August 20, 2025 • 11 mins
The White House is claiming plans are well underway for a meeting between Russia's President Vladimir Putin's and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky.
US President Donald Trump met with Zelenskyy and several foreign leaders earlier in the week, following his meeting with Putin in Alaska.
Trump says he hopes Putin will move forward on ending the war in Ukraine but admits the Kremlin leader may not want to make a deal at all.
Former US Correspondent Nick Bryant told Mike Hosking that this presumably will end with Trump issuing an ultimatum to Putin, but the crunch moment never seems to come.
Before the talks in Alaska, Trump said if a ceasefire is not reached, there would be serious consequences and sanctions on Russia, but in the aftermath of the talks, Trump appears to have backed down.
Bryant says that Trump seems to be influenced by the last person he speaks to and lacks a coherent strategy, so it’s hard to see how this will end.
LISTEN ABOVE
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So with a meeting maybe in the wings. That could
be in Budapirsto or Switzerland or anywhere else you might
want to guess. It could involve two people or three people,
a by let or a tri let. The upshot is
the pressure is on the US president at the moment
to deliver on a piece deal for Ukraine. He's busy
claiming he is the war solver in chief. Seven wars
and counting as of yesterday, are all make Nick Bryant,
author of everything from When America Stopped Being Great to
(00:21):
The Forever War, is beck with us.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Nick, Good morning, Hey Mike, how are you?
Speaker 1 (00:26):
I'm very well, indeed, I'll start with the last question. First,
how do you think all this ends?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Well, it's so difficult to say, isn't it. Presumably it
ends Mike with Donald Trump at some stage really saying
to Vladimir Putin issuing him an ultimatum. This has to stop,
and if it doesn't, we will exert pressure on you.
The problem is, Mike, that crunch moment never comes, does it.
(00:53):
When he headed to Alaska, he said, I am demanding
a cease far. And if there isn't a cease far,
there are going to be serious concepts. Vladimir Pusin, he
was talking about more sanctions. He was talking about secondary
sanctions from countries like India and China, who by Russias,
all who basically sort of helped finance the war effort
through those purchases. And what happened in Alaska Trump back down.
(01:15):
He came away with nothing from Pusin. And that's the problem.
As you said, he just seems to be sort of
making it up as as he's going along a bilateral
or a trilateral Budapest or Switzerland. There just doesn't seem
to be a strategic plan. As so often happens, it
seems that Trump is influenced by the last person he
speaks to. This week, it was the Europeans of Vladimirzelenski
(01:35):
in Washington, that extraordinary summit this time. Last week, of course,
it was Vladimir Putin in another extraordinary summit in Alaska.
There's just doesn't seem to be a coherent strategy, Mike,
So it's hard to see how this ends.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Do you think there will be a meeting will Putin show?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Well, he has always rejected the legitimacy of Vladimir Zelenski
as the president of Ukraine. He has always regarded him
as a junior. He doesn't see any parity between Russia
and Ukraine. He wants to see a puppet in Ukraine.
He wants to see a Russia friendly Ukraine. And he's
never stepped back, Mike, from that core demand throughout this process.
(02:18):
Over the last few weeks, as Donald Trump has had
these phone calls, as Donald Trump has had this face
to face, Vladimir Putin has made absolutely zero concessions. And
while this process has been going on, of course, he's
intensifying the war. I mean, after being given that letter
from Milania, Trump's saying, you know, stop basically stop killing kids.
(02:40):
He keeps on killing kids. And it goes back to
this relationship, Mike, which is the most fascinating balladder relationship
on the planet right now, between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.
I do not understand that relationship. I've been thinking about
that relationship for the last sort of eight or nine years.
I think the only two people really understand it at
(03:01):
Putin and Trump. Who knows what happened in Alaska, especially
in that private moment we're in the beast together. You know,
they have that sort of ridiculous sort of red carpet
stagecraft and choreographed entry into Alaska. They get into the
car together. You know, Trump is generally deferred to by
(03:21):
every international leader, but the relationship is so different with Putin,
isn't it. He just seems to go weak at the
knees when Putin is around. He seems to defer to Putin.
His language, his body language is so different. He never
gets what he wants out of Putin. And I don't
know why, and I don't think anybody really does.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
What's happened. What I find interesting is this was a
bloke who's isolationist to Mierica first, and if you listen
to Marjorie Taylor Green and all that lot, this isn't
the a war. He didn't seem interested. He was going
to give you a meeting. This is months ago. And
if you don't want to do what, I'm out, I'm done.
