Would Trump really pull out of Ukraine? With John Mearsheimer | SpectatorTV

[Music] thank you John and Freddie thanks for joining me Freddie you write for the magazine this week about how having a Republican president could change America's position on Ukraine under Joe Biden the U.S has spent more than 70 billion dollars helping Ukraine how would a Republican president and I think more specifically in this piece a trump president change that well I think Trump's made it very clear uh what he intends to do he said that um he says three things about it he says first of all if he were President Putin never would have invaded Ukraine it's impossible to say whether that's true or not um secondly he says Europe's not paying enough America's paying far more than Europe to the war effort and he'd make the Europeans pay more and thirdly he says he would resolve the conflict within 24 hours within a day of entering the White House and I think what's quite interesting about this is a lot of hawks on the British side on the NATO side and in America on the Republican hawkish side the Republican party uh worried that he actually might do that uh but to their mind that would mean making concessions to Russia uh rewarding Putin's aggression as they put it which would then encourage Putin to uh be even more aggressive in the future possibly with other states the baltics and so on uh and I thought it was interesting very telling this week that Boris Johnson who's now become a sort of global cheerleader for the for the war effort went to Texas to talk to some rich uh Texas Republicans and some politicians and to sort of G them up to say that you are still backing the right horse Ukraine's going to win this fight there's going to be a magnificent counter punch this summer and the Russian military will collapse I suspect a lot of people at lunch believed him he makes the case very forcefully the difficulty for the Republican party is a lot of their voters and the polls show this a lot of their voters are not aligned with that position on Ukraine and as this election approaches that's going to come into sharper Focus Fred you mentioned there that Trump says things like if I had been president Russia would have never invaded on comments like that comments that he can end this war in 24 hours do you think the public buy it well I think that points towards a golden rule of Republican campaign Dynamics now which is that Trump can say anything and get away with it and other candidates can't right for instance Ron DeSantis uh recently a few weeks ago uh found himself sort of boxed in on the question of Russia because I think by Instinct he's more of a conventional more of an atlanticist but he was pressed by the now sacked Fox News host Tucker Carlson to say what what is America's national interest in fighting Russia and Ukraine or being involved in the war in Ukraine and he replied he said it's not a vital National Security interest for America to be further entangled in Ukraine and he was much criticized for that in the media and it didn't result in the Republican base uh rallying towards him in fact if anything I'm sure there are lots of other factors involved if anything his polling has declined since he made that statement but Trump can say I'll resolve it in 24 hours and he gets away with it because nobody sort of asks him the further questions it needs to be even on CNN a hostile interviewer only wanted to ask him do you want Ukraine to win and he said I just want people to stop dying and the crowd in New Hampshire broke into Innovation uh the most sensible question I think to ask him would be how exactly are you going to do that right indeed um we'll come back to Florida's governor he's had a big week but John I want to bring you in you're of course known for saying that NATO should take some of the blame for what's happening happening in Ukraine but let's pivot specifically to their Republican party position here what is the mainstream Republican opinion about Ukraine and how big is this issue going to be the issue of the war in the 2024 election I think you have to distinguish between the elites and the public and it's very important to understand that what the public thinks here in the United States just doesn't matter very much the elites just do what they please there's no question that there are a lot of doubters in the public both on the Republican side and on the Democratic side and it's likely that the number of doubters will grow with time but the question is how's that going to affect the elite and the argument that's being made is that the Republicans are beginning to go soft on Ukraine at the elite level and that if Donald Trump gets elected there's a really good chance uh that he'll pull the plug on the ukrainians this is not going to happen in my opinion the United States is backing Ukraine to the hilt and if the United States withdraws its support for Ukraine its material support Ukraine is going to collapse it can't stand up to the Russians the Russians would win a big victory it's hard for me to imagine that any American leader whether it's Donald Trump or Joe Biden is going to allow that to happen it's just not going to happen we are too deeply committed to this War uh there's too much russophobia in the United States there's too much talk about the fact that this is an existential threat that we're facing with Russia for us to cut and run and allow Ukraine to go under furthermore just think about what the consequences will be for China our credibility people will argue will be destroyed if we allow Ukraine to lose so I think Trump talks a good game but what he actually does when he's on in office assuming he gets reelected in 2024 is another matter and I would note here that there's a final point that Donald Trump when he ran for president and in his initial few months in the White House said