He's allowed the continuation of drawing down U.S. military stocks for the support of Ukraine. | ||
| So, I'm not entirely sure where we are in carrots and sticks. | ||
| And let's see if this next meeting, if there is a meeting, a big if, what it produces. | ||
| But the sticks and the carrots have been a little varied. | ||
| And right now, I'm not sure which carrot and which sticker we're using against which side. | ||
| It may have been a crude reference on my part, but the same idea to you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Well, I mean, I think the bottom line here is that the United States doesn't really have any good sticks to use against Russia right now. | ||
| Sanctions aren't really working. | ||
| They might work over a longer term, as Heather suggested. | ||
| But even then, I'm not sure they're enough to change Putin's calculus. | ||
| He's invested a ton in this war. | ||
| His legacy is riding on it. | ||
| He's been very insensitive or paid little attention to the economic costs. | ||
| He personally doesn't feel them. | ||
| He hasn't really been affected by the costs in terms of loss of personnel. | ||
| That's again something that hasn't affected his calculus. | ||
| So more, not afraid of more U.S. military assistance. | ||
| He's weathered that now for three years. | ||
| So there aren't really any good sticks. | ||
| In fact, the biggest stick that Trump can wield here is walking away because Putin needs Trump and needs the United States to engage in these negotiations to achieve his war aims. | ||
| Only the United States can really provide the changes to the European security architecture, can close NATO's door to Ukraine. | ||
| These are things that the United States, as a leader of NATO, has the most influence to do. | ||
| So Putin really needs Trump to be engaged. | ||
| So that's Trump's biggest card. | ||
| But of course, he doesn't want to play it because he wants the deal. | ||
| Rightly so. | ||
| We should want peace. | ||
| On the Ukrainian side, the United States has a lot more sticks, can use its leverage much more intensively. | ||
| But Trump hasn't really wanted to throw Ukraine under the bus. | ||
| And I think that's really important. | ||
| Every time Trump reaches out to Putin or talks to Putin, there's this idea that Trump is getting ready to give Ukraine away. | ||
| And he has not done that. | ||
| And if he wanted to do it, he would have done it already. | ||
| So I think he deserves a little bit of faith here that he is trying. | ||
| Maybe not, as all of us, he's maybe made mistakes along the way, but he is trying to deal with a really complex situation and get to a deal in the end. | ||
| Let's hear from callers. | ||
| This is Pat. | ||
| Pat is in New Jersey. | ||
| Republican line, you're on with our guest, Pat. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| I'd like to ask the guests to address what is Ukraine's responsibility here. | ||
| They had 20 years before Russia even seized Crimea, then another eight years after that. | ||
| What responsibility did they have to bolster their own defenses instead of blithely depending on security guarantees, especially from Russia? | ||
| And I'll just compare that to Israel. | ||
| After 19, between 1948 and 1967, it became much stronger. | ||
| What responsibility would Ukraine have? | ||
| Why wouldn't Georgia have been a wake-up call? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Ms. Kavanaugh. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I believe that Ukraine should be responsible for its own defense. | |
| I think it's Ukraine's best option, and it's certainly the best option from the United States. | ||
| I think the United States has little stake right now in what happens in Ukraine. | ||
| Secretary of State Marco Rubio said it this weekend that life in America is not going to change based on what happens in Ukraine. | ||
| And that should be a factor that Trump is considering. | ||
| He ran on America first platform and U.S. interests should come first. | ||
| So I do put a lot of the responsibility here on Ukraine for taking responsibility for its security going forward. | ||
| It may need a little bit of help in certain areas, but I think those areas are actually quite narrow. | ||
| And with European financing, then it wouldn't come out of American taxpayers' pockets. | ||
| In terms of the sort of the 20-year timeframe, I mean, hindsight is always 20-20. | ||
| It's always easy to see the threat coming in reverse or in retrospect. | ||
| I do think that it would have made sense for Ukraine to invest more in its security and to build up its military. | ||
| I think that there's always a denial, always a belief that peace will hold. | ||
| And really, this has been the trend across Europe, not just in Ukraine, but across all of Europe, is to fall back on the United States, to assume that the United States will rush in and save the day in the end. | ||
| And that is something that I think is changing, and President Trump has made that a priority. | ||
| Ms. Conley, Ukraine's responsibility here. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I mean, of course, it is Ukraine's responsibility to defend its territory. | |
| And it's making strides to do that. | ||
| It does need support. | ||
| It had received previous guarantees that the United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia would support its sovereignty and territorial integrity. | ||
| And of course, Russia attacked it. | ||
| These things can't happen overnight. | ||
| And it's important to note that the Ukrainian military has been fighting Russian forces since 2014. | ||
| But I think you now see a stronger Ukrainian military. | ||
| They just don't have the manpower and the weapons now to be able to be more decisive on that. | ||
| Let me just, you know, with respect to Secretary Rubio's comment, the stakes are enormous for how this conflict is resolved, because it's not just about Ukraine. | ||
| Because Russia and China have joined together, Russia and Iran, Iranian drones are being applied in Ukraine. | ||
| North Korean soldiers are fighting in this conflict. | ||
| This is now much bigger than Ukraine itself. | ||
| And how it works out and how it is resolved will shape the international system. | ||
| So the United States has an enormous stake in this outcome because if Ukraine is not successful, Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea grow stronger, and they are going to work against American security interests across multiple theaters. | ||
| Now, this doesn't mean that the United States has to be the only one to help solve this problem. | ||
| Europeans have stepped up, will need to continue to step up, and the United States has to play a key role in that. | ||
| But the stakes for this war are enormous for the United States. | ||
| And sort of being able to walk away may be convenient for that moment, but it's going to come back to us larger and more costly. | ||
| This is why it's really very key. | ||
| And then just one final comment on Jennifer's remark about sanctions. | ||
| Look, sanctions may not change Vladimir Putin's calculation. | ||
| He's quite determined and he hasn't been focused on his objective, but it reduces Russia's warfighting capabilities. | ||
| And that is what is absolutely critical here. | ||
| We have to reduce their ability to wage this war, help increase Ukraine's ability to defend itself, and then I think we can get closer to a just peace. | ||
| The American Enterprise Institute's Heather Conley joining us with Jennifer Kavanaugh of Defense Priorities. | ||
| Let's go to Valerie, Michigan Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello, good morning. | |
| I think we need to go back to after World War II when we rebuild Euro, the European area. | ||
| And we held them to a low standard as far as their military capabilities because that's when the United States became the world power, the superpower. | ||
| And we promised them that we would protect them. | ||
| We didn't want the situation of what had happened in Germany to happen again. | ||
| That's why we held them, their military, to a lower standard. | ||
| We didn't want big military powers all over again. | ||
| And we need to, if we don't protect Ukraine, then European, the European Union would be weakened. | ||
| That's the reason. | ||
| It's all connected. | ||
| And then we promised Ukraine we would protect them if they gave up their military power. | ||
| So if we don't protect Ukraine, that's connected to the European Union. | ||
| And they should rebuild their new military power. | ||
| They should have never agreed to it because we've had president after president that upheld that, that we would protect them. | ||
| We never had to until now. | ||
| They came in and helped us during the Iraq and Afghanistan war. | ||
| So that's why their military is not as strong as ours. | ||
| That's through American policy to become the world power. | ||
| Okay, Valerie there in Michigan. | ||
| Ms. Conley, if you wanted to take something from that, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, thank you for the question. | |
| And history is so important. | ||
| So I'm so glad the caller raised this issue. | ||
| I just want to reaffirm, so when NATO was formed in 1949, it was two years after the United States announced the Marshall Plan. | ||
| So yes, there was a massive American economic investment in Europe after the Second World War. | ||
| Why? | ||
| To prevent communism and Soviet encroachment into Europe. | ||
| But NATO's responsibility, every NATO country, 32 members of NATO, have the responsibility to strengthen their own defense to protect their own territory. | ||
| And then all of these members collectively join together to make sure that they are defended. | ||
| So it is always the country's primary responsibility to provide their territorial defense. | ||
| And when that is weakened, that is always a weakness of the alliance. | ||
| So I just want to, there is a connection. | ||
| Economics and security, you cannot have prosperity without security. | ||
| They go absolutely hand in hand. | ||
| But I will assure you that the American investment made well over 75 years ago has paid off. | ||
| Europe stands as our strongest trade and investment partner, our strongest security partner today. | ||
| Now they must do more. | ||
| And the United States needs to rebalance that relationship. | ||
| But I can assure you, this is an investment that is paying off. | ||
| And who are the allies that are standing beside President Trump yesterday? | ||
| Our closest European partners. | ||
| They are doing more. | ||
| So I want to assure you that this historic investment in Europe 75 years ago continues to pay dividends for the United States if we do not harm it. | ||
| And we risk harming it. | ||
| But at this point, I think yesterday's meeting at the White House was a testament to the strength of that European partnership. | ||
| Ms. Kevin, are you going to take what the caller brought or what Ms. Conley said? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, so I think it's important to distinguish between the initial intentions of the founders of NATO and what NATO became pretty quickly after that. | |
| You know, initially, the U.S. military presence was intended to be temporary. | ||
| It was to help the Europeans get back on their feet economically, to take their security from them so that they could focus on economic reconstruction. | ||
| And, you know, Eisenhower, who was then in a military role in NATO, said that if the U.S. forces were still in the United States within 10 years, and that would have been like 1959, it would be the late 1950s, early 1960s, it would be a failure, a failure of the whole project. | ||
| And yet, U.S. military forces are still in NATO today, in Europe today. | ||
| And so that suggests that what NATO became, which you're right, was an effort to keep European military small so the United States could become a global power, was not the original intention. | ||
| And even if we believe that NATO was beneficial during the Cold War, at the end of the Cold War, NATO took on a totally different role, which was this role about democracy promotion and freedom and trying to spread democracy across all of Europe and even outside of Europe. | ||
| And so, you know, that project has not been all that successful. | ||
| Democracy now is sort of in retreat. | ||
| It's under threat everywhere. | ||
| And I'm not sure that it really helped U.S. interests either. | ||
| All of these interventions that the United States conducted were very costly and didn't always advance U.S. interests. | ||
| I mean, look at some of the interventions in the Middle East that the U.S. has pursued. | ||