I've got a better things to do with in the time.
Now he's back solving, according to him, seven wars. Is
(03:59):
he a niceist or is he solving the world's problems.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
I don't think he's ever been an isolationist in the
traditional sense, which is to basically retreat to America to
kind of regard America as a country that wouldn't really
connect in a significant way with other countries in a
significant way with other conflicts around the world. And I
think during the second term he's become a real interventionist.
(04:23):
I mean, you know, Trump can claimed credit for intervening
in some conflicts in a very helpful way. I mean,
not least the Indo Pakistan flare up over that attack
in Kashmir earlier in the year that had the potential
pight to go really really ugly. I mean, these are
two nuclear arm powers. Back in two thousand and one,
two thousand and two, there was a conflagration there that
(04:46):
really looked like it could spiral a lot of control.
And the Trump administration was very quick in this instance
to stop that. You know, we' seen these these these
peace deals in Africa, and you know, the the problem is, Mike,
I mean so often Trump goes for this kind of
performative diplomacy. It's it's stagecraft rather than state craft. It's
(05:09):
not the kind of patient slog that you really need
to get a lasting piece. I mean, the example would
be Northern Ireland. You know, the good Friday agreement took years.
It took patient negotiation by the Clinton administration, in particular
the former US Democratic Senator George Mitchell. It was a
slow process. It was an agonizing process. It required enormous detail,
(05:34):
you know, looking at maps and things like that. And
you know, Trump just hasn't got this patience, which is
why it's sort of throwing out all these different ideas.
It's almost like it's episodic mic. I mean, in Alaska
it was the kind of Pudin show, and this week
it was the kind of Zelenski and the European Leaders show.
And next week it'll be the maybe the Budapest show
or the Geneva show. And there's always a cliffhanger. He
(05:58):
runs his foreign policy on stuff like this as if
it is a reality TV show, and that's what makes
it so difficult to follow. And that's what makes it
so difficult to trust the process. Because when America starts
talking about security guarantees, are they worth anything or is
it just the kind of diplomatic equivalent of a degree
(06:19):
from Trump University.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
A very good point. Let me broaden it out a
bit further, neck the president since we've been a while,
since we've talked the presidency so far, specifically court battles,
in his ability to sort of do seemingly what he wants.
He appears and I know this is a sweeping statement,
but he appears to win more in court than he doesn't.
So he's allowed to do what he wants to do.
Is that a fear assessment? And if it is, is
(06:42):
it good presidency.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
He's not winning every single battle in the Supreme Court,
but he is winning many of the key battles in
the Supreme Court. There was a ruling earlier, a couple
of months ago, which said, for instance, that lower court
judges could not sort of block his policies, which was
a really big win for Donald Trump. And of course,
(07:04):
he got the really big win before he became president,
which is when the Supreme Court ruled that he basically
had presidential immunity and other presidents did as well, which
gave him really not untrammeled pab an awful lot of power. Yeah,
and he's using that. I think the Trump summer, you know,
(07:25):
the Trump Northern summer. We have seen Trump in full,
you know, we have seen Trump as the protectionists. We've
seen Trump as this kind of you know, an interventionist. Now,
I mean somebody who I think is more interested in
the art of the photo op to be honest, in
the art of the deal. But you know, he is
intervening in these conflicts partly because he wants to be
at the center of the action. I mean, that's kind
(07:46):
of you know, this is an attention seeking president, and
the way to get attention is to put yourself in
the middle of these things. You know, we've seen Trump
the kind of authoritarian putting troops into Los Angeles, putting
troops now in to Washington, d C. In places where
there isn't crime. You know, if you if you're going
to start putting troops on the National Mile the National
(08:07):
Mail Mic, as you know, is a very safe place
in Washington. The places that aren't safe are the places
that are not getting troops at the moment. So it's again,
it seems like a performanceive show of force to underscore
his authority. And we're seeing this kind of you know,
the protectionist as well, you know, just hammering these these
(08:31):
taffs against countries. You know, we are we're but I
was in the States recently, Mike, and you know, he's
still not a majority president. He has never cracked fifty
percent in the Gallup approval ratings. He's the only president
in history not to do that since this Poland began
in the kind of late nineteen thirties. He didn't get
fifty percent in the election. Sure he won the popular vote,
(08:53):
but he only got forty nine point nine eight percent.
