March 7, 2025 • 15 mins
President Donald Trump has thrown another curveball into global politics, seemingly reversing course on Ukraine negotiations and threatening new sanctions on Russia in a Truth Social post—just as he hints at potential diplomatic talks with Tehran. Such abrupt shifts in recent weeks have left Washington and America's allies scrambling, raising urgent questions about the future of U.S. commitments in Europe and elsewhere. As Europe begins to step up its defense ambitions, will Trump's unpredictability push the continent toward greater strategic independence? And with some Republican lawmakers growing uneasy about his Ukraine stance, is there real resistance within the GOP, or just political posturing? In this episode, Jacob Heilbrunn speaks with long-time Republican strategist Antonia Ferrier. Ferrier has extensive experience on Capitol Hill, including as a staff director in the office of former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
Music by Aleksey Chistilin from Pixabay
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi, I'm Jacob Heilbrunn, the editor of The National Interest.
(00:27):
And welcome to our podcast today with Antonia Ferrier, a longtime Capitol Hill staffer who
worked for Senator Mitch McConnell.
Antonia, Donald Trump today announced something of what appears to be a U-turn on Russia and
Ukraine.
He threatened Russia with sanctions and tariffs in a truth social post.
(00:51):
He's declared, based on the fact that Russia is absolutely pounding Ukraine on the battlefield
right now, I am strongly considering large scale banking sanctions, sanctions and tariffs
on Russia until a ceasefire and final settlement agreement on peace is reached.
Get to the table now before it is too late.
(01:11):
Thank you.
What's your take on this latest development?
Well, I think he simply wants a big deal.
And given the actions over the past few weeks with the Russians clearly trying to make hay
of where the Trump team has been on Ukraine, that they've been increasing the Russians,
(01:31):
that is, and increasing strikes across Ukraine.
They're not doing what Donald Trump wanted.
So Donald Trump is trying to get them back to the table, get them to the table with these
threats.
We'll see if it works.
Isn't the real issue that Trump has jerked support for Ukraine on the battlefield and
left them vulnerable to Russian attacks?
(01:53):
And as long as that's the case, why does Putin have any incentive to engage in negotiations?
That's sort of the question that I think many of America's allies who support the cause
in Ukraine have very publicly wondered is you don't have a lot of leverage if you're
basically taking things off the table.
And so I think that is a very good question.
(02:15):
Went from a couple of days where it was stopping intelligence sharing, saying that the United
States was not going to support or give more military assistance to the Ukrainians, with
Keith Kellogg yesterday saying that it basically had to kick the Ukrainians like a donkey to
get them back to the table.
But in that period of time, the Russians have been taking advantage of that with propaganda
(02:39):
at home, flexing their muscles in Ukraine with slaughtering more innocent people.
But ultimately, I think maybe Donald Trump realized that he wasn't getting the Russians
to the table.
It was just giving them more and more leeway to claim victory while still taking more Ukrainian
land and lives.
(03:00):
So hopefully there's some good out of this, which is that he actually understands and
seeing what is happening in Ukraine and may now pivot to a more productive place, which
is to get the Russians to heal, to bring them to heal, so to speak.
So maybe I'm being too much of an optimist, Jacob, but hope springs to turn, I suppose.
(03:23):
Now I know you were just in Germany on an election trip.
What's your take on the incoming chancellor Friedrich Merz?
And he seems to be taking a pretty active stance, as far as I can tell, pushing for
a 500 billion euro infrastructure fund to rebuild both Germany's infrastructure and
(03:44):
the Bundeswehr or the German army.
Are you more optimistic that Europe is going to step in where the United States is retreating?
Yes.
The short answer is yes.
I think this is very difficult for the Europeans in a way that a lot of Americans don't appreciate.
But as I've joked with some friends, the United States has never really wanted Germany to
(04:07):
rearm, right?
There are two world wars in the last century that kind of demonstrate that we were the
security umbrella for Europe.
And for good reason.
We needed to hold these countries together because they had centuries of slaughtering
one another.
We needed to be the glue that kept the security across Europe.
And that was in America's interest.
I think right now the Europeans are coming to a very stark realization that that reliance
(04:33):
on the United States for security is really in question.
And on any given day, based off of the posture of this administration in Washington, they
just don't feel like they can rely on it.
And Germany is always and has always been the critical.
Tell me about your perception of Capitol Hill, where the Hill website today reports that
(04:57):
Republican lawmakers, including Tom Tillis and Susan Collins, are becoming increasingly
restive about Trump's cessation of aid to Ukraine.
Do you based on your long experience on Capitol Hill, do you think that this amounts to anything
or is it just a hill of beans, so to speak?
(05:20):
Well, again, I choose to be hopeful.
You know, Senator Collins has been to Ukraine.
Senator Tillis is a big believer in NATO and the Western Alliance.
The question is whether it's just more than words.
Senator Collins is the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, so she does have
some leverage here.
It is a Republican controlled Congress, unitary controlled Congress.
(05:43):
So she does have some leverage.
