A meltdown in the White House over Ukraine

An Oval Office meeting devolved into a televised shouting match Friday.

President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of “gambling with World War III” and being ungrateful for U.S. aid.

Today, On Point: What this unprecedented moment means for the Ukraine war and the world.

Nina Khrushcheva, professor of International Affairs at The New School. Great-granddaughter of former leader of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev. Author of "In Putin's Footsteps: Searching for the Soul of an Empire Across Russia's Eleven Time Zones."

Wolfgang Ischinger, president of the Munich Security Conference Foundation Council.

Michael McFaul, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia, 2012-2014. Professor of international relations at Stanford University. Author of "From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia."

Part I

Quote, You're being disrespectful. You don't have the cards. Don't tell us how we'll feel. Among the many declarations that President Donald Trump made to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday, there was also this.

DONALD TRUMP: You're gambling with the lives of millions of people.

You're gambling with World War III. You're gambling with World War III. World War III.

CHAKRABARTI: Now, if that reference sounded familiar, it's because Trump has said it before. For example, in a meeting just last month with French President Emmanuel Macron.

TRUMP: There's already such involvement from other countries, and it could really lead to a very big war, World War III.

CHAKRABARTI: And in a campaign debate last summer with then President Joe Biden.

TRUMP: And he's going to drive us into World War III. There's another reason that point may sound familiar. It's identical to the claim often made by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Quote, I have already said, and it's clear to everyone, Putin is saying there, quote, possible conflict with NATO in Ukraine will be one step away from World War III, end quote. That comment came in March when Putin won reelection in Russia with 87%  of the vote. It should be noted that most opposition candidates were either dead, jailed, or exiled.

Putin's own spokesman said the vote was quote, not really democracy, but quote, costly bureaucracy. In any case, Putin's World War III claim was in response to a question about French President Emmanuel Macron's comment last year that he would not rule out sending European forces to Ukraine. Now getting back to last Friday.

The global aftershocks of the unprecedented public blow up, led by Trump and Vice President JD Vance, led Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin spokesman, to say, quote, The Trump administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations. This largely aligns with our vision, end quote. And then, just this morning, as quoted by the Russian news agency, Interfax, Peskov added, quote, the fragmentation of the collective West has begun, end quote.

So we're going to talk today about how to think through everything that has happened since Friday. And as I mentioned, the continuing aftershocks from that Oval Office meeting. And we're going to begin with Nina Khrushcheva. She is a professor of international affairs at the New School and also great granddaughter of former communist leader of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev.

Professor Khrushcheva, welcome back to On Point.

NINA KHRUSHCHEVA: Thank you very much. Hi.

CHAKRABARTI: So first of all, let's start with what Dmitry Peskov just said this morning about the Kremlin seeing the fragmentation of the Collective West has begun. What's your response to that?

KHRUSHCHEVA: You don't need to be Dmitry Peskov not to see it.

It's obvious to everybody and apart from Peskov, the Finnish president said the same thing, and many others in the West said that the only person who wins from that debacle at the White House on Friday actually is Putin, and that's indeed very true, because the more fragmentation there is, the more successful Putin is driving his point across that the West really has very little to offer in terms of unity, in terms of prosperity, and doesn't even understand how it's going to move forward except for its hatred of Russia and wanting Russia to be defeated.

CHAKRABARTI: So it seems like that right now, Russia diplomatically is, or at least in terms of this global realignment is getting everything it could possibly have wanted.

KHRUSHCHEVA: Not in real terms so far, because there have been a few meetings between the Russian and American diplomats, the new generation of American diplomats, and the meetings, from what we know from both sides, have gone quite well.

But at this point, it's not clear if Putin gets everything he wants, but let's remember, and we always have to remember that he's a former or he is a KGB operative. So as a KGB operative, your job is to make sure that the West doesn't present the unified front, or not, or at least look for cracks in that unified front.

So without almost doing anything at this particular moment, in fact, Putin got exactly what he learned in his KGB job. Or from his KGB predecessors, but that's how you look for weaknesses in in the Western unity. So he does have that. And ultimately, it's actually this time around, it's not of his creation, which of course makes it even sweeter for him.