| So I guess we should be skeptical of this idea that the United States must sort of take on this global role. | ||
| In fact, I don't think that it's just the U.S. transatlantic relationship that needs to be rebalanced, but really the U.S. military commitment globally needs to be rebalanced. | ||
| And Europe needs to take full responsibility for its security, not just kind of do more. | ||
| I have a different interpretation of the meeting yesterday in Washington, which was sort of a desperate attempt by European leaders to get a seat at the table. | ||
| They have no strategy for ending the war. | ||
| They have no military equipment to provide. | ||
| They can't really influence the outcome in any way. | ||
| And the meeting between Putin and Trump was a big threat to them because they were left out. | ||
| So to me, it was sort of desperate, not really a testament to the strength of the alliance, but a testament to the imbalance in the alliance. | ||
| And that should be concerning to Russia. | ||
| That should be concerning to Ukraine. | ||
| It should be concerning to all U.S. allies. | ||
| Why would you want to sacrifice your own geopolitical decision-making power by becoming wholly dependent on another country for your security? | ||
| Let's hear from Dan. | ||
| Dan is in Georgia. | ||
| Republican line, you're next up. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Hello. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Yes, sir. | ||
| Heather, you made a statement that Russia has broken all of its agreements. | ||
| And how I remember that when the missiles were put in Cuba, how America went absolutely ballistic, that missiles were 90 miles off the U.S. coast. | ||
| The European nation and NATO has kept pushing the boundaries and encroaching upon Russia to when Putin absolutely drew a red line and said, that's it. | ||
| He started putting troops up on the border there. | ||
| All Ukraine had to do was say they're not joining the European Union and they're not going NATO. | ||
| And this war would have never started. | ||
| But instead, NATO kept encroaching till Putin said, okay, you've crossed the red line. | ||
| And Russia's been holding its own pretty well against American military equipment, European military equipment, German, Polish, United Kingdom, and still holding its own. | ||
| Okay, Dan in Georgia, and since he addressed you directly, Ms. Collin, you go first. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, thank you. | |
| And it's so important about talking about NATO enlargement and its relationship to this crisis. | ||
| It's extraordinary that when Vladimir Putin first became president, he actually inquired whether Russia could join NATO. | ||
| Now, this was in 2001. | ||
| The climate was very, very different. | ||
| But even at that moment, it was not an antagonistic thought early in Vladimir Putin's tenure. | ||
| And I played a role in the enlargement of NATO in 2002, 2004 under President George W. Bush. | ||
| And it was a moment where the Russians were not upset about that larger enlargement of the Baltic states. | ||
| They had concerns about ethnic Russians in the Baltic states, but it was a moment where there wasn't much resistance. | ||
| So in some ways, again, here's the question. | ||
| And really, it's the crux of the Ukraine conflict. | ||
| Does a country have the ability to choose its own alliance, its own path forward? | ||
| Or do larger countries decide for that country? | ||
| So again, before the full-scale war, the Ukrainian Constitution had it as a neutral country that would not join NATO. | ||
| But Putin invaded Ukraine, and then of course that changed dramatically. | ||
| Sweden and Finland were not going to join NATO before this full-scale invasion, but their territorial integrity was so threatened that it was transformative to their public opinion and they joined NATO. | ||
| So NATO has gone back to its founding purpose from 1949, which is to defend itself from Russia. | ||
| So if you think about it in that way, the historic enlargement of NATO has actually protected over 100 million people in Europe. | ||
| Now they have not all pulled their weight. | ||
| They have not all achieved what the United States had wanted them to achieve. | ||
| But this, in my view, has created more stability and security in Europe because had these countries not been admitted into NATO, they would have seen Russia's invasion as an absolute direct threat and we would have already been in a larger conflict. | ||
| It's a different way of looking at it. | ||
| Of course, the Kremlin continues to state repeatedly that this is all because of NATO enlargement. | ||
| The history does not speak to this, but it does speak to Vladimir Putin's core belief that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of his lifetime. | ||
| And his leadership purpose is to reverse that, to regain Russia's historic lands, to make Russia a great power. | ||
| That doesn't have anything to do with NATO per se. | ||
| But this is an important question. | ||
| It needs to be understood. | ||
| It needs to be assessed. | ||
| But my view is NATO has actually, in its enlargement, has created stability in Europe and Central Europe, and it's protecting those countries now from Russian invasion. | ||
| What we've seen in Georgia and Ukraine, if you are not in the NATO umbrella, you are susceptible to Russian attack. | ||
| Ms. Kevin, your assessment of NATO and its role on this? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, you know, I do think that NATO expansion played a role in this war. | |
| It is a relevant factor. | ||
| It's not the only factor. | ||
| I do think that the history of NATO expansion is open to interpretation. | ||
| There's a lot of different stories, a lot of backroom discussions that happen that we don't know exactly what was said. | ||
| But since about 2007, Putin has been pretty clear that expansion of NATO to Georgia and Ukraine was a red line for him. | ||
| That was very clear. | ||
| And yet, The United States and other NATO allies continued to push forward with providing these countries with a pathway into NATO. | ||
| Even though Ukraine had a neutrality condition in its constitution, they still were doing things like joining the Partnership for Peace and forming organizations that linked Ukraine and NATO and working to integrate Ukraine and NATO more closely. | ||
| To Putin, these things were seen as a threat, and he made that clear. | ||
| But the signals that he provided were basically ignored. | ||
| So I do think that even if in 2001 we were talking about Russia being in NATO, by 2007, 2008, the picture had changed, and so the discussion also should have changed. | ||
| I also think it's just important to recognize that we've expanded NATO now so much that I think there are real questions about the credibility of some of the guarantees that have been offered. | ||
| Would a U.S. president go to war with Russia over Estonia? | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| That's a question I think that we should be asking. | ||
| But we've extended these guarantees and we did it at a time when Russia was weak and the United States was strong. | ||
| And it seemed like that's how it would always be. | ||
| Like these would never be called into question. | ||
| We would never have to pay the price of the guarantee. | ||
| It seemed costless. | ||
| But it's not costless. | ||
| Now, I don't believe that Putin has an intent to attack a NATO country or to invade the Baltics. | ||
| And even if he did, he does not have the military capabilities to do so. | ||
| We've seen that on the battlefield in Ukraine, as Heather's alluded to. | ||
| The Ukrainians have held Putin back. | ||
| They have held their defensive lines quite impressively given some of the deficits they face. | ||
| So I don't have any confidence that Putin could launch an invasion of a small Baltic state or march across all of Europe. | ||
| So, you know, I think that's important to keep in mind as well. | ||
| But, you know, I do think that we should be aware of the ways in which changes in NATO contributed to this war, and that is going to have to be part of the solution. | ||
| Thinking about the broader European security architecture. | ||
| A little bit about our guest organization, Jennifer Kavanaugh, with Defense Priorities. | ||
| She's their senior fellow and director of military analysis. | ||
| Defense priorities, what is it and what perspective does it take when it comes to conflicts like we're seeing in Russia-Ukraine? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, defense priorities is really a non-interventionist organization. | |
| We are focused on advocating and pushing for a U.S. foreign policy based on restraint, which would have the U.S. do less globally militarily everywhere. | ||
| So not just pulling back from Europe and the Middle East, but also doing less in Asia. | ||
| We believe that the United States is quite secure. | ||
| That is kind of different than the way you kind of hear it talked about. | ||
| The U.S. faces threats everywhere. | ||
| We see the United States as quite secure. | ||
| Oceans on two sides, weak neighbors to the north and south. | ||
| We don't believe that having a large military footprint forward, a large security perimeter, is necessary for U.S. security. | ||
| Instead, we worry about entanglement, that having U.S. forces everywhere pulls the United States into conflicts that don't advance its interests. | ||
| Heather Conley with the American Enterprise Institute, same question to you as far as your organization, the perspective it takes on these conflicts. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So every individual AEI scholar is able to provide their own thoughts and opinions. | |
| Obviously, AEI is about the freedom of the individual to prosper and to be secure at the Foreign and Defense Priorities Project. | ||
| I look at a variety of issues related to the transatlantic relationship, strengthening NATO, thinking about how this unique alliance can be a stabilizing force globally and how it can protect growing prosperity. | ||
| And I said, this is why this question is so fundamental to U.S. security. | ||
| This is not just about Ukraine. | ||
| This is about the world that the United States is going to live in, my children and my grandchildren, whether it's going to be one of stability, where we respect sovereignty and territorial integrity, that America's alliances amplify America's power around the world, and to ensure that we can sustain them, that they're financially sustainable, | ||
| and that means living within our means to do so, working closely with allies and partners to amplify American security and prosperity. | ||
| But the debate that Jennifer and I are having is a really important debate because the American people are really going to have to decide what is America's future role in the world. | ||
| You're right, we're not going back to the way it was during the Cold War. | ||
| It has to be modernized. | ||
| We have to think of new ways. | ||
| Sometimes the Trump administration is disrupting things that have needed to be disrupted. | ||
| And change has been needed and reform has been urgently needed. | ||
| But there's some values that we don't want to destroy. | ||
| There's some institutional strength that has taken decades and loss of American life and treasure to build. | ||
| We want to build on the values to strengthen our security and prosperity. | ||
| At the same time, we do need to modernize our foreign and security policy and be open to modernizing that. | ||
| Let's hear from Robert. | ||
| He's on our line for Democrats in Ohio. | ||
| Thanks for calling. | ||
| Thanks for waiting. | ||
| Robert, go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning to the panelists. | |
| I don't feel that President Trump has a sincere determination to try to give honorable between the two countries. | ||
| Would the United States give up Russia? | ||
| Would the United States give up Alaska to Russia? | ||
| Or would the United States give up Mexico because of past boundaries? | ||
| And as far as NATO is concerned, the 32 countries, hey, you jump on me, you're going to have to fight my brothers. | ||
| And the panelists, that was the summit that was in Monday, that was in Washington. | ||
| Had Yukrinsky came there by himself, by himself, it would have been a different agony summit altogether. | ||
| He showed President Trump that Europe was behind Ukraine. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Robert and Ohio. | ||
| Ms. Kavanaugh. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I mean, I think that it's definitely true that yesterday would have gone differently if Europe hadn't been there. | |
