Washington Week with the Atlantic full episode, Feb. 21, 2025

This week America switched sides.  Ukraine is out. Russia is in.

President Trump has blamed Ukraine for  starting the war that was started by Russia and America's traditional  European allies are in a state of shock tonight, Trump's stunning pivot to  Putin and what it means for America's role in the world. Next. This is Washington Week with The Atlantic.

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Rubenstein  studio at WETA in Washington, editor in chief of The Atlantic  and Moderator, Jeffrey Goldberg. Good evening and welcome to  Washington Week. There was a time when America could be counted on to support  the goals of the NATO alliance, and that time was technically at  least, last week.

This week, America's allies in Europe, partnerships  that were formed in the aftermath of World War II have been left  wondering if they'll ever be able to count on America again. And  they're not the only ones from East Asia to the Middle East, from  Panama to South Africa, leaders are scrambling to understand Trump's  wishes and desires. I'll scramble tonight as well, with my guests,  Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent at The New York Times. 

Susan Glasser is a staff writer at The New Yorker. And Jonathan  Lemire is a contributing writer at The Atlantic as well as co-host  of Morning Joe on MSNBC. Thank you all for, for joining me. 

We have news just as we were coming on set, President Trump has fired  the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General CQ Brown, Air  Force general, 4-star general, 2 black, uh, chairman of the Joint Chiefs  of Staff, um, Jonathan, surprising that he would fire him? No, not at  all, even though it's unconventional traditionally these are roles the  chairman stays through presidencies, but we heard from Pete Hegseth, the  new Defense Secretary some weeks ago saying that he said General  Brown should be fired. This is before Hegseth was confirmed in the post  because Brown was too focused on the woke policies of diversity,  equity, inclusion, DEI, which we know President Trump to this point  has really targeted across federal agencies, including at the Pentagon. 

So this was something that had been widely expected would happen  in the next couple of weeks. It happened moments ago, right, Peter,  what does it mean? For the military that they fired a general.

Very  Relatively quickly into his term. Well, look, President Trump in his  first term tried to assert control over the military in a way that went  beyond what the normal commander in chief does, not just as, you know,  a defense for the country against external enemies, but as a tool  potentially for internal use when he had domestic criticism, and  that's where he got into a fight as you've written, uh, and we've  written and you've written, they were all written with Mark Milley, the  previous chairman of the Joint Chiefs who resisted what he thought  were at times, uh, certainly unwise, maybe on illegal and  unconstitutional desired by the president to put troops in the streets. So  clearly there's a decision that seek you Brown is not somebody  that he can trust to carry out his bidding.

We don't know what that  bidding will be and you think that it's, it's the acid test for Trump  is willingness to put troops in the streets against American  citizens. It would be striking no if he had not made a conversation about the Insurrection  Act, a part of any interview for who is going to take his place,  right, and Susan, one more question on this. Um, CQ Brown was  characterologically or dispositionally, very, very different than his  predecessor, General Mark Milley.

Milly got into trouble with Trump for  speaking his mind, uh, pretty loudly. Um, CQ Brown, one of the most cautious generals, uh, flag officers that  are probably all of us have ever met, very deliberate, very careful,  very quiet. Didn't save him.

No, it didn't save him. Donald  Trump has made it very clear that he wants people who are loyal to him  personally and not to the office, not to the constitution, and I'm  looking for Jeff to understand whether this is just one firing or whether  we're going to see a wholesale purge of generals as a number of  news outlets have been reporting, and I think that's a deep concern  when you look at Trump's agenda, it really suggests a politicization  of the the nonpartisan leadership of America's armed forces if general  are being replaced on the basis of perceived political loyalty to  the president, and I think remember again that US Congress has a role  in this. The Senate has to confirm Trump's new chairman of the Joint  Chiefs, and I think it's an appropriate set of questions for them to ask  as to why, uh, has this apparently a 3 star general been elevated to  this position and what questions were asked of him, uh, by Donald  Trump.

So I think we're going to be talking about the insurrection  Act. It is in the coming weeks in a way that we maybe didn't think  we were going to be, but we'll, we'll, we'll obviously stay  on top of that, um, next week. I want to pivot to the main subject tonight.

um, the small  subject of America's global alliances and the Alliance for Freedom that  was established after World War II. Susan, um, I want you to walk  us through what happened this week, but I want, I want to read something  that you just wrote in The New Yorker. um.