CHAKRABARTI: Professor Khrushcheva, what I'd like to do is go back to what seems to me to be the critical moment from Friday's Oval Office meeting with Trump, Vance, and Zelenskyy, and I'm going to play a large chunk of it, about two minutes, because I think it's important to hear it in its entirety, and I would then love to have your help in dissecting why this particular moment seemed to trigger the long blow up that followed between the three men. So here it is. This is when Vice President Vance all of a sudden really interjected himself into the meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy.

JD VANCE: For four years the United States of America, we had a president who stood up at press conferences and talked tough about Vladimir Putin, and then Putin invaded Ukraine and destroyed a significant chunk of the country. The path to peace and the path to prosperity is maybe engaging in diplomacy.

We tried the pathway of Joe Biden, of thumping our chest and pretending that the President of the United States’ words mattered more than the President of the United States’ actions. What makes America a good country is America engaging in diplomacy. That’s what President Trump is doing.

ZELENSKYY: Can I ask you?

VANCE: Sure.

ZELENSKYY: Yeah?

VANCE: Yeah.

ZELENSKYY: Okay, he occupied our parts, big parts of Ukraine, part of East and Crimea, so he occupied it in 2014. So, during a lot of years, I’m not speaking about just Biden, but those time was President Obama, then President Trump, then President Biden, now President Trump and, God bless, now President Trump will stop him. But during 2014, nobody stopped him. He just occupied and took. He killed people, you know? What the contact line—

TRUMP: 2015.

ZELENSKYY: 2014.

VANCE: 2014 to 2015.

TRUMP: Oh, 2014.

ZELENSKYY: Yeah, yeah, so.

TRUMP: I was not here.

ZELENSKYY: Yeah, but.

VANCE: That’s exactly right.

ZELENSKYY: Yes, but during 2014 until 2022, the situation the same, that people have been dying on the contact line. Nobody stopped him.

You know that we had conversations with him, a lot of conversations, multilateral conversations. And we signed with him, me, like a new president in 2019, I signed with him the deal. I signed with him, Macron and Merkel, we signed ceasefire. Ceasefire, all of them told me that he will never go, we signed with him, gas contract. Gas contract. Yes, but after that he broke the ceasefire, he killed our people and he didn’t exchange prisoners. We signed the exchange of prisoners, but he didn’t do it. What kind of diplomacy, JD, you are speaking about? What do you mean?

VANCE: I'm talking about the kind of diplomacy that's going to end the destruction of your country.

CHAKRABARTI: That is from last Friday in that Oval Office meeting.

Professor Khrushcheva, the reason why I wanted to play it is because to me this moment when Ukrainian President Zelenskyy has perhaps, in the White House's eyes, the temerity to explain in front of cameras, the reason, the detailed reason why Ukraine is unwilling to sign any ceasefire agreement without that security guarantee, that's the thing that seemed to inflame both JD, Vice President Vance and President Donald Trump. How do you judge or read Zelenskyy's decision to do that?

KHRUSHCHEVA: There are many different explanations. One of them is they both, Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, did not follow any diplomatic protocol, which is shocking, because they've been talking over each other.

And usually, this kind of meetings are all written up in minutes and suddenly it was not. Then why Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaking English, who decided that he's going to speak English? Because normally, once again, his English is not native. It's been a tremendously tremendous progress since he first became president, but it's not his native language.

So that's certainly a disadvantage. So I'm not understanding who decided not to follow protocol. JD Vance, frank, had no business interjecting to that meeting altogether, regardless of how he felt about Volodymyr Zelenskyy's behavior, and his not gratitude to Trump, because he's vice president. There are two presidents talking.

So there's so many breakdowns that almost, I almost felt like it was scripted on both sides to create a scandal. Because in some ways, actually the scandal potentially is useful to both sides. I don't know if you've heard that kind of explanation, because Trump wanted Europe to take more responsibility.

And Zelenskyy, in fact, offered him his, that suggestion is saying next now we're there in Europe or we'll be in Europe, the Russians, we're defending Europe. But then next thing you'll feel their influence across the ocean. That's when Trump started screaming. Don't tell us how you feel. So basically, let's send it, Trump wants Europe to get involved and Volodymyr Zelenskyy wants Europe to be involved.

Because if United States steps out, he is going to be faced with Russia. And then he needs Europe to speed up and potentially having boots on the ground and in fact, potentially we'll get to that third world war. That everybody's talking about, but both sides need Europe. And that scandal made Europe which was quite reluctant for a long time, because there was a lot of talk on European side, but less action.

And now here they are, they met in London before they met in Paris. So they are now involved.

