← The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim
The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim
Putin Trumps Zelenskyy?
00:48:12
Will Europe fill the defence vacuum left by the American withdrawal of support for the war in Ukraine? What will a mineral deal between Ukraine and America look like? Richard and Yalda get together on the week of the third anniversary of the full...
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- [00:00]
James Matthews
Donald Trump is heading back to the White House.
- [00:03]
Richard Engel
Together, we can truly make America great again. We are in for an unpredictable but fascinating four years and we're going to.
- [00:11]
James Matthews
Be following every twist and turn for the first 100 days. We'll be bringing you the latest updates and analysis first thing every morning. So join me, James Matthews, me, Martha.
- [00:22]
Richard Engel
Calneck, and me, Mark Stone for Trump.
- [00:24]
James Matthews
100 every weekday at 6:00am, wherever you get your podcast.
- [00:30]
Yalda Hakim
Hello everyone. Just a quick reminder that if you're listening on the Sky News app or website, please do go follow us on either Apple or Spotify so you never miss an episode. Okay, the admin is out of the way. Let's get started with the episode. Hello and welcome to the world with me, Yalda and I am in London.
- [01:05]
Richard Engel
And with me, Richard Engel. And I am in Odessa, Ukraine right now. And Yalda, I'm actually in my old favorite hotel and it's going through a rough period right now. It was just bombed by the Russians. This is where I would normally be staying in Ukraine. It's, it's closed down at the moment. So I'm going to talk a lot about, there's lots coming, going on with Ukraine. Is this peace deal real? It's a new reality for Europe. There's a new dynamic in Germany. Tons to talk about this week. And I'm gonna tell you more about this lovely hotel that was destroyed by the Russians. Not completely destroyed, but certainly set back.
- [01:46]
Yalda Hakim
Yeah, absolutely. Richard, as you say, you've been there for the past week or so. You're on your way out of Ukraine at the moment and of course you were there to the three year anniversary of the full scale invasion of Ukraine. And so much has happened, not just in the last 24 hours or so, but we're going to dissect the past week because you know, they say a week is a long time in politics and certainly in Trump world, it does feel like years, lots to get into.
- [02:19]
Richard Engel
And don't forget, before we get started, please continue to follow us if you're not already subscribing. Tell your friends and write in. We love your questions. We're going to answer some of them today@theworld sky.uk.
- [02:52]
Yalda Hakim
So let's get started. Richard, first of all, you're back in Ukraine, an old stomping ground for you. In fact, I remember a picture of you and I, I found it on my phone from about 18 months ago. We're in Kyiv and we were both commenting on just the resilience of the Ukrainian people in the face of this onslaught from the Russians. We remember the, the column of tanks that had surrounded that city and what this country has gone through over the course the last three years. I'm speaking to Ukrainian contacts from afar at the moment, and they are nervous. But, Richard, something that I've always admired about the Ukrainian people, they are incredibly resilient as well. So just tell me, you've been there for the last week and a half or so. Who have you been speaking to? What have you found and what have you seen?
- [03:44]
Richard Engel
They are resilient, but they are also very annoyed right now. They couldn't believe that President Trump, who has now appointed himself as the sort of peacemaker in chief, said that it was their fault that President Zelensky was a dictator. Maybe it was his negotiating tactic, but it rubbed the people here in a very bad way, considering the history, you know, this country has gone through. The holodomor, forced starvation when several million people were killed at the hands of, of the Russians under Stalin. Then they were invaded, first having Crimea ripped from them. Then they were invaded and had the Donbas taken from them. Then they were invaded three years. And they worry that if they don't get these security guarantees, they're going to be invaded again and again and again. And then to hear President Trump say, ah, it was all your fault, you shouldn't have done it, that they should have preemptively surrendered some territory to placate Putin so that he wouldn't have invaded. People here just thought, oh, my God, this, this American president has no concept of history, has no idea what he's talking about, has no idea of, of what we've been through or what Ukrainians are currently going through. And that's why I wanted to come here. Not only is it my favorite hotel or was, but still is this, this kind of, this, this thing happens all the time. I was planning to stay here. We, I have a tradition with my team. Every time we go in and out, Odessa's right on the Ukrainian border. Come in and out of this country. We stay here. And couldn't stay here this time because I'm going to move this web camera. So people who are listening, I'll describe it. If those of you watching online, you can, you can see what I'm looking at. So this is the reception area we're in right now. And if you look around, there are all these sandbags because several Russian aerial bombs came right into the middle of this hotel. Fortunately, no one was killed. Some people were injured outside, but they're going to have to, they're going to have to rebuild. And this is the reality of what, what can happen in Ukraine. You can be here minding your own business. We are very far from the front lines here. You have to attack this city deliberately if you want to. And that's what the Russians did. They dropped some bombs on it and destroyed this hotel, or at least badly damaged it, right in the, right in the historic center. And that is how Ukrainians live day to day, where at any moment death can come from above, whether it's in a drone or a bomb or a missile or rocket. Just as I was setting up this morning, plugging in these cameras here, there was an air raid siren going on moments ago. So in this current environment where Ukrainians are still under attack, still defending themselves, still trying to prevent the Russians from taking over and destroying cities like this one, they hear President Trump saying, okay, we're going to wrap this up, we're going to wrap this up quickly. But the starting point is it's your fault. And the starting point is it matters. Cuz that means who's ultimately responsible, who has to pay. And Ukrainians are like, we have to pay. We didn't do anything, we didn't break this. This was Russia. They should be held accountable. And they're worried that Russia is not gonna be held accountable and instead they're on the carving block and they're gonna be chopped up into pieces.
