This week America switched sides. Ukraine is out. Russia is in.
President Trump has blamed Ukraine for starting the war that was started by Russia and America's traditional European allies are in a state of shock tonight, Trump's stunning pivot to Putin and what it means for America's role in the world. Next. This is Washington Week with The Atlantic.
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Rubenstein studio at WETA in Washington, editor in chief of The Atlantic and Moderator, Jeffrey Goldberg. Good evening and welcome to Washington Week. There was a time when America could be counted on to support the goals of the NATO alliance, and that time was technically at least, last week.
This week, America's allies in Europe, partnerships that were formed in the aftermath of World War II have been left wondering if they'll ever be able to count on America again. And they're not the only ones from East Asia to the Middle East, from Panama to South Africa, leaders are scrambling to understand Trump's wishes and desires. I'll scramble tonight as well, with my guests, Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent at The New York Times.
Susan Glasser is a staff writer at The New Yorker. And Jonathan Lemire is a contributing writer at The Atlantic as well as co-host of Morning Joe on MSNBC. Thank you all for, for joining me.
We have news just as we were coming on set, President Trump has fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General CQ Brown, Air Force general, 4-star general, 2 black, uh, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, um, Jonathan, surprising that he would fire him? No, not at all, even though it's unconventional traditionally these are roles the chairman stays through presidencies, but we heard from Pete Hegseth, the new Defense Secretary some weeks ago saying that he said General Brown should be fired. This is before Hegseth was confirmed in the post because Brown was too focused on the woke policies of diversity, equity, inclusion, DEI, which we know President Trump to this point has really targeted across federal agencies, including at the Pentagon.
So this was something that had been widely expected would happen in the next couple of weeks. It happened moments ago, right, Peter, what does it mean? For the military that they fired a general.
Very Relatively quickly into his term. Well, look, President Trump in his first term tried to assert control over the military in a way that went beyond what the normal commander in chief does, not just as, you know, a defense for the country against external enemies, but as a tool potentially for internal use when he had domestic criticism, and that's where he got into a fight as you've written, uh, and we've written and you've written, they were all written with Mark Milley, the previous chairman of the Joint Chiefs who resisted what he thought were at times, uh, certainly unwise, maybe on illegal and unconstitutional desired by the president to put troops in the streets. So clearly there's a decision that seek you Brown is not somebody that he can trust to carry out his bidding.
We don't know what that bidding will be and you think that it's, it's the acid test for Trump is willingness to put troops in the streets against American citizens. It would be striking no if he had not made a conversation about the Insurrection Act, a part of any interview for who is going to take his place, right, and Susan, one more question on this. Um, CQ Brown was characterologically or dispositionally, very, very different than his predecessor, General Mark Milley.
Milly got into trouble with Trump for speaking his mind, uh, pretty loudly. Um, CQ Brown, one of the most cautious generals, uh, flag officers that are probably all of us have ever met, very deliberate, very careful, very quiet. Didn't save him.
No, it didn't save him. Donald Trump has made it very clear that he wants people who are loyal to him personally and not to the office, not to the constitution, and I'm looking for Jeff to understand whether this is just one firing or whether we're going to see a wholesale purge of generals as a number of news outlets have been reporting, and I think that's a deep concern when you look at Trump's agenda, it really suggests a politicization of the the nonpartisan leadership of America's armed forces if general are being replaced on the basis of perceived political loyalty to the president, and I think remember again that US Congress has a role in this. The Senate has to confirm Trump's new chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and I think it's an appropriate set of questions for them to ask as to why, uh, has this apparently a 3 star general been elevated to this position and what questions were asked of him, uh, by Donald Trump.
So I think we're going to be talking about the insurrection Act. It is in the coming weeks in a way that we maybe didn't think we were going to be, but we'll, we'll, we'll obviously stay on top of that, um, next week. I want to pivot to the main subject tonight.
um, the small subject of America's global alliances and the Alliance for Freedom that was established after World War II. Susan, um, I want you to walk us through what happened this week, but I want, I want to read something that you just wrote in The New Yorker. um.