Part II

CHAKRABARTI: Let me play another moment here from this meeting. And this is when Vice President JD Vance began telling President Zelenskyy repeatedly that he should be more thankful.

VANCE: Mr. President, Mr. President, with respect, I think it's disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office and try to litigate this in front of the American media. Right now, you guys are going around and forcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems. You should be thanking the President for trying to bring it into this conflict.

ZELENSKYY: Have you ever been to Ukraine? Did you see what problems we have?

VANCE: I have been to, I've actually watched and seen the stories and I know what happens is you bring people, you bring them on a propaganda tour, Mr. President, do you disagree that you've had problems?

CHAKRABARTI: Okay, so that, once again, was Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. And as a historical note, the United States, too, has used a draft on several occasions in World Wars, in Vietnam, in Korea but of course, we have never had a war post-Civil War on our own soil, so the idea of using conscripts to go to war isn't exactly uniquely Ukrainian.

Now Professor Khrushcheva, the reason why I wanted to play that is where Vance says it's disrespectful for you to come to the Oval Office and try to litigate this in front of the American media, and he said that after again, Zelenskyy made that long explanation of why he must have a security guarantee in order to move forward with any peace talks with Russia.

So regarding what Zelenskyy said, in terms of his description of what happened in 2014, I couldn't detect any inaccuracy in what Zelenskyy said. I just wanted to check that with you.

KHRUSHCHEVA: It's in completion because certainly there was, Russia took over Crimea and other territories and then withdrew a little bit in 2014.

And then there was the Minsk agreements, there's Normandy format in which France, Germany and Ukraine and Russia were participating, both sides broke ceasefires and both sides did not exchange prisoners. So both sides are guilty. The difference of course is that Russia is an aggressive, Ukraine is a victim of this and therefore we forgive Ukraine for breaking those rules. And we, of course, hold Russia responsible. It doesn't seem to me JD Vance's view of that, because from what we know, because also I think what it showed his personal relationship or the lack thereof, because they certainly think that Zelenskyy is not the equal, he didn't come prepared enough.

He didn't come dressed up enough. And we've seen that Trump's quip that, Oh, you're dressed up today. Because Zelenskyy was not an issue, and somebody ought to question from a blogger. So there was a lot of breakout and protocol, and both sides kept pushing their narrative. My problem with, first of all, as I said, I think JD Vance just had no business speaking there, period, on any question.

Because it wasn't the meeting about him. But what was remarkable about this, that usually pre signing of an agreement, you have a polite conversation with the media saying, we're hopeful that everything will get resolved. And suddenly we got lectures in a sense on both sides, which were to derail this meeting, because both of them live with, they're different genres.

One is the reality TV, and another one is a blockbuster Marvel movies. So Zelenskyy is a Marvel hero and Donald Trump is the Apprentice, and these two genres collapsed because both of them insisted they're equally important. So it just seemed, as I said, what seemed was scripted on many different sides with the whatever, I'm not sure what the result is supposed to be, but probably the result is to get Europe more involved.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. Just as a note about that minerals deal, it wasn't actually signed. I'm seeing here that as of yesterday, President Zelenskyy said Ukraine is still ready to sign that minerals deal with President Trump.

But to your point, Professor Khrushcheva, about Europe and getting Europe more heavily involved. That seems to be happening moment by moment as we speak. For example, here's Prime Minister Keir Starmer of the United Kingdom graciously welcoming President Zelenskyy on Saturday just after the White House meeting as the two met at Downing Street in London.

KEIR STARMER: Let me just say that you're very welcome here in Downing Street. And as you heard from the cheers on the street outside, you have full backing across the United Kingdom. And we stand with you, with Ukraine, for as long as it may take. And I hope you heard some of that cheering in the street.

That is the people of the United Kingdom coming out to demonstrate how much they support you, how much they support Ukraine, and our absolute determination to stand with you, unwavering determination and to achieve what we both want to achieve, which is a lasting peace.

CHAKRABARTI: Prime Minister Starmer also said on Saturday that it's time for European nations to step up and back Ukraine.

STARMER: We are at a crossroads in history today. This is not a moment for more talk. It's time to act. Time to step up and lead and unite around a new plan for a just and enduring peace.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay I want to bring in Wolfgang Ischinger now. He's the president of the Munich Security Conference Foundation Council. He joined the German Foreign Service back in 1975 and served as Germany's ambassador to the United States and also to the United Kingdom.

