Putin Escalates Ukraine War After Talks With Trump Envoys

My 10 is not on. This is too much.

I'm still waiting for this. I'm not sure if I can get it. No, you're just a bit late. You're just a bit late. All right.

“All right. They're just like a fish with a fish.”

A lot of animals. They're just like a lion. Okay. That's great. More comfort. Craft and dynamic. All right. The passport.

All right. The passport is just a bit late. I'll try. Stay out there. All hell is breaking loose as Putin has given the world his answer about what he and Donald Trump talked about. Frankly, Donald Trump gave his answer as well.

Before Donald Trump went to that deranged so-called Republican midterm convention, Donald Trump said that he had a great call with Putin. He said that Putin was telling him that he wanted to make a deal, but only if Zelensky would agree to basically giving up all of Ukraine and Donald Trump's like,

we'll see if we can get Zelensky to do that as essentially the horrific thing that Donald Trump was stating or implying meanwhile,

you had Yuri Yushakov saying that we never even were presented

by the Trump regime any type of road map to a solution. And Yuri Yushakov said, you know what we've been talking to the Trump regime about is no more aid at all to Ukraine either direct or indirect.

“And that's what we think the Trump regime is ultimately going to do.”

And Yushakov made it very clear that it's either going to be Russia's way to Donald Trump or no way at all Donald Trump showing absolute and utter weakness. And one thing that I think was notable as well is that there was a leak that CIA director John Ratcliffe was going to basically take over negotiations with Putin and with Moscow following that

deranged and just awful visit by Whitkov and Kushner. But even CIA director Ratcliffe's like, I want nothing to do with this at all. He denied that he's going to be involved in negotiations at all with Putin and with Caril Demetria,

and with Yuri Yushakov or Sergei Lavrov.

And so Putin gave his answer though and here's what took place

at a shopping mall in the Pavlurad area. This was in the city center shopping mall in broad daylight. There was at least four or five people who were killed. There were dozens of people injured.

“You can see that people were trying to run from the attack.”

They're mostly teenagers who were there at this time. And Putin gave his answer to Trump following Whitkov and Kushner's visit to Moscow and Ukraine. Putin had immediately escalated those strikes on Kyiv and in the surrounding cities as well.

And basically all throughout Ukraine, I want to share with you what went down in Pavlurad earlier here play this clip. I want to share with you what you're doing here. I want to share with you what you're doing here.

I want to share with you what you're doing here. Here's more footage over here of what went down in Pavlurad. This is about I'll just show you nine seconds of the aftermath you can see for yourself. Let's play it.

And then in the past 24 hours, there have been multiple Russian missile strikes hitting office buildings in Kyiv. This one hit the podium. District in Kyiv setting a nearby warehouse on fire.

Here play this clip. More strikes against certain gas stations in Kyiv taking place. I'll show you this footage right here. Let's play it.

Yeah. But look, Zelensky has been striking back. Two things to note right now. Zelensky is in Canada. He's been there for a few days visiting

with Prime Minister Corny. They ink day 100 year deal together of Canadian support for Ukraine. Prime Minister Corny. Also, I think implying in his speeches

that the shoulder to shoulder view of Canada and Ukraine is built on shared values and principles. But also the idea that Trump sees Canada, the way Putin sees Ukraine.

you had all of these strikes that I'm talking about taking place.

But Zelensky and Ukraine were striking back as well. We previously had showed you how Ukraine was striking these Azan logistical facilities and other types of logistical facilities. These wild berry logistical facilities.

This is the Azan logistical facility over here throughout Russia. Have been hit by Zelensky and Ukraine. This is the one in Saratav. Let me show you the actor math there.

This is, you know, deep in Russia here. You can see for yourself. (wind blowing) And as Ukraine strikes logistical centers there,

“again, you have to show you the B-roll here.”

Keep shrouded and smoke again over here. New footage over here of large scale fires in host-to-mell in Ukraine, Denipro right over here. You're seeing warehouses on fire. Going back to Saratav for a moment.

You can see over here the Azan facility. Zelensky talked about how various oil industry facilities were hit in Saratav and Volga grad in Russia. Also results in the Black Sea. This video was released by Ukraine.

