Speaker 1: And here we are. Look at that. Happy Monday to you.
Welcome to the Big Podcast on this eighteenth day of August,
year of Our Lord twenty twenty five. My name is
Tom Sullivan, and today's going to be a lot about
basically two things. I mean, we've got a bunch of
phone calls. I got to get in as well. But
this is the Ukraine Summit is taking place at the
White House today and it really is pretty historic when
you take a look that there are all these world
leaders that are there from France, Italy, Germany, Finland, the EU, NATO.
I mean they're all at the White House. I mean
you talk about I presume the security is to the
nth degree, but you've got all these well Western europe
leaders plus the President. It's quite a collection of people
and they're all there to try to figure out how
to keep Russia from expanding getting into doing more to Ukraine.
There's criticism from Friday that about the fact that the
President said he's going for a ceasefire and if there's
no ceasefire then it's going to be severe repercussions. And
know that they did not have agree to a ceasefire
and there are no severe repercussions. So you got to
step back and look at the process that is going on.
This is not going to be solved in one meeting
in Alaska, not going to be solved in a meeting
today in Washington. European leaders are talking about what really
sounds well, they've even alluded to it. They've talked about
the fact that they need to have a security agreement
for Ukraine. And Zelensky, I get it. He's looking around
and going, yeah, well, there was a security agreement called
the Budapest Agreement in nineteen ninety four. That's when the
Soviet Union collapsed and a lot of the Soviet Union's
NUK missiles were physically in Ukraine and they wanted him back,
and Ukraine said, I don't want to give him back.
And the deal worked out where now Russia would take
possession of the nukes and Ukraine would hand them over
if we the United States agreed to protect Ukraine. And
so Zelensky's looking at that piece of paper and it's
not worth the paper that it's written on, because while
we've given him a lot of money, a lot of
armament and things like that, but the security agreement that
was envisioned nothing we I mean, Joe Biden even said, well,
if Putin does a little incursion, you know, we won't
do anything. So it's been mishandled, and so Zelensky wants
something ironclad. He wants security for his nation. They still
have to figure out about the land and the part
that Russia has already occupied, and it's all that has
to be worked out. But the first thing is European
leaders are saying, all right, if we're not going to
have a ceasefire right out of the gate, then we've
got to get some sort of security agreement for Ukraine.
And Zelensky's nodding his head up and down, going yeah, yeah,
And it's got to be really something. It can't be
just words, it can't be on the back of an envelope.
And what it will require is it will require troops,
boots on the ground, occupying forts and bases in Ukraine,
and they will be European troops. And yes, they're talking
about US troops being stationed in Ukraine as part of
a security agreement. Now, look at this agreement is not final,
not even close to final, but that's what they're already
talking about. So bringing up the military side of this,
we always go to General Jack Keane and see what
he has to say. Here's the General.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, Seller, we're moving into a different phase here,
and I think it's something to be encouraged by the
fact that the President invited all these European leaders and
Presidents Lenski to the White House today to discuss the
pathway ahead and the fact that they're showing up in
the numbers they are and what they represent. I mean,
we are talking about the major leaders in Europe. This
is United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Finland, the leader of
the EU, and the Secretary General of the NATO. These
are the principal leaders coming together to discuss with President
Zelenski and his team as well as the President and
his team, what is the pathway forward and that we
all have to be encouraged by and solely what's on
the table. Remember, no press conference revealing the substance of
the discussions, what if any concessions were made, But what
do we know based on that. We do know that
there's an offer on the table and Fox has been
reporting it all morning and yesterday afternoon as well, that
Putin wants to take the rest of the Donasque region
and freeze everything else in place. Likely what's going to
be discussed today is the Ukraine counteroff, what makes the
most sense for Ukraine and if security guarantees, which was
a discussion, and supposedly Russia hasn't agreed to the substance
of the guarantees, but that the principle of it. Likely
what those security guarantees are will also receive a lot
of attention. And going back to the original statement that
was made to Mark Rubio, if we unpacked that a
little bit, I mean, see, see what's really going on here.