One difference from  Trump's 1st 4 years in office is that he is now adopted not only a  pro-Putin take on Russia's conflict with Ukraine, but an approach to  foreign policy overall, which echoes Putin's throwback view of the  world as a playground for predatory great powers to exert nearly unlimited  control over the smaller nations that fall within their sphere of  influence. So with that as backdrop, um, Describe what has happened  over the last few days. Yes, Jeff, I think that, you know, when you look  at Donald Trump's view of Ukraine, he's always had a very dismissive  view of Ukraine, and now we see him overtly over the last week,  taking steps, uh, not only to pull back on America's support for  Ukraine in the 3 years since Russia launched its full scale invasion 3  years this week, the United States, along with our European partners,  has provided tens of billions of dollars in military assistance. 

We have essentially kept Ukraine. In the fight with Russia, Donald  Trump is not only saying no more military assistance to Ukraine. He  now seems to be overtly parenting Russia's view of the war, and that  I think was a breathtaking moment that we will remember was what happened this Tuesday afternoon  when Trump in a press conference in Mar a Lago explicitly said to  Ukraine, it's your fault.

That Russia invaded you. How is inexplicable,  but I think it bespeaks a shifting role for the United States in the  world where we are not only an uncertain partner for our European  allies for Ukraine, but many Europeans are now wondering whether we're  outright adversaries. We seem to be taking Putin's side in this  catastrophic and deadly war, the largest war in Europe since the end of  World War II, Peter, go back to this quote that Susan is referring to. 

Um, basically that he said despite are what we see with our eyeballs that Ukraine started the war. What, what is the,  I'm not asking you to shrinkify the guy, but, um, what's the thought  process that leads him to say that Ukraine started this well,  look, he's saying you could have made a deal, you could have given  up your territory. You could have been like Czechoslovakia in 1938  and said just take to Dayton but why would you do that?

Of course you wouldn't  do that. And of course Ukraine wouldn't do that, nobody in Europe  would have thought that would have been a good idea, and nobody  in Washington would have thought that would. been a good idea until  now, but you heard him switch, as you said at the beginning sides  in this.

He calls Zelensky a dictator without elections. Now, Vladimir  Putin is an actual dictator who has had only farcical elections  for 25 years. Zelensky was elected in a free and fair election five  years ago.

It's true they're not having elections now because of  martial law. They are in the middle of a war, but he was a popularly  elected official and no contrary to what Donald Trump said, his  approval rating is not at 4%. It's around 57%, which, by the way, is  higher than Donald Trump's.

What did Donald Trump say about Vladimir  Putin today? What did he say about him this week? Did he reproach  him for this invasion?

No, he didn't. He said it wasn't Russia's  fault. Vladimir Putin sent the tanks in, sent the planes in, sent  the rockets in, but it's not Putin's fault.

Let me get, let me ask a  very specific question. Given this new reality. And again, it's a  febrile reality, so we don't know what next week will bring, but  Jonathan can can Ukraine win.

by its own definition of what winning is  a war in which the United States is not helping. They have said  themselves they can't. Zelensky has said that they, the nation is  reliant on US support financially, military equipment, and the rest. 

Europe has stepped up. Europe has given as much as it can to this  point, but Zelensky said they cannot do. There's some talk tonight that  maybe there's some reporting tonight a minerals deal of some sort might  be close that would for some sort of US aid, but it's not clear if that's  simply a payment for retroactively.

what the United States has already  done or whether that would mean more aid is coming, you know, just  about an hour or so ago at the White House. Trump was asked if  Putin was a dictator, refused to answer the question. He has not  done so again.

We have seen time and time again he has been  deferential to the Russian version of this conflict and what we've seen  here taken in tandem with what Vice President Vance had to say  at the Munich Security Conference in recent days seems to be a shift  of the complete approach for the United States, not just to Russia,  but to our longtime European allies. Jonathan, I want, I want to stay  with you and I want to show you a clip from 20018. of a press  conference with Donald Trump and and featuring Donald Trump, Vladimir  Putin, and Jonathan Lemay with a different haircut.

