Who will Britain choose: Zelenskyy or Trump?
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 20 February 2025
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The backlash against Donald Trump for his diatribe against Volodymyr Zelenskyy has strengthened. Keir Starmer called the Ukrainian President in a show of support and told him it was "perfectly reasonable" to have suspended elections given Russia's invasion. European leaders have also lined up to reject Trump's claims that Zelenskyy is a "dictator" - even Nigel Farage has distanced himself from that notion, though pointedly has suggested that Ukraine needed to set a timeline for new elections.
But how far can politicians here, and in Europe, push against the American president when so much is at stake for Western security? Or is there an electoral advantage to standing up to the world's most powerful figure if voters think he has overstepped the mark?
We speak to Judith Gough, the UK's former ambassador to Ukraine who knows President Zelenskyy. And later, to More in Common's Luke Tryl, who has been conducting focus groups here about attitudes towards Donald Trump and the Ukraine war.
You can read More in Common's full report on 'Progressive Activists' here: https://www.moreincommon.org.uk/our-work/research/progressive-activists/
How might Trump change the course of the war in Ukraine? And what will the impact be for British and European politics?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:08.1 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:11.7 | But Nigel, the country is waiting with baited breath to find out what you think about what Donald Trump has been saying recently about Ukraine, particularly the President Zelensky, calling him a |
| 0:21.7 | dictator, suggesting that it was he who started the war. What are your thoughts? Yeah, well, I've |
| 0:30.2 | been on an aeroplane, and here we are, it's first thing in the morning in Washington, hence the |
| 0:34.7 | delay. You should always take everything Donald Trump says seriously. |
| 0:40.3 | You shouldn't always take things that Donald Trump says absolutely, literally. |
| 0:44.8 | So let's be clear. Let's be clear. |
| 0:47.0 | Zelensky is not a dictator, but it's only right and proper that Ukrainians have a timeline for elections. |
| 0:55.2 | I mean, after all, |
| 0:55.8 | and we've all been waiting, let's face it, with bated breath, |
| 0:58.7 | to hear how Nigel Farage would bring peace to Ukraine. |
| 1:03.4 | He's in Washington, not in Clacton, predictably, |
| 1:06.5 | but it's wider than that, |
| 1:08.4 | because what Donald Trump has said over the past two or three days |
| 1:12.7 | has completely discombobulated everyone on how to respond. |
| 1:18.1 | From Kirstama to Kemi Badoch to Nigel Farage, Donald Trump's reconfiguration of American policy, |
| 1:26.9 | moving it towards Russia, away from Europe, away from |
| 1:32.0 | Ukraine, has left British political leaders, European political leaders, scrambling, desperately |
| 1:38.9 | trying to find a response. There is just the possibility that what Trump has done could not only change the war |
| 1:46.2 | in Ukraine, but British politics as well. Welcome to the newsagents. The news agents. It's John. |
| 1:56.2 | It's Lewis. And I've been trying to figure out what on earth changed in terms of Donald Trump and the kind of |
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