What does Trump really want from Putin?
The News Agents - USA
Global
4.3 • 719 Ratings
🗓️ 18 February 2025
⏱️ 40 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In a remarkable and rapid rapprochement, Donald Trump's Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been in Riyadh meeting a Russian delegation to kick off talks about a deal to end the conflict in Ukraine. Who's not at the talks? Ukraine - or any other European leader. Is Russia calling the shots? And why is President Trump so happy to push ahead engaging with Moscow even when it is leaving America's allies dumbfounded?
Douglas Heye is a veteran Republican strategist who reads the politics of DC more closely than almost anyone else. He came into the studio to speak to Emily and Jon about what the MAGA approach to Ukraine means for the world. And later, as Steve Bannon teases the prospect of a potential third term for Donald Trump in the White House, how fragile is the American constitution looking right now?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents USA Podcast is brought to you by HSBC, UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:09.6 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:13.0 | For three and a half years while this conflict has raged, or three years while it's raged, |
| 0:16.9 | no one else has been able to bring something together like what we saw today |
| 0:19.8 | because Donald Trump is the only leader in the world that can. |
| 0:22.6 | So no one is being sidelined here, |
| 0:24.6 | but President Trump is in a position that he campaigned on |
| 0:27.6 | to initiate a process that could bring about an end of this conflict. |
| 0:30.6 | And from that could emerge some very positive things for the United States, for Europe, for Ukraine, for the world. |
| 0:35.6 | But first it begins by the end of this conflict. |
| 0:38.6 | That was Marco Rubio today in Riyadh, with Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister. |
| 0:45.1 | And when he says that no one is being sidelined, there was no Ukrainian foreign minister there. |
| 0:53.3 | It was America and Russia, apparently |
| 0:57.2 | carving up what the world should look like. In one sense, he's right. The war has been going on |
| 1:03.7 | for three years and Europe could at any point have decided to try and end it with Zelensky |
| 1:10.6 | and with Putin, but they didn't know |
| 1:12.7 | how to. Are they looking to Trump as a man with a plan or just a man who likes to talk as if he's |
| 1:19.3 | got one? Welcome to the Newsagents USA. |
| 1:28.8 | It's Emily. It's Emily. |
| 1:29.7 | It's John. And as we speak, Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, is meeting in Riyadh with the Russian |
| 1:36.3 | Sergei Lavrov. |
| 1:37.8 | They think that they can bring about the end to the Ukraine war, which we should probably |
... |
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