One difference from Trump's 1st 4 years in office is that he is now adopted not only a pro-Putin take on Russia's conflict with Ukraine, but an approach to foreign policy overall, which echoes Putin's throwback view of the world as a playground for predatory great powers to exert nearly unlimited control over the smaller nations that fall within their sphere of influence. So with that as backdrop, um, Describe what has happened over the last few days. Yes, Jeff, I think that, you know, when you look at Donald Trump's view of Ukraine, he's always had a very dismissive view of Ukraine, and now we see him overtly over the last week, taking steps, uh, not only to pull back on America's support for Ukraine in the 3 years since Russia launched its full scale invasion 3 years this week, the United States, along with our European partners, has provided tens of billions of dollars in military assistance.
We have essentially kept Ukraine. In the fight with Russia, Donald Trump is not only saying no more military assistance to Ukraine. He now seems to be overtly parenting Russia's view of the war, and that I think was a breathtaking moment that we will remember was what happened this Tuesday afternoon when Trump in a press conference in Mar a Lago explicitly said to Ukraine, it's your fault.
That Russia invaded you. How is inexplicable, but I think it bespeaks a shifting role for the United States in the world where we are not only an uncertain partner for our European allies for Ukraine, but many Europeans are now wondering whether we're outright adversaries. We seem to be taking Putin's side in this catastrophic and deadly war, the largest war in Europe since the end of World War II, Peter, go back to this quote that Susan is referring to.
Um, basically that he said despite are what we see with our eyeballs that Ukraine started the war. What, what is the, I'm not asking you to shrinkify the guy, but, um, what's the thought process that leads him to say that Ukraine started this well, look, he's saying you could have made a deal, you could have given up your territory. You could have been like Czechoslovakia in 1938 and said just take to Dayton but why would you do that?
Of course you wouldn't do that. And of course Ukraine wouldn't do that, nobody in Europe would have thought that would have been a good idea, and nobody in Washington would have thought that would. been a good idea until now, but you heard him switch, as you said at the beginning sides in this.
He calls Zelensky a dictator without elections. Now, Vladimir Putin is an actual dictator who has had only farcical elections for 25 years. Zelensky was elected in a free and fair election five years ago.
It's true they're not having elections now because of martial law. They are in the middle of a war, but he was a popularly elected official and no contrary to what Donald Trump said, his approval rating is not at 4%. It's around 57%, which, by the way, is higher than Donald Trump's.
What did Donald Trump say about Vladimir Putin today? What did he say about him this week? Did he reproach him for this invasion?
No, he didn't. He said it wasn't Russia's fault. Vladimir Putin sent the tanks in, sent the planes in, sent the rockets in, but it's not Putin's fault.
Let me get, let me ask a very specific question. Given this new reality. And again, it's a febrile reality, so we don't know what next week will bring, but Jonathan can can Ukraine win.
by its own definition of what winning is a war in which the United States is not helping. They have said themselves they can't. Zelensky has said that they, the nation is reliant on US support financially, military equipment, and the rest.
Europe has stepped up. Europe has given as much as it can to this point, but Zelensky said they cannot do. There's some talk tonight that maybe there's some reporting tonight a minerals deal of some sort might be close that would for some sort of US aid, but it's not clear if that's simply a payment for retroactively.
what the United States has already done or whether that would mean more aid is coming, you know, just about an hour or so ago at the White House. Trump was asked if Putin was a dictator, refused to answer the question. He has not done so again.
We have seen time and time again he has been deferential to the Russian version of this conflict and what we've seen here taken in tandem with what Vice President Vance had to say at the Munich Security Conference in recent days seems to be a shift of the complete approach for the United States, not just to Russia, but to our longtime European allies. Jonathan, I want, I want to stay with you and I want to show you a clip from 20018. of a press conference with Donald Trump and and featuring Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Jonathan Lemay with a different haircut.