- [06:59]
Yalda Hakim
And what is the sense, Richard, from the Ukrainians, the people there in Odessa, those you've been speaking to, in terms of what they're hearing and is discussing and saying about them and what they personally think about the future of their country, because as you say, Ukrainians know all too well about their history. And the sense that I've always gotten from Ukrainians, you know, we all famously remember President Zelenskyy being told by President Biden, I can evacuate out, I can get you out. And he said, I don't need a ride, I need you to help me and have my back to me. The sense I get is that regardless of what the United States and Russia do, the Ukrainians are going to try and fight on. They're not going to give up on their country.
- [07:45]
Richard Engel
It's a tough position to be in because the Ukrainians and I've spoken to soldiers on the front line. That was part of the, part of my trip out here to get a sense of where this country is after three years. So been talking to the political leadership and coming to visit some old haunting stomping grounds like this one old Some old haunts. That was the word I was looking for. I've also been talking to sort of regular Ukrainians, say, can you keep going? If there's a bad deal offered to you, do you have a choice? Are you in a position to say no? If President Trump cuts off this country from military aid, can the Europeans really step up? Can they step up in time? And the conclusion most people came to here was, they can't. They can't. They're caught between a rock and a hard place, that even if they wanted to keep fighting on, they probably can't without external support. So one soldier described it to me as, they feel that they're caught having to choose between the lesser of two. Two evils. One evil being a total Russian takeover of this country, which means you lose everything. You become sort of colonized, occupied. Putin has made it clear what he wants to do to this country, which is erase it from the map and make sure that there's never something that that is called Ukraine and speaks the Ukrainian language and understands its own sort of national history, or you accept what could be a very bad deal, unfavorable deal from President Trump. And now this is where the Europeans come in. President Macron is saying, well, maybe we can do better. Maybe it's time for Europe to fix it. And I can tell you, Ukrainians are listening to what the Europeans have to say now very closely. They don't think that Trump is really on their side, but they think, well, maybe. Maybe Europe can step up. Europe has a past. We all know what Churchill and others did in World War II. There's no reason that Europe can't be sort of powerful and a world leader again.
- [09:46]
Yalda Hakim
Yeah. I mean, I also want to get into that a little bit deeper, Richard. I mean, what we've seen over the course of the last few weeks since President Trump was inaugurated, we've seen King Abdullah show up at the White House, virtually kiss the ring. We saw Emmanuel Macron there just in the last day or so. Go there and try and, you know, work with this man that they think, you know, is prickly and could be difficult. I wonder, do Ukrainians feel as though President Zelensky took a bit of a risk, you know, criticizing Donald Trump there and saying, you're falling into this vortex of Russian fake news and disinformation campaigns and misinformation, that he wasn't careful in his approach and how he was dealing with Donald Trump? Because Donald Trump then responded and bit.
