Trump's Views On Russia-Ukraine War Are Shifting

Summary

Summary of "Trump's Views On Russia-Ukraine War Are Shifting" | The NPR Politics Podcast

Episode Release Date: July 10, 2025

Hosts:

• Ashley Lopez – Political Correspondent
• Greg Myhrey – National Security Correspondent
• Mara Liasson – Senior National Political Correspondent

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1. Introduction

In this episode of The NPR Politics Podcast, hosts Ashley Lopez, Greg Myhrey, and Mara Liasson delve into the evolving dynamics of U.S. involvement in the Russia-Ukraine war, with a particular focus on former President Donald Trump's shifting stance.

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2. Current State of the Russia-Ukraine War and U.S. Involvement

Timestamp: 01:09 – 02:44

Greg Myhrey provides a comprehensive overview of the ongoing conflict, highlighting a recent surge in Russian military aggression:

• Greg Myhrey states, "Russia fired about 400 drones and 18 missiles into Ukraine, many of them at the capital, Kyiv." (01:27) He emphasizes that these attacks are primarily targeting civilian areas to "overwhelm Ukraine and sap the morale of civilians" (01:27).

• Mara Liasson asks about the current U.S. policy, noting, "So, Trump has been on again, off again, feeling bad about Zelensky, good about Zelensky, bad about Putin, not so bad about Putin." (02:24)

Greg responds by outlining the precarious nature of U.S. military support, mentioning that existing aid packages are depleting and that the Pentagon has paused some weapons deliveries for a global review. He underscores the uncertainty surrounding future assistance: "Ukraine needs a lot of support. It needs to be ongoing. And it's just not clear where it's coming from right now." (02:44)

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3. Trump's Policy and Shifting Views on Russia-Ukraine

Timestamp: 05:35 – 08:03

The discussion shifts to former President Trump's evolving stance on the conflict:

• Mara Liasson remarks, "He [Trump] has been seen as somebody who's favorable to Putin for a variety of reasons. But lately, things seem to have changed a bit." (05:35)

• Greg elaborates on Trump's recent comments, noting a softening tone towards Russia: "Trump is sounding more consistently critical of Russian leader Vladimir Putin. He said this week that he... 'Putin is not treating human beings in the right way, and he's even used a bad word or two.'" (03:05)

Despite this shift, Greg points out that Trump has not committed to concrete actions: "From his perspective, the Trump administration just seems very, very soft on Russia." (04:13)

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4. Congressional Support for Ukraine

Timestamp: 04:25 – 07:02

The role of Congress in supporting Ukraine is examined, revealing bipartisan efforts yet limited progress:

• Greg Myhrey highlights, "Lindsey Graham, the Republican from South Carolina, he's been pushing a sanctions bill. He says there's more than 80 senators. So obviously this has strong bipartisan support." (04:25)

• However, the potential impact is questioned as the bill excludes major players like China and India: "Even if this passed, Trump says he's thinking about it now. Again, some movement, but no real commitment." (04:25)

• The discussion also touches on the lack of new weapons packages for Ukraine, emphasizing reliance on U.S. systems for air defenses: "There's not really an alternative for Ukraine." (05:35)

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5. MAGA Base Perspectives on U.S. Involvement in Ukraine

Timestamp: 06:47 – 08:03

Mara Liasson and Greg Myhrey explore the divided sentiment within the MAGA base regarding continued U.S. involvement in Ukraine:

• Mara Liasson observes, "There is both a big isolationist trend in the MAGA base... and a strain of MAGA that sees Vladimir Putin as simpatico, that he is a supporter of cultural conservative stands." (07:02)

• Greg adds, "You saw this right before the Iran attacks. A lot of parts of the mega base didn't like the idea of President Trump getting involved in the Middle East, but he did it, and they quieted down." (07:02)

The hosts conclude that Trump retains significant influence over his base, who are unlikely to oppose his stance on foreign interventions as long as it doesn't involve U.S. ground troops.

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6. Comparison to Trump's Handling of Other Conflicts

Timestamp: 09:38 – 11:21

The hosts draw parallels between Trump's approach to the Russia-Ukraine war and his handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict:

• Mara Liasson notes, "He has touted himself as a great deal maker, and he hasn't been able to make a deal to stop the war in Ukraine or in Gaza." (10:00)

• Greg Myhrey emphasizes the complexity of these conflicts: "These are people with deep, longstanding grievances and national goals. One relationship between the leaders or one phone call or one weekend meeting is not going to sort them out." (10:34)

The conversation underscores Trump's tendency to oversimplify intricate geopolitical issues, leading to frustration over unmet promises of swift resolutions.