that he wanted to improve relations with Russia he viewed Putin as a friend he wanted to put an end to Nato and get out of Europe none of that happened and in fact what did happen is that in 2017 it was Trump who started arming the ukrainians Obama much to his credit had the good sense not to harm the ukrainians but Trump decided to arm the ukrainians and we were as tough on the Russians during the Trump Administration as we were in any other Administration so Donald Trump can talk all he wants about how he's going to do 180 degree turn regarding American policy on Ukraine but in my opinion that's not going to happen if he gets reelected you mentioned there that you think more fatigue will set in when it comes to the war in terms of American opinions of it South Carolina Senator Tim Scott has just launched his presidential campaign uh with a very different view he thinks that Joe Biden has not done a great job of explaining to the American people why the interventions have been so substantial in Ukraine but that there is a case to be made if you look at polling numbers in the states right now they're certainly increasing debate between Americans about just how long the U.S should be supporting Ukraine a debate between say one to two years and then indefinitely but there does still seem to be a lot of support a majority of support for helping Ukraine there's no question about that uh and uh it's hardly surprising if you look at how we talk about Russia in the United States and in the west more generally these days Vladimir Putin is portrayed as the devil incarnate there's extreme russophobia in the land and the Biden Administration and the establishment foreign policy establishments in the west more generally have done a brilliant job of propagandizing uh this war so it's unsurprising that uh large chunks of the body politic and all these Western countries are committed to seeing Russia defeated do you think it's propaganda again Port Ukraine or is it the fact that they watched Vladimir Putin March his tanks over the border into Ukraine no it's clearly the propaganda campaign it's truly amazing the extent to which our discourse here in the west is limited so that we end up supporting the ukrainians at every turn and opposing the Russians at every turn there's hardly anything that's ever said that's positive about the Russian effort or that's a possible explanation in Russia's favor for why this war happened this is a truly outstanding case of extreme propaganda the only case that I think comes close is what happened in both Britain and in the United States during World War One you want to remember that in World War One there was no equivalent of Pearl Harbor or 9 11 that brought us into the war and as a result Woodrow Wilson had to go to Great Lengths to mobilize the American public to back the war this was especially true because the two biggest ethnic groups in the United States at that point in time were German Americans and uh Irish Americans and Wilson was deeply fearful that the German Americans would not fight against Germany and the Irish Americans would not fight with Britain so we launched an amazing propaganda campaign and uh I think that since then there has been no equivalent to that propaganda campaign until recently when Russia invaded Ukraine and we have gone to Great Lengths to portray uh the Russians in the most negative light and to silence people who might have a somewhat different View and that would include someone like me of course Freddy Trump used to get a lot of criticism when he would go and shake hands with these dictators and human rights abusers and his argument would be well look at the results don't look at the handshake look at the results I am moving America away from this heavy interventionist foreign policy and he would claim he was successful indeed I think and he certainly moved the Democrat Party into a more isolationist point of view um do you think one of the reasons he's so hesitant to say how he would actually do what he's pledging to do to bring the war to an end in 24 hours is because those handshakes would not be feasible now he would not be able to Buddy up to Vladimir Putin in the same way he would have to take more hostile approach and frankly that that could lead to results that um that lead to very different results than what the president is promising I'm not sure I think Trump's approach is always the sort of real estate uh approach to to foreign policy which is you know you make deals you take positions you you deceive people with your positions if you have to um and I think where Trump is effective as a campaigner is that he often says things that Americans think but no one in the public eye or no one in the elites if you like uh will say so he there's a famous moment when he was asked about um foreign authoritarian governments doing terrible things and he said do you think we're so innocent uh and this was taken as a very anti-American statement but actually I think a lot of Americans know that their government has not done uh has done terrible things in the world and and they're quite honest about that um so I think he has a he has a rhetorical ability with it his deal-making ability as an as an Statesman is I think as John suggests uh much exaggerated but you you know the fact that he would be willing to talk to Vladimir Putin is willing to say that he would be willing to talk to Vladimir Putin is does make him a different type of politician to a lot of the other candidates Freddie this week Florida's governor Ron DeSantis has launched his presidential campaign on Twitter and if anyone's going to be a challenger to trump it is thought at the moment anyway that Ron DeSantis will be that person and even if we just break this down into name recognition some of the other candidates running Don't Come Close with his policy towards Ukraine be