We're all younger then just watch this for a minute and we'll talk about it. President Putin denied having anything to do with the election interference in 2016. Every US intelligence agency has concluded that Russia did.
What, who, my first question for you, sir, is, who do you believe? I have President Putin. He just said it's not Russia.
I will say this I don't see any reason why it would be. President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today. Uh That was a hinge moment in history.
It, it, it turns out, um, that was a very, um, there's a very important question that you asked, and the answer suggests that we're That the reality this week is not a new reality, that this is where he's been all along. Yeah, he is consistent in his, his approach to Putin. He, you know, has put point blank right then, who he believes the US intelligence agencies are or Moscow.
He picked, he picked Putin, and I think we're also seeing there's a personal dimension to what we've seen this week, where it's not just that Trump is deferential and seems to have respect for Putin but has none of it for Zelensky, who he called a, I believe, moderately successful. comedian in a true social post a few days ago who has clearly had personal animosity since his first term in office. Well, let's remember he pushed Salansky to dig up dirt on Joe Biden, then Vice President Biden and his family thinking there would be allegations of corruption in Ukraine that he could use against him in that upcoming presidential election that ended up leading to Trump's first impeachment trial because he withheld military aid, so he is had personal animosity towards Zelensky as much as some sort of to a degree affection for Putin.
Yes, Peter and Susan, I want to ask you, you're both former Moscow correspondents, um. You, you have a lot in common. You might want to think about getting married, um, uh, you both spent a lot of time, uh, and you've written.
Extensively including books on this, um, what is the attraction, Donald Trump has for Vladimir Putin. Go as deep as you can. Well, look, this is a central mystery still to this day, 8 years after his first election to president, we don't really have a very convincing answer.
If you ask people around him who spent time with him, you get two answers. One, he loves Strongman. He loves people who were authoritarians.
He loves Xi Jinping of China. Erdogan of Turkey, Sisi of Egypt. He called my favorite dictator.
that he has he has some sort of a, you know, a relationship or uh uh identification perhaps with people he perceived to be strong men. The other answer you get from people around him is money. But in the end, Russia was the golden chalice he never quite got that he wanted to build there.
He wanted to make a lot of money there, and he therefore was, uh, you know, catering or kowtowing to Putin as part of a years-long effort to try to build in Moscow that never actually worked. Yeah, I mean, I think the other thing to note here is that he has Putin. view of the world and you know, from his perspective Russia crushing its neighbor and incorporating it back into uh the boundaries of the former Soviet Union makes perfect sense.
Look at how Donald Trump is threatening Canada, our very, very friendly neighbor to the north and saying that it should become our 501st state, uh, so when Vladimir Putin says, well, you know, Ukraine doesn't have a right to exist as an independent entity. I think that, you know, something Deeply uh ingrained in Donald Trump as well, but frankly, I don't think the explanations are sufficient, Jeff. Uh, it's true that he has a generic liking for strong men, but it's also true that he has had a a fixation on Russia and on Putin for a very long time.
There was a mass note that Donald Trump wrote to Vladimir Putin when he appeared as Time magazine's Man of the Year, many, many years ago before Donald Trump even entered the White House. He had a very specific, uh, you know, kind of admiration for Vladimir Putin that that even exists outside of his time in the political realm, and, but again, you know, Let's not sayo analyze Donald Trump. Let's look at his actions, which are remarkable, jarring, very consequential, and in many ways very un-American.
The statements that he's made this week, I don't believe that there's a precedent of any of our lifetimes Republican or Democrat who would say such things about a murderous dictator in the way that Donald Trump has, and I think it's very important to be clear about that and also to recognize that there are so many, so many people who have been, you know, sort of cast. the fog of like, well, maybe Donald Trump, he's going to be a Reaganesque Republican. He's going to support Ukraine.
Let's just say once and for all to cut through the kind of spin that many of Trump's enablers have been having and to sort of say like, yeah, Donald Trump has been very clear for many years now about preferring Russia and preferring Vladimir Putin. I ask all three of you a question? Is there Has there been or is there now, a democratically elected Leader Of a an American ally that Donald Trump respects.