We're all younger  then just watch this for a minute and we'll talk about it. President  Putin denied having anything to do with the election interference  in 2016. Every US intelligence agency has concluded that Russia  did.

What, who, my first question for you, sir, is, who do you  believe? I have President Putin. He just said it's not Russia.

I  will say this I don't see any reason why it would be. President Putin  was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today. Uh That was a hinge moment in history. 

It, it, it turns out, um, that was a very, um, there's a very  important question that you asked, and the answer suggests that we're That the reality this week is not  a new reality, that this is where he's been all along. Yeah, he is  consistent in his, his approach to Putin. He, you know, has put point  blank right then, who he believes the US intelligence agencies are  or Moscow.

He picked, he picked Putin, and I think we're also  seeing there's a personal dimension to what we've seen this week, where  it's not just that Trump is deferential and seems to have respect for Putin  but has none of it for Zelensky, who he called a, I believe,  moderately successful. comedian in a true social post a few days ago who  has clearly had personal animosity since his first term in office. Well,  let's remember he pushed Salansky to dig up dirt on Joe Biden, then Vice President  Biden and his family thinking there would be allegations of corruption  in Ukraine that he could use against him in that upcoming presidential  election that ended up leading to Trump's first impeachment trial  because he withheld military aid, so he is had personal animosity  towards Zelensky as much as some sort of to a degree affection  for Putin.

Yes, Peter and Susan, I want to ask you, you're both  former Moscow correspondents, um. You, you have a lot in common. You  might want to think about getting married, um, uh, you both spent a  lot of time, uh, and you've written.

Extensively including books on this, um, what is the attraction, Donald  Trump has for Vladimir Putin. Go as deep as you can. Well, look, this  is a central mystery still to this day, 8 years after his first election  to president, we don't really have a very convincing answer.

If  you ask people around him who spent time with him, you get two answers.  One, he loves Strongman. He loves people who were authoritarians.

He  loves Xi Jinping of China. Erdogan of Turkey, Sisi of Egypt. He called  my favorite dictator.

that he has he has some sort of a, you know,  a relationship or uh uh identification perhaps with people he perceived  to be strong men. The other answer you get from people around him is  money. But in the end, Russia was the golden chalice he never quite  got that he wanted to build there.

He wanted to make a lot of money  there, and he therefore was, uh, you know, catering or kowtowing  to Putin as part of a years-long effort to try to build in Moscow  that never actually worked. Yeah, I mean, I think the other thing  to note here is that he has Putin. view of the world and you know,  from his perspective Russia crushing its neighbor and incorporating it back into uh  the boundaries of the former Soviet Union makes perfect sense.

Look  at how Donald Trump is threatening Canada, our very, very friendly  neighbor to the north and saying that it should become our 501st  state, uh, so when Vladimir Putin says, well, you know, Ukraine  doesn't have a right to exist as an independent entity. I think that, you  know, something Deeply uh ingrained in Donald Trump as well, but frankly,  I don't think the explanations are sufficient, Jeff. Uh, it's  true that he has a generic liking for strong men, but it's also true  that he has had a a fixation on Russia and on Putin for a very long  time.

There was a mass note that Donald Trump wrote to Vladimir Putin  when he appeared as Time magazine's Man of the Year, many, many years  ago before Donald Trump even entered the White House. He had a very specific,  uh, you know, kind of admiration for Vladimir Putin that that even  exists outside of his time in the political realm, and, but again,  you know, Let's not sayo analyze Donald Trump. Let's look at his  actions, which are remarkable, jarring, very consequential, and in many ways  very un-American.

The statements that he's made this week, I don't  believe that there's a precedent of any of our lifetimes Republican  or Democrat who would say such things about a murderous dictator  in the way that Donald Trump has, and I think it's very important  to be clear about that and also to recognize that there are so many,  so many people who have been, you know, sort of cast. the fog of  like, well, maybe Donald Trump, he's going to be a Reaganesque Republican.  He's going to support Ukraine.