- [10:37]
Richard Engel
Oh, he bit hard. And you know what? Ukrainians kind of liked it, they were a little bit impressed with President Zelensky. I think seen from the inside out here, this was a moment where Zelensky shone a bit. Three years ago, he impressed the world. Zelenskyy when he first arrived on the stage, didn't show up with much fanfare. People were dismissing him as a, as an actor. He used to play a president on TV and then he got elected on this anti corruption campaign. But when the, when the war began, he showed fortitude and personal bravery and political bravery recently. And that's not, you know, it is understandable. His approval ratings have been going down. Three years of war, three years of draft. It's hard to be popular in those circumstances. But when Trump started to attack him and he started to push back and that he rejected this mineral deal, and I have a lot of information about this mineral deal, I'll get into it in a second. Ukrainians said, okay, good. This is the same guy who didn't roll over for Putin three years ago, who didn't. Although Trump thinks that would have been the right wise thing, preemptively give away part of the country in order to save the rest of the country. By the way, Trump says that, that there should have been a deal. This was never discussed. There was no conversation in which Putin was like, give me a piece of your country and I won't invade. Putin said to the last second there would be no invasion. He said these were military exercises. So this, this is rewriting history that, that Trump has said that it could have been some deal, maybe if he had been president, who knows, but that there was, there was some magical deal on the table that Zelensky didn't take and therefore the had no choice but to invade. That seems to people here as a historic mistake, a fantasy, a lie that they don't want the world to believe. I mean, they know their history. This was an independent province within the Soviet Union. It became an independent country after the collapse of the Soviet Union. And they've been fighting since then for their independence and they've been struggling since then. And now, I mean, if anybody is, has earned it and shown that they are a country, shown that they can unite, show that these two Ukrainian colors, the blue and yellow, mean something to this people. I think it's the Ukrainian, the Ukrainian people have shown that.
- [13:08]
Yalda Hakim
Do you think, though, that he could have approached Donald Trump differently and said, president Trump, we have full faith in you. You're going to go and talk to the Russians. And we know that at this stage we probably can't be at the table because it's a slippery slope and there are going to be all sorts of tricky things that need to be negotiated. So in the first instance, just like Minsk1, for example, where the Germans and the French negotiated that, what lessons can we learn from that? And you are going to be there on behalf of us. What can you do and talk to the Russians about to represent us? Rather than saying to him, listen, you've got. You've got the wrong information here.
- [13:49]
Richard Engel
The, the biggest insult that Zelensky gave Trump was that he was parroting Russian propaganda. Right. Other than that, he really didn't say anything particularly insulting. It was a, you know, if he put in 10% of the argument, Trump put in the other 90%, the only thing he said that was really pushback was, come on, I don't know why President Trump. And he set it up with a compliment. We have deep respect for President Trump and we love him and we admire him and all the rest and then say, but he does seem to be trapped in this disinformation space because Trump had been repeating all of these Kremlin talking points. But it's funny about this mineral deal. Can we get into the mineral deal for a second?
- [14:32]
Yalda Hakim
Because it's really interesting. Yeah, actually, tell me what information you've gathered around that.
- [14:36]
Richard Engel
Okay, so this started out, this was Zelensky's idea. Right. People forget that this was Zelensky's idea. Do you remember when he talked to you? I'm sure he talked to you about his victory plan. You interviewed him around the time he was talking about his victory plan. So this was part of his victory plan. He wanted to wind up this war anyway because the front lines are more or less in a fixed position. He realizes he's dependent on foreign help. He wasn't making real progress on the battlefield, except for grabbing a little piece of Russia in the Kursk Province, which we've talked about, he wanted a mineral deal, and in order to incentivize the U.S. so that the U.S. and Ukraine would have some sort of joint economic interests, he thought that would be a good thing for Ukraine long term, and it probably is a good thing for Ukraine. What he wasn't expected was this bill that President Trump dropped in his lap said, okay, here's our mineral agreement. $500 billion. A half a trillion dollars for services rendered, probably four times the value of all of the aid ever given to Ukraine from the United States. So the bill he got was a shock. Half a trillion dollars with no promises of any kind of future. Help. So you imagine somebody, you know, you go to a restaurant, somebody drops that kind of bill on you. Oh, and they say you have an hour to sign it and it's non negotiable. So President Zelensky said, I can't sign that. What's going on here? I'm being strong armed. And that's when the insults came. That's when President Zelenskyy said, I don't know why Trump is caught in an disinformation bubble. Now. President Zelensky and Trump seem to have gotten over it. They seem to have turned a corner because the Ukrainians, let's not forget, want to sign this deal. They just don't want to sign a deal for half a trillion dollars that gets nothing in return.
- [16:26]
Yalda Hakim
Richard, talk us through the kind of minerals, because we're hearing a lot about rare earth minerals, whether it's Greenland, where we've talked about in previous episodes, that Donald Trump, you know, one of the reasons he wants Greenland is because of the minerals. And of course, in the last 24 hours, we've also heard from Vladimir Putin who has said, hey, I can do my own rare earth minerals.
- [16:49]
Richard Engel
I love that. That's the, that's the best deal. Forget about the Ukrainians. We, you want to talk about minerals, we got the minerals.
- [16:55]
Yalda Hakim
And by the way, Richard, he also talks about Ukrainian territory and he sort of says new territory and we can get you the, the rare earth minerals from this new territory. So just talk us through the kind of minerals that, that, you know, both sides are currently talking about.
