Transcript
Jamie Rubin (0:02)
This is a global player original podcast.
Christiana Amanpour (0:08)
Literally horrified I was last week when I heard this leaked so called peace plan for Ukraine. I don't know what idiots they take us to be or the Ukrainian people.
Jamie Rubin (0:18)
Russia wakes up every morning and attacks them and tries to take more territory and invades villages and attacks them with drones and missiles all over the country. Putin doesn't want to stop the war he still thinks he can win.
Christiana Amanpour (0:30)
When they started hearing about this peace plan, Peace plan. I hate even using that word. This 28 point surrender document.
Jamie Rubin (0:38)
Why have we handed our public square to Chinese companies and to American tech bosses? What have we done?
Christiana Amanpour (0:45)
Mamdani and Trump in the Oval Office scrambled everybody's brains. Nobody could believe it. It was a masterclass in outfoxing the expectations. Hello everyone and welcome to the latest episode of the X Files with me Christiana Amanpour in London and Jamie Rubin.
Jamie Rubin (1:06)
In New York State, former official in two state departments, one under Clinton, one under Biden.
Christiana Amanpour (1:12)
Yes, and I'm a longtime CNN ER reporting in the field. Wars, crises, all the rest of it. Now I try to make sense of all this stuff that the leadership of the world is putting before us with my own show trying to hold leaders account. So here's what we're trying to do today yet again, trying to figure out which side is up on the Ukraine Russia situation because it looks like Trump keeps changing his mind and we'll get there in a sec. So has he tried to sell out Ukraine? Is he abandoning the relationship with other key US Allies over this or not? And are the tech bros taking over U. S Politics I. E? Is it deal makers versus Policymakers and how worried should we all be about it? So Jamie, let us jump in. So first and foremost, literally horrified. I was last week when I heard this leaked version of the latest so called peace plan for for Ukraine. And as Tom Friedman has said, or at least the headline says, this is a catastrophe and disaster. I genuinely believe that if it does land in the original form that was leaked, which apparently was all Russian dictated, it's a complete Neville Chamberlain's class appeasement and a sellout and demand for capitulation. On the issue of what Russia wants again, and we've reported this over and over again, Russia has not changed, but not one iota its maximalist goals, which it said, you know, as it invaded in 2022, before it invaded in 2022 and ever since it invaded, they've literally asked for Ukraine to reduce the size of its army. Never ever to, in other words, to change its constitution and never to say that it wants to have anything to do with n to allow NATO peacekeepers in, if there's any, you know, even if there's a freeze along the current front lines. And what else did it want to do? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Not just take the bits that it's staying in right now, but get more than it even has that it doesn't even control. I don't know what idiots they take us to be or what idiots they take the United States to be or the Ukrainian people, which has to be said. Some latest poll said something like 69 of them want a negotiated deal. Obviously, now they're fed up and. But they want it on Russian terms. They want it on, you know, normal terms. And 24% apparently want to fight to the end and reconquer everything, which is also pretty unrealistic at this point. But things are moving. The Ukrainians and their European allies are pushing back. So where do you think we are today as we record?