| I think that Europe providing support to Zelensky was an important signal for him. | ||
| Again, my general sense of the meeting as a whole is that not all that much was decided. | ||
| As far as the territorial concessions and whether President Trump really wants a just peace, I think right now Trump is facing a tough reality. | ||
| We all would like Ukraine to get all of its territory back, at least all of us maybe in this room or in the United States. | ||
| That would be the fair outcome. | ||
| Certainly Russia is the aggressor in this war. | ||
| That's sort of undeniable. | ||
| But the battlefield tells a different story right now, which is that Russia has the upper hand. | ||
| Ukraine's lines are overstretched and are near the point of collapse in places. | ||
| More weapons is not going to help Ukraine, as Heather suggested. | ||
| The problem here is manpower. | ||
| They do not have enough manpower. | ||
| The West cannot help them with manpower. | ||
| Sanctions might work. | ||
| You know, Heather and I disagree a little bit on that, but at very least, they will not work quick enough to change the military balance in the near term, and Ukraine doesn't have that much time. | ||
| So the reality is that Ukraine will have to make territorial concessions. | ||
| Now, what those look like, I think there are different options on the table. | ||
| Putin has asked for, put several different options on the table in his memo that he gave or that the Russians gave Ukrainians in Istanbul in June of this year. | ||
| Some of those are more severe. | ||
| Some of them require pulling out of territory that Ukraine hasn't still controls, which it might choose not to do. | ||
| There are other options. | ||
| So I think now the question is really, you know, how much territory does Ukraine at least temporarily cede and in what way? | ||
| Do they do it through a peace agreement or do they do it by continuing to fight and lose territory on the battlefield? | ||
| Ultimately, you get to a point where Ukraine's battlefield lines collapse and then Ukraine is in a position where it has zero leverage and it's forced to accept a much worse deal. | ||
| So I actually see President Trump's actions here as trying to get to a deal before that happens. | ||
| The deal on the table now may be the best Ukraine gets. | ||
| Continuing to hang in there is not necessarily going to lead to a better outcome. | ||
| Ms. Conley. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I think it's so important to highlight this is exactly the slippery slope. | |
| If we allow countries for their own justification, historic reasons, they want to distract. | ||
| They will seize territory. | ||
| We are living in a world now this all opens up and there are a lot of historical grievances around the world where countries would like to take territory back. | ||
| In fact, the backdrop of last week's summit between Presidents Putin and Trump in Alaska, you're absolutely right. | ||
| What did Putin call that? | ||
| Russian America. | ||
| He was pointing back to 1867 and highlighted the historic lands of Russia. | ||
| This is why it's very important for countries to have territorial integrity and sovereignty and border control. | ||
| We acknowledge that in the United States. | ||
| It's important for us to have control over our border. | ||
| It is important for Ukraine to regain control over its border and to be able to defend that. | ||
| So absolutely very important. | ||
| That's the kind of international system you want. | ||
| That is going to be Pandora's box. | ||
| That's why it's very, very important to be very, very clear-eyed. | ||
| We don't know what eventual deal will be achieved. | ||
| At this point, the battlefield is attritional, meaning both sides can't really achieve any breakthroughs. | ||
| But the time is not on Ukraine's side because of their manpower issues and because allies have had to support Ukraine and provide them with defensive capabilities. | ||
| And Mr. Putin is all in. | ||
| It is a full war economy. | ||
| He is providing everything. | ||
| He can't lose for his legitimacy as a leader. | ||
| And Ukraine can't lose or it will not survive as a country. | ||
| So that's why whatever peace arrangement is existential for both sides. | ||
| And so we may be able to get a pause, a ceasefire, but that's not going to resolve this until Ukraine is able to defend itself in the future from all Russian attack. | ||
| And Russia is unable to be an aggressor against Ukraine. | ||
| And there's a lot of factors that have to come into play for that. | ||
| But we do have a view here. | ||
| Russia is the aggressor. | ||
| Ukraine is the victim. | ||
| The United States has stakes in this and how it is resolved. | ||
| I'm glad we're using our good offices to help provide the framework for negotiation. | ||
| But if we see these sides as equal or if we blame Ukraine for Russia's invasion, we're not going to have a good outcome and we're not going to be able to protect future American security. | ||
| So that's why it's important that we get this right. | ||
| Let's go to Paulette in Maryland, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| You're on. | ||
| You're on. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Hi. | ||
| I tune into C-SPAN sporadically. | ||
| It seems last few times that I've tuned in with this whole Russia-Ukraine thing, you have guests that are, you know, build themselves as experts, but most of them are the ones who gave us the Iraq war. | ||
| And with the exception of Ms. Kavanaugh today, she's very refreshing because she's presenting a more accurate picture of what's actually going on. | ||
| But I think these, like from AEI and people, always from defense of democracies, you have these so-called experts. | ||
| I don't believe they want peace. | ||
| I believe they profit from war. | ||
| So that's all I have to say. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Ms. Conley, do you want to respond to that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So I have studied Russia for over 30 years. | |
| So there is deep expertise as well as Europe. | ||
| I offer my analysis and I offer my opinion. | ||
| But it is absolutely up to the American people to decide what is in their interest and to be informed and to listen to differing views. | ||
| It's important to listen to Jennifer's perspective and view. | ||
| It's important to listen to my view. | ||
| It's important to listen to the views of your neighbors because at the end of the day, this affects you. | ||
| This impacts you. | ||
| So you can disagree with everything that I've said, but thank you for listening. | ||
| Thank you for listening to Jennifer. | ||
| This is so important to America's future prosperity and security. | ||
| Welcome and thank you for being part of that conversation. | ||
| Well Ms. Conley, I will follow up a viewer off of X. | ||
| This is Michael Langweiser. | ||
| He brings another body into the mix saying, could the guests respond to where the United Nations comes into play on this? | ||
| That was the crown jewel from World War II for world dispute resolution. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, and unfortunately, the United Nations Security Council hasn't been working well. | |
| And it's always difficult when a member of the permanent five members, and again, from the Second World War, the five countries that had declarative nuclear weapons, when one invades another country, they prevent that entity from being able to do what it can do. | ||
| And secondly, we have seen UN General Assembly resolutions on Ukraine that have spoken to well over 140 countries supporting Ukraine's ability to defend itself for its territorial integrity and sovereignty. | ||
| It goes to the heart of chapter of Article 2 of the United Nations Charter. | ||
| But again, the United Nations is a perfect example of institutions that have needed reform for a very, very long time. | ||
| And unfortunately, there has not been sufficient political will to make those reform changes. | ||
| And so you're right. | ||
| The UN has not served global conflicts well, in my view. | ||
| The United States has always had an incredibly conflicted relationship with the United Nations and its support, which has waxed and waned. | ||
| So this is what you're seeing now, our coalitions of the willing, like-minded countries working together in an attempt to solve challenges that in a perfect world, you'd have these multilateral bodies able to be preemptive and to try to support and sustain these types of conflict resolutions. | ||
| You're just not seeing that today, unfortunately. | ||
| Jennifer Kavanaugh. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I agree definitely that right now the UN is not playing a role. | |
| It has not played a role in most major conflicts. | ||
| It has not really been effective, at least over the past 15 or 20 years, in the way that we might have liked. | ||
| I do, however, see there as being a possible role for the United Nations if we end up getting to a settlement over the longer term. | ||
| And that is that any sort of Ukrainian commitment to neutrality in the future, which I see as sort of the best long-term outcome and the most likely outcome for Ukraine in any sort of peace treaty or peace settlement or settlement that's agreed to, could then be sort of institutionalized as a UN Security Council resolution that all the Security Council members, including Russia, including the United States, would then sign on to. | ||
| And that would give any sort of commitment sort of international legitimacy. | ||
| It would not necessarily be binding like something that was passed through Congress, but it would be more binding than just an agreement that all the parties agreed to. | ||
| It's something that Russia was supportive of in 2022 when Ukraine and Russia were talking and reached a sort of draft treaty. | ||
| The UN was used in this way. | ||
| So I do see the UN as potentially playing a legitimizing role to any sort of settlement. | ||
| However, that's sort of a long way down the road. | ||
| It's possible that the UN could also play a role in any sort of ceasefire monitoring, but that gets a little bit tricky because it would depend where the forces came from. | ||
| Russia has been clear that no NATO members would provide forces, so it might end up being something outside the UN. | ||
| So I see a narrow role for the UN sort of down the road. | ||
| But right now, I think their role is quite limited and not likely to change until we get further along. | ||
| Here's Mark. | ||
| He's in Florida, Independent Line. | ||
| You're on with our guests. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thank you for C-SPAN. | ||
| Now, as I'm sitting here listening to all the other callers and the responses, I almost would like to get into who's right, who's wrong, pro or not pro Ukraine. | ||
| But I think I'd rather take a different tack with you, and hopefully you'll give me as much time as you give some of these other callers go and another thing and another thing and another thing. | ||
| I'm trying to stick with one coherent thought. | ||
| It's very nice that C-SPAN is offering us this panel between two people who, I guess, are taking opposite sides of the coin when it comes to this situation. | ||
| But the fact is, with a little bit of investigation, it doesn't take much to find out. | ||
| And it's well known that AEI is one of the Coke organization octopuses arms pushing their points of view. | ||
| And now when you look at the military, the defense priorities place, guess what? | ||
| Guess who is one of the major founders of that? | ||
| Besides Rand Paul, who I could talk to you about all day, it's Charles Koch is funding them. | ||
| So you have two people supposedly representing two different sides of an issue funded by the same people. | ||
| Maybe they are talking from different sides, but what does that mean when the same source of money is funding both sides of an argument? | ||
| Well, we've invited both of these guests on this program, so we'll let them take on that topic of funding and to your claims. | ||
| And we'll start with Ms. Kavanaugh, if you wanted to respond to that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, Defense Priorities receives funding from many sources. | |
| The Koch Foundation is one of them, but there are others. | ||
| And the funders don't determine our arguments or what we research or the reports that we put out. | ||
| That's something that our fellows and our researchers determine based on the analysis that they conduct, just like Heather and her colleagues do their analysis. | ||