- [17:10]
Richard Engel
Minerals are the new oil. When we started out, our career, certainly when I started out, I'm an old guy, I'm 51. Doesn't, it's not that old, but it's the miles on the car, not just the years. I've had a lot of miles going. We both burn up a lot of miles. But conflicts are about oil. Many conflicts in the Middle east, always about oil. Oil, oil. This, this essential resource that the world can't do without, especially countries that are dependent on cars, which is pretty much everyone. But the United States in particular, we're a country built for around the automobile. Now it's all about rare earths. And rare earths are essential for high tech. They're essential for cell phones, they're essential for the computers we're using right now. They're essential for the chips that are involved in making this communication happen from Odessa to London to people's ears around the world. And everybody wants them. And they're rare. China has a Huge sort of not stockpile, because they're not exactly China's, but China has access to them because of all of its work in Africa. And China's been working on maintaining that Africa relationship for decades now. And I think the US Is now feeling a little bit, you know, like a late arrival to the game, especially as everyone's investing in AI and chip infrastructure and they want to use these as the new boom technologies for the future, not just for sort of the national economy, but also for national defense. And Ukraine is a big territory and has them, and has these, these, these rare earth minerals. And as you said, you know, President Zelensky initially said, we'll do a deal with them. You need them. We need economic partners. Let's make a deal. Just not for half a trillion dollars. That the, that the money would go into a fundamental. With the rare earth minerals being used as collateral, and the United States would have full control over this fund until it reaches a half a trillion dollars. And Ukrainians are like, what kind of relationship is that? That seems really unfair. And then while Putin is very clever, when, and while the Ukrainians are kind of balking at this terms and, and suffering from tremendous sticker shock, as you said. Not only does Vladimir Putin say, hey, I've got lots of minerals. Let's play, let's play, let's make a deal. But he's also saying, I have minerals in areas of Ukraine, which I just occupied. Can you imagine if Trump. It's a trap, by the way. If Trump engages on that, then he's de facto recognizing that Russia controls those territories, has those territories, has the rights to what's under the ground in those territories, and that they're not going back to Ukraine.
- [19:51]
Yalda Hakim
We've also heard President Trump say that he's talking currently to Vladimir Putin about an economic deal. But let me just pull back a little bit on what I think is currently happening here, because there is so much, you know, being discussed. And I think, frankly, his policies on Ukraine and Russia, certainly with Russia, is quite mainstream. Actually. He says things that are quite outlandish and he says things that we think are unconventional and uncomfortable. But let's think back to President Obama and the reset to Russia. You remember, Hillary Clinton was the Secretary of State and she took a reset button to Lavrov at the time and said, let's reset our relationship. Right. And we also saw Europeans, for example, Angela Merkel, constantly being warned by the Americans not to become dependent on Russian oil and gas. And yet we saw Nord Stream 2 as well. So what I think we are seeing from Donald Trump is unconventional words. But this idea that he thinks he can do business with Russia, and this is something that we saw Obama try. We saw the likes of Angela Merkel try Joe Biden. When we think about what Joe Biden could have done over the course of the last three years, the Ukrainians constantly told us that it's not that the Americans want us to win here. They also don't want Russia to lose because they're worried about the consequences of that. You know, when the Ukrainians talked about using weapons deep into Russia, the Biden administration was like, whoa, hang on a second. This could draw us into this conflict directly. So the Biden administration itself was incredibly cautious. Ukrainians were constantly complaining about the lack of weapons that they were getting over the course of the last three years. So while we have those who, you know, criticize President Trump and jump on the bandwagon because it's easier to criticize him because he does say things that are uncomfortable and outlandish, but his actual policies towards Russia I don't think are unconventional. I think they're actually quite mainstream.
- [22:10]
Richard Engel
Well, I'm not sure if I'll go that far with you, but we don't have to agree on everything. That makes it more fun. But, look, I agree with you that previous US Administrations have tried to reset relations. And I remember that reset button that the. Was it Hillary Clinton?
- [22:25]
Yalda Hakim
It was Hillary Clinton.