Ambassador Ischinger, welcome back to On Point.

WOLFGANG ISCHINGER: Great to be on your show.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. So just today, we're seeing reporting that Britain and France are promising to muster what they're calling quote, a coalition of the willing, perhaps an unfortunate turn of phrase hearkening back to the Iraq war, but in order to secure a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia.

So as Professor Khrushcheva has been saying, in a sense, has Europe been more forcefully put into the center of peace talks by what happened between Trump and Zelenskyy on Friday?

ISCHINGER: I guess we on the European side had no choice. It wasn't, this wasn't the intention. The intention was to work, of course, with Ukraine, with the United States. To create a situation that would bring the Russian side to the negotiating table. We've actually achieved the opposite.

Let me be quite frank and say from my vantage point, there has been one victim of this episode. An episode which comprises not just the White House meeting last week, but a number of statements that have come out over the last couple of weeks or so, including about the Riyadh meeting between the United States and Russia, and statements made at our conference, the Munich Security Conference two weeks ago.

The victim is trust. The victim is transatlantic trust. The last time I remember something remotely similar to this was in 2003, 21, 22 years ago during the starting phase of the Iraq war. And quite frankly, if I may just share this with you, when I saw this, the vice president speak about how Zelenskyy should be more grateful and should express his gratitude, et cetera, I remember that as a German ambassador to the United States in the spring of 2003, I was on a show of Fox, the Fox television network, and I was on live television accused of representing a country of ungrateful bastards. Verbatim. So in other words, I've gone through this kind of thing myself.

And I believe that this is not the end of the world. These are things, these are accidents that can be repaired depending on the goodwill, but we have a victim and that is transatlantic trust. And that's going to be pretty hard to repair. I tell you, building trust is much harder than losing it.

CHAKRABARTI: But to that point, I completely understand what you're saying because of the real rift. As we started the show is saying even the Kremlin is saying this is basically the beginning of the collapse of the collective West. But in the immediate future, even if European nations bring together some kind of coalition to support Ukraine even more than Europe already has.

This would be continued military aid, a seat at table for Ukraine to actually be involved in any peace negotiations and critically helping with defense capabilities. Okay. I wonder, though, how effective this can be regarding negotiations, given, my understanding is that Russia has said clearly for quite some time now that they would reject any such European coalition as part of a settlement to end the fighting in Ukraine.

Ambassador, your response to that?

ISCHINGER: I certainly agree with you. I'm not aware of any expression of interest by the Russian side in meaningful negotiations. Point one. Point two. I have certainly not seen any expression of interest by the Russian side in negotiating with us, with the Europeans.

Point two. Point three. I have seen a Russian interest in discussions and negotiations with the United States, but I have not seen any sign of a Russian willingness of meaningful compromise on any of the issues involved, whether this is the line of contact or the territorial issues, the security guarantee issues.

And my fourth point would be simply to underline what you just said, there is no signaling at all. On the contrary, there is strong signaling by Russia that the one thing which they would reject is the presence of certainly Western troops in whatever shape or form. Look, if the Russians claim that one of their principle objectives in all of this is to prevent a membership by Ukraine in NATO, the presence of troops from France, the United Kingdom, maybe Germany, Spain, Estonia, what have you, as peacekeepers, or regardless of how we wish to define it, would from the point of view of, any intelligent Russian negotiator, be the hidden, the veiled presence of NATO in your brain.

This is exactly what they didn't want to have in the first place. In other words, I think we are extremely far from reaching a point where the presence of troops, which we are discussing very intensively here on the European side, coalition of the willing, you've just mentioned that, in your earlier, in the earlier segment. We're very far from seeing the light at the end of the tunnel that would actually allow that kind of a decision to go forward.

CHAKRABARTI: So let me bring Professor Khrushcheva back into the conversation. And Professor, this is an interesting sort of nexus between your analysis and Ambassador Ischinger. Because as you had said earlier, perhaps this could be a win for the U.S. and Zelenskyy and Ukraine in terms of further activating European involvement.

But then as Ambassador Ischinger just said and pointed out, that greater European involvement, especially if it included some kind of European sponsored security agreement, would in fact be the opposite of what Putin wants, because he continues to claim that it was NATO knocking at his doorstep that forced him to invade Ukraine.