Putin has an offer on the table, and the President said,
time and time again, this is a Zelenski and Ukraine's
decision to make you know when it comes to territory.
And Rubio said something else that was very important. He said, look,
if there's going to be a deal here, both sides
are going to have to give something up and you're
going to have to get something. And if all of
this is one sided, that's not a deal, that's surrender.
And he was talking about Ukraine here. So today's meeting
is likely going to be counter offer, and how do
we guarantee Ukraine's security going forward? If this is an
Article five like security guaranteed, attack on one is an
attack on all, you would likely have a number of
things in play here. I mean the details are left
to the principles involved. But through our audience on the
stands international forces on the ground, backed up by empower, airpower,
and also backed up by US and European intelligence. Most
of those forces should be European. But I do believe
that this is going to have some real teeth in it.
The US troops on the ground, backed up by airpower.
We've got eighty thousand troops already in Europe. Forty thousand
of them are army. We've got five brigades army brigades there.
Two are permanent, three rotate in and out, and the
ones that rotate in and out are spread among the
three Baltic States, Poland and Romania. We could move those forces,
some aspect of them a brigade or so into Ukraine.
They're already in Europe, are already paying for them to
be there, backed up by airpower. If the US is
on the ground, a majority of forces international European, for sure,
it has teeth in it that will get Putin's attention.
But I leave that up to the principles to discuss
what the details of that are. I just wanted to
frame that discussion a little bit for our audience to
think about the implications here.
Speaker 1: Oh, there are big implications. And I think this audience
here is allowed and clear. Remember we started supporting. We
started off, Oh, we're going to support Ukraine. Then we
got tired of it, and Joe was sending checks and
we spent hundreds of billions of dollars to send to
Ukraine and military equipment, and it just went on and
on and on, and the American public, no question about it, decided, no,
we don't want to it's not worth it too, is
it's not our war? Why let's not get involved with Ukraine. Well,
now they're one eighty and now the public is more
involved and more supportive of helping Ukraine. But are you
as supportive helping Ukraine with troops with American soldiers on
the ground, Because that's a whole other level. And the
other thing to keep talking about is having this security agreement.
And with the European leaders around the table at the
White House today kept referring to yeah, security agreement, you know,
kind of like a NATO Article five type security agreement
and NATO Article five is that if any member of
NATO is attacked, it's an attack on all and we
all have to go and defend that country. And so
that's what Putin wants nothing to do with. He doesn't
want NATO anywhere near Ukraine. And that's what he's looking for,
is he's looking for a promise that NATO will not
be involved. But if they're going to make it look
like a NATO Article five and smell like an Article five,
then it's an Article five, I think in Putin's viewpoint,
I would think. And Steve Whitlock did a lot of
the negotiating for the US and has met with Putin
a number of times. He was on one of the
Sunday shows yesterday.
Speaker 3: It means that the United States is potentially prepared to
be able to give Article five security guarantees, but not
from NATO, directly from the United States and other European countries.
That is big, I mean really big.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's big, And that's the kind of thing that Putin.
If you just know Putin's going to say, no way,
am I going to allow that to take place. Marco
Rubio also was on the Sunday shows yesterday and What's
her name that anchors faced a Nation as usual made
some comments that set Marco Rubio off.
Speaker 4: Let's be frank, this is not our war. The United
States is not in a war. Ukraine is in a war.
We've been supporting Ukraine. If tomorrow the war continues, life
in America will not be fundamentally altered. So I think
that we have to understand is that this has been
a priority for this president because he wants to promote peace.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The anchor for the show said, well, the European leaders
are coming to the White House so that they can
basically babysit Donald Trump to make sure he doesn't bully Zelensky.
And that's when Rubio said, you're so wrong. That's not
even close to what they're coming for. They're coming to
work in unity to try to come up with some
sort of security agreement for Ukraine. Rebecca Heinrich works for
one of these think tanks that thinks about things like Ukraine,
and she was asked her view of how this is
all going to come together.