The question is, what is she asking for?
I am sort of in this place where I appreciate anyone who's willing to speak their mind on
things like Ukraine and NATO.
I appreciate that.
But I think we're kind of in the point at the point where I would hope that it's more
than just words.
And I guess we'll see.
She's in a position of power and leverage.
(06:05):
And I would never underestimate Susan Collins.
She is a fierce woman, but she's only one.
So the question is, what can be done?
And I think there are probably a lot of behind the scenes discussions going on considering
the government needs to be funded by the end of March.
So I'll be hope springs eternal again with some faith and confidence in Senator Collins.
(06:27):
But again, we need more than words.
We need actions right now.
And when you listen to Trump's adversaries among the Democrats and liberals, you get
the sense that they view him as a kind of James Bond villain and Ernst J. Blofeld craftily
plotting to subvert the liberal order and that he has a clear and coherent plan.
(06:52):
However, I'm starting to get the feeling once more that he's hopscotching around.
When you see how he zigs and zags on the tariffs and now is blustering about Russia, are we
actually dealing with a president who's just kind of winging it?
I think two things can be right at the same time.
(07:14):
I think many people who work for him have a very specific worldview.
And I think he shares some of that.
But at the end of the day, he wants to be the guy that makes the decision.
He sits, as we've all seen him in the Oval Office, at his resolute desk.
And he signs these executive orders and holds them up.
He did with tariffs on Mexico and Canada yesterday.
(07:38):
He likes to keep the world guessing.
It's what he's done the first four years in the White House and he's doing now.
And that's why they come out really hard in one place.
And then he says, well, maybe not.
And so tariffs being the most profound demonstration of that.
The problem, though, is he likes to be the one that everyone's staring at.
(07:59):
And they are.
The world is.
There's no question about it.
The problem is that for businesses and for the economy, the global economy, frankly,
doesn't work very well when there's so much uncertainty out there.
You can't build a factory and then, oh, Donald Trump has changed his mind on what those tariffs
are.
And if you've built a factory in Mexico, you can't just move it to America.
(08:24):
It takes a lot of money.
So I think there is a lot of business anxiety and economic anxiety out there.
So I think he's seeing that with the stock market.
But I don't think we're going to see much change in terms of him making these big pronouncements
on tariffs and then what rolling them back.
But it's very unsettling to the global economy and is bringing about a lot of fear and a
(08:48):
lot of anger, by the way, in some of our allies.
Are we in some ways slitting our own throat, at least economically?
If you look at capital flows and the European defense industry, have we in fact awakened
a sleeping giant in Europe?
The EU, I believe, has loosened restrictions on parliamentarians interacting with Chinese
(09:14):
officials.
Is the EU going to be a more independent bloc?
And is that going to attenuate American influence, not only in Europe, but maybe in the Middle
East, because we rely on those military bases in Europe for power projection into the Middle
East?
So there are many things to sort of unpack with that.
(09:35):
But I would start with number one.
Yes, I think that Europe is waking out of a slumber.
It's taken too long.
They unfortunately, the thing that worries me in all of this, and again, I do want to
commend them, right?
They are taking bold steps and we need to give credit where credit's due to the European
Commission, to the French, to the Germans, the Brits, et cetera.
(09:57):
But again, maybe this is because I'm an old school conservative.
I like to say I'm so old school that I might be new school.
They can't just rely on statist approaches to all of this.
Like they cannot just be through big purchases of weapons systems from the big guys.
They need to really undertake a revolutionary process across Europe.
(10:17):
And this is going to be hard for them where they are liberalizing their capital markets,
where they're really, really changing their attitude toward innovation and to risk.
They cannot keep doing what they've been doing.
This requires an attitudinal shift.
This requires, for example, the Germans lying on a psychiatric couch and saying to themselves,
(10:39):
we can do this.
Because the challenge they have is that the American economy is so big and strong and
dynamic and it is for a reason.
And this is just something the Europeans are really going to have to play catch up on.
And I don't want to underestimate their strength and their power because they do have it, but
(11:00):
they really need to have a massive attitudinal shift.
Now, to your question about the Middle East, yes, I mean, the United States has bases all
across Germany and this isn't just for European defense.
This is how we are allowed to force project into the Middle East.
And the idea, anyone who's saying we can just go into the Middle East and fix it all and
(11:22):
leave has not paid attention for the past however many decades, centuries.
Every time the United States thinks it's done with the Middle East, something happens.
And I think that's going to always be the case or at least for a long time.
I think it's very interesting.
The Trump administration has announced today it wants to hold talks with the Iranians.
Interesting.
(11:43):
That's a very different position than it had in the first administration.
But we'll see.
I mean, again, Donald Trump likes making big deals.
So at least, you know, whether they're actually as big a deals as he says they are is a whole
other question.
But, you know, he wants big deals.
So I guess we'll see what happens with the Iranians.
But to a certain extent, we are cutting off our nose despite our face with some of these
(12:06):
actions in Washington that are going to hurt the United States and hurt consumers.