So in terms of a stalemate of interests, I don't see that fundamentally having --

KHRUSHCHEVA: Yes, you just answered your own question, indeed. Trump doesn't want to be involved. Zelenskyy wants Europe more involved. Europe has to get involved. And that's what I said, in realistic terms for Putin.

This is not a win. It's just ideological proof that the West is ultimately going to collapse, and we are going to jump on its rubble. So that's a win, but it doesn't get, it certainly doesn't get the war closer to a solution, because I don't see how Russia would agree to the peacekeeping of NATO forces separately, either full NATO or in separate countries, they may agree to say forces from Serbia, forces from the United Nations, India, some other countries, but not northwestern Europe, northeastern Europe. And yes, we are in a certain crossroad as Keir Starmer pointed out, but it still doesn't get us closer to a solution.

Also, because in London, when they were meeting, they kept going back to the necessity of the United States involvement. So ultimately, this Friday scandal still got back to we cannot do it without the United States. That means why then the scandal even happened.

CHAKRABARTI: So we've got another minute with you, Professor Khrushcheva, to Ambassador Ischinger's point about the long-term damage that comes with the degradation of transatlantic trust.

What do you think the consequences could be of that?

KHRUSHCHEVA: I am much more hopeful about transatlantic trust. I think Trump will go away, unless, of course, the country collapses and there is indeed a war, which I hope it doesn't happen. And it will be repaired because the West is the West.

The values are there. The enlightenment is there. It's a process off. In fact, I hope that when this period of Russian history ends and the new person comes, in fact, they could be rebuild, which is going to be even much harder than this transatlantic trust will be trust rebuild between Western Europe, between America and the future Russia.

But trust, in fact, is the first casualty of confrontations, and that's really very unfortunate.

Part III

CHAKRABARTI: Back to today's conversation. Let's just hear another moment.

Again, it's about that breakdown in diplomatic protocol and not just the fact that it happened, but again, we're trying to understand what the long-term implications are. So here is that big back and forth that was all about whether or not. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy had thanked the United States.

It starts with Vice President JD Vance.

VANCE: Have you said ‘thank you’ once this entire time?

ZELENSKYY: A lot of times.

VANCE: No, in this—

ZELENSKYY: Even today. Even today—

VANCE: No, in this entire meeting. You went to Pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition in October. Offer some words of appreciation for the United States of America and the president who’s trying to save your country.

ZELENSKYY: Please, you think that if you will speak very loudly about the war—

TRUMP: He’s not speaking loudly. He’s not speaking loudly. 

Your country’s in big trouble.

ZELENSKYY: Can I? Can I answer?—

TRUMP: Wait a minute. No, no. You’ve done a lot of talking. Your country is in big trouble.

ZELENSKYY: I know. I know.

TRUMP: You’re not winning, you're not winning this. You have a damn good chance of coming out okay because of us.

ZELENSKYY: Mr. President, we are staying in our country, staying strong. From the very beginning of the war we have been alone and we are thankful. I said thanks in this cabinet, [INAUDIBLE], I said thanks—

TRUMP: You haven’t been alone. You haven’t been alone. We gave you—through this stupid president—$350 billion—

ZELENSKYY: You voted for your president.

TRUMP: We gave you military equipment and your men are brave but they had to use our military—if you didn’t have our military equipment, if you didn’t have our military equipment, this war would have been over in two weeks.

ZELENSKYY: In three days, I heard it from Putin, in three days—

TRUMP: Maybe less.

ZELENSKYY: In two weeks, of course—

TRUMP: It’s going to be a very hard thing to do business like this, I tell you.

VANCE: Just say thank you.

ZELENSKYY: I said a lot of times, thank you to American people—

VANCE: Accept that there are disagreements and let’s go litigate those disagreements rather than trying to fight it out in the American media when you’re wrong. We know that you’re wrong.

CHAKRABARTI: To a couple points of clarification, you heard Vice President JD Vance demand that Zelenskyy say thank you in that meeting. Zelenskyy has said thank you many times, including before a joint session of Congress.

And also, when President Donald Trump said that we, meaning the United States, gave Ukraine $350 billion dollars, it should be noted that Much of that money went to U.S. contractors. Okay, so immediately after the disagreement in the Oval Office, Zelenskyy went to Fox News. It was a previously planned interview, which he gave.

And Fox News Chief Political Anchor Brett Baier asked if Zelenskyy, in fact, planned to apologize.