Speaker 6: Well, it's going to come down to what the security
guarantees look like. Zelinsky is obviously right that if he's
going to retreat from a kigh of territory. He's not
going to retreat from territory that the Russians currently don't
have complete control out of of. But if he is
required to retreat, he needs to have some tangible material
security guarantees beyond something like the Budapest Memorandum of nineteen
ninety four, which is currently in place and hasn't provided
any security for him. So he's going to want to
know are the European boots on the ground, What is
the United States going to do to back those European troops?
That needs to happen. Or Zelenski's not going to budge
at all. Well, I think that Secretary Rubio is. He's
sincere and frustrated. Because of the progress that we have
made to make NATO stronger, more lethal, the United States
is more engaged with NATO. President Trump has been completely
convinced that the NATO Alliance is not simply there as
free loaders, that it's there to provide security for the
American people, that strong allies are good for American security,
Weak allies are dangerous. President Trump has made NATO stronger,
So I do think it's important, though that we have
solidarity with European allies today moving forward, and that President
Zelenski gets concrete specific things. Even Article five just sort
of notionally isn't going to be good enough. He's going
too specifics. And if there's going to be actually boots
in the ground to make sure the Russians don't continue
to advance, well, I think a ceasefire is obviously so,
I mean it should be a first step because it
shows that the Russians are actually willing to end the war.
The fact that the Russians are increasing the tempo of
these attacks and they're attacking civilians shows to me that
there's no reason to trust the Russians, which is why
we have to go into this not looking for something,
you know, something that everybody's going to like and be
disappointed by. But actually it has to be an American
led pro Ukraine, pro Europe forcing the Russians to stop,
and that means you're going to have to have credible
threats of sanctions, you know, backing security, backing and data.
The last point we need to understand where this line
of contact is. The Russians cannot force Ukraine to give
up territory that Russia hasn't even gained control of and
nobody can blame Zelensky for saying no to that. So
that's going to be another line of friction.
Speaker 1: Yes, you're hearing the expression and security guarantees over and
over and over. That's kind of the theme today. Well,
by the way, when European leaders arrived, they no, no, no,
there was no red carpet for them. Nope. The President
did not greet them. They were greeted at the South lawn,
the back door if you will, of the White House
by Monica Crowley, who I used to work with. She's
the chief of protocol at the White House. No red carpet.
Monica Crowley, chief of Protocol, greeted all of these European leaders.
This is an amazing collection. There's been nothing like this,
I don't think already, going back to World War Two.
And so then the big event happened when Zelensky rolled
up to the West Wing and got out and President
Trump you could tell he was looking at what he
was wearing. And it became a funny moment in in
the Oval office where one of the reporters who had
brought up the fact that the last time he showed up.
He showed up in a T shirt. The reporter basically said,
and by the way, I like your suit. It was
a funny, funny bit. And he had he did, he had,
so it was all black, black shirt, black tie, black
black suit. But he wore a suit, but no red carpet.
There was nothing like the event that took place in
Alaska on Friday. So Marco Rubio says, both sides have
to give concessions. That's not a surprise, that's what happens
in negotiating. Kimberly Strassel, she's with the Wall Street Journal
editorial page, and she talks about the fact that a
lot of people have been beating up on Donald Trump
since Friday, going see he went said I'm going to
have there's no ceasefire, There's going to be severe consequences,
And no ceasefire happened and no severe consequences. So Kimberly
Strassel basically points out what he's doing, Well, it.
Speaker 7: Was the wrong read. I don't think that that was
ever the question, and it was an easy way to
set up Donald Trump and suggests that he'd blown this
Alaska summit. The real test of Donald Trump is going
to be what comes out of now these meetings going forward.
And look, I think this is an underappreciated aspect of this.
We're talking about the consequences for Ukraine and for Europe,
for Russia, but I think that there's also a consequence
for this president. He came into office promising peace. Now
we have an opportunity. But the real question is peace
at what cost? Right? I mean, because and I think
General Jack Keanes said it correctly. If Ukraine is going
to be expected to give up pretty much everything and
come out of this with very little security guarantees or
not robust security agreements, then essentially that's not a a truce.