We talk about Trump's America, but it isn't really Trump's
America yet. You know, Reagan won forty nine out of
fifty states when he ran in nineteen eighty four. You know,
George Perbert Walker Bush one forty out of fifty and
got more than fifty percent of the vote. Trump's never
got that. So, although you know he's trying to mold
America in his image, he hasn't managed to do that yet.
(09:15):
And there are signs that the tariffs are starting to buy,
that inflation is starting to go up. The people are
still angry that the price of eggs hasn't come down.
You know, we kind of look at Trump as if
he's a nipotent he's on the present, but he hasn't
dominated America yet in the way that he would have.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Liked, which brings me on the question is how's he
setting them up his party there is for the twenty
six midterms.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Well, I think there's an expectation that, you know, the
Republicans lose the House. I mean, you know, they've got
such a narrow majority the Hause of Representatives which they
control right now, to control the Senate as well. You know,
incumbent presidents generally suffer losses in the midterm elections, and
it would not require many seats to shift hands for
the Democrats to be in control. Then the Democrats get oversight,
(09:59):
then the Democrats can still launching investigations. I mean, that
doesn't give you massive power, but it gives you a
certain amount of power to kind of rein him in
the Senate. Map is harder for the Democrats than it
is for the Republicans, and the Republicans are in control
of the Senate right now. So that's this expectation that
he will keep the Senate, the Republicans will keep control
of the Senate. But one of the reasons, it's thought
(10:20):
that he's pushing so hard and so fast at the moment,
I mean, the energy levels of this administration will frankly
have surprised me. I didn't think they would be quite
so sort of fast and furious in the early months.
You know, one of the reasons why they might be
doing that is because they realized that the congressional situation
in Washington won't be as helpful as is now after
the midterms. But yeah, a lot, you know, so much
(10:42):
depends on the economy, and you know the thing about
the tariffs. Yet you know there's a lag effect. They
haven't really a lot of them haven't really come in yet.
I mean, Trump keeps on saying it's sort of foreign
government's paying money into the American exchequer. It's not, it's
it's it's US firms and they're going to start passing
that on to the US consumers in a moment, and
that could really impact his power polarity.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Exactly. Always a great pleasure, mate, we'll catch up again soon.
Appreciate it as always. Nick Bryant, our old mate from
across the Tasman these days, of course, author of Well
When America Stopped Being Great? If you haven't read it yet,
Into the Forever War. For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast,
listen live to news talks it'd be from six am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
So with a meeting maybe in the wings. That could
be in Budapirsto or Switzerland or anywhere else you might
want to guess. It could involve two people or three people,
a by let or a tri let. The upshot is
the pressure is on the US president at the moment
to deliver on a piece deal for Ukraine. He's busy
claiming he is the war solver in chief. Seven wars
and counting as of yesterday, are all make Nick Bryant,
author of everything from When America Stopped Being Great to
(00:21):
The Forever War, is beck with us.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Nick, Good morning, Hey Mike, how are you?
Speaker 1 (00:26):
I'm very well, indeed, I'll start with the last question. First,
how do you think all this ends?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Well, it's so difficult to say, isn't it. Presumably it
ends Mike with Donald Trump at some stage really saying
to Vladimir Putin issuing him an ultimatum. This has to stop,
and if it doesn't, we will exert pressure on you.
The problem is, Mike, that crunch moment never comes, does it.
(00:53):
When he headed to Alaska, he said, I am demanding
a cease far. And if there isn't a cease far,
there are going to be serious concepts. Vladimir Pusin, he
was talking about more sanctions. He was talking about secondary
sanctions from countries like India and China, who by Russias,
all who basically sort of helped finance the war effort
through those purchases. And what happened in Alaska Trump back down.
(01:15):
He came away with nothing from Pusin. And that's the problem.
As you said, he just seems to be sort of
making it up as as he's going along a bilateral
or a trilateral Budapest or Switzerland. There just doesn't seem
to be a strategic plan. As so often happens, it
seems that Trump is influenced by the last person he
speaks to. This week, it was the Europeans of Vladimirzelenski
(01:35):
in Washington, that extraordinary summit this time. Last week, of course,
it was Vladimir Putin in another extraordinary summit in Alaska.