- [22:26]
Richard Engel
She was Hillary Clinton. And it was kind of a. Kind of a gimmicky thing to do. It was an actual button, like on a game show, and you're supposed to push it, and she brought it to him so that, hey, let's reset relations, and you push the button. It's kind of stupid, in my opinion. But anyway, that was the symbolic approach, you know, and anyway, it didn't clearly work because Putin hated Hillary Clinton, never didn't want to reset with her, wanted to make sure she was never elected president. In fact, a lot of the investigators thought that one of the reasons that President Putin intervened in the American elections was in order to take revenge upon Hillary Clinton, who he blamed for organizing the street revolutions that ultimately led to the Maidan revolution, which brought us to, in some ways, the war where we are right now. So there have been attempts to reset relations with Putin, but this kind of sympathy starting, the relations with the Russian side, blaming the victim for having been attacked, giving the victim an unreasonable bill for aid that was initially handed over as a grant. So this is the US Changing its rules on an ally. I mean, if I started treating people in a horrible, shabby way. My friends would notice. And they say, okay, if he treats allies who are in a time of need like that, what happens to us when we're in time of need? And you just saw these statements coming out of Germany. You saw France trying to sort of step up. You see Keir Starmer in the UK Trying to step up. And maybe that's a good thing. Maybe it's overdue that after 80 years of not doing very much for their own security, that Europe finds its center again and takes more responsibility for the continent because Trump clearly has no interest in providing that security blanket, that the Europeans do end up by force stepping into the breach. But I don't think that's normal. I think that's an unusual departure from American policy, 100%.
- [24:46]
Yalda Hakim
And that in itself is the shift. But in this, and while that is uncomfortable, the point I'm trying to make is the attempt to reach out, to normalize relationships, to have some kind of economic relationship with Russia has been attempted by previous US And European presidents. It's just that Donald Trump does it in an incredibly uncomfortable way. And don't forget, Richard, you know the first meeting that Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin had back in 2018, they both disappeared in Helsinki into a room without their advisors. And no one knew the content of that conversation. So this idea that Donald Trump, you know, the sympathy towards Russia has come in the last month or so. This has existed for quite some time. And we are going to, after the break, talk about the relationship between the United States and Europe and where it's likely to head. But let's first take a question here because we've got a question from Judy and it came via email. She says how concerned is the EU that Putin will continue to grab at European lands if sections of Ukraine are taken by Russia? And doesn't Russia have a legitimate security concern about NATO? So, you know, I think if I were to answer that part of the question, I mean, what we've seen from Russia over the course certainly of the last, not just three years, but going back 11 years ago when Crimea was annexed, Russia has continued to salami slice Ukraine. And frankly Ukraine, if we were to be completely cynical, should have been almost like a gift to the United States when the full scale invasion happened. If the United States was serious about dealing with the problem, problem that is Russia, they really could have flooded Ukraine with the weapons it needed, given it the support it needed, rather than half do things. And we've talked about this in the past, Richard, where It's almost like the Ukrainians explained it to me as it's like they gave us an iPhone without a charger and then said the charger will arrive in six months time. That's how the Ukrainians felt about the kind of weapons that they were getting. And then the political infighting that was taking place in Congress, which delayed more of an aid package and support, support for Ukraine. But when we look at the situation today, certainly European countries, I've spoken to the Estonian foreign minister, when you speak to the Moldovans, for example, there are European countries who say this is not just about Ukraine and Russia trying to prevent Ukraine from entering NATO or it's about Ukrainian land. This is about Putin wanting to go beyond Ukraine. And this is Russia is an imperial power and it sort of has designs on all of us, not just Ukraine. So they are extremely concerned. But it's also, I think when you look at the west and what it has done, I don't think at any point Brussels or Washington thought that Ukraine was going to ever be part of NATO. They dangled this carrot in the face of both Ukraine and Russia, poked the bear, which is what even the Indians, for example, when I've spoken to Indian officials have said to me, they felt that the Russians were poked. And as a result we saw this full scale invasion. But will Ukraine ever be part of NATO? And when the Europeans say things like these mottos that they created, nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine, or we'll stay with Ukraine for as long as it takes, or you know, Russia cannot win, what do all of these things actually mean? Are Europeans having conversations constantly about the situation in Ukraine and what it means for them and they've always got a Ukrainian at the table or, you know, when they talk about Russia losing, what do they actually mean by losing? So I think there's been a lot of rhetoric over the course of, not just the last couple of weeks, but the last three years, the last 11 years. And in many ways the west has let down Ukraine at every twist and turn.