It's not a peace. That is a surrender. And Donald
Trump might be able to say, hey, look I got peace,
But if what it does is set Russia up in
future to take more of Ukraine, the history books will
judge that as a failure. And you know, I want
to throw in one last thing here as people think
this through, because I was glad you mentioned Alaska. You know,
we sort of talk about these territorial concessions in Ukraine
as well. You know, they just got to give up
a little bit of land here or there. I mean,
you have to think about the emotional and family ties
across Ukraine. I want you to imagine if Russia were
to invade Alaska and then in the end the peace
settlement was, well, we'll just give Alaska to Russia. I
don't think a lot of Americans would be really thrilled
by that, and not a lot of the Alaskans either.
So I mean, this is this is I understand we're
talking about this in very geopolitical strategies and territory and land,
but this is not empty land. It is land full
of people with families all across Ukraine and a lot
of pride in their country.
Speaker 1: Yes, And if I may point out the obvious, if
you go back to my radio show days, I would
ask over the last four years, I would say, what's
Joe Biden doing about trying to get the parties together
for a peace agreement? What's he doing? All he's doing
is writing checks and sending military equipment. Why doesn't he
pull together the leaders of Russia and Ukraine and try
to put some sort of peace agreement together? Nothing never
raised a little finger to do anything about creating peace
in Ukraine. And so whether Trump is successful or not successful,
he's trying. I mean, you can criticize him all you want,
but the man is trying to bring peace to that
part of the world. But I think, obviously, I think
the big question out of all of this is it
has many more rounds to go. I would think I
would be shocked if all of a sudden Putin said
okay to whatever the Europeans come up with today, but
we will be involved. Then usually, if you will look
at modern history, we're not just going to be involved.
We're going to be the bulk of whatever the security
agreement is and the bulk of whatever the military commitment
is to Ukraine. I don't want to see our troops
in foreign countries defending them from other nations. I can
see putting our troops in various places around the world
for strategic reasons for US, but I don't know how
there's not going to be any solution to this unless
we just ramp up lots of military equipment for Ukraine
and for the president. If this doesn't go through, to
put on some serious I mean serious, serious sanctions, we'll see.
Stephen Piper was a former US ambassador to Ukraine, and
he was asked about what do he thinks of these
negotiations and all this security agreement talk.
Speaker 5: Well, I think the meetings that are taking place at
the White House are extraordinarily important. President Trump, prior to Alaska,
said his stated goal was to achieve a cease fire,
and apparently Vladimir Putin stiffed him and instead they talked
about this understanding, which I think is quite problematic for Ukraine.
And so one of the reasons why you have a
half dozen European meaders coming here is they're hoping to
find a way diplomatically to steer President Trump away from
that understanding to something that might be more acceptable to Ukraine. Well,
I think they should be encouraging President Trump to use
some very powerful cards that he holds, which he hasn't
yet put down on the table. One he could ask
Congress for more military assistance for Ukraine. But also in
this meeting he has the right people there. Cousin Trump
could talk to the operience and say, look, we have
frozen about three hundred billion dollars in Russian center back assets.
Let's now just seize that money, put it into a
fund that Ukraine can use both the reconstructions and arms purchases,
and the message to the Kremlin is Ukraine will have
the resources for years to continue to arm itself and
continue to stemy Russia's invasion. That might cause the Kremlin
to begin to think in a different way. But unfortunately
President Trump did not play those cards in Alaska. I
hope maybe as result of conversations today, he'll begin to
play those cards.
Speaker 1: So the one guy who worked for President Trump and
Trump one point zero, but it has turned out to
be a heavy critic of the president, is John Bolton.
So let's see what Bolton's take is on all of this.
Speaker 8: Well, there's an enormous amount he could do, which he's
deliberately not undertaken. He said on the plane on the
way to Alaska, we're going to get a ceasefire or
there'll be severe consequences. No ceasefire, No severe consequences right now.
Despite the ultimatum that he gave the Russian some time back,
there have been no sanctions imposed on Russia itself for
not coming to a serious discussion to end the war.