There's just doesn't seem to be a coherent strategy, Mike,
So it's hard to see how this ends.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Do you think there will be a meeting will Putin show?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Well, he has always rejected the legitimacy of Vladimir Zelenski
as the president of Ukraine. He has always regarded him
as a junior. He doesn't see any parity between Russia
and Ukraine. He wants to see a puppet in Ukraine.
He wants to see a Russia friendly Ukraine. And he's
never stepped back, Mike, from that core demand throughout this process.
(02:18):
Over the last few weeks, as Donald Trump has had
these phone calls, as Donald Trump has had this face
to face, Vladimir Putin has made absolutely zero concessions. And
while this process has been going on, of course, he's
intensifying the war. I mean, after being given that letter
from Milania, Trump's saying, you know, stop basically stop killing kids.
(02:40):
He keeps on killing kids. And it goes back to
this relationship, Mike, which is the most fascinating balladder relationship
on the planet right now, between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.
I do not understand that relationship. I've been thinking about
that relationship for the last sort of eight or nine years.
I think the only two people really understand it at
(03:01):
Putin and Trump. Who knows what happened in Alaska, especially
in that private moment we're in the beast together. You know,
they have that sort of ridiculous sort of red carpet
stagecraft and choreographed entry into Alaska. They get into the
car together. You know, Trump is generally deferred to by
(03:21):
every international leader, but the relationship is so different with Putin,
isn't it. He just seems to go weak at the
knees when Putin is around. He seems to defer to Putin.
His language, his body language is so different. He never
gets what he wants out of Putin. And I don't
know why, and I don't think anybody really does.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
What's happened. What I find interesting is this was a
bloke who's isolationist to Mierica first, and if you listen
to Marjorie Taylor Green and all that lot, this isn't
the a war. He didn't seem interested. He was going
to give you a meeting. This is months ago. And
if you don't want to do what, I'm out, I'm done.
I've got a better things to do with in the time.
Now he's back solving, according to him, seven wars. Is
(03:59):
he a niceist or is he solving the world's problems.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
I don't think he's ever been an isolationist in the
traditional sense, which is to basically retreat to America to
kind of regard America as a country that wouldn't really
connect in a significant way with other countries in a
significant way with other conflicts around the world. And I
think during the second term he's become a real interventionist.
(04:23):
I mean, you know, Trump can claimed credit for intervening
in some conflicts in a very helpful way. I mean,
not least the Indo Pakistan flare up over that attack
in Kashmir earlier in the year that had the potential
pight to go really really ugly. I mean, these are
two nuclear arm powers. Back in two thousand and one,
two thousand and two, there was a conflagration there that
(04:46):
really looked like it could spiral a lot of control.
And the Trump administration was very quick in this instance
to stop that. You know, we' seen these these these
peace deals in Africa, and you know, the the problem is, Mike,
I mean so often Trump goes for this kind of
performative diplomacy. It's it's stagecraft rather than state craft. It's
(05:09):
not the kind of patient slog that you really need
to get a lasting piece. I mean, the example would
be Northern Ireland. You know, the good Friday agreement took years.
It took patient negotiation by the Clinton administration, in particular
the former US Democratic Senator George Mitchell. It was a
slow process. It was an agonizing process. It required enormous detail,
(05:34):
you know, looking at maps and things like that. And
you know, Trump just hasn't got this patience, which is
why it's sort of throwing out all these different ideas.
It's almost like it's episodic mic. I mean, in Alaska
it was the kind of Pudin show, and this week
it was the kind of Zelenski and the European Leaders show.
And next week it'll be the maybe the Budapest show
or the Geneva show. And there's always a cliffhanger. He
(05:58):
runs his foreign policy on stuff like this as if
it is a reality TV show, and that's what makes
it so difficult to follow. And that's what makes it
so difficult to trust the process. Because when America starts
talking about security guarantees, are they worth anything or is
it just the kind of diplomatic equivalent of a degree
(06:19):
from Trump University.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
A very good point. Let me broaden it out a
bit further, neck the president since we've been a while,
since we've talked the presidency so far, specifically court battles,
in his ability to sort of do seemingly what he wants.
He appears and I know this is a sweeping statement,
but he appears to win more in court than he doesn't.
So he's allowed to do what he wants to do.