| And so we may come to different perspectives, but that's based on our training and the data that we're looking at and how we view the world and our assumptions, not who's funding us. | ||
| Ms. Conley. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Absolutely. | |
| Absolutely. | ||
| AEI scholars have absolute independent research and integrity. | ||
| We call balls and strikes as we see them. | ||
| And do you receive money from the Coke organization? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I do not know that. | |
| We are very transparent of AEI's funding. | ||
| We can certainly get back to you on that. | ||
| I don't know specifically whether that is a funding stream or not at AEI. | ||
| This is from our line for Republicans. | ||
| This is from Florida. | ||
| Kathy, hello, you're on. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, good morning, everyone. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| To the ladies on the panel, my condolences to all the people who have lost their lives in Ukraine and in Russia or Russia or Ukraine in no particular order. | ||
| My concern is your outlook and your perspective as to what's going on right now. | ||
| Yelensky and Putin are going to meet without our President of the United States. | ||
| They're going to meet together, but he's not going to be their mediator. | ||
| They're going to be able to talk to each other face to face without any babysitting, anyone holding anyone's hand. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| The people of these two countries are dying as we speak. | ||
| It has to end. | ||
| Why am I saying that? | ||
| Because it's true. | ||
| This war is going to end point blank. | ||
| It's going to end just like Rwanda and Ghana, India, and Pakistan. | ||
| It is going to end just like many others. | ||
| What you need to do, and this is my question to you, the children, you need to look at the resources and the forecast of what is going to proliferate. | ||
| Very, very soon, these children need to reunite with their families. | ||
| Their families are in Poland or wherever they are, and also to up the Yankee with the orphanages, the children. | ||
| We need to find a way to proceed. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| Thank you so much for taking my call. | ||
| I'm a little toxicated. | ||
| I'm on my first coffee. | ||
| God bless everyone. | ||
| That's Kathy from Florida. | ||
| Heather Conley, if you wanted to start off on the caller's viewpoint. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| And, you know, and let me just be really clear. | ||
| You know, how we analyze the situation is not what we hope the situation will be. | ||
| And I completely agree. | ||
| We want the loss of life to end, certainly for the Ukrainian people, that they were attacked by Russia. | ||
| And the Russian calculation and costs have been extraordinarily high as well. | ||
| Unfortunately, Vladimir Putin continues to be okay with that extensive loss of life. | ||
| We want the killing to end. | ||
| I'm analyzing the situation. | ||
| I don't believe the conflict will end until there's substantial capitulation from one side or the other. | ||
| Even if there is an agreement, I think the two sides will continue to fight this out. | ||
| I hope I'm wrong, but that's my analysis. | ||
| Thank you also for mentioning the plight of Russia's abduction of Ukraine's children. | ||
| This is why Vladimir Putin has been designated a war criminal by the International Criminal Court. | ||
| I think a special recognition has to go out to the First Lady, Melania Trump, for highlighting this publicly. | ||
| There's been an exchange of letters. | ||
| She hasn't let this go either. | ||
| And sometimes it's gotten lost in the, we're going to be giving a red carpet to Mr. Putin, or we're going to try to find a meeting between Putin and Zelensky to focus on that abduction. | ||
| It is a war crime. | ||
| It is an absolute desire and justification for this war. | ||
| And if it's not resolved soon, these children, unfortunately, will not be reunited with their family. | ||
| And they're being told stories and lies that are untrue within Russia. | ||
| So thank you for raising this. | ||
| I hope I'm analytically wrong, that this conflict, unfortunately, will continue. | ||
| I hope the loss of life ends, but that may not be the case in the near term. | ||
| Jennifer Kavanaugh. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I pretty much agree with Heather here. | |
| I mean, I think that the Ukrainian children do need to be returned, and I was pleased to see that it got so much attention yesterday, as well as in the meeting between Trump and Putin last week. | ||
| I think it's actually maybe a good starting point. | ||
| And these negotiations are going to take a long time, and we're not going to solve all the issues at once. | ||
| And some of these humanitarian issues, the children, prisoners of war, these are things that might be lower-hanging fruit to help build confidence between the two sides. | ||
| So I do think it's something worth pushing. | ||
| Absolutely agree that ending the war has to be a priority. | ||
| The death tolls are high and significant. | ||
| The suffering is immense on both sides. | ||
| And so ending the war should be a priority. | ||
| I unfortunately also agree that the end is not that close. | ||
| It may be closer than it was. | ||
| I think we can see the outlines of an agreement sort of forming, but we're still a long way. | ||
| And there's going to have to be a lot of hashing out of the details before we get to anything that looks like a settlement or anything approaching a real ceasefire. | ||
| And I guess my last point here would just be that I'm pretty skeptical that Zelensky and Putin are going to have a meeting in the near term. | ||
| The Russians have pretty much waved this off. | ||
| They've been very non-committal and Putin has been clear in the past that before he meets Boselinsky, he wants a lot of groundwork done. | ||
| He wants pre-work at the working level between their teams. | ||
| He wants this process to be far along. | ||
| And we're just not there yet. | ||
| So the Russians may stall and speak in vague terms, but I don't think that meeting is likely to happen in sort of the next two weeks, as some have suggested. | ||
| Well, that's and this conversation there, then what are you watching for aside if you think that type of meeting is going to take place? | ||
| What are some clues either way that you're watching for? | ||
|
unidentified
|
What I'm really hoping for is like real working-level negotiations. | |
| So if the Russians are open to having a higher level channel between Russia and Ukraine, that would be great. | ||
| You need to have working-level staffs on both sides willing to talk about where the red lines are, where they're willing to be flexible, where they're willing to make concessions. | ||
| Both sides will have to compromise. | ||
| Same thing with the United States. | ||
| You need a working-level dialogue between people in the United States and people in Russia. | ||
| And that needs to be constant and ongoing. | ||
| This is going to take a long time. | ||
| It's going to take a lot of discussions. | ||
| In the end of one of his true social posts last night, Trump indicated that he was tasking Rubio, Vance, and Witkoff with sort of leading this. | ||
| And I see that as a good step forward, pushing it down to that level, hopefully empowering those individuals to really move forward and make some progress here with real negotiations. | ||
| To me, that would be a win and a really good outcome from the summits that we've seen over the past few days. | ||
| Heather Connolly, same question. | ||
| What clues are you looking for? | ||
| What are you looking for over the next few weeks? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm watching the battle lines. | |
| I'm watching a Russian offensive and troop accumulation to see if there are any more weakening of the Ukrainian defensive line. | ||
| I'm watching very closely the continuation of Russian missile and drone attacks against major Ukrainian cities like Kyiv, like Odessa, like Kharkiv. | ||
| And this is, if there's any change on the battlefield, is, I think, what we're watching. | ||
| This is what makes the fact that President Trump was unable to convince Vladimir Putin of achieving a ceasefire so devastating after the Anchorage meeting. | ||
| And the president was so focused on that ceasefire to, again, just sort of prevent additional killing. | ||
| And again, Vladimir Putin was absolutely unwilling to see that. | ||
| And President Trump did not achieve that in Anchorage. | ||
| I agree. | ||
| I think it's very unlikely that a Putin-Zelensky summit will happen unless there's the Ukrainians are agreeing massively to the Russian demands, which I don't think is in the cards in the medium term. | ||
| And again, until these security guarantees happen. | ||
| So I think we're going to have this conversation for a bit longer. | ||
| Thank you to your incredible C-SPAN audience for participating for such thoughtful, thought-provoking questions. | ||
| And we're going to have to keep this conversation going. | ||
| So thank you so much. | ||
| Our guests have been Heather Conley of the American Enterprise Institute, AEI.org. | ||
| The website, if you want to check them out, Jennifer Kavanaugh with DefensePriorities, DefensePriorities.org is their website to both of you. | ||
| Thanks for giving us your time today. | ||
| We'll finish the program with open forum. | ||
| And if you want to comment on matters of politics, you can do so. | ||
| 202-748-8000-1 for Republicans, 202-748-8000 for Democrats. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| We'll take those calls and open forum when Washington Journal continues. | ||
| In our earlier discussion with Zakir Tamiz about his full biography of Charles Sumner, he discussed his differences with Professor David Herbert Donald on the same subject. | ||
| On December the 24th, 1995, Professor Donald talked about his book called Lincoln on the television program Book Notes. | ||
| David Donald died in 2009 at age 88. | ||
| During his teaching career, which he finished as a professor of history at Harvard, Professor Donald was praised for his Lincoln book by historian Eric Foner. | ||
| Quote, it is often considered the best single volume of Lincoln ever. | ||
| It's the most balanced of the biographies out there, said Foner. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We discuss author David Herbert Donald and his book, Lincoln, on this episode of BookNotes Plus with our host, Brian Lamb. | |
| BookNotes Plus is available wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app. | ||
| And past president. | ||
| Why are you doing this? | ||
| This is outrageous. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This is a kangaroo clause. | |
| This fall, C-SPAN presents a rare moment of unity, ceasefire, where the shouting stops and the conversation begins. | ||
| Join political playbook chief correspondent and White House Bureau Chief Dasha Burns as host of Ceasefire, bringing two leaders from opposite sides of the aisle into a dialogue to find common ground. | ||
| ceasefire this fall on the network that doesn't take sides only on c-span have been watching c-span washington journal for over 10 years now This is a great format that C-SPAN offers. | ||
| You're doing a great job. | ||
| I enjoy hearing everybody's opinion. | ||
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| I listen every morning on the way to work. | ||
| I think C-SPAN should be required viewing for all three branches of government. | ||
| First of all, if you say hello, C-SPAN, and how you covered the hearings. | ||
| Thank you, everyone at C-SPAN, for allowing this interaction with everyday citizens. | ||
| It's an amazing show to get real opinions from real people. | ||
| Appreciate you guys' non-biased coverage. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I love politics, and I love C-SPAN because I get to hear all the voices. | |
| You and C-SPAN show the truth. | ||
| Back to Uverse for C-SPAN. | ||
| It's the one essential news network. | ||
| Washington Journal continues. | ||
| This is open forum. | ||
| And again, the numbers, if you want to give us a call, 202748-8001 for Republicans, 202748-8000 for Democrats and Independents, 202748-8002. | ||
| If you've called us within the last 30 days, if you would hold off on doing so today, we would appreciate it. | ||
| And also pick the line that best represents you. | ||
| Michael is from Massachusetts, Republican line. | ||
