The Trump-Putin Rollercoaster
Are oil sanctions likely to change the back-and-forth between the two world leaders? Or are we likely to see a reversal to the norm -- more talk, little real progress on ending the war?
Yesterday’s announcement of US pol sanctions on Russia — the first sign of real economic pressure by the United States on Russia in Trump’s second term — raises the question whether Trump has finally concluded that the way to end the way is to pressure Russia, not Ukraine. We’ve been here before, of course. I had an opportunity to discuss this issue in more detail on a podcast this morning and a TV interview this afternoon.
The News Meeting Podcast
Early this morning, I joined The Observer news team to record the wonderful podcast “The News Meeting.” The podcast features three journalists (not sure why I make the cut, but that’s a detail for another time). Each pitches the host (or editor) a story they think should lead the news. It’s a great insight to journalism, and also a quick review of three big stories in the news each day. Do subscribe and listen to each episode, which drop twice a week.
My contribution for today’s episode was “The Trump Putin Rollercoaster.” Here’s what I had to say:
“All right. Ivo, let’s start with the Trump-Putin rollercoaster. Tell us more about that.
So I think in the last week, we have seen a microcosm of the relationship between Trump and Putin. It started a week ago with the prospect of Mr. Zelensky, who had come to Washington to meet with the president on Friday, that’s last Friday, to talk about getting long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, and just before, the day before, Vladimir Putin gets on the phone, calls Donald Trump, they have a quote, very productive conversation, as the president puts it, and all of a sudden, the issue of sending cruise missiles to Ukraine is off the agenda, and a new meeting between the two leaders in Budapest, and the meeting with Zelensky, which was supposed to be going to be a lovefest of how we were going to help the Ukrainians turn into a pretty nasty version of the February Oval Office meeting in which the president berated Ukraine for not ending the war soon enough. And then, within a day or so, all of a sudden, the meeting in Budapest is off.”
“The president says, I don’t want to waste my time, because it turns out that once again, he either misheard Vladimir Putin, or Vladimir Putin told him something on the call that he wasn’t willing to continue in real life, which is that there would be no meeting, and if there was a meeting, that meeting would just reiterate Russia’s longstanding position that the war could not end until Ukraine gave up everything, including its independence. And so, rather than a meeting, we have the first time, announced yesterday, new sanctions by the United States on a country, Russia, that is the only country that has no tariffs on it, because the United States under Donald Trump thought that pressure on Russia was the wrong thing to do given that Russia was so committed to peace. But that has now changed.
So if you can keep up with this roller coaster, then you are a clever person. And the question really is, who is playing who these days? My view has always been that Putin has been playing Trump, but is that changing?
I think that’s the big question to really dig into.”
You’ll have to tune in to this week’s episode to hear the rest of the discussion (and find out which of the three stories should lead the news.)
My interview with Chris Jansing Reports
Early this afternoon, I joined Chris Jansing on MSNBC to talk about the oil sanctions, whether Putin will now decide to end the war, and what it says about the Putin-Trump relationship. You can listen to the whole interview here.