BRETT BAIER: I'm not hearing from you, Mr. President, a thought that you owe the President an apology.

ZELENSKYY: No, I respect president, and I respect American people. And if, I don't know, I think that we have to be very open and very honest, and I'm not sure that we did something bad.

I think maybe sometimes some things we have to discuss out of media, with all respect to democracy and to free media. But there are things that where we have to understand the position of Ukraine and Ukrainians and I think that is the most important thing.

CHAKRABARTI: So let's bring in Michael McFaul into the conversation.

He served as United States Ambassador to Russia between 2012 to 2014. He's currently a professor of international relations at Stanford University, ambassador McFaul, welcome back to the show.

MICHAEL McFAUL: Thanks for having me.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay on the one hand, it is quite simple to criticize the juvenile need of the Vice President of the United States to get President Zelenskyy to genuflect before Donald Trump in the Oval Office.

But on the other hand, is there any validity to the argument that the art of diplomacy is in fact finding a means to get the people on the other side of the table to you, over to you, and perhaps there, did President Zelenskyy lose an opportunity?

McFAUL: No, I don't think so. So let's break down those two statements.

So the juvenile thing did nothing to reassure Zelenskyy that President Trump and his team are going to act as a good faith mediator when it comes to Vladimir Putin. So if your objective is to achieve peace, and I want to be crystal clear, I am very unsure if Trump actually wants to negotiate a peace deal, we'll get back to that later.

But if your goal is to do that, then you don't disparage the president of Ukraine in the Oval Office the way they did. And I want to just say two more things on this. First of all, as an American, I am embarrassed for my country. We should not treat guests like that. Second, this notion that the president of Ukraine needs to give JD Vance a personal thank you in the Oval Office is ridiculous. You know why? Because President Trump and Mr. Vance, they've been giving Putin all kinds of gifts. They've told the Ukrainians; you can't join NATO. They've told Ukrainians, you got to give land to Putin. They've invited Putin to join the G7.

They've restarted relations with Russia. They've done nothing for the Ukrainians. The American people have, yes. Thank you, American people. And Zelenskyy said that a hundred times, the last assistance package, what happened, the GOP, their party delayed it for six months as Ukrainians were being slaughtered on the battlefield and Senator Vance voted against it.

So I have to say, I'm hard pressed for me to see why Mr. Zelenskyy owes those two particular gentlemen thank you at this point. I hope they get around to doing their job of trying to advance America's national security interests and put aside their egos, but their job is to advance our security interests.

We have a security interest in ending this war and they need to focus on that. Rather than these petty things about their egos.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay. So then take me to what you were saying a second ago about, you're not sure whether President Trump even wants any kind of peace agreements obviously. Thus far, he keeps saying that he does, what do you see that makes you think the opposite?

McFAUL: We all know that President Trump says a lot of things, right? And there were, I counted six things that he said that were untrue in that clip he just posted. Just so everybody remembers, we did not give the Ukrainians $350 billion. Just go to Google or go to your favorite app and just look for the facts, but I used to work in the government, I used to negotiate with Vladimir Putin. And by the way, we used to organize press sprays. I worked for President Obama. The fact that they had that press spray for 50 minutes rather than 45 seconds, which is the norm, was also extremely unusual, and in my view, not good diplomacy.

Diplomacy takes place behind closed doors, not with the cameras rolling. But if you are serious, here's the first thing you would do. You need; wars end in two ways. More or less. Either one side wins and they dictate the terms to the other, or there's a stalemate on the battlefield and both sides can no longer achieve their maximalist objectives.

And they have to negotiate a peace treaty. Right now, there's not a stalemate on the battlefield, President Trump said that. And so if you wanted to create the permissive conditions for an enduring peace settlement, you would provide more aid to Ukraine, more sanctions against Russia to help create that stalemate.

He's not doing that. Second, I've negotiated with the Russians, really tough negotiators. I want to emphasize that. You give them a concession, they put it in their pocket and they say, what are you going to do for me now? And what I'm struck by, just purely diplomacy 101. I don't know how real estate deals work in New York, but I know how diplomacy works.

It's about trading concessions for other concessions. Okay, maybe Ukraine has to give up some territory, but what will Putin give in return for that concession? Same with NATO membership. Okay, we're taking that off the table. But Mr. Putin, you have to do X, Y, and Z. And so I've watched this pretty closely.