And you can see for yourself, let's play it. In other words, the Wittkov and Kushner trip was an absolute failure. Russia feels more emboldened than ever. And as we're recording this,

you have the bricks block meeting, taking place in New Delhi, India, where you have, you know,

“all the founding bricks countries and others.”

And they feel that the bricks alliance is stronger than ever, as Donald Trump has been attacking NATO, as Donald Trump has been attacking allies, as Trump attacks Canada and Greenland. And so who better to talk to about this?

Then the former ambassador to Russia during the Obama administration. Why don't I bring on Professor Michael McFall, former ambassador, McFall? And I want to speak to him about what's going on right now

when Ukraine and Russia want to get his feedback. And his thoughts about the Wittkov Kushner trip that they took that humiliation ritual for the United States and my view to Russia and Ukraine. I want to get his view more broadly about the US standing in the world

under the Trump regime. And what he thinks generally about all of these current events and developments let me bring on Professor McFall, former ambassador to Russia in the Obama administration. Let's bring it in.

Now I want to bring on Professor Michael McFall, former US ambassador to Russia during the Obama administration. Michael, it is great to see you. I want to first start by zooming out and talking about the macro picture here,

where close to two years into this despicable, the Trump regime and equally despicable foreign policy that I just think has made us weaker abroad. And it does seem to be accelerating lately as well since this catastrophic war in Iran.

And the way it was executed in addition to the fact that in my view

we should never have done it in the first place.

“But the way it was also executed I think has provided additional”

intel to foreign entities about US capabilities under Trump in a way that they didn't necessarily have that data coined before. So let's zoom out and talk macro picture what you're seeing right now. Well, the macro picture over the last two years

has made America worse off, less secure, less prosperous, less committed to values that used to be embraced by democratic and republican administrations alike. And a rather dramatic way to your point that it is accelerated in the second Trump administration.

He's been less constrained either by the US Congress

or by foreign policy advisors that he had in the first

Trump administration that put some constraints on him. And now he believes in his ideas and he's pursuing them

And when I say unilateral, I mean both as a country,

but also within the country. There's not much deliberation. There's no such thing as a real national security council that meets. He doesn't confer with our Congress.

And he most certainly doesn't talk to our allies. He doesn't talk to the United Nations. That's a joke. He doesn't even bother to think about them. And it would be one thing if it were achieving objectives.

“But I think on almost all dimensions were worse off”

than we were two years ago. And most certainly when it comes to America's standing in the world, America's reputation in the world, the polls on that are overwhelming. We have just crashed at that time that China is rising. And so if you're worried about America's long-term security,

prosperity, pursuit of our values, we're not doing a very good job right now. There's the policies themselves, which we'll talk about, which are in my view, disastrous. And then there are the implementation of those policies,

which in many ways are even more disastrous than the disastrous policies. And so before you and I may have disagreements and serious disagreements with policy directions, of prior administrations, but we rarely doubted that the people who were communicating them were not qualified,

or so wofully qualified has to almost be a movie like dumb and dumber, except it's the reality of our kind of current geopolitical situation. So it's not funny. I mean, to me, when I see people representing the United States with positions, they were in a point to do or an elected to.

And I see people like Whitkoff and Kushner showing, again, what it means to not be qualified. They go there and then they demonstrate, oh, this is exactly why in my view, you shouldn't be here, the things they're saying, both in Moscow and in Ukraine.

“What was your view of that overall trip that they took?”

Well, first to your broad point, I agree completely. Their ability to implement policies is very constrained, even compared to the first Trump administration to your point. I didn't agree with a lot of it, but when they made a decision, they could implement it.

This particular team is different in two respects. Number one, the people that have the top jobs, don't seem to ever push back on President Trump. They're just sick events. They don't seem to have their own opinions.

That's never good for American foreign policy in the past.

It's most certainly not good now. And then second, you know, he's gutted their bureaucracy. He's destroyed the State Department. He's destroyed the American Armed Forces. He's, you know, encouraged.

I think is the word I would use.

“A lot of our most senior respected generals,”

and that makes implementation all the harder. To the specific point of Mr. Whitkoff and Mr. Kushner, going to Moscow and Kiev, I want to say, I do support America, the United States trying to end this horrible war. My plotted President Trump when he said he was going to do that.