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7. Future Developments to Watch

Timestamp: 11:55 – 13:24

Looking ahead, the hosts identify key factors that will shape the U.S. role in the ongoing conflict:

• Greg Myhrey plans to monitor the escalation in Russian drone and missile attacks, noting a significant increase: "A couple nights ago, Russia fired more than 700 drones into Ukraine overnight." (11:55) He questions the sustainability of such tactics and their implications for Ukraine's resilience.

• Mara Liasson highlights the critical need for continued military aid: "Does the president ask Congress to approve the money for more military aid to Ukraine?" (12:59) With existing aid packages nearing exhaustion, the availability of U.S. support remains uncertain.

• The potential movement of sanction bills in Congress and Trump's willingness to endorse them are also areas of focus: "Also whether the president agrees and gives Lindsey Graham the go ahead to push the bill to increase sanctions on Russia." (12:59)

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8. Conclusion

The episode wraps up with the hosts reiterating the numerous uncertainties surrounding U.S. support for Ukraine, Trump's fluctuating stance, and the broader implications for American politics and international relations.

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Notable Quotes:

• "Ukraine needs a lot of support. It needs to be ongoing. And it's just not clear where it's coming from right now." — Greg Myhrey (02:44)

• "Trump is sounding more consistently critical of Russian leader Vladimir Putin... he's greatly escalated the air war since Trump came into office." — Greg Myhrey (03:05)

• "There is both a big isolationist trend in the MAGA base... and a strain of MAGA that sees Vladimir Putin as simpatico." — Mara Liasson (07:02)

• "One relationship between the leaders or one phone call or one weekend meeting is not going to sort them out." — Greg Myhrey (10:34)

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This episode provides a nuanced exploration of the complexities surrounding U.S. involvement in the Russia-Ukraine war, highlighting the interplay between executive actions, congressional support, and base sentiments within the context of shifting political landscapes.

Transcript

[Mara Liasson]

The House of Representatives has approved a White House request to claw back two years of previously approved funding for public media. The rescissions package now moves on to the Senate. This move poses a serious threat to local stations and public media as we know it. Please take a stand for public media [e-mail] thank you.

[Greg Myhrey]

Hi, this is Ethan in San Diego, California, where I've just gotten back from my first ever trip to our Nation's capital, Washington, D.C. this podcast was recorded.

[Ashley Lopez]

At 1:05pm Eastern Time on Thursday, July 10, 2025.

[Greg Myhrey]

Things may have changed by the time you hear it, but hopefully I will be planning my next vacation to my new favorite city in America. Enjoy the show. Wow. I hope he wasn't disappointed. Sounds like he's one of the few that came here and wants to come back.

[Ashley Lopez]

Yeah, the weather's been all over the place, but I'm glad you had a good time. And hey there, it's the NPR Politics podcast. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics.

[Greg Myhrey]

I'm Greg Myhrey. I cover national security.

[Mara Liasson]

And I'm Mara Liasson, senior national political correspondent.

[Ashley Lopez]

And today our focus is on the United States role in the war in Ukraine. Greg, so Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine started more than three years ago. The US has been supporting Ukraine with weapons since the very start of that. Can you catch us up on where this war is now and how involved the US Is at this point?

[Greg Myhrey]

Yeah, Ashley, today is a really good typical example. Russia fired about 400 drones and 18 missiles into Ukraine, many of them at the capital, Kyiv. Russian troops are hundreds of miles away from Kyiv. There's no way they're going to get to the city or take it. So most of these missiles and drones are at civilian targets. It seems like it's really an attempt to overwhelm Ukraine and SAP the morale of civilians. And many of these civilians are sleeping in the basements or in the subways during these attacks that last most of the night or all of the night. Now, there's also the front line, which stretches for hundreds of miles. Russia does have the upper hand. It is advancing, but very slowly and at a very high cost. So Russia's bigger. It has more resources, troops and firepower. Ukraine is hanging on. But there's real uncertainty for Ukraine about how it will keep getting weapons.

[Mara Liasson]

So, Greg, how would you describe US Policy towards Ukraine right now? Because Trump has been on again, off again, feeling bad about Zelensky, good about Zelensky, bad about Putin, not so bad about Putin. So, so where do things stand and how much more military support does Ukraine need from the US to survive?