| Michael, hello. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| I was wondering, and of course I missed the guests you had on, but I was wondering why the discussion hasn't come up about a demilitarized zone between the warring parties where you could have the European troops on one side and Russia on the other to cease the hostilities and then maybe work on something else longer term. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Michael there. | ||
| Let's go to Alan. | ||
| Alan is in Cleveland, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| As an independent conservative, I do support President Trump. | ||
| He has done a lot on the international scene, resolving other conflicts, especially, for example, between India and Pakistan. | ||
| But I have to say, he doesn't understand the Russian mind. | ||
| Our administration, our Secretary of State, and the State Department don't understand the Russians. | ||
| Right now, I hate to say this, but the President of the United States, the European Union, and our allies are afraid. | ||
| They are afraid of Putin, of President Putin and the Russians. | ||
| Right now, the Russians are busting their guts, laughing and laughing at the United States of America, the European Union, and our allies. | ||
| Now, this problem began when NATO expanded eastward. | ||
| Actually, the Russians do have a point. | ||
| When back in the 1990s, communism started to be on the wane. | ||
| The development happened of expanding NATO eastward. | ||
| This actually, justifiably, disturbed the Russians greatly. | ||
| And the Russians made several overtures for peace in Europe, provided NATO would refrain from expanding eastward. | ||
| This is what has caused the Russians to react like this. | ||
| If I may go back to your original point, what are they afraid of? | ||
| If the president, the European leaders, specifically of Russia, what are they afraid of? | ||
|
unidentified
|
The Europeans and our, you mean the Russians? | |
| What are they afraid of? | ||
| You said that. | ||
| I thought you said that President Trump and the European leaders are afraid of President Putin. | ||
| If that's the case, why is that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
They are afraid of that because they're afraid of confrontation. | |
| They are afraid of going to the Russians and saying what should be said. | ||
| And what should be said is that in order to preserve the peace of Europe, there will be no further expansion of NATO, and we will not corner Russia. | ||
| Now, what happened back in the 1990s when NATO expanded and Russia took offense of this, Russia did make indications of peace, but they said, do not expand NATO eastwards. | ||
| We don't want NATO on our doorsteps. | ||
| That is something to think about. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Now, what's the point of the pressure? | ||
| Hold on, hold on, Coloc. | ||
| I'm going to leave you there. | ||
| I'm going to leave you there. | ||
| Donald in Michigan, Democrats line. | ||
| Hello, hello. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| I was just commenting on Trump's handling of this Russian situation and Israel. | ||
| You know, it's like he's cozy enough to both these guys. | ||
| Number one, in Israel, he's letting Netanyahu do whatever he wants to do, and then he assisted him in the bombing of Iran. | ||
| So I don't know how, you know, he's trying to portray himself as being so strong, but he ain't showing strength to me, you know, because he let Putin do whatever he took funds from Ukraine and, you know, military equipment. | ||
| And, you know, they fighting their hearts out. | ||
| But, you know, Trump, all he had to do was stand up to Putin and say, look, this is America, and this is how it's going to be. | ||
| But I don't know if they're thinking about war or what, a bigger war with the United States and Russia. | ||
| But he's not doing such a great job to me. | ||
| It's all about a photo op with this guy. | ||
| Okay, that's Donald there in Michigan, out of Jerusalem, the Associated Press reporting that a key mediator Tuesday stressed the urgency of brokering a ceasefire in Gaza after Hamas showed a, quote, positive response to a proposal. | ||
| But Israel has yet to weigh in as its military prepares for an offensive on some of the territory's most populated areas. | ||
| The prospect of an expanded assault on areas sheltering hundreds of thousands of civilians has sparked condemnation inside Israel and abroad. | ||
| Most war-wary Palestinians see no place in Gaza is safe, not even declared humanitarian zones after 22 months of war. | ||
| This says that, quote, if this ceasefire proposal fails, the crisis will exacerbate. | ||
| That's a spokesperson for Qatar's foreign ministry telling journalists they have yet to hear from Israel on it. | ||
| Let's go to Henry in Virginia, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Hi. | ||
| So I was just thinking about this situation in Gaza, and everyone says that there needs to be a two-state solution. | ||
| We're trying to find the two-state solution. | ||
| And I think the way Israel is going about the bombing of Gaza, I think it is morally questionable with all the civilian casualties. | ||
| But I don't think a two-state solution is possible. | ||
| You see all these wars. | ||
| There's a war every 10 years. | ||
| Yom Kippur war, Seven Days War, this war in Gaza. | ||
| They've been invaded over and over again. | ||
| And I think a two-state solution is wishful at best. | ||
| And I don't think it's possible. | ||
| So I'm just wondering why everyone is condemning Israel for not seeking a two-state solution when it seems to not have worked in the past. | ||
| Maryland is where Valerie is, and Valerie joins us on our line for independence. | ||
| Valerie, hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, there is recently a pastor arrested in Baltimore. | |
| They said that he overstayed his visa. | ||
| I also had some in working on my house the other day. | ||
| They were clearly from South America. | ||
| I don't understand why he's getting arrested. | ||
| And while we can ask other, I don't know, South Americans to help us with our house, to clean our hotels, but yet this man is getting arrested. | ||
| I'm just confused. | ||
| I thought I was calling on the Republican line. | ||
| I'm a Republican. | ||
| Okay, I'm going to stop you there then only because we ask you to pick the line that best represents you. | ||
| We have three, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, 202-748-8000 for Democrats, and then independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| So if you can call us as you're calling in, pick the line that best represents you. | ||
| We do appreciate it. | ||
| One of the things that came out, other than discussions about the future of Russia and Ukraine at the White House yesterday, reported by Fox News Digital, President Trump declaring that he will spearhead a push to eliminate the use of mail-in voting and voting machines in U.S. elections. | ||
| The story adding that vote by mail has been an institution in Oregon since 2000. | ||
| In that lengthy truth social post that initially happened yesterday, the president asserted, I'm going to lead a movement to get rid of mail-in ballots as well as seriously controversial voting machines. | ||
| He elaborated on those comments during the White House back and forth with reporters. | ||
| Here's some of that from yesterday. | ||
| Mail-in ballots are corrupt. | ||
| Mail-in ballots, you can never have a real democracy with mail-in ballots. | ||
| And we as a Republican Party are going to do everything possible that we get rid of mail-in ballots. | ||
| We're going to start with an executive order that's being written right now by the best lawyers in the country to end mail-in ballots because they're corrupt. | ||
| And you know that we're the only country of the world, I believe, I may be wrong, but just about the only country of the world that uses them because of what's happened. | ||
| Massive fraud all over the place. | ||
| The other thing we want change are the machines. | ||
| For all of the money they spend, it's approximately 10 times more expensive than paper ballots. | ||
| And paper ballots are very sophisticated with the watermark paper and everything else. | ||
| We would get secure elections. | ||
| We'd get much faster results. | ||
| The machines, I mean, they say we're going to have the results in two weeks. | ||
| With paper ballots, you have the results that night. | ||
| Most people, almost, but most people, many countries use paper ballots. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's the most secure form. | |
| That was yesterday, also yesterday. | ||
| Axios and others reporting that the news outlet, News Max, to pay $67 million in a settlement to Dominion voting machines over 2020 election lies. | ||
| This is Axios reporting that. | ||
| There's several other reports from Axios on that front. | ||
| You can read it there. | ||
| You can read it in other places. | ||
| You can comment on voting machines if you want on this open forum. | ||
| Let's go to Blake in New York, Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Oh, hey, how's it going? | ||
| Yeah, I wanted to respond to something from your two previous guests on Russia. | ||
| The one guest, I forget her name to be honest, coming from the Defense Organization, referred to how NATO had expanded when Russia was weak and made it sound like a bad thing to take advantage of when Russia was weak. | ||
| And I think that is something that should have been applauded, that NATO expanded when Russia was so-called weak. | ||
| And I think it should be considered very much that Russia still is very weak. | ||
| They have at best gained a slight upper hand in a battle that by many terms, they should have outright won from the very beginning. | ||
| They were weak. | ||
| They were routed. | ||
| And the United States should continue to press because Russia is weak. | ||
| Putin is a war criminal. | ||
| And the opportunity to completely decimate his government, which is illegitimate, should be pressed. | ||
| And you should strike while the iron is hot. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Mike up next. | ||
| Mike is in Illinois. | ||
| Independent line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Yeah, a couple elephants in a room, maybe a tank tank and their talking points can cover instead of journalism, which is a new journalism, I guess. | ||
| This halt on prosecution during the presidential elections gave us Trump. | ||
| We find out now he was about to hand in four indictments one week after he started running for president. | ||
| I think this invisible law gave us the president the halt of the four indictments he was about to hand it. | ||
| We need to look at this law and what are we protecting criminals with it. | ||
| Also, this Ukraine deal, I think Putin, Trump, and others are baiting Europe into war. | ||
| They're going to bait them into an agreement and then do an attack which will bring in the Europeans. | ||
| This is all a setup. | ||
| And also, are the tanks and the personnel carriers that Trump brought in for his world's smallest parade still in D.C. | ||
| And then lastly, let's leave it there. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| From Lou in Tampa, Florida, Republican line, you're next up. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Hello, Pedro. | ||
| Good morning, America. | ||
| Look, I'm not going to be long-winded here. | ||
| I really support Trump in bringing the European leaders together, and there'll never be peace or a ceasefire unless we're talking and listening to each other. | ||
| And the other thing about going into dealing with the troops and, you know, these guys control like the housing authorities and the apartment buildings and people are living in fear. | ||
| And I think, you know, it's up to the states and the cities to get that under control. | ||
| And Trump's trying to help. | ||
| And thank you so much, Pedro. | ||
| You're doing a great job. | ||
| Awesome. | ||
| Really awesome. | ||
| Lou on our Republican line, Tampa, Florida. | ||
| Again, you can join us as well on this open forum. | ||
| The numbers will be on your screen. | ||
| You can call and let us know your thoughts there on a variety of topics concerning politics, whether it's something you've seen today on our program or other things concerning the world of politics. | ||
| Give us a call on the lines. | ||
| Again, if you've called in the last 30 days, don't do so today if you would, and then pick the line that best represents you. | ||