Let's just say once and for all to  cut through the kind of spin that many of Trump's enablers have been  having and to sort of say like, yeah, Donald Trump has been very clear  for many years now about preferring Russia and preferring Vladimir Putin.  I ask all three of you a question? Is there Has there been or is  there now, a democratically elected Leader Of a an American ally that Donald Trump respects.

I think our silence says a lot. We're all racking our brains Shinzo  Abe of Japan likes him, did OK in the first term. What was the secret  there?

Golf, golf, flatterlattery golf and flattery. We reported in  our book, in fact I'm asking for deep psychoanalysis and I'm getting  and latter. Well, this is the best news in our book we recorded,  yeah, we reported that Trump remember Shinzo Abe actually nominated  Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.

In our book we reported that Trump  personally asked him to do it, right? Would you please nominate me and  Peter, I've asked you. The same favor any number of times, yeah,  yeah in the mail.

So he, so, so, so Trump asked Shinzo Abe and Abe,  unlike Zelensky, I mean, I would say it's a, it's a sillier request,  but Abe said, yes, he wanted to help. Is there anyone else,  anyone currently? Shinzo Abe's gone, obviously, I mean, he was OK with  Boris Johnson for a stretch, but, um, that's about it.

That's about it,  yeah. What is it about democratically elected leaders that turns him off  and that, yeah. and that's where he's picking the fights right now. 

That's where the tariffs are coming. China accepted like it's, it's,  he's targeting the allies far more than America's traditional  adversaries and what's also a part two of this what's so interesting is  he's a member of the Republican Party and the Republican Party, you  know, was the Russia hawks. They prided themselves on being tough  on national security, being tough on Moscow and we've seen a little  bit of pushback this week, um, some sort of suggestion from some  Republican senators saying, well, we don't think Vladimir Putin is  a good guy, but Very little, very little outright criticism of Trump,  a little bit from Senator Tillis yesterday, a Senator Wicker, but  beyond that it is simply maybe Trump's misinformed rather than he's wrong. 

Benjamin Netanyahu, just to mention, well, a conflicted relationship with that conflicted and also a  semi-strong man who's trying to change Israeli politics to make it easier  for him to stay, I think this point that's really important  about these Republican officials is that some of them may have more  traditional. Republican views of foreign policy and of Russia, but  when it comes to a choice between their quote unquote deeply held  principles, and Trump, they tend to choose Trump and I think Trump  humiliated essentially his new national security adviser Mike Waltz.  There's an extraordinary moment in the White House briefing room  just yesterday in which Waltz's own words were quoted to him where  he called essentially Trump and murderous thug who was responsible  for the war.

They said, Sir, do you, sorry, Putin, and they said,  sir you still agree with this, and he said, no, I agree one with  Donald Trump on everything. Um, I want to, um, read something from,  uh, something the vice president JD Vance said the other day. Um,  the one of the strongest arguments against.

Uh, or, or for not staying  the course with, with, with Ukraine. He, he, he tweeted out, um, while,  uh, our, well, our Western European allies' security has benefited  greatly from the generosity of the United States. They pursued domestic  policies on migration and censorship that offend the sensibilities of  most Americans and defense policies that assume continued over reliance. 

Now put aside for a moment the question of the European cultural  differences and, and, and what they do spend money on  domestic. Um, it's also true. That America's European allies  for Decades have underspent while we have overspent on their defense. 

And so I'm just, you know, wondering, I mean, to give this, to give  their arguments some credit, could all of this rhetoric, all these  threats from the Trump administration actually lead the Europeans to  build up their own defenses in a way that are, that's that's going to  be less reliant on the American soldier coming to their rescue. Yes,  that may be the ultimate response here, but look, the the person who  made Europe decided to increase their Military spending in the  last few years was Vladimir Putin, right? Trump badgered the NATO  allies time and time again in the first term to spend more, spend  more, spend more.

A few of them did, but frankly, by the time he left  office, still only about 6 of the allies met the 2% of GDP goal by  the time Biden left office after the full scale invasion. Suddenly,  it's now 2/3 of the alliance is meeting that goal, not because of  Trump and not really because of Biden, but because of Putin. Yes,  and Jeff, I think you're right.