I think our silence says a lot. We're all racking our brains Shinzo Abe of Japan likes him, did OK in the first term. What was the secret there?
Golf, golf, flatterlattery golf and flattery. We reported in our book, in fact I'm asking for deep psychoanalysis and I'm getting and latter. Well, this is the best news in our book we recorded, yeah, we reported that Trump remember Shinzo Abe actually nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.
In our book we reported that Trump personally asked him to do it, right? Would you please nominate me and Peter, I've asked you. The same favor any number of times, yeah, yeah in the mail.
So he, so, so, so Trump asked Shinzo Abe and Abe, unlike Zelensky, I mean, I would say it's a, it's a sillier request, but Abe said, yes, he wanted to help. Is there anyone else, anyone currently? Shinzo Abe's gone, obviously, I mean, he was OK with Boris Johnson for a stretch, but, um, that's about it.
That's about it, yeah. What is it about democratically elected leaders that turns him off and that, yeah. and that's where he's picking the fights right now.
That's where the tariffs are coming. China accepted like it's, it's, he's targeting the allies far more than America's traditional adversaries and what's also a part two of this what's so interesting is he's a member of the Republican Party and the Republican Party, you know, was the Russia hawks. They prided themselves on being tough on national security, being tough on Moscow and we've seen a little bit of pushback this week, um, some sort of suggestion from some Republican senators saying, well, we don't think Vladimir Putin is a good guy, but Very little, very little outright criticism of Trump, a little bit from Senator Tillis yesterday, a Senator Wicker, but beyond that it is simply maybe Trump's misinformed rather than he's wrong.
Benjamin Netanyahu, just to mention, well, a conflicted relationship with that conflicted and also a semi-strong man who's trying to change Israeli politics to make it easier for him to stay, I think this point that's really important about these Republican officials is that some of them may have more traditional. Republican views of foreign policy and of Russia, but when it comes to a choice between their quote unquote deeply held principles, and Trump, they tend to choose Trump and I think Trump humiliated essentially his new national security adviser Mike Waltz. There's an extraordinary moment in the White House briefing room just yesterday in which Waltz's own words were quoted to him where he called essentially Trump and murderous thug who was responsible for the war.
They said, Sir, do you, sorry, Putin, and they said, sir you still agree with this, and he said, no, I agree one with Donald Trump on everything. Um, I want to, um, read something from, uh, something the vice president JD Vance said the other day. Um, the one of the strongest arguments against.
Uh, or, or for not staying the course with, with, with Ukraine. He, he, he tweeted out, um, while, uh, our, well, our Western European allies' security has benefited greatly from the generosity of the United States. They pursued domestic policies on migration and censorship that offend the sensibilities of most Americans and defense policies that assume continued over reliance.
Now put aside for a moment the question of the European cultural differences and, and, and what they do spend money on domestic. Um, it's also true. That America's European allies for Decades have underspent while we have overspent on their defense.
And so I'm just, you know, wondering, I mean, to give this, to give their arguments some credit, could all of this rhetoric, all these threats from the Trump administration actually lead the Europeans to build up their own defenses in a way that are, that's that's going to be less reliant on the American soldier coming to their rescue. Yes, that may be the ultimate response here, but look, the the person who made Europe decided to increase their Military spending in the last few years was Vladimir Putin, right? Trump badgered the NATO allies time and time again in the first term to spend more, spend more, spend more.
A few of them did, but frankly, by the time he left office, still only about 6 of the allies met the 2% of GDP goal by the time Biden left office after the full scale invasion. Suddenly, it's now 2/3 of the alliance is meeting that goal, not because of Trump and not really because of Biden, but because of Putin. Yes, and Jeff, I think you're right.