| The Texas Tribune, a follow-up story, taking a look at the approval of a new map saying that the Texas House Committee again approved a new congressional map Monday, aiming to create five new Republican districts ahead of the 2026 election. | ||
| The proposed map is substantively similar to the version advanced by the same panel earlier this month before dozens of House Democrats left the state to stop the bill from being passed by the full chamber. | ||
| Most of those lawmakers returned on Monday, reestablishing the headcount necessary to advance legislation. | ||
| After a 12-8 party line committee vote, the proposed map is expected to be brought to the House on the floor for a floor vote this week. | ||
| It was at Monday's hearing that Representative Todd Hunter, a corpus Christi Republican, who's carrying the legislation, said the goal was to improve Republican performance and the minor changes made since the map passed for the first time to, quote, increase Republican political performance in existing Republican districts. | ||
| That's the Texas Tribune. | ||
| One of the stories percolating from that, efforts by California to change their maps when it comes to redistricting. | ||
| In fact, at 1:30 this afternoon, well, a couple of things this afternoon that you can stay close to our networks to see about the latest there. | ||
| It was after that the governor, the Democratic governor Gavin Newsom, called for his state to redraw the congressional maps. | ||
| The state legislature has introduced a measure calling for those special elections in November. | ||
| At 12:30 today, the state's senate committees on elections will hold a hearing. | ||
| That will be live on C-SPAN, C-SPAN now on our website at c-span.org later on 1:30 this afternoon. | ||
| The State Assembly Committee will also have a hearing on elections that you can watch live. | ||
| That will be on C-SPAN too, as well as the app and the.org. | ||
| If you're interested in seeing the follow-up of what happens when it comes to the future of California's Congressional District map, let's go to Anthony. | ||
| Anthony in Georgia, Democrats line. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Anthony. | |
| More than yes, thank you. | ||
| You're coming in and out, so either get closer to your headset or maybe put your headset or the device closer to a clear signal. | ||
| Why don't you try it again? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| I'm standing in my clearest point. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Yep, we can hear you. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Thanks for letting me get online today. | ||
| I think from a historical perspective, Donald Trump has earned the peace prize, the Neville Chamberlain Peace Prize. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Haskell from Tennessee, Republican line. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, I have a comment about President Trump's efforts to our interest in reducing crime in Washington, D.C. | |
| I believe his efforts could be so much more effective if he had not sent the National Guard to Washington. | ||
| This seems to be the real flashpoint for people who have a complaint about it. | ||
| And if he had just sent the like agencies like the DEA, the ATF, and the FBI, I believe that much more could be accomplished and there'd be much less backlash about him sending people to Washington. | ||
| Why do you think those agencies would be as effective of as effective as the instead of the National Guard? | ||
|
unidentified
|
The National Guard is just there basically to be seen. | |
| And they are, as reported today, they are in the areas which really don't have the highest amount of crime. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They're just in the public areas, and it's kind of like a photo op. | |
| And so, but the other agencies, if they would just work with the Washington Police, let the Washington Police direct the areas that are going to be concentrated on. | ||
| It'd be like a task force. | ||
| And I just think it'd be, in other words, those agencies are not going to be out patrolling the streets or anything. | ||
| They're going to be in offices working with the police and then go out to make a wrist. | ||
| I mean, to help make arrest and so forth. | ||
| That's a viewers. | ||
| We're showing you a shot of what's known as Union Station. | ||
| It's a major train hub here in Washington, D.C. One of those National Guard vehicles, which you can see there on the screen. | ||
| The Hill reporting this morning that the number of National Guard troops patrolling D.C. will more than double in the coming days after Mississippi, Ohio, South Carolina, and West Virginia in the past several days committed troops to the president's federal takeover of the city, coupled with indications that the Guard members may soon be carrying weapons, a reversal of their initial orders. | ||
| The new deployments mark a major escalation of the president's efforts to take over law enforcement in D.C. | ||
| The roughly 800 DC National Guard troops already deployed in the Capitol will be joined by 200 personnel from Mississippi, between 300 and 400 from West Virginia, 150 from Ohio, and 200 from South Carolina, beefing up a presence that has largely stood idle around typical low-crime tourist-heavy areas in the city. | ||
| Gregory, up next. | ||
| Gregory in Florida, Independent Line on this open forum. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, Pedro. | |
| Every time I call in, I do waste a portion of my time pleading with C-SPAN to not use the divisive Republic, Democrat, and other. | ||
| I really and sincerely believe that that divides us, where if you use, for example, North and South, East and West, that actually allows us to listen to people without a preconception of their bent in politics. | ||
| So I do appreciate the time to put forth that argument, Pedro. | ||
| You have a good day. | ||
| Democrats line from Sean in Virginia. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| You're next up. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, C-S-Ban. | |
| Yes, I just wanted to bring up the subject that the two people were on before. | ||
| If you ever look at the whole Russian doctrine, their concept is still from the 60s when actually the walls went up over in Germany. | ||
| I spent 10 years in NATO, along with other assignments overseas. | ||
| And certainly, the Europeans should have a gigantic say in the protection of Europe, along with many other countries over there. | ||
| You talk about Georgia, Uzbekistan, all of them should have a lot more. | ||
| But the doctrine that has been written and Putin is using, which was a KGB agent in Leipzig, I think, and I was there when the wall came down and he just moved up the chain. | ||
| And I sure hope there's a way to get to peace to help the people of Ukraine. | ||
| We have a lot of soldiers in Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, and they all understand what it's about. | ||
| I sure wish somebody would explain it more in detail from the government up in D.C. Thank you. | ||
| Melissa's next in Las Vegas, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| On March 19th, 2019, Andy Kobuchar, Mark Horn, Jack Weed, and Gary Piers all wrote a letter to saying that they were concerned about the safety and security of the Dominion voting machines. | ||
| Democrat lawmakers were saying that the only secure way for our elections to be safe and secure was by behavior ballots. | ||
| Now they completely switched a route. | ||
| So I don't see why there's lawsuits for saying that Dominion voting machines weren't safe when in 2019 there were senators complaining about the fact that they were not safe and they had many concerns, many concerns. | ||
| Melissa, there in Las Vegas, we showed you a little bit about the National Guard being in Washington, D.C. follow-up stories. | ||
| This included on the front page of USA Today this morning under the headline mayors that the president's profiling cities saying Mayor Barbara Lee and other officials in this California city are treating President Donald Trump's warning that he might send National Guard there as more than just an offhand comment. | ||
| They're bracing for a fight. | ||
| Lee and other black mayors, along with civil rights activists and lawmakers across the country, are increasingly concerned about the president singling out cities like Oakland, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., all of them led by black mayors who are Democrats. | ||
| Quote, we just can't help but feel in some kind of way that we're being specifically profiled. | ||
| That's Van Johnson, the president of the African American Mayors Association and the mayor of Savannah, Georgia, adding, that's not fair. | ||
| We want our federal government to work with us. | ||
| We're just a phone call away. | ||
| Again, more there. | ||
| USA Today, if you want to read it there. | ||
| Jerome up next in Louisiana, Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello, good morning, Pedro. | |
| Real quick, in reference to this mail-in dollars, I think the president has been extremely paranoid ever since he lost the election to Joe Biden in 2020. | ||
| My thing is, why don't he, since he has the Justice Department, the FBI, and every other Republican law enforcement across the country, bring forth proof, bring it to the American people. | ||
| Show us where the election was stolen. | ||
| Show us numbers. | ||
| Show us figures. | ||
| Show us pie charts. | ||
| Show us graphs. | ||
| And I'll be satisfied with that. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| We had a discussion just last week about election security, election machines with an expert. | ||
| You can find that on our website at c-span.org if you're interested in that conversation. | ||
| Also, a lot of conversations about election machine security, voting security, election processes. | ||
| That if you are interested in that topic, go to the website, type in the subject in the box, and you can find everything that this network has done when it comes to that. | ||
| Bob in Republican line, or on our Republican line, Pennsylvania is next. | ||
| Hello, Bob. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello, how are you? | |
| I'm well, thank you. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Why, I disagree with the president taking and sending military into these cities to police. | |
| I mean, they got enough to do without taking over law enforcement in different cities. | ||
| I disagree with this philosophy. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Why do you specifically disagree about it? | ||
|
unidentified
|
A lot of police departments are doing a good job. | |
| They're doing a good job. | ||
| I don't think we need to have military police our streets as a snaps of some of these third world countries. | ||
| That's all I have to say about that. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Speaking of the president, thank you, Bob. | ||
| Speaking of the president on the Fox News Network this morning, and one of the things he was asked about in that interview that he discussed was the future when it comes to Ukraine-Russia. | ||
| Here's him talking about, at least from his part, confirming some type of saying that some arrangements are underway with that face-to-face meeting between President Zelensky and President Putin. | ||
| I think they're doing okay. | ||
| I wouldn't say they are ever going to be best friends, but they're doing okay. | ||
| And we're just going to see. | ||
| So we're setting up a meeting. | ||
| I sort of set it up with Putin and Zelensky. | ||
| And, you know, they're the ones that have to call the shots. | ||
| We're 7,000 miles away, in all fairness. | ||
| You know, we have spent through the previous administration $350 billion. | ||
| Europe has spent a lot also, $100 billion, but it should be reversed if we should have been in for anything. | ||
| But it wouldn't have happened. | ||
| So that would have been much better because so many people died. | ||
| This is the biggest, this is the biggest bad situation. | ||
| I think Russia's had it. | ||
| They've all had it. | ||
| And for a very extended period of time, I don't think there'll be a problem. | ||
| But there'll be some form of security. | ||
| It can't be NATO because that's just not something that would ever, ever happen. | ||
| They couldn't do that. | ||
| So who would want that? | ||
| I mean, if you were Russia, who would want to have your enemy, your opponent, sitting on your line? | ||
| You don't do that. | ||
| From Fox News this morning talking about no only NATO or the future of security when it comes to Ukraine and then that possibility of a face-to-face meeting between the Ukrainian and Russian presidents. | ||