- [29:04]
Richard Engel
So yes, I think Putin is very concerned about Ukraine. He certainly talks about it. But NATO hasn't expanded since 2004. And these, the takeover of Crimea took place a decade after that. The invasion of Donbass took place a decade after that. The invasion, the full scale invasion happened almost 20 years after that. So if he's so upset about the expansion of NATO in 2004, then he waited 20 years to launch the full scale invasion. Perhaps, I think it's more what you were saying. He doesn't believe that Ukraine exists. He doesn't believe that Ukraine should exist, deserve to risk, that it's a historic anomaly that he believes it's time to do away with. And at first, after he got Crimea without much pushback, he was able to seize Crimea. And by the way, the Russians did a very admirable job from their. Just a tactical point of view of how they did that. They used special forces, then they held a sham referendum. They took Crimea in a bloodless operation. From Moscow's perspective, very successful. And then they decided, well, we'll push it a little further, see what happens. And they assumed that it was going to be quick. You remember, the Russian soldiers were bringing dress uniforms. They thought this war was going to be over in a matter of days and that they were going to be having banquets in Kyiv. That's why they brought their formal wear with them. Who brings formal wear to battle unless you think it's going to be a quick battle? And they were surprised by Zelensky. They were surprised by Biden. They were surprised that the European countries, particularly Poland and others stood up and said, this will not pass. And I think they're surprised, I think Putin's surprised again, that not only did Trump win the election, but that Trump is starting the negotiation with him and saying that he didn't start the war. And he's defending him at the UN and voting with Belarus and Russia and North Korea to defend Russia against a resolution that would have. Have specifically condemned it for. For being aggressive in the war. So it's. It's crazy times. But you know what? There's another thing that we haven't talked about, Yaldung, and I think we should talk about this in our. In our last section in the la. We should not leave this week without talking about it. There's something much weirder going on, too. This link between the far right and the MAGA movement, the European far right and Trump and this ideological base that he has around him, it's there. It's becoming more and more obvious. We're seeing little hints of it with sort of Trump circle people doing what very much look like Zieg hail signs, you know, the Nazi salute. Although they deny it, both Bannon and Musk say, no, no, it was just me, you know, greeting people like that. But there is absolutely a connection there. And, and, and I think we're gonna. I think we're gonna take a break, but when we come back, why don't we talk about that?
- [32:28]
James Matthews
Donald Trump is heading back to the White House.
- [32:31]
Richard Engel
Together, we can truly make America great again. We are in for an unpredictable but fascinating four years and we're going to.
- [32:39]
James Matthews
Be following every twist and turn for the first 100 days. We'll be bringing you the latest updates and analysis first thing every morning. So join me, James Matthews, me Martha.
- [32:50]
Richard Engel
Kelnick and me, Mark Stone for Trump.
- [32:52]
James Matthews
100 every weekday at 6am, wherever you get your podcast.
- [33:08]
Yalda Hakim
Richard, just before the break, we were talking about the situation in Ukraine, what the people there think, you know, this back and forth that we've seen from Donald Trump and you know, engaging with the Russians. But of course, in the course of the last week and a half or two, we've also seen the Trump administration, Donald Trump attempt to blow up this transatlantic relationship. And I think about the fact that we haven't seen a major crisis yet for Donald Trump. But if you think about it, the Europeans stood with the United States when It came to 9 11, the war on terror and the alliances that were formed, of course, on the back of the full scale Russian invasion, which we've talked about last week, the Europeans have said is probably the Russia poses the biggest threat on the NATO alliance when that big crisis comes. For Donald Trump has he pushed his allies and backed them into a corner and sort of said, you know what, this is all about spheres of influence. And I'm talking to people I respect like strongman Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. And I'm not really interested in speaking to Europeans. You owe me too and I view you as a burden on some level. He will need those alliances. If frankly the hits the fan look.
- [34:36]
Richard Engel
He'S playing from a position of strength. But assuming that this American strength will always be there. Yes, who needs alliances? Who needs friends? Well, you don't need them until you do need them. But if you keep treating your friends badly and you keep treating your your enemies or your friends enemies with kind of preferential treatment and admiration, then I think there's cost to that. What do you think happened in Germany?
- [35:05]
Yalda Hakim
Yeah. So let's just recap. We had the German elections at the weekend and one of the concerns that the Germans, European leaders certainly when I met many of them at the Munich security conference last week was the rise of the far right AfD party and this backing that they were getting from Elon Musk. And then of course the US Vice President, J.D. vance lambasting European leaders at Munich and saying, you know, you really shouldn't silence free speech here in Europe. And then he went off and met the leader of the AfD. There were concerns that they were going to do extremely well in these elections. And they did do very well, Richard. They got something like 20% of the vote. And I was looking yesterday at the number of young people, 18 to 24 year olds. They were rejecting centrist parties. They were either voting 25% of those young people voted for the Left party and 20% or so just a little over for the far right parties. And you get a sense that people across Europe, the countries in Europe are seeing this sort of wave of, I mean, we saw it in France as well, centrist parties being rejected and people voting on either extreme. Because the concerns of the day, what's on the table is things like the economy, immigration, the same sort of concerns that American voters had as well.
