Kurt Volker, former US diplomat: Decoding Trump, the second time around
The Interview
BBC
4.3 • 537 Ratings
🗓️ 27 April 2025
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
David Brown, producer of the BBC TV’s Trump - The First 100 Days, speaks to Kurt Volker, former US ambassador to NATO, about the whirlwind start to President Trump’s second term in office.
In this conversation, Ambassador Volker, who previously served as Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, shares his assessment of the president’s programme of change - and the extraordinary pace of reform.
He gives the inside take on Trump - from that explosive White House press conference with Ukraine’s President, Volodomyr Zelensky, to his plans for the Middle East - and sets out how Mr Trump plans to make America great again.
Ambassador Volker decodes President Trump’s head-line grabbing statements on US territorial expansion and international relations - and explains the risks of doing away with diplomatic convention.
The Interview brings you conversations with people shaping our world, from all over the world. The best interviews from the BBC. You can listen on the BBC World Service, Mondays and Wednesdays at 0700 GMT. Or you can listen to The Interview as a podcast, out twice a week on BBC Sounds, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presenter: David Brown Producers: Clare Williamson, Lucy Sheppard Editor: Max Deveson
Get in touch with us on email TheInterview@bbc.co.uk and use the hashtag #TheInterviewBBC on social media.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm David Brown, producer of the BBC's Trump the first 100 days. |
| 0:05.7 | This is the interview from the BBC World Service, the best conversations coming out of the BBC, |
| 0:12.7 | people shaping our world from all over the world. |
| 0:17.4 | I will come back to Russia. I will participate in the elections. |
| 0:23.1 | There's an increase in violence according to the coca crop. |
| 0:27.1 | There's no place in the world where women are equal. |
| 0:29.5 | I will give away the vast majority of my money and it's my full-time focus for the rest of my life. |
| 0:36.1 | For this interview, I met Kurt Volker, former US ambassador to NATO and previously President |
| 0:43.8 | Trump's special representative for Ukraine. |
| 0:47.0 | You're going to hear about the frenetic first hundred days of Donald Trump's second term |
| 0:52.1 | as American president and how his radical approach to leadership |
| 0:56.4 | has shaken up both U.S. and international politics. |
| 1:00.8 | President Trump comes from a completely different way of doing things. |
| 1:04.9 | He is outspoken, he's flippant, he's not bound by the facts, he's more about the emotions |
| 1:10.6 | of what he's saying. |
| 1:11.8 | He's an entertainer, very funny, very humorous, very, very, very different style. |
| 1:16.7 | Ambassador Volker tells us how President Trump plans to make America great again |
| 1:21.9 | and assesses the risks of doing away with diplomatic conventions. |
| 1:27.3 | Plus, he decodes some of the president's headline-grabbing statements on US territorial expansion |
| 1:33.4 | and plans for the Middle East. |
| 1:35.6 | Welcome to the interview from the BBC World Service with Ambassador Kurt Volker. |
| 1:43.5 | Remarkable. It was a remarkable pace. They had planned so many things, executive order after |
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