| Tony in Illinois, Democrats line. | ||
| You're up next on this open forum. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Is the president sending troops this stuff to Venezuela to do war games? | |
| Are they going down there after the cartel or what is going on with that? | ||
| Have any information been put out about that? | ||
| Because we know some ships and things have been sent to the Venezuela area. | ||
| What is going on there? | ||
| Kim is in Virginia, independent line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, by getting rid of voting mail-ins, you're risking the rights of the military and their spouses not being able to mail in their votes. | |
| None of us are going to be able to fly home and vote for one day and then go back to our station that we've been assigned to. | ||
| So legally, I don't know how he's going to be able to do that. | ||
| Republican line. | ||
| Ralph in New York. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, hi. | |
| I'm calling in in relation to Russia and Ukraine. | ||
| When we beat, when the Allies beat the Germans, we didn't ask them, would you like to hold on to Czechoslovakia? | ||
| When we beat the Japanese, we didn't say, hey, would you like to hold on to Okinawa? | ||
| This is Putin's war. | ||
| And although Trump wrapped around with his little finger, I would like to propose two ways to get him out of Ukraine. | ||
| One would be to say, if you don't get out of Ukraine, in a month, Ukraine will be in NATO. | ||
| The other way would be to give Ukraine permission to bring the war home to the Russians, i.e., missiles that will bomb Moscow and St. Petersburg. | ||
| And that might very well get the Russian people out on the street saying enough is enough. | ||
| But this idea of Putin holding on to Ukraine territory is insane. | ||
| It's absolutely insane. | ||
| And people who agree with that don't understand who Putin is. | ||
| He'll never keep any agreement he makes, and he hasn't. | ||
| Okay, Ralph in New York. | ||
| Ralph in New York, giving us a call in this open forum, 202-748-8001 for Republicans, 202-748-8000 for Democrats and Independents. | ||
| 202-748-8002. | ||
| We will keep taking your calls up until 10 o'clock. | ||
| The House is set to come in in a pro forma session as they are still out on break. | ||
| No business, no formal business being done. | ||
| Working through some mechanics to the Pledge of Allegiance, maybe some announcements. | ||
| But that's the pro forma session that will take place at 10 o'clock. | ||
| While they're out of session, what some lawmakers like to do are hold town halls from across the United States. | ||
| And it was last night at a town hall held in Virginia by Democratic Representative Suha Subamarian. | ||
| He was a moment there from that in which he was asked about the president's actions, particularly when it comes to immigration. | ||
| Here's some of that from yesterday. | ||
| I'll tell you that just because I'm saying that I can't pass the bill doesn't mean I'm not doing anything on the issue, quite far from it. | ||
| We have quite a bit of power and we can use it when something happens. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You voted to praise ICE. | |
| That's not true. | ||
| You voted to praise ICE after memorialize the victims of a shooting in Colorado. | ||
| Had one throwaway line about ICE. | ||
| I spoke out against that line. | ||
| I've spoken out against the practices of ICE since. | ||
| To say that that entire thing was about praising ICE is simply not true. | ||
| We had a resolution about a terrible shooting that happened and that was our only opportunity to memorialize it. | ||
| And so I think that's part, but that's part of the problem is that the information that people are getting is a caricature of what's actually happening in D.C. People are getting bad news into their social media feeds, into their TVs, and meant to rile them up and click more and more because bad news sells these days. | ||
| And so what I'm trying to do is talk about good news, talk about the things that we can do, and the ways that we can empower people to actually push back. | ||
| And so I would love to work with you. | ||
| If you want to join me in spreading what's going on and what people can do about it, I would love to work with you, absolutely, and work with every single person who's willing on different issues. | ||
| We may not agree on everything, but I can tell you we probably agree on 90% plus people. | ||
| And even Republicans that I meet in the community are fed up too. | ||
| And I'm trying to work with them on spreading news to their Republican friends as well. | ||
| But right now, it's a very difficult time to try to get accurate news to people and trying to get ways that people can help. | ||
| And that's why I do these town halls. | ||
| And that's why I'm trying to be out in the communities to talk to people and get the feedback. | ||
| So you're right. | ||
| It is frustrating. | ||
| I agree with you. | ||
| But let's work out. | ||
|
unidentified
|
For those who are not in the room, though, because there are just as many people outside who are not here today. | |
| I agree. | ||
| I agree. | ||
| You might be interested in that town hall and others. | ||
| We've collected them on our C-SPAN website, Congressional Town Halls. | ||
| Democrats and Republicans alike, as you see there. | ||
| You just saw that one. | ||
| Representative Nancy Mates with the recent one. | ||
| Representative Mike Flood with the recent one. | ||
| That's where they're all collected. | ||
| You can see the exchanges that the legislators take with their constituents, all available at our website at c-span.org. | ||
| Also, when it comes to government leaders talking to their constituencies, Governor Westmore, Democratic governor of Maryland, will talk about the topic of democracy, his take on the Trump administration's policies, and the role that the states have in preserving U.S. democracy. | ||
| That will be at 7 o'clock this evening. | ||
| C-SPAN 2 is where you can see that, as well as our app and the .org. | ||
| Let's go to Will. | ||
| Will and Maryland Democrats line. | ||
| Will, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Thanks for taking my call. | ||
| I just want to comment. | ||
| There are more than 15 federal law enforcement agencies in Washington, D.C. | ||
| I mean, I can't understand why you need to bring in the National Guard because they don't have arrest power. | ||
| Again, with all the federal law enforcement agencies in the city, why not use them? | ||
| And if you really want to do something about crime, do something about guns. | ||
| Guns are the number one tool for committing crimes. | ||
| That's all I have to say. | ||
| Cy is next in Houston, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Howdy, Pedro. | |
| First of all, thank you so much for C-SPAN now. | ||
| I really appreciate that. | ||
| And hopefully, y'all can roll out the Apple TV version as quickly as possible. | ||
| You can call it IC spam. | ||
| I'm glad the Zelensky meeting went well enough yesterday. | ||
| I really think he should focus on returning the Ukrainian children before any further discussions take place. | ||
| Let's not forget, this is not a war. | ||
| It's a special military operation. | ||
| If anybody calls it a war over in Russia, they get seven years in jail. | ||
| So I don't think that you get, you have rights, mineral rights when you're in a special military operation. | ||
| So it's fun that Alaska was the place of the meeting because let's not forget it was sold to pay for war debts. | ||
| And it just so happens that those were for the Crimean War. | ||
| And if it hadn't been, Japan probably would have taken it from them. | ||
| And World War II would have had a very different start. | ||
| Maybe we should think about making an offer for the Soviet Far East and Siberia so that China doesn't take it from them. | ||
| Because they could quickly feel like they're Poland in 1939. | ||
| And lastly, maybe Trump should offer to play his Trump card and send McDonald's in there. | ||
| I think that that would scare Putin more than anything. | ||
| Sigh, before you go, let me ask you a question. | ||
| You had mentioned Apple TV. | ||
| How do you watch us currently? | ||
|
unidentified
|
All right. | |
| So I mirror you all through my phone, through the app on the phone. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And I only have. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But an apple TV app would make it so simple. | |
| And so we're trying to reach out to as many platforms and trying to get this network out to as many eyeballs via platform these days as possible. | ||
| You can always go to our website for efforts on that front. | ||
| We also invite you to contribute directly if you wish. | ||
| It's up to you. | ||
| There is availability for you to do that on the website as well because what we do here, everything that this program and others on all of our platforms really is for you. | ||
| And if you want to become part of that and collectively be part of that effort monetarily, we give you a means there too. | ||
| All that available at our website at c-span.org. | ||
| Wally is in Butler, Indiana. | ||
| Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Hi. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I appreciate it. | ||
| And everything is absolutely wonderful. | ||
| Life is wonderful. | ||
| Being alive is wonderful. | ||
| I know this is a little bit off subject. | ||
| I've never had a computer. | ||
| I've never had a smartphone. | ||
| I've never had an email. | ||
| I have a little antenna on my trailer. | ||
| I get a couple of basic channels. | ||
| I listen to the shows. | ||
| And every once in a while, I dial into the news. | ||
| And the thing that I'd like to project to people is: if you can't do something about it, don't concern yourself with it. | ||
| Like we used to have news on 7 o'clock, Walter Cronkite. | ||
| There was the news, and you went about your business in life. | ||
| You weren't consumed by it. | ||
| And every four years, you'd go to vote and you made your statement, and that was it. | ||
| And you moved on and you cleaned your house. | ||
| You took care of your bills. | ||
| You were a good neighbor, a good friend, and you did things in front of you. | ||
| And I would just wish the people would just realize that if you can't control anything, babbling and screaming, getting so visceral with each other and screaming and yelling, you're just wasting time. | ||
| Resort back to the basics of loving your family, being kind, paying your bills, laughing, enjoying the sun, enjoying the rain, and let politics be. | ||
| Because if you voted, that's all you can do. | ||
| And other than that, you're wasting precious life and precious time. | ||
| And I mean, I just pop in and just look at that and listen to it. | ||
| And every couple of months I call and listen and watch, and people are still doing the same thing again. | ||
| And don't forget to just relax and don't take yourself too serious. | ||
| And after you vote, that's all you can do and move on in life. | ||
| Clean the toilet bullets. | ||
| Okay, Wally in Indiana, thank you. | ||
| This also has been the many things that you can watch on our network. | ||
| One o'clock this afternoon, a planned briefing by the White House with the Press Secretary Caroline Levitt. | ||
| That will be on C-SPAN2, as well as the app and the dot org again to one o'clock this afternoon for that briefing. | ||
| Let's go to Sharon. | ||
| Sharon is in Maryland, Democrats line. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, I would just like to say a couple of things. | |
| First of all, I talked with the gentleman who answered the phone. | ||
| It is next to impossible to get through to you all. | ||
| Very, very, you don't even want to hear about it anymore. | ||
| Number two, Trump is so out of his league, it's unbelievable. | ||
| Number three, talked about voting machines and illegal and this and that. | ||
| The only thing that is interfering in voting is Donald J. Trump. | ||
| And the only reason he has all these distractions is because he's scared to death. | ||
| We're going to find out he's a pedophile. | ||
| Okay, Carla, I'm going to stop you there. | ||
| Ian in Colorado, Independent Line, hi. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, I just wanted to sort of echo what the previous caller said. | |
| And I'm a student of history, Pedro, and have been for many years and a political junkie. | ||
| And what I saw with President Trump and Vladimir Putin was absolutely embarrassing. | ||
| Putin has played Trump so hard, it's not even funny. | ||
