Michael Weiss: Putin Is Humiliating Trump and His So Called Peace Process

LEMIRE: “Joining us now, the editor at The ‘Insider,’ Michael Weiss. Michael, we’re always so grateful when you join us to talk about the situation in Ukraine and a lot to get to. Let’s start with President Trump’s words just now, where he is claiming somehow that Putin’s behavior has changed during this war, when it has not. Putin has been dead set on claiming Ukraine, or as much of it as he can, since February 2022, if not earlier. And also, tell us about that, the shift you’re seeing. And also, you know, Trump has been angry at Putin before, briefly, hasn’t done anything about it. Putin seems to know that, and that’s why he’s acting in such defiance, continuing these strikes.”
Weiss: “I think the most generous interpretation we can make is that Donald Trump genuinely believes that the force of his own personality, and I suppose his charisma and his intellect, could bend Putin to his will. And that Putin, as a gesture of good grace, if you like, would stop the war, pause the war, diminish his capacity to do harm in pursuit of these negotiations. And, you know, the Russian president’s response is, eff off, basically. He’s humiliating Trump. He’s embarrassing Trump’s so-called peace process. He’s showing through fire and steel that he has absolutely no interest in stopping the war, either temporarily or permanently. I mean, the Russian goal has been, from day one, the complete conquest of Ukraine. What they can’t capture through military means, they seek to capture through political means. I mean, Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s press secretary, said this in ‘The New York Times,’ or was quoted in ‘The New York Times,’ rather, saying, we would very much appreciate if America’s political structures would essentially complete our ambition for us, which is the wholesale capture of the state of Ukraine. So I think Donald Trump is finding out the hard way that he cannot end this war. Certainly, he wasn’t able to do so in 24 hours, as he famously said on the campaign trail. He can’t even do so in the space of more than 100 days of his second term. Now, the question is — and here’s where I’m a little bit skeptical, actually, more than a little bit skeptical — the question is, what is he prepared to do about it? There’s a lot of things in the U.S. arsenal, and I don’t just mean weapons arsenal, sanctions, financial penalties that can be inflicted. A0nd Lindsey Graham, who is the Trump whisperer in the Senate, has this neutron bomb of a sanctions package, which would impose 500 percent tariffs on any country importing oil, gas, petroleum products, or uranium from Russia. He says he’s got more than 80 senators on board to pass this bill. It’s a veto-proof majority. Where is it? It is well past time to impose a cost on what Russia is doing. And yet, here we are, talking about future talks, possibly at the Vatican. Trump is very upset, but he’s upset not to the point of preparing to do anything policy-wise. So this is — this is the source of Ukraine’s frustrations.” [crosstalk]