No sanctions on China, only sanctions on India, which has
had the effect of singling India out, not Russia, not China,
but India, and made the Indian government and people incandescent
at the way we've treated them. So Putin's still skating
along as jijianping skating along, and our relations with India
have gone through the tank. There's one way to change that,
and that's if you're going to put push pressure on Russia,
put it on and don't talk about it, and sort
of drive by sanction a country we've been trying to
wool away from Russia and China, we've now driven them
back together.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the sanctions on India are I understand the reason
President puting sanctions in India because India is buying oil
at steep discounts from Russia and Donald Trump won secondary
sanctions out there, so he put them on India for
buying the Russian oil, which is the money that Vladimir
Putin uses to continue to prosecute the war. But at
the same time, we were probably trying to establish a
pretty good relationship with India, and I wonder how far
you know, it just makes you wonder how far back
the relations have been set. And that's the thing about
all of this is that it's kind of a whack
a mole. Is everything's going along, We're getting along with India.
We're doing business with India. They're good to us, We're
good to them, and this could set us back for
a long long time. Mike Pompeo, former Secretary of State,
former CIA director, he always had he and he's met
with Putin numerous times.
Speaker 9: It's going to be what is the shape of this
security guarantee? So President Trump has made clear Putin doesn't
want NATO as part of Ukraine. Fine, but we're going
to give them something that looks and feels from a
security perspective a lot like that. President Trump' spent a
little coy about exactly what America's role will be in that.
But boy, if you talk to the naysayers over the
last six months about what President Trump might be willing
to do, President Trump is in a very different place.
He is again putting real pressure on Russia. Think about
this meeting alone and the unanimity you saw in that
room today. Putin watches this too, and he says, this
is a United Fund of protecting Europe in a way
that it has not done for an awfully long time.
And so that is a wonderful thing to convince Putin
to change his mind. Having said that, the one thing
I think I may disagree with others on or maybe
even President Trump. I have not seen Putin prepared to
give up anything material yet. I haven't seen him agree
to anything significant that would materially change how Zelenski will
have to think about the risk associated with with coming
to an agreement with Putin. I hope I'm wrong. I
hope he'll permit the security guarantees at the level that
will be necessary, because it will have to be big
and robust and real, not just a paper agreement like
the Budapest Memorandum for back in the early mid nineties.
This will have to be a serious security commitment, and
Putin will have to accept that. I'm not convinced he's
there yet.
Speaker 5: I hope I'm wrong.
Speaker 9: I hope he said yep, that'll be fine by me.
I also haven't seen any illness return those twenty thousand
children that he's taken. You know, we talk about hostages
in Gaza, twenty thousand children being held by Russian forces
inside of Russia today, So there's still much work to do.
The fact that the Europeans all came to Washington day
to support President Zelenski and President Trump in this effort
I think is an enormously good thing. Two thoughts. One
he often says, or you even see people in the
United States say, you know, it's right for Putin not
to want NATO on his border. We just saw the
Finish leader. We have NATO on the Russian border today.
So that's just a a that's a ruse that Putin
puts forward. It depends what the shape of that security
tool is. Is it multinational, is it real? Are there
real weapons, real forces, real intelligence sharing. Is there a
shape to this that looks and feels like NATO or
is it just a scattered outpost. Putin would see those
to those two things very very differently. If it does
take a shape of something like you have on the
Finished border or up in the Baltics, or a real
Natal force, if it looks and feels like that, I
don't think Putin will see much difference.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if he doesn't see much difference, he's not going
to accept that at all. But he has to risk
the cards that Donald Trump holds, and that is primarily
the economic and military sanctions, and they haven't been played yet.
It's for Donald Trump to figure out when to play
those cards. He has to know he has them in
his hand, and Putin has to know that too. But
Pompeo has been consistent about Vladimir Putin, who he's again
met with many, many times. And it's true if you
look at what's going on, Putin has not given one inch.
So when you sit down at a table to negotiate
something and one side doesn't give one inch, it's going
to be This is not going to be easy. And
that's why I say it's not going to be all
dealt with in one particular meeting, that's for sure. The
President did put out on true social earlier today. He
said President Zelensky of Ukraine can end the war with
Russia almost immediately if he wants to, or he can
continue to fight. Remember how it started. No getting back
Obama given CRIMEA twelve years ago without a shot being fired,
and no going into NATO by Ukraine. Some things never change.