| He's gamed. | ||
| Putin has not moved an inch in any direction, has no intention of stopping the war. | ||
| And Trump is just being played. | ||
| And secondly, I think we look ridiculous in front of the European leaders because Trump's knowledge of global politics, he treats it like he's making a deal in Manhattan. | ||
| He's dealing with Vladimir Putin, who has been proved to murder his opponents, et cetera, et cetera. | ||
| So that's my comment. | ||
| People calling in saying, oh, he's trying. | ||
| He's not trying. | ||
| He's trying to get a photo op. | ||
| He put Vladimir Putin in his presidential limousine. | ||
| It was embarrassing to me. | ||
| And so I have. | ||
| But to the point that actually he made these things happen, the meeting with Putin, the meeting with Zelensky on these things. | ||
| How would you gauge that as far as the overall effort do you think he's making on these issues? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I think it's all self-serving, and he doesn't even realize it's a complete gift to Putin. | |
| I'd like to know one thing President Trump got out of these meetings. | ||
| Nothing. | ||
| There's no ceasefire. | ||
| He changes his story every day. | ||
| It's frankly embarrassing. | ||
| What was the gift to Putin then? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Reintroducing him to the Western world, establishing him as a legitimate concerns in Ukraine. | |
| He was banished, basically. | ||
| He hadn't even been to the United States. | ||
| And here he brings him to Alaska and refers to it as Russian Alaska. | ||
| Frankly, it's just embarrassing. | ||
| And I can't wait for this all to be over. | ||
| But if anyone thinks he's going to make progress and get a ceasefire and agreement, it's nonsense. | ||
| America should realize Trump looks like a Russian agent. | ||
| He's a Russian asset. | ||
| I watched the Holinsky meetings. | ||
| I was horrified. | ||
| It's obvious he's Putin's got something on him. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Let's go to Rose in Tennessee, Republican line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Good morning. | ||
| The model being used was outlined in the book Confessions of an Economic Kitman. | ||
| And the pattern used by the CIA is really so predictable, it's hard to believe they continue to use it over and over and over again with nobody asking a single question in Congress. | ||
| Since 1947, the CIA has been trying to destabilize Russia using a neo-Nazi regime of Ukrainian nationalists called the OUN, which later became Azov Nazis, a part of Operation Gladio, which we were told was disbanded, but which is very much alive and kicking. | ||
| We saw them on X bragging about their activity in 2022. | ||
| They also have a base in Virginia. | ||
| The USA put bioweapons in Ukraine for the express purpose of causing alarm in Russia. | ||
| They were placed right across Putin's border. | ||
| Then, under Biden, they installed Zelensky. | ||
| A total joke. | ||
| The CIA bribed him continuously to keep their secrets safe, lying to the American people that there were no biolabs. | ||
| Now, for some reason, President Trump feels Zelensky owes us rare earth minerals for the repeated bribes made by Biden. | ||
| Biden, technically, the world court should be after the USA with a red-hot poker. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Rose there in Tennessee, news of the Epstein files of late over the last day. | ||
| This is from the Associated Press saying the Justice Department agreeing to provide Congress documents from the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking investigation. | ||
| House lawmakers said Monday. | ||
| The records are to be turned over starting Friday to the House Oversight Committee, which earlier issued a broad subpoena to the Justice Department about a criminal case that's long captivated public attention, recently roiled the top rungs of President Trump's administration and has been a consistent magnet for conspiracy theories. | ||
| Quote, there are many records in the DOJ's custody. | ||
| It will take the Department time to produce all the records and ensure the identification of the victims and any child sexual abuse material are redacted. | ||
| That was the Kentucky Representative Jim Comer in a statement. | ||
| Also, in relation to that, ABC reporting that it was former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr sitting for a closed-door deposition Monday as the first witness called in the House Investigation Committee's House Committee's Oversight Committee's investigation into Jeffrey Epstein. | ||
| He served as Attorney General twice under George H.W. Bush and Donald Trump's first administration. | ||
| In addition to Barr, the Oversight Committee earlier this month issued subpoenas for depositions to bill and Hillary Clinton, former FBI directors Jim Comey and Robert Mueller, the former Attorneys General Loretta Lynch, Eric Holder, Merrick Garland, Jeff Sessions, and Alberto Gonzalez for quote testimony related to the horrific crimes perpetrated by Jeffrey Epstein. | ||
| That's from ABC reporting that. | ||
| Let's go to Mobile, Alabama. | ||
| Democrats line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Kyle, how's it going? | ||
| Well, thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Go ahead. | |
| I'd like to ask Pedro if I could, since there's stipulations on running for president with so much. | ||
| And you have to be American to run for president. | ||
| Why shouldn't your spouse be American also? | ||
| And so forth with the voting. | ||
| It seems like, well, we know that Trump is doing all of the taking away the mailboxes. | ||
| Now you can't find a mailbox to even do a million vote. | ||
| And I'd like to also ask Pedro what were his thoughts on having Mr. Putin in America when he is a war criminal. | ||
| And that made us look so bad that he wasn't arrested soon. | ||
| He got here. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Charles in Alabama to answer your first question. | ||
| This is from the archives of the White House saying First Lady Melania Trump is the wife of the 45th President Donald J. Trump and the mother to their son Baron Trump. | ||
| She is the second first lady born outside of the United States. | ||
| And she's the only first lady to become a naturalized United States citizen. | ||
| This adding through her Be Best initiative, she has become an ambassador of kindness and advocate for issues impacting the lives of children and has given the voice to the nation's most vulnerable children and families. | ||
| Doris in Georgia, Independent Line. | ||
| Hi. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| Yes, I'm very impressed with this program. | ||
| And I was touched by the man from Indiana with his observation of how to love your family and do the right thing and not complicate things. | ||
| That's all Trump has done since he's been in office from the first time. | ||
| He's afraid of Putin. | ||
| You know he is. | ||
| He's sold Zelensky out to him. | ||
| And all Putin's doing now is maneuvering to get to Zelensky and kill him like he did the man in Crimea. | ||
| And Trump has just, he just caused so much diffusion in this whole scenario. | ||
| And I would like to quote a Bible scripture that you seem to kind of cut me off when I try to talk about the Bible, but the prophecies all state that in the time of the end, a man will arrive on the scene speaking swelling things full of lies and deceit. | ||
| And that describes Trump to a T. | ||
| But Putin, he's the snake in this scenario. | ||
| He's very cunning and deliberate. | ||
| And the only way you can deal with a snake is cut his head off. | ||
| Frank is from Yonkers, New York, Independent Line. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Hello, good morning, sister. | ||
| Thank you for taking my call. | ||
| I just wanted to say one or two things. | ||
| I hear everybody on the system calling or referring to Putin as a war criminal. | ||
| Well, nothing is going to happen to him, unfortunately. | ||
| Yes, I agree. | ||
| He is a war criminal. | ||
| Well, we've had war criminals here in America. | ||
| When George Bush and Dick Cheney lied and went to Iraq on false pretense, well, according to Hick, they were classified as war criminals. | ||
| What happened to them? | ||
| George Bush is still out there. | ||
| Dick Cheney is still out there. | ||
| And Putin will still be out there. | ||
| Unfortunately, the only time this issue about war criminal works is if you are a head of state from Africa or the Middle East. | ||
| But if you are a European or American, it doesn't work. | ||
| It's very, very sad. | ||
| And the last thing I wanted to say is what we see happening in Washington today, well, believe it or not, just mark this down. | ||
| In four years from today, maybe three years from today, if, for example, Donald Trump refused to leave office, don't be surprised because he's got the soldiers and all these to work for him to prevent the next election. | ||
| Okay, Frank in New York. | ||
| Speaking of the First Lady, by the way, she came up in the course of conversation at the White House after you may remember that President Zelensky handing a letter from his wife to the president talking about the state of children. | ||
| The president responding and asked about that letter that the First Lady wrote to Vladimir Putin concerning children impacted by what's going on. | ||
| Here's some of that from yesterday. | ||
|
unidentified
|
President, you posted on social media, Mr. President, a very touching letter from the First Lady, and the letter was hand-delivered to President Putin. | |
| And it calls for an end to the war, essentially, because of the children and the children's future. | ||
| Why did the First Lady feel that letter was necessary? | ||
| Was it because she believes that Mr. Putin is the aggressor in the war? | ||
| Is a similar letter being hand-delivered to President Zelensky? | ||
| So the First Lady felt very strongly. | ||
|
unidentified
|
She's watched the same thing that you watch and that I watch. | |
| I see things that you don't get to see, and it's horrible. | ||
| But when she's got a great love of children, she has a wonderful son that she loves probably more than anybody, including me. | ||
| I hate to say it, but she loves her son. | ||
| She loves children. | ||
| And she hates to see something like this happening. | ||
| And that goes for other wars, too. | ||
| I mean, she sees the heartbreak, the parents, the funerals that you see on television, always funerals. | ||
| We want to see something other than funerals. | ||
| No, she felt, it was a beautiful letter. | ||
| It was very well received by him. | ||
| And she did ask me to say, you know, she would love to see this end. | ||
| She would love to see it end. | ||
| And she says it very openly, very proudly, and with great sorrow because so many people have been killed. | ||
| Again, that was the president from yesterday. | ||
| A lot happening with not only the meeting with President Zelensky, but also the European leaders as well. | ||
| Go to our website if you want to see more there. | ||
| Also, our app available, too, if you want to see some of the exchanges that took place. | ||
| Let's hear from Ruth. | ||
| Ruth joins us in Michigan, Democrats line. | ||
| Hello. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, this is Ruth. | |
| And I'd like to say that I'm the same age as Trump. | ||
| And I have been through the same time period he has, like the Vietnam War, where he was drafted five times and had doctors lie about him so he didn't get to go to war. | ||
| Now, millions of men had gone to war in many different wars, and he chose not to. | ||
| And that makes him a coward. | ||
| And I want to say, how does a coward run our military today? | ||
| Because he doesn't know anything about it, and he doesn't care. | ||
| So I would like to see someone else as a president that knows what they're doing. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Ruth, the previous president also got deferments from the war as well. | ||
| How does that factor into what you just said? | ||
|
unidentified
|
He is just a loser, and he is a coward. | |
| He wouldn't go. | ||
| Monashima was drafted the same. | ||
| Right, I understand. | ||
| But the previous President Joe Biden also got deferments from war. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Deferments? | |
| From feet? | ||
| Did he have a little problem with his heels? | ||
| So he didn't go. | ||
| Lots of men went to war with flat feet, mister. | ||
| You weren't there. | ||
| Vietnam was a big, bad thing at the time. | ||
| And he was a coward. |