- [36:39]
Richard Engel
And these far right parties are seeing a symbiotic relation with the Trump administration. We talked a lot about the Munich security conference last week and you were there and it was great. And if you remember one of the things we talked about, how JD Vance went there and he was telling them that, oh, Russia's not your big problem. Your biggest problem is wokeism. Your biggest problem is that you don't allow the far right parties deep enough into the political process and that you're censoring them and you're limiting democracy and free speech. That's what he said Europe's main problem was. And Europe, as far as I can tell, doesn't think that's its main problem. They think the main problem is Russia. But this, this alliance between the far right movements which are growing in Europe and the MAGA movement is there. It's been there for a while. And I saw it, I saw some of it firsthand. I remember during President Trump's. You'll find this interesting. I remember I've told this story to some Germans. They found it very disturbing. I remember I went to a rock concert, like an open music festival concert that was held in, in eastern Germany and it was held by a bunch of neo Nazis. It was a neo Nazi concert. They called it Reich Rock, like the Third Reich. And the awful music, just screaming and just really Aryan brotherhood were providing the security. This was a, this was a neo Nazi event. And at the event, the organizers, because they, they thought it was a little bit tongue in cheek and funny, were giving out red hats, Trump style red hats. And they had written on them mgha. So not maga, but mgha make Germany hate Again. And I just thought it was so interesting that they thought that it would be funny to draw this parallel between what they were doing and this Nazi concert. And Everyone had kind of Nazi tattoos. It's illegal to have Nazi tattoos in Germany. So they would take Band Aids in order to cover them up and to mimic a Trump rally. And I didn't think it was funny at all. I thought, this is really quite revealing.
- [38:53]
Yalda Hakim
Yeah, I mean, we saw it. You remember Steve Bannon going from rally to rally. Steve Bannon, who was Trump's one of the Trump whisperers in his first administration, who was one of his chief advisors, going from far right rally to far right rally across Europe doing almost what Elon Musk is doing today. And I just yesterday, Richard, I spoke to a half Pakistani, half German MEP who is part of the AfD far right AfD party, whose father traveled to Germany as an immigrant. She is now part of this far right party and calling on a quarter of a million people who don't have their documentation living in Germany to be deported. And they're calling it re migration. So. And she said to me, there are a lot of immigrants who had come to Germany decades ago who feel like the fabric of their society and the society that they joined has shifted and changed. And so. And when I said to her, well, there are Nazi tones within the AfD party, and some of your leaders have said things that have been incredibly disturbing. For example, the memorial to the Holocaust in Berlin, they were sort of saying, well, we need to get rid of this. She said to me, listen, my focus here is on immigration, on the economy, and ensuring that the people who come and live in this country want to assimilate. So it is a very complicated picture of what we're seeing across Europe in the United States, and how people actually view their country and the future of their country and how frustrated they are with the talking points of, of the current politicians and the centrists. But on the point of wokeism, I think what the danger is here for a lot of people on the right is over. Correction. Sure, people are overwhelmingly voting against the idea of woke and wokeism, but actually, do you then not know how to take yes for an answer? People have voted in this certain way and you oversimplify and you overcorrect. I wonder. The left had a defund the police moment, which was a moment where people were like, whoa, what are they talking about? This has now gone too far. What do you mean you want to defund the police? Is the right going to have a sort of defund the police moment where people think, you know what? You've gone too far? You're now taking my liberal values away from me and I'm gonna vote the other way.
- [41:25]
Richard Engel
It was called January 6th, Trump supporters tried to storm the Capitol and went in by force. And you know what? They were all just pardoned. So they've had moments like this where they've crossed a Rubicon and we're back.
- [41:43]
Yalda Hakim
The fact is that the American people voted for change again. And I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens over the course of the next two years. You know, whether the American people during the midterms say, listen, enough is enough. There is too much drama. The other question, though, Richard, is are the Democrats actually going to wake up and step up?
- [42:07]
Richard Engel
So far they have not been. And I'm hearing some buyers remorse from some anecdotally from friends of friends in the United States who voted for Trump and are saying, oh, what have we done? And you start seeing some interviews with Republicans who voted for Trump saying, well, we didn't expect that everyone in the federal government was going to lose a job and that there would be these purge. And they're not comfortable with Elon Musk and his doge assault. But in general, I think he's still riding high. I don't think there is any serious challenge thus far from the Democrats, no major revolt from inside his own party. And he's doing everything he can to lock in the bureaucracy of government so that he doesn't face any internal vote. So a few weeks, months from now, it will mean a lot less if people are unhappy with his performance because he will have put loyalists in every key position of power and gotten rid of the skeptics. With that said, shall we verge into our predictions? Our predictions, because we covered a lot today. We got Ukraine, Europe and the far right in Germany, which is a rich subject. And I know we're going to be discussing the far right, its ties to, to maga, what it means in the.
- [43:29]
Yalda Hakim
US let's do predictions because I also want to talk about our special guest for next week, but let's go with predictions first.
- [43:35]
Richard Engel
Okay. Does that mean I'm starting?