Is that a fear assessment? And if it is, is
(06:42):
it good presidency.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
He's not winning every single battle in the Supreme Court,
but he is winning many of the key battles in
the Supreme Court. There was a ruling earlier, a couple
of months ago, which said, for instance, that lower court
judges could not sort of block his policies, which was
a really big win for Donald Trump. And of course,
(07:04):
he got the really big win before he became president,
which is when the Supreme Court ruled that he basically
had presidential immunity and other presidents did as well, which
gave him really not untrammeled pab an awful lot of power. Yeah,
and he's using that. I think the Trump summer, you know,
(07:25):
the Trump Northern summer. We have seen Trump in full,
you know, we have seen Trump as the protectionists. We've
seen Trump as this kind of you know, an interventionist. Now,
I mean somebody who I think is more interested in
the art of the photo op to be honest, in
the art of the deal. But you know, he is
intervening in these conflicts partly because he wants to be
at the center of the action. I mean, that's kind
(07:46):
of you know, this is an attention seeking president, and
the way to get attention is to put yourself in
the middle of these things. You know, we've seen Trump
the kind of authoritarian putting troops into Los Angeles, putting
troops now in to Washington, d C. In places where
there isn't crime. You know, if you if you're going
to start putting troops on the National Mile the National
(08:07):
Mail Mic, as you know, is a very safe place
in Washington. The places that aren't safe are the places
that are not getting troops at the moment. So it's again,
it seems like a performanceive show of force to underscore
his authority. And we're seeing this kind of you know,
the protectionist as well, you know, just hammering these these
(08:31):
taffs against countries. You know, we are we're but I
was in the States recently, Mike, and you know, he's
still not a majority president. He has never cracked fifty
percent in the Gallup approval ratings. He's the only president
in history not to do that since this Poland began
in the kind of late nineteen thirties. He didn't get
fifty percent in the election. Sure he won the popular vote,
(08:53):
but he only got forty nine point nine eight percent.
We talk about Trump's America, but it isn't really Trump's
America yet. You know, Reagan won forty nine out of
fifty states when he ran in nineteen eighty four. You know,
George Perbert Walker Bush one forty out of fifty and
got more than fifty percent of the vote. Trump's never
got that. So, although you know he's trying to mold
America in his image, he hasn't managed to do that yet.
(09:15):
And there are signs that the tariffs are starting to buy,
that inflation is starting to go up. The people are
still angry that the price of eggs hasn't come down.
You know, we kind of look at Trump as if
he's a nipotent he's on the present, but he hasn't
dominated America yet in the way that he would have.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Liked, which brings me on the question is how's he
setting them up his party there is for the twenty
six midterms.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Well, I think there's an expectation that, you know, the
Republicans lose the House. I mean, you know, they've got
such a narrow majority the Hause of Representatives which they
control right now, to control the Senate as well. You know,
incumbent presidents generally suffer losses in the midterm elections, and
it would not require many seats to shift hands for
the Democrats to be in control. Then the Democrats get oversight,
(09:59):
then the Democrats can still launching investigations. I mean, that
doesn't give you massive power, but it gives you a
certain amount of power to kind of rein him in
the Senate. Map is harder for the Democrats than it
is for the Republicans, and the Republicans are in control
of the Senate right now. So that's this expectation that
he will keep the Senate, the Republicans will keep control
of the Senate. But one of the reasons, it's thought
(10:20):
that he's pushing so hard and so fast at the moment,
I mean, the energy levels of this administration will frankly
have surprised me. I didn't think they would be quite
so sort of fast and furious in the early months.
You know, one of the reasons why they might be
doing that is because they realized that the congressional situation
in Washington won't be as helpful as is now after
the midterms. But yeah, a lot, you know, so much
(10:42):
depends on the economy, and you know the thing about
the tariffs. Yet you know there's a lag effect. They
haven't really a lot of them haven't really come in yet.
I mean, Trump keeps on saying it's sort of foreign
government's paying money into the American exchequer. It's not, it's
it's it's US firms and they're going to start passing
that on to the US consumers in a moment, and
that could really impact his power polarity.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Exactly. Always a great pleasure, mate, we'll catch up again soon.
Appreciate it as always. Nick Bryant, our old mate from
across the Tasman these days, of course, author of Well
When America Stopped Being Great? If you haven't read it yet,
Into the Forever War. For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast,
listen live to news talks it'd be from six am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.