But he has no strategy to do it. And most certainly, I mean, he just keeps appeasing Putin. He just keeps giving Putin gifts, expecting nothing in return. And to the specifics of those two gentlemen,

you know, the President gets to choose this team, Democrat or Republican, I get that, that's our system. But there were a couple of comments that were just really galling to me as both a professor, a student of American foreign policy, and a practitioner of it for five years in the Obama administration.

One was when Kushner said, "There are no permanent friends and enemies in the world." And I looked at that and I was like, "What empirical basis is he making that on?" For a long time, we had a permanent enduring ally in Canada

until this administration, we had lots in Europe. The notion that this is all just transactional and changes over time is very, I just say, in accurate historically. And then he doubled down on Germany and he said, "Well, we used to be enemies and now we're friends."

Well, he forgot in that historical metaphor that we became allies because we destroyed the Nazi regime and the Nazi army

first, then we occupied them, then we helped them build

democratic institutions, none of which were doing with Putin's autocratic Russia. So I just found that to be particularly jarring. The other one was when he said, you know, Trump believes and when, when outcomes he's a businessman,

and we're just looking at a way to make Putin happy and make the people of Ukraine happy. And I just listen to that and that's like, okay, we're going to reward war.

because his preferences have to be treated

“in the same value as the Ukrainian people.”

And I just thought those were really bad frames and therefore not likely to produce results.

Keith Kellogg, who was the first former ambassador

to Russia and Ukraine and then Putin said, we're not going to make you, sorry, the former special envoy rather to them, right? And then Kellogg said, you're not going to be the envoy there. You could just be the envoy to Ukraine

and I wanted to negotiate with Witkov. Like Putin said, I want to pick who my negotiator is Witkov. Kellogg said his big issue amongst many is that he's like Witkov is like a real estate guy

that Trump knew in Manhattan. And when I saw this guy, he thinks this is like a business real estate transaction for like air rights over a building on Fifth Avenue. He's like, that's not, that's just not what this process is.

And then Kushner's got his own equity fund in the region and is thinking about things in terms of, you know, increasing his investment but you go back to the first Trump administration with Kushner. Kushner couldn't run the one building that he had

and then people forget about this but there was the blockade of Qatar

“and then there was the, you know, private equity”

that had a bell Kushner out that mayor may not have had Qatari money going to that. You know, and so these aren't particularly even great business people at all. I mean, Trump's bankrupt of that.

And they're doing a business framework with Putin about a win-win business deal. And that's, I mean, you know how international diplomacy it's not a, we're building a building on Fifth Avenue as a situation.

You're right. But Putin thinks you're wrong. It's been very clear to me

from the very beginning of the Second Trump administration

that the Putin strategy was to engage with the United States and with those particular people, Whitkoff in particular, to make this about win-win economic transactions

for Americans and Russians. That's the primary focus and ending the war dealing with Ukraine. That's secondary. It was clear when they first showed up

the first meeting between Secretary Rubio and Foreign Minister Lavrov. By the way, the Russian team, they're all the same people that I dealt with when I was the ambassador, the exact same team.

Lavrov, Bushikov, the former policy advisor, Putin, Caril Dmitryev, the head of the investment fund for Russia, and obviously Putin. They're exactly the same team.

I know all these people. And when they showed up, there was Caril Dmitryev. He's not a diplomat either, by the way. He is an investment guy.

And ever since, when you watch Whitkoff, who is he meeting with first, is Caril Dmitryev, because the Russian strategy is to say work with us,

and we will do multi-billion dollar deals

with you all. And tragically, I think it's working. I mean, when you listen to Mr. Whitkoff talk, he says all these endearing things about Putin, he somehow thinks that flattery

is going to convince Putin to do things. I don't think that work is generally in diplomacy.

“I think this notion that you're going to”

defend somebody, and then they're going to do you a favor. I don't think that even works with our allies. It most certainly doesn't work with Putin. Somebody I have directly been in the room with for many years, and studied his career

for his entire time in government. Flattery for him is a sign of weakness. And then secondly, I would just say the other thing that bothered me about this trip and previous trips. When Whitkoff walks into the room,

he's so deferential. He's so honored to have the pleasure to be with you. You've been trustworthy. He said that when he was in Kiev, by the way. About Vladimir Putin, and I can tell you,

Ukrainians found that just so insulting. And somehow Whitkoff believes if he checks his values at the door and flatters Putin, he's going to achieve results, it just doesn't work that way. And don't take my word for it.