- [43:38]
Yalda Hakim
Sure, go for it. Gives me time to think of my own.
- [43:42]
Richard Engel
I think Zelensky is probably going to have to sign this mineral deal, especially now that Putin is flirting with him and flirting with Trump, saying, well, if that guy doesn't want to sign it, we have lots of rare earth minerals come and we have some rare earth mineral deposits in areas that we've captured from Ukraine. Just recognize them and I will have them forever and you get a piece of the pie. I think Zelensky has to Sign some, hopefully, from his perspective, toned down version of this, because then it would unlock the Europeans to try and move forward with their security guarantees. President Macron more or less said this. He said if the Ukrainians do sign this deal, then we can move on to the next phase, which is what the Ukrainians are really most concerned about, which is, are they going to have peacekeepers here? Are they going to be European troops? Are there some sort of tripwire troops here so that they don't get invaded by Russia again? So my prediction is I don't know exactly when next few weeks, Ukrainians probably will sign some version of this deal.
- [44:49]
Yalda Hakim
Well, I guess my predictions again will stick to Europe. And what's happening with, with Ukraine is, as we said, Ukrainians are extremely concerned about what they're hearing coming out of the White House. And so I think this might be a moment where Europe will finally step up. They're now seriously talking about upping their defense spending. And if the United States ultimately steps back and we continue to hear Donald Trump say that there's a, the big beautiful ocean between us and Ukraine is your problem. Germany and the rest of Europe. It would be a small irony if Germany and the likes of Japan crank up their defense industries and end up being the arsenal that ends up sort of protecting democracy this time round. I mean, that would be quite something.
- [45:47]
Richard Engel
The train of history keeps going. And how many times in our, our podcast have we been talking about the interwar periods between World War I and 2 and World War II itself and the aftermath? These, these big issues that looked settled after World War I and World War II, when the world went for international consensus? That's when the UN Was established. That's when all these panic buttons were put in place so that the, the White House and the Kremlin could speak to each other. There was a sense we better not do this again after World War II and we better be more collaborative and internationally focused. Trump doesn't like that. He doesn't want to be an internationalist. Internationalists are the villains. He wants personal transactions between him and someone else on the other end of the phone who he can get something from. We'll see if this is the right approach because this is not the first time in history things like this have been tried out.
- [46:44]
Yalda Hakim
No, not at all. And I think, you know, the challenge here is that these institutions are now being tested. And I think, you know, one thing I always say is that unlike the young people in Ukraine, in the Western world, young people don't understand where their freedoms and Democracy and their liberties have come from. And so this is a moment where I think a lot of young people are sitting up, paying attention and wondering, you know, what they can actually do when they're faced with this kind of challenge. But Richard, we have always really good to see you, you, and good to see you're safe. You're on your way out.
- [47:19]
Richard Engel
The hotel is fabulous. And they were very kind to let me in today, even though the hotel's not open. But I, I kind of was curious myself. I was going to come here anyway. I was like, I just want to see what happened to the place. We always stay here. And you know, when you stay in a hotel a lot, you feel kind of an affection for it, especially if you like it. And I thought, oh, you know what, we're here, let's just do the podcast right here. And it shows what, what this place is like. You know, certain times, one book, one building, one person can encapsulate a bigger story.
- [47:49]
Yalda Hakim
Yeah, Richard, before we go, I just want to remind our listeners we have a very special guest next week, Matt Pottinger, who was a part of Trump's first administration. He was part of the National Security Council. He's a China hawk, really fascinating guy. You and I know him really well. Well, he's also on the Iran hit list. We often talk about this hit list of people. Donald Trump is on that list as well. So we're going to talk to him about China, about Iran, about the situation in Ukraine, and of course, what's currently going on with the Trump administration. Cuz he was deep within that administration during Trump one. So send us your questions and your.
- [48:33]
Richard Engel
Thoughts and goodbye and thank you to all of you at home. Keep listening, keep subscribing, tell your friends I hope you're enjoying it. And until next time, follow us wherever.
- [48:43]
Yalda Hakim
You get your podcasts, Spotify or Apple. And thanks again for listening.
- [49:12]
James Matthews
Donald Trump is heading back to the White House.
- [49:15]
Richard Engel
Together we can truly make America great again. We are in for an unpredictable but fascinating four years and we're going to.
- [49:23]
James Matthews
Be following every twist and turn for the first 100 days. We'll be bringing you the latest updates and analysis first thing every morning. So join me, James, Matthew, me, Martha.
- [49:34]
Richard Engel
Calneck and me, Mark Stone for Trump.
- [49:36]
James Matthews
100 every weekday at 6:00am Wherever you get your podcast.