Putin Escalates Ukraine War After Talks With Trump Envoys

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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, is 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 roadmap 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 Witkoff 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 Kirill Dmitriev and with Yuri Yushakov or Sergey Lavrov. And so Putin gave his answer though. And here's what took place at a shopping mall in the Pavlorad 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 Witkoff and Kushner's visit to Moscow and Ukraine, Putin had immediately escalated those strikes on Kyiv. And he was able to get out of the attack. And in the surrounding cities as well, and basically all throughout Ukraine, I want to share with you what went down in Pavlorad earlier. Here, play this clip. Here's more footage over here of what went down in Pavlorad. 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 Podil. District in Kyiv setting a nearby warehouse on fire. More strikes against certain gas stations in Kyiv taking place. I'll show you this footage right here. Let's play it. 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 Carney. They inked a 100-year deal together of Canadian support for Ukraine. Prime Minister Carney 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 it. I think that's really important. And so while you had Zelensky in Canada, you had all of these strikes that I'm talking about taking place. But, you know, Zelensky and Ukraine were striking back as well. We previously had showed you how Ukraine was striking these Azzan logistical facilities and other types of logistical facilities. There was these Wildberry logistical facilities. This is the Azzan logistical facility. Over here throughout Russia have been hit by Zelensky and Ukraine. This is the one in Saratov. Let me show you the aftermath there. This is, you know, deep in Russia here. And as Ukraine strikes logistical centers there, again, you have to show you the B-roll here. Kiev shrouded in smoke again over here. A footage over here of large-scale fires in Hostomel in Ukraine. Dnipro right over here. You're seeing warehouses on fire. Going back to Saratov for a moment, you can see over here the Azzan facility. Zelensky talked about how various oil industry facilities were hit in Saratov and Volgograd in Russia. Also results in the Black Sea. This video was released. By Ukraine. Let's play it. Let's play it. Let's play it. Kushner. trip that they took, that humiliation ritual for the United States, in my view, to Russia and Ukraine. I want to get his view more broadly about the U.S. 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 McFaul, former ambassador to Russia in the Obama administration. Let's bring it in. Now I want to bring on Professor Michael McFaul, former U.S. 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. We're close to two years into this despicable, in my view, 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 U.S. capabilities under Trump in a way that they didn't necessarily have that data point 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 in a rather dramatic way, to your point, that it has accelerated in the second Trump administration. He's been less constrained either by the U.S. Congress or by foreign policy advisors that he had in the first. So I think the macro picture of the U.S. administration is that it has accelerated in the first Trump administration that puts some constraints on him. And now he believes in his ideas and he's pursuing them in a very unilateral way. 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 the future. 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, we're 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 woefully qualified as 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 pointed to or an elected to, and I see people like Witkoff 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. 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 sycophants. They don't have 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. He's gutted the bureaucracy. He's destroyed the State Department. He's destroyed the American armed forces. He's, you know, purged, 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. Witkoff 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. I applauded 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, you know, the president gets to choose his 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 or enduring ally in Canada until this administration. We have lots in Europe. The notion that this is all just transactional and changes over time is very, I just say, it would be inaccurate 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 we're doing with Putin's autocratic Russia. So I just found that to be particularly jarring. The other one was, you know, when he said, you know, Trump believes in win-win 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 listened to that and that's like, okay, we're going to reward war. We're going to reward imperialism 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. Yeah. Keith Kellogg, who was the first former ambassador to Russia and Ukraine. And then Putin said, uh-uh, we're not going to make you, sorry, the former special envoy rather to them. And then Kellogg said, you're not going to be the envoy there. You could just be the envoy to Ukraine. And I want to negotiate with Witkoff. Like Putin said, I want to pick who my negotiator is. It's Witkoff. Kellogg said his big issue amongst many is that he's like, Witkoff, 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, you know, 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 to bail Kushner out that may or may not have had Qatari money go into that. You know, and so these aren't particularly even great business people at all. I mean, Trump's bankrupted a lot. And they're doing a business framework with Putin about a win-win business deal. And that's, I mean, you, you know how international diplomacy, it's not a, we're building a building on Fifth Avenue 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, Witkoff 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 the primary focus. 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, Ushakov, the foreign policy advisor to Putin, Kirill Dmitriev, 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 Kirill Dmitriev. He's not a diplomat either, by the way. He is an investment guy. And ever since, when you watch Witkoff, who is he meeting with first? It's Kirill Dmitriev 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. Witkoff talk, he says all these endearing things about Putin. He somehow thinks that flattery is going to convince Putin to do things. That's never, I don't think that works generally in diplomacy. I think this notion that you're going to befriend 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, you know, the other thing that bothered me about this trip and previous trips, when Witkoff walks into the room, he's so deferential. He's so, I'm so honored to have the pleasure of talking to him. I'm so honored to have the pleasure of talking to him. I'm 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 Witkoff 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 George Shultz was a secretary of state for Ronald Reagan, Republican administration. He also engaged with the Soviets. He has a chapter called re-engaging 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. I think he says, yes, you got to talk to thugs sometimes. You got to talk to dictators. Those are my words, not George Shultz's words. But you don't need to check your values at the door when doing so. And I think when Witkoff does that, he just exposes weakness. And that has led to very bad results. And what are the values and principles anymore 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 Carney is representing, it's Canada, it's sovereignty, it's national interest. He's united premiers 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 the country. You like this, the very concept of that seems divorced from this discourse. And look, Xi Jinping pursuing national strategies, 10, 20, 30 year strategies, which are accelerating. 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. I mean, I think it's interesting 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. There are 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, you know, 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 as 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. And I can't 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. You know, he's the president of the United States. And I can't believe it plays with a guy like Secretary Rubio. And I can't believe it plays with a guy like Secretary day. It's a different peace or 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 traveled 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 we are reliable. You know, just having been in Estonia several weeks ago, we always had this Article 5 commitment, an 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 weeks, we had this commitment to attack on all, and most certainly when that was invoked to, when we were attacked, and the anniversary coming up in a couple of weeks, we had this commitment to 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 is 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, is 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 we'll 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. Well, we'll leave it on that optimistic note, and then we'll have you come back. And I'd love to broaden this conversation. There's so many areas I want to talk about, whether it's the Mecca Pact in the Middle East, whether it is Carney's meeting with the European Union, and there's so much we can talk about. We'll leave it here for now. Okay, let's do it again sometime. And we appreciate you. Ambassador Michael McFaul, former ambassador to Russia under the Obama administration. We appreciate your time. Great conversation. Thanks for having me. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to 7 million subscribers. Hey, if you want the full story, how democracy got here and how we take it back, pre-order our new book, WTF America today. Just scan the QR code or click the link in the description. Let's do this. I'll see you next time.