I urge your viewers and listeners to go look at George Schultz's memoirs. George Schultz was a secretary of state for Ronald Reagan, Republican administration. He also engaged with the Soviets.

He has a chapter called Reengaging the Soviets, because he thought it was our national interest to do so. But one of the things he says in that chapter, I think it's chapter 29. I've read it so closely.

He says, yes, you've got to talk to thugs sometimes. You've got to talk to dictators, those are my words, not George Schultz's words. But you don't need to check your values at the door when doing so.

And I think when Whitkoff does that, he just exposes weakness. And that has led to very bad results.

that the United States stands for under the Trump regime?

There seems to be none.

“It seems to be make Trump money, make Trump happy,”

potentially others in Trump's orbit, but to me they're disposable. And there's no sense of national interest at all, which is kind of again another macro concept. I mean, when you look at what prime minister Karney is representing,

it's candidates, sovereignty, it's national interest. He's united premieres on the basis of national interest. I mean, in a very different example when the U.S. is engaged in this catastrophic war with Iran, nonetheless, Iran and their leadership is still working in their perception

of a national interest about what they're doing against Donald Trump, who's there, meaning every day and making it about him and making himself the actor in this thing. And it's like, you represent a country. You like, this is a very concept of that seems divorced

from this discourse. And look, Xi Jinping pursuing national strategies, 10, 20, 30 years strategies, which are accelerated. I know I said a lot of things, so let me try to focus the question, which is first Asia, then let me go to Canada,

and then let's do a NATO to wrap it up. But let's talk about Asia right now. What you're seeing over there, because Xi Jinping is rising in a way he was before, but that's accelerating fast. Well, before I get to China,

I just really want to associate myself with what you just said. This is the over personalization of American foreign policy.

Now, presidents always put their stamp on foreign policy.

They're different doctrines named after different presidents. But I've never seen anything like this or studied anything like this. It's just about what Trump thinks and what Trump believes. They don't sit to the best of my knowledge in the national security council meetings, in the White House situation room, where I used to sit with President Obama,

with everybody at the table debating foreign policies, what's good for us, what's bad for us, what's the cost of pursuing this policy versus another. There's no evidence that they do that. And so he over personalizes things.

He makes decisions, getting in a war with Iran, getting in a trade war with Canada based just on his personal preferences. And then he doubles down. And he just does juvenile things. I mean, what he's done with Canada is an American.

I am just so embarrassed as a proud American citizen by the things he said, these memes he's put out. It's just embarrassing. I believe this plays with anybody, but his strong base. I can't even believe it plays with a guy like Secretary Rubio.

This is all just the president personalizing American foreign policy in ways that, in my view, do not advance America's interest. And by the way, polls show that most Americans agree with me.

“I think this has something that is really important under score.”

There's been this argument in my world. He circles about oh Trump's Trump's not the cause of these policies. He's just the reflection of these deep structural things going on in American society.

That was very popular back when he first won the first time around.

And there are elements of that. I want to say it's not black and white. But I think we overdue it when we think that these things are what the American people want. The polls show really clearly. Americans don't want to invade Greenland.

They don't want to have a trade war with Canada. They didn't want to get into a war with Iran. They don't support Vladimir Putin. And they like allies. And I think Trump is really out of step with American society right now.

But now to your question about China.

“Here's an example where all this stuff matters for what I think are the big national security interests facing United States in the 21st century.”

I just wrote a book last fall called Audit Crats versus Democrats. China Russia America and the new global disorder. And front and center in that book was the challenges we will have for decades to come with managing a very difficult competitive relationship with China. To me, that needs to be the focal point of American foreign policy moving forward for a long, long time. And what Trump has done is he's weakened our standing around the world.