I've seen no evidence whatsoever that the Trump administration is demanding, is even articulating concessions, let alone demanding them from Vladimir Putin, which suggests to me that the relationship with Putin, getting that on track is much more important to them than actually negotiating a peace deal with Ukrainians.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay excellent analysis. Ambassador Ischinger, let me go back to you. As the Europeans, again, as we speak are saying that they're going to try to come up with some way to come up with a peace deal, bring the United States back into the fold on this. To Ambassador McFaul's point, what are possible things that could be demanded?

ISCHINGER: If I may, let me just before I try to answer your question, let me just reiterate and underline a point made by Ambassador McFaul. I've been in meetings with the White House as long ago as President Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan. President Clinton, President Bush 43. I don't know how many times, and we've always had the same procedure with foreign visitors.

In this case, usually the German chancellor or other senior leaders, 45 second or one- or two-minute brief press pool conversation, and then the real meeting. The press leaves the room and then maybe lunch, if that's appropriate. And then finally a press conference. I cannot understand why the American side in this case did not stop this conversation at the moment when it started to become controversial.

It would have been so easy for either the president or the vice president to say, look, before we get into any kind of argument here, this is actually not the thing, as Vice President Vance said, why do we need to litigate this in front of the American public? Let's go, let's throw out the press, let's have a meaningful conversation, and then we'll talk to the media about the result afterwards.

In other words, the management of this meeting is what makes my hair stand up. It could have been avoided.

CHAKRABARTI: But let me just interject here. I think possibly, one possible answer, who can know for sure, but President Donald Trump is a master of media spectacle, right?

Towards the end of the meeting, he himself said this will make for great television. So who knows? But Ambassador Ischinger, let me follow up with this, because again, I'm trying to figure out if and how any kind of transatlantic balance has shifted.

I have to ask you what you think about posts that Senator Lindsey Graham put on Twitter on Saturday. He said, quote, To the hand wringing Europeans who felt offended by President Trump rejecting being lectured by President Zelenskyy, be my guest to defend Ukraine from Putin. And then Graham keeps posting, he says, It's long past time for Europeans to show they are capable of defending their own continent.

They've allowed their militaries to be hollowed out, and when Europe speaks, no bad guy listens. I say this with great sadness. Again, this is Lindsey Graham, Senator Graham, the last group of people that I would count on to defend freedom are the Europeans, end quote. Your thoughts?

ISCHINGER: Senator Graham, of course, has a point. Europe hasn't carried the ball of its own defense in the required manner for many years, including my own country. There's no doubt about that. We know that. But we've started to correct that over the last decade and certainly more recently, since the full-scale invasion three years ago, a significant effort has started.

Look, my own country, Germany, had as a fundamental dogma of post-World War II Germany as a consequence of the Nazi era of the Holocaust, we had a dogma, which I learned as a young diplomat, 50 years ago, never, ever will Germany send weapons to an area of conflict. And that dogma stood until quite recently for more than 50, 60 years.

We have changed it 180 degrees, because of what happened in Ukraine. We are now right behind the United States, the number one supplier of military equipment, including lethal weapons to Ukraine. In other words, significant change has happened. I believe that needs to be recognized and appreciate.

Once again, let me say, I think if the United States and Europe can continue to work together in the manner which we have done successfully over five, six decades we can handle this, but if we allow this kind of spectacle to go forward, the only beneficiary will be Putin, will be Moscow, and the victim will be Ukraine.

CHAKRABARTI: Yes. Ambassador McFaul I'm so sorry, we have only a minute left to go. I'm just wondering, you yourself asked this question about what could be demanded of Putin. What realistically do you think that answer should be?

McFAUL: Realistically, you mean that Trump would do, not what Mike McFaul would do, right?

That's what you mean by that?

CHAKRABARTI: Yeah, I think you answered the Trump question earlier, so I do actually, what would Mike McFaul ask?

McFAUL: But the first thing I would do, just before I get to that, and if we run out of time, I'm sorry.

CHAKRABARTI: We've got 45 seconds, sir. So sorry.

McFAUL: We're focusing on what we should do to end the war.

We need to focus on what America's national security interests are. And our interests are to be with our European allies. This is catastrophic. What we're doing by alienating our allies, because as Churchill once said, there's nothing worse than going to war than going alone. And if we are not with our allies in the long run, it has dire consequences for us, not just in Ukraine.

But in Asia as well.