[Greg Myhrey]

Well, Mara, Ukraine needs a lot of support. It needs to be ongoing. And it's just not clear where it's coming from right now. With all this uncertainty coming out of the Trump administration, that big package that the Biden Admin approved last year is running out. It was already running low. And then the Pentagon announced it was pausing some weapons to Ukraine as part of a worldwide review of foreign military aid. And then Trump has stepped into the fray and say, no, he's not pausing support, but the president and his administration are just not offering a clear explanation of what happened or what they might be doing next. Now Trump is sounding more consistently critical of Russian leader Vladimir Putin. He said this week that he, he's very nice to us all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless, that Putin is not treating human beings in the right way, and he's even used a bad word or two. So from a US Perspective, it sounds like Trump is changing his tune a little bit. But imagine how this probably sounds to Vladimir Putin. He has not accepted Trump's proposed ceasefire. He's not offered any concessions and is still making all these hardline demands. And he's greatly escalated the air war since Trump came into office. He seems to be testing Trump in all these ways. And Trump sounds a little more critical, but he hasn't committed any concrete actions. So from his perspective, the Trump administration just seems very, very soft on Russia.

[Ashley Lopez]

That makes me wonder what the role of Congress could be here. Like, how much support is there among members of Congress to do more? I mean, things like maybe sanctions on Russia or giving Ukraine more air defense?

[Greg Myhrey]

Well, there is a lot of support among Congress, much more so it seems in the administration. Lindsey Grah, the Republican from South Carolina, he's been pushing a sanctions bill. He says there's more than 80 senators. So obviously this has strong bipartisan support. And this would sanction countries buying Russian oil. China, India would certainly be included in that group, but it's not. Even if this passed, Trump says he's thinking about it now. Again, some movement, but no real commitment. But that's a long term thing. It would hurt Russia's economy. But it's not the kind of thing you would expect to change behavior over. The one thing we're not hearing is any real push in Congress or the administration for a new weapons package. Ukraine is making more and more of its own weapons, and in particular, it's doing very well in making its own drones that are quite Effective. Europe says it's going to do more, and it is. But there's still a lot of systems, and particularly air defenses, that these are US Systems, and you need US Missiles to go with them, and there's not really an alternative for Ukraine.

[Ashley Lopez]

Mara, how do you think President Trump views Ukraine?

[Mara Liasson]

Well, I think he's been all over the map on this. But. But there has been a through line. He has been very favorable towards Putin. He often has parroted Kremlin talking points. He has not disguised his dislike for Zelensky. He has blamed Zelensky. He's called him a dictator. He's blamed him for the war. His animus towards Ukraine goes all the way back to the first term when he pressured Zelensky to open an investigation of Joe Bide. Zelensky didn't do that. Trump was pretty angry at him. And in that pressure campaign led to Trump's first impeachment. So, in general, he's been seen as somebody who's favorable to Putin for a variety of reasons. But lately, things seem to have changed a bit. He's gotten frustrated and impatient with Putin. He's had some pretty good phone calls with Zelensky. Zelinsky has been happy about the conversations they've had about US Military support for Ukraine. So I think we're with almost everything. Trump, you don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow. He changes his views and opinions pretty fast. There doesn't seem to be a through line of geopolitical strategy to any of this.

[Ashley Lopez]

Yeah, I mean, and, Mara, whether or not, like, geopolitics is sort of the calculus here, like, we can definitely say that Trump does have MAGA in mind. I mean, how do you think his supporters feel looking at this news and seeing, you know, possible continued US Involvement in Ukraine's war?

[Mara Liasson]

Well, I think the Republican coalition is split on this in terms of the MAGA base. There is both a big isolationist trend in the MAGA base. There are people like Tucker Carlson and people like Steve Bannon who think we have no business doing anything in Ukraine. There also is a strain of MAGA that sees Vladimir Putin as simpatico, that he is a supporter of cultural conservative stands. But I think in general, the MAGA base follows President Trump. You saw this right before the Iran attacks. A lot of parts of the mega base didn't like the idea of President Trump getting involved in the Middle east, but he did it, and they quieted down. So I think in the end, he has a pretty free hand here in terms of his base. They're not going to revolt against him. But there's no doubt that one of the most important things he ran on was that he was going to keep the United States out of forever foreign wars. And maybe now that's just being defined as so long as they're not US boots on the ground, we're not involved.

[Ashley Lopez]

Yeah. All right. Well, we're going to take a quick break. More in a moment.

[Mara Liasson]

This is Eric Glass on this American Life.