much different from Donald Trump's well his recent statements on it suggests that no it wouldn't um but he'd certainly talk about it more in the language of international statesmanship he wouldn't be saying I'll just make a deal with uh Putin and you know because I know his strengths and weaknesses and I know zelenski's strengths and weaknesses and so I'll just I'll fix it um he'll talk more about International interests and the national interest and I think so far it looks as though he knows that the conservative basically wants to Rally are much more skeptical about what America's doing in Ukraine than the rest of the population and so I think for now he's he's tilting towards Trump Tim Scott on the other hand is tilting towards the more hawkish position and talking about you know it being a national interest to degrade uh Russia's military so that it can avoid an attack on UK's Sovereign land uh I think that's a that's a an odd position and I think a lot of Americans will think it's an opposition because they'll think well how is is Russia really threatening American sovereignty and is not the war that is currently being conducted increasing the likelihood of the only feasible albeit unthinkable will attack on America from Russia which is a nuclear one which of course would be the end of the world could I quickly just respond to something that Freddie said I think he's exactly right that Trump views himself as a deal maker and he thinks that he can move in here and he can talk to Putin he can talk to zelenski he can use pressure on zelenski and he can cut a deal the problem that Trump faces is not simply that there would be resistance from the rest of the establishment if he tried to do that the problem the real problem is there's no deal to be had here right nobody can figure out what the solution is to shutting this conflict down and there are two reasons for that one is the territorial issue the Russians are not going to give back the territory they've conquered and the ukrainians want that territory back and you can't square that Circle furthermore the Russians want Ukraine to be a neutral State and Ukraine wants a security guarantee and that can only come from the west and you can't square that Circle so there is no deal to be had so you know there's all this talk these days about using the Chinese as a as a forced or as a moderator to work out some sort of deal that's not a viable argument because again it has nothing to do with the Chinese it's the fact that there's no deal to be had so Trump can talk till he's blue in the face about cutting a deal but there's no deal to be had but he would and John obviously you're the great expert on international relations so I defer to you on this but he would have leverage I mean Americans power is unrivaled uh he would have significant leverage over Ukraine because of the support that America has provided uh Ukraine and he would have significant leverage over Russia because of the threat that America Campos to Russia and the fact that the war has not been going according to Russia's plan so far I think you're absolutely right that he would have significant leverage over the ukrainians not total leverage but significant leverage but I don't believe he'd have any leverage over the Russians the Russians don't trust the Americans whether it's Trump or Biden as far as they can throw them and the Russians have a deep-seated interest in taking as much of Ukraine as they can uh and turning the remaining part of Ukraine into a dysfunctional rump State and the promises from Donald Trump that they'll work out some sort of meaningful deal and therefore the Russians can make concessions it's not going to wash the Russians no longer trust us and they shouldn't trust us there's also a question about what would happen to president zielinski if he did come to the table and walked away with a deal that your average Ukrainian did not think was acceptable they could well oust him and bring in somebody else it strikes me that there's no guarantee that either side frankly would necessarily declare this war over even if president Trump did I I agree with that and I think it's not your average Ukrainian it's the ultra right in Ukraine there has long been a powerful ultra-right a nationalist right in Ukraine uh that wants to make no concessions to the Russians and is heavily into de-rucification of uh Ukraine and those people uh would be very hard to get on board and zielinski's had his problems since he was elected dealing with those people so I agree completely without you completely with what you say your average Ukrainian of course has has also been out there fighting I mean clearly there is still support amongst the country for for trying to defend what what they want to keep and but Freddie my last question to you is if Trump were to become president and he were to implement his agenda I think we've established a lot of question marks over that agenda um what would other Western countries be able to do would they be able to keep supporting Ukraine would they be able to do this without the United States I mean I think a trump second Trump presidency would be a Graver threat to Nato uh than the first presidency was there was a lot of fear about um NATO uh being Trump was going to tear NATO apart and so on because he didn't really see the point of it uh in his first term he just was agitating for for other states to contribute more money he didn't want America to pay so much I think in the second term with this situation in Ukraine with all the pressures going on uh I think it would be a Graver threat to Nato uh I don't make any moral judgments whether that's a good or bad thing uh I just think that would be the dynamic [Music] thank you [Music] foreign

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Length: 19min 32sec (1172 seconds)

Published: Tue May 30 2023