This is an important point to make  the presidents of both parties actually going back to Barack Obama  and remember his Defense Secretary Bob Gates, they pushed the European  allies. They said, you know, you can no longer rely upon an  open-ended American security commitment and you know this was a theme for  quite some time, and that's what led to the allies making this  agreement that by 2024 they would agree to spend a significant percent of  their GDP on defense. Now Donald Trump wants to raise that to 5%  of GDP to be spent on defense and By the way, even the United States  does not spend anywhere near that.

Actually, we're under 4%. I believe  it's about 3. 8%.

So you know, the bottom line is that Russia's  threat and its revision to the European order, that's going to cost everybody more money, and so I think you see  a real shift. The question I have is not only is the United States  going to move away from Ukraine, but what about our NATO partners  in Eastern Europe? What about the three Baltic states?

What about  Poland are is their security now compromised by Donald Trump as  well. I want to come to that in one second, but Jonathan, I want to  ask you this from the perspective of a White House reporter. There  are a lot of different ideologies stuffed into the Trump team.

There's  a conservative internationalists. There's kind of muscular  interventionists. There's isolationists.

How does that stewpot, how does  that work in there right now it's confused. I mean, we not just the  the national security advisor, but The Secretary of State Marco  Rubio as senator was very pro-NATO, very, you know, in a Russia hawk,  and this week we have seen exactly the opposite when he and his some  of his colleagues spoke to reporters in Riyadh after the first round of  Russian-US talks, talks from which Ukraine was excluded, no mention  at all of the atrocities Russia has committed. No mention of all of  the war crimes, the charges against Vladimir Putin instead about the  transactional economic opportunities about a better relationship between  Uh, Moscow and Washington.

So there is diversity there. We saw  Keith Kellogg, someone who is much tougher on Russia today tweeted  to praising Zelensky with flying in the face of what Trump has said  about him this week, but Kellogg also potentially sidelined from  some of the Russian talks. We know how unpopular he is in Moscow.

You  covered the first months of the first Trump term, and it's very  different that the Mattis, Pompeo's, and so on. Rex Tillerson's, the  adults. You're saying they're gone?

Well, they did the guard rails are  not in place and the adults who are in the room right now back then  had success pushing back. I mean you say Marco Rubio might be  an adult, but he's not arguing his Trump's worldview and he's not  in the room. That, that's, that's interesting.

I want to come back  to something just to a final round of something that was just brought  up. This is a quote from the Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, who  said recently that the credibility of the United States depends on how  this war ends, not just the Trump. Administration, the United States  itself.

You agree? I, I think so. It's such a dramatic course correction  from where we were from what President Biden said, how he pledged  that they would, the US would stay with Ukraine till the end and  and going back further, this is about everything that's been in  place since World War II, and it seems that the Trump The president's view is wildly  different and seems like, yes, he wants the war to end, but he's not  doing so in a way consistent with what has been traditional American  values and foreign policy approach.

I think the message from Sikorsky  and people like them is, is, don't forget Kabul. You don't want to  have Kabul happen on your watch, right? He's trying to keep them  from completely abandoning you, you mean a chaotic withdrawal, a  chaotic collapse of exactly, exactly that you, you've set Ukraine  on the path to what's happened in Afghanistan under Biden.

You  hear that from some Trump people saying that's the one caveat as  he is. Catering to Putin is that they don't want a disastrous ending.  That's the one thing he fears.

Susan, does Donald Trump Actually  care if Russian tanks roll into Kiev. No. You want to expand on that?

Look, Jeff, he's been very clear.  This is Russia's sphere of influence. He thinks that Russia has a right  to do whatever it wants in its sphere of influence.

He prefers  Vladimir Putin. He's at the point of almost openly advocating this  week for Vladimir Zelinsky's ouster, whether it's through political  means or otherwise. So he has pictures, but he actually  believes that Ukraine belongs to Russia.

I believe it's It seems  to me that he has a regime change policy for Ukraine. Well, that's  a heavy note to end on, but I'm sure we'll be talking about this  in the, in the weeks ahead. Um, uh, we're all gonna have to leave  it there for now, but I want to thank our panelists for joining  us, and I want to thank you at home for joining us as well.

Um, for  more on the end of the post-World War II international order, please  read Anne Applebaum's latest piece on The Atlantic. com. I'm Jeffrey  Goldberg.

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