This is an important point to make the presidents of both parties actually going back to Barack Obama and remember his Defense Secretary Bob Gates, they pushed the European allies. They said, you know, you can no longer rely upon an open-ended American security commitment and you know this was a theme for quite some time, and that's what led to the allies making this agreement that by 2024 they would agree to spend a significant percent of their GDP on defense. Now Donald Trump wants to raise that to 5% of GDP to be spent on defense and By the way, even the United States does not spend anywhere near that.
Actually, we're under 4%. I believe it's about 3. 8%.
So you know, the bottom line is that Russia's threat and its revision to the European order, that's going to cost everybody more money, and so I think you see a real shift. The question I have is not only is the United States going to move away from Ukraine, but what about our NATO partners in Eastern Europe? What about the three Baltic states?
What about Poland are is their security now compromised by Donald Trump as well. I want to come to that in one second, but Jonathan, I want to ask you this from the perspective of a White House reporter. There are a lot of different ideologies stuffed into the Trump team.
There's a conservative internationalists. There's kind of muscular interventionists. There's isolationists.
How does that stewpot, how does that work in there right now it's confused. I mean, we not just the the national security advisor, but The Secretary of State Marco Rubio as senator was very pro-NATO, very, you know, in a Russia hawk, and this week we have seen exactly the opposite when he and his some of his colleagues spoke to reporters in Riyadh after the first round of Russian-US talks, talks from which Ukraine was excluded, no mention at all of the atrocities Russia has committed. No mention of all of the war crimes, the charges against Vladimir Putin instead about the transactional economic opportunities about a better relationship between Uh, Moscow and Washington.
So there is diversity there. We saw Keith Kellogg, someone who is much tougher on Russia today tweeted to praising Zelensky with flying in the face of what Trump has said about him this week, but Kellogg also potentially sidelined from some of the Russian talks. We know how unpopular he is in Moscow.
You covered the first months of the first Trump term, and it's very different that the Mattis, Pompeo's, and so on. Rex Tillerson's, the adults. You're saying they're gone?
Well, they did the guard rails are not in place and the adults who are in the room right now back then had success pushing back. I mean you say Marco Rubio might be an adult, but he's not arguing his Trump's worldview and he's not in the room. That, that's, that's interesting.
I want to come back to something just to a final round of something that was just brought up. This is a quote from the Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, who said recently that the credibility of the United States depends on how this war ends, not just the Trump. Administration, the United States itself.
You agree? I, I think so. It's such a dramatic course correction from where we were from what President Biden said, how he pledged that they would, the US would stay with Ukraine till the end and and going back further, this is about everything that's been in place since World War II, and it seems that the Trump The president's view is wildly different and seems like, yes, he wants the war to end, but he's not doing so in a way consistent with what has been traditional American values and foreign policy approach.
I think the message from Sikorsky and people like them is, is, don't forget Kabul. You don't want to have Kabul happen on your watch, right? He's trying to keep them from completely abandoning you, you mean a chaotic withdrawal, a chaotic collapse of exactly, exactly that you, you've set Ukraine on the path to what's happened in Afghanistan under Biden.
You hear that from some Trump people saying that's the one caveat as he is. Catering to Putin is that they don't want a disastrous ending. That's the one thing he fears.
Susan, does Donald Trump Actually care if Russian tanks roll into Kiev. No. You want to expand on that?
Look, Jeff, he's been very clear. This is Russia's sphere of influence. He thinks that Russia has a right to do whatever it wants in its sphere of influence.
He prefers Vladimir Putin. He's at the point of almost openly advocating this week for Vladimir Zelinsky's ouster, whether it's through political means or otherwise. So he has pictures, but he actually believes that Ukraine belongs to Russia.
I believe it's It seems to me that he has a regime change policy for Ukraine. Well, that's a heavy note to end on, but I'm sure we'll be talking about this in the, in the weeks ahead. Um, uh, we're all gonna have to leave it there for now, but I want to thank our panelists for joining us, and I want to thank you at home for joining us as well.
Um, for more on the end of the post-World War II international order, please read Anne Applebaum's latest piece on The Atlantic. com. I'm Jeffrey Goldberg.
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