But this security agreement they've been talking about. Everybody around
the table keeps talking about this security agreement that looks
and smells and acts and barks just like just like NATO.
And then there's Harry Enton, who always keeps track of
what the pulses of America. This is what he has
the latest on regarding the attitude about Ukraine and war.
Speaker 9: Been some absolutely major shifts.
Speaker 10: The idea that Ukraine's going to achieve complete victory, that
idea has collapsed within Ukrainian society. What are we talking
about here, Ukrainians on the war versus Russia. You go
back to twenty twenty two, the start of the war,
fight until Ukraine wins. Look at this, the vast majority,
about three quarters seventy three percent agreed with that position.
Negotiate to end the war as soon as possible, only
twenty two percent. Look at where we are now, it's
a complete flip. It's the inverse. Now, sixty nine percent
want to negotiate to end the war as soon as possible,
compared to just twenty four percent who want to fight
until Ukraine wins. That's a forty nine point drop in
this position. Now, of course, negotiating to end the war
as soon as possible, that's a bit more nuanced, right,
Ukrainians don't want to agree to rush all of Russia's demand,
But I think the idea of even there being some
territory that would be not formally recognized as being given
that Russia could in fact stay and that does have
a majority support. But the idea of formal recognition of
Russia's demands absolutely not. Think one of the big reasons
why opinions have changed is this idea that this war
is going to end anytime soon. Ah ah, Ukrainians don't
think it will. Take a look here, Ukrainians on the
war ending within a year. Just twenty five percent say
that it is likely. Look at this sixty eight percent.
Sixty eight percent say it is unlikely that the war
will in fact end of the year. And you'll notice
this sixty eight percent looks a heck of a lot
like this sixty nine percent who say that they want
to negotiate to end the war as soon as possible.
You know, obviously Ukrainians would like to join NATO. That
has been a goal of theirs for a number of years.
But the idea that Ukrainians that NATO admission will happen
within ten years. Look again, look at the collapse in
this position. Twenty twenty two was sixty four percent. Now
it is just half that level at thirty two percent.
So again, this is one of the goals that you know,
Ukrainians had since speaking of the war, they no longer
believe that it is Achieva. Well, the idea that Russia
is going to be forced to out of all that
land that they're occupying, they don't necessarily believe that that
is going to happen. So again, I think this is
one of the reasons why Ukrainians they certainly don't want
to see to every Russia position, certainly not most of them,
but the idea that they do want to negotiate and
enter this war as soon as possible, that has now
gone through the roof again. We're talking about sixty nine percent,
which is such a big difference from where we were
at the beginning of the war.
Speaker 1: Now I know it's all been all Ukraine, all Russia,
the big European somewhat at the White House today. But
we'll wrap up today's program with Lori the comment line, Lady.
Speaker 11: Wide In, Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine because it used to
belong to Russia. I think Putin needs to be stopped
now before he decides that Alaska used to belong to
Russia too, and he needs to take that next.
Speaker 1: Which brings up the point that Kimberly Strassel brought up
earlier was that if he did something like that, would
we give up part of Alaska and say okay, all right, okay,
you can have it. I don't think so. So with that,
let's see if Wall Street did anything today. It's been
pretty tame all day long, so let's see what the
numbers are. The Dow was down, but get the little
down thirty four to forty four, nine to eleven during
intra day. New record high today for the Dow, but
it did not hold on to it. S ANDP down
not even half a point. Nasdaq up six points, so
it was pretty quiet. Price of gold, it brings up
the calendar usually the last two weeks of August. Like
some sort of rules somewhere in Wall Street they go
all go on vacation for the last two weeks of August.
So here we are the dog days of summer. Gold
today down four dollars, down to thirty three seventy eight,
and oil prices went up fifty cents to sixty three
dollars and some change. Thank you for coming by today.
We appreciate it very much. We'll be here tomorrow, hope
to see you then.