[Greg Myhrey]

Sometimes we just show up somewhere, turn on our tape recorders and see what happens. If you can't get seven cars in 12 days, you got to look yourself in the mirror and say, holy. What, are you kidding me? This car dealership trying to sell its monthly quota of cars and it is not going well. I just don't want one balloon to a car balloon the whole freaking place. So it looks like a circle. Real life stories Every week this summer on Planet Money Summer School, we're learning about political economy. We're getting into the nitty gritty of what government does with things like trade, taxes, immigration, and healthcare. So politics and economics, which are taught separately, they shouldn't be separated at all. I think you have to understand one to really appreciate the other. So what is the right amount of.

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[Greg Myhrey]

Tune in to Planet Money Summer School from npr. Wherever you get your podcasts. At Planet Money, we know that economic jargon can sometimes feel like speaking another language.

[Ashley Lopez]

Yeah, like Arbitrage, Alpha, Otarchy.

[Greg Myhrey]

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[Mara Liasson]

That's a pretty good one.

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[Ashley Lopez]

And we're back. And I wonder what you both think of this. So during the campaign, then, candidate Trump promised to end the war in Ukraine before his inauguration, which is very similar to what he said about the ongoing war in the Middle East. I mean, would it be fair to compare Trump's attitude toward Ukraine to his his attitude toward the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza?

[Mara Liasson]

Well, I think it's fair up to a certain point. Both of these things were things that Trump said would be easy peasy to resolve, and they Both turned out to be much, much harder. And he has touted himself as a great deal maker, and he hasn't been able to make a deal to stop the war in Ukraine or in Gaza. And he's actually expressed frustration on this about both of these conflicts. So I do think this has been, you know, a real lesson in real world geopolitics, where you can't just bluff and bluster your way to something that you call a deal.

[Greg Myhrey]

Yeah. And I think Trump never really expresses an appreciation for the long, tortured history in both of these places. I've reported from both of them pretty regularly the past few years. And whenever you start a conversation with anybody, whether it's an Israeli, a Palestinian or somebody in Ukraine, they talk about this generational trauma of what they've gone through, what their parents have gone through, what their grandparents have gone through. One relationship between the leaders or one phone call or one weekend meeting is not going to sort them out. Getting to a ceasefire, stopping the shooting, that would be a big, important achievement. But then beyond that, you have multiple steps to try to get to some sort of lasting, enduring peace and resolve these conflicts in a permanent way. Yeah.

[Mara Liasson]

And what we haven't heard from Trump, for instance, is does he believe that Ukraine should be a sovereign state and decide for itself whether it wants to be allied with Russia or Europe? He doesn't seem to have a kind of geopolitical understanding or strategy for either of these conflicts. And as Greg said, these are not just two schoolyard kids fighting on a. On a playground. Sometimes Trump has actually used that. That metaphor. These are people with deep, longstanding grievances and national goals.

[Ashley Lopez]

Yeah. All right, well, what will you both be watching for as things continue, Greg?

[Greg Myhrey]

Yeah, I still keep a pretty close watch on the daily scale of these Russian air attacks. For much of the war, a typical night might be a case where Russia fires several dozen drones and missiles, and that'd be pretty substantial. Beginning of this year, we saw those numbers go up to maybe 100 a night. Now we're seeing 3, 4, 500. A couple nights ago, Russia fired more than 700 drones into Ukraine overnight. This kept people in cities up all night long. Now, you know, is that something Russia can sustain and shows that they're really not interested in finding a ceasefire, but are trying to overwhelm Ukraine and also keep an eye on the frontline fighting, because it is the summer fighting season. It's warm, you can move around pretty easily. It's dry there. Much harder to move around and fight in the winter. So I'LL be looking at both of those things. Plus, how is Ukraine going to keep getting weapons? It is running low. It's going to need to be resupplied from the US and if not from the US it's really not clear where they're going to get them.

[Mara Liasson]

Yeah, that's pretty much what I'm looking for. Does the president ask Congress to approve the money for more military aid to Ukraine? As Greg said earlier, the Biden approved military aid is running out probably by the end of the summer. And that really matters. Also whether the president agrees and gives Lindsey Graham the go ahead to push the bill to increase sanctions on Russia.

[Ashley Lopez]

Yeah, lots of open questions.

[Greg Myhrey]

All right.

[Ashley Lopez]

Well, let's leave it there for today. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics.

[Greg Myhrey]

I'm Greg Myhre. I cover national security.

[Mara Liasson]

And I'm Mara Liasson, senior national political correspondent.

[Ashley Lopez]

And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics podcast.

[Greg Myhrey]

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[Mara Liasson]

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[Greg Myhrey]

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