That's good for China. He makes us look like a rogue state by this attacking of Iran. It puts us in the same category in the eyes of people around the world as Putin and Ukraine. That doesn't serve America's national interests. And yet what it came to confronting China and he said he was going to do that. He played a game of chicken with Xi Jinping and then he backed down.

And that, I was just in China a few months ago, that play with respect to trade made America look weak.

And yet when it comes to our most loyal enduring democratic allies in Canada and Europe and in Asia, Trump insults them.

“And I just don't think this is a long term strategy for advancing America's national interests that you rightly emphasize.”

We do have national interests and presidents usually try to define them and pursue them. Just as over personalizing ways that I don't think are good for the American people. Right, I mean at a basic level, we don't even have to over complicate it. There's foreign policy, Trump, there's no policy. It's kind of foreign Trump wakes up and feels some way today.

And that's what we do. And then maybe tomorrow he does another thing. Then he makes a threat and then he backs down.

There's no any core to any of this. You mentioned China, one of the very first tacos that Trump did when he said I'm going to do 150% tariffs on China and then Xi Jinping was ready.

Okay, we're going to withhold rare arts markets crashed right away. And then within an instant Donald Trump rushed to China, you know, we got to do a deal. Then he came up with some framework of a framework of a fake framework of a framework in May. And then Trump celebrated that China was going to buy 13 million metric tons of soybeans when previously Xi Jinping was buying 26 million metric tons of soybeans. And so it was half and then Trump declared that a win.

And then I think Xi saw that and said, oh, got it. He said, when I was speaking with Susan Rice, Ambassador Rice about that, she goes, Ben, even beyond the memes when he does these threats.

And then the threats are, by the way, war crimes and threats that should never be made in the first place.

Then he makes his own fake deals with himself the next day. We've never seen that before. He's, he's, he's showing weakness and, and making these weird threats, it's bizarre and ultimately the world's figured out.

“This guy's weak. Like, that's why it looks like a loser to the world's stage now. And that's where I think a lot of countries are out. Are you seeing that?”

Yes, tragically. Yes. With our allies, he looks weak, but he also, you know, people are just done with his bullying ways. They're tired of it. Everybody's applauding the prime minister of Canada, Carnegie for what he has done and they're saying enough is enough. But to our competitors, our autocratic competitors, that's where he looks the weakest to your point. He changes his mind erratically, the way he's conducted the war in Iran every other day. It's a different piece of war. It's very erratic. And it undermines the long, you know, countries, leaders of countries around the world.

They have to make calculations about their country's long-term national interests based on a relationship with the United States. And I see this paradox. I travel a lot in Europe. I was just in Asia a couple of times in the spring. Actually, I was in Beijing just days after President Trump was there. And what I see with our allies is doubt whether weak are reliable.

Just having been an Estonian several weeks ago, we always had this article five commitment and attack on one is an attack on all.

And most certainly, when that was invoked to when we were attacked and the anniversary coming up in a couple of days, NATO responded, all of our allies responded. NATO soldiers died next to American soldiers fighting for our security 25 years ago. Now, there's a lot of doubt about that. And so you see hedging strategies, particularly in Europe, about we have to think about alternatives if Americans will not be with us. But the same thing as in Asia where allies and even partner countries are thinking, well, maybe we can't rely on the Americans.

So maybe we better have better relations with the Chinese. And I just don't think this serves America's long-term interests. But I also don't think it serves the world's long-term interests because a world dominated by China and threatened by Russia.

“I think it's a very unstable world. And so I hope that the trajectory we're on right now under President Trump is not a long-term one.”

In fact, I'm pretty optimistic it's not a long-term one. It's so deeply unpopular here at home that I'm confident in predicting will have a change when we have a change in administration. Even if we had a Republican elected, but most certainly if a Democrat wins, I think there'll be quite a radical change. And I hope that the damage done right now will not be so deep and long-lasting and scarring that it'll be difficult to unravel. That's a hope that's not a prediction.

There's so many areas I want to talk about whether it's the mechapact in Middle East, whether it is

“Carney's meeting with the European Union and we there's so much we can talk about. We'll leave it here for now.”

Okay, let's do it again next slide.

And we appreciate you. Ambassador Michael McFall-Former and Ambassador to Russia under the Obama administration. We appreciate your time.

“Great conversation. Thanks for having me.”

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