I have hope and faith in the Europeans, but they are going to have to really radically
change how they think about themselves and how they actually grow their economy.
Because if they just continue to do big status approach like the French love to do, then
(12:28):
they're going to struggle.
The point about Iran is fascinating.
I've always wondered, do you think Trump will be the American president who reopens the
American embassy in Tehran and visits the capital?
I cannot see that.
I mean, I don't know.
I have no idea.
That is just such a bizarre image to me.
But I cannot see that.
(12:50):
I would be very curious what the Israelis think about all of this, because the past
year and a half have seen Israel absolutely upend the sort of paradigm for the Middle
East.
I mean, you can not like what the Israelis did, but they certainly took bold, very bold
action after the Hamas attacks of October 7th.
(13:12):
So they have upended the Middle East because I think they were probably from their perspective
tired of this rinse and repeat where they do small incursions, say, into southern Lebanon,
do some strikes into Iran from time to time.
They just totally upended everything.
I'm very curious to see what the Netanyahu government thinks about all of this, especially
(13:34):
after there has also been some direct contact between the Trump administration and members
of Hamas over some of the American hostages.
So I guess we're in a position where the United States government is taking a maximalist
approach in terms of negotiations and will see where they end up.
But again, it's not just, it can't just be the photo op.
(13:56):
What matters is what's inked in any deals.
And you know, when going back to Russia, my very strong opinion, which is not unique,
is that with regimes like in Moscow, they only understand power and we cannot let a
power vacuum be filled in Ukraine by abandoning the Zelensky government and the Ukrainian
(14:20):
people.
But it's power.
And so it can't just be some parade somewhere.
It's got to actually be filled with real security guarantees and a real European military commitment
to Ukraine to save itself and protect itself.
Oh, Antonia, I love your observation that old is new and that retrofit.
In fact, old style conservatism could become retro.
(14:44):
So thank you very much for all those insights.
And we definitely have to do this again.
Thank you, Jacob.
Wonderful being with you.
Thank you.
Hi, I'm Jacob Heilbrunn, the editor of The National Interest.
(00:27):
And welcome to our podcast today with Antonia Ferrier, a longtime Capitol Hill staffer who
worked for Senator Mitch McConnell.
Antonia, Donald Trump today announced something of what appears to be a U-turn on Russia and
Ukraine.
He threatened Russia with sanctions and tariffs in a truth social post.
(00:51):
He's declared, based on the fact that Russia is absolutely pounding Ukraine on the battlefield
right now, I am strongly considering large scale banking sanctions, sanctions and tariffs
on Russia until a ceasefire and final settlement agreement on peace is reached.
Get to the table now before it is too late.
(01:11):
Thank you.
What's your take on this latest development?
Well, I think he simply wants a big deal.
And given the actions over the past few weeks with the Russians clearly trying to make hay
of where the Trump team has been on Ukraine, that they've been increasing the Russians,
(01:31):
that is, and increasing strikes across Ukraine.
They're not doing what Donald Trump wanted.
So Donald Trump is trying to get them back to the table, get them to the table with these
threats.
We'll see if it works.
Isn't the real issue that Trump has jerked support for Ukraine on the battlefield and
left them vulnerable to Russian attacks?
(01:53):
And as long as that's the case, why does Putin have any incentive to engage in negotiations?
That's sort of the question that I think many of America's allies who support the cause
in Ukraine have very publicly wondered is you don't have a lot of leverage if you're
basically taking things off the table.
And so I think that is a very good question.
(02:15):
Went from a couple of days where it was stopping intelligence sharing, saying that the United
States was not going to support or give more military assistance to the Ukrainians, with
Keith Kellogg yesterday saying that it basically had to kick the Ukrainians like a donkey to
get them back to the table.
But in that period of time, the Russians have been taking advantage of that with propaganda
(02:39):
at home, flexing their muscles in Ukraine with slaughtering more innocent people.
But ultimately, I think maybe Donald Trump realized that he wasn't getting the Russians
to the table.
It was just giving them more and more leeway to claim victory while still taking more Ukrainian
land and lives.
(03:00):
So hopefully there's some good out of this, which is that he actually understands and
seeing what is happening in Ukraine and may now pivot to a more productive place, which
is to get the Russians to heal, to bring them to heal, so to speak.
So maybe I'm being too much of an optimist, Jacob, but hope springs to turn, I suppose.
(03:23):
Now I know you were just in Germany on an election trip.
What's your take on the incoming chancellor Friedrich Merz?
And he seems to be taking a pretty active stance, as far as I can tell, pushing for
a 500 billion euro infrastructure fund to rebuild both Germany's infrastructure and
(03:44):
the Bundeswehr or the German army.
Are you more optimistic that Europe is going to step in where the United States is retreating?
Yes.
The short answer is yes.
I think this is very difficult for the Europeans in a way that a lot of Americans don't appreciate.
But as I've joked with some friends, the United States has never really wanted Germany to
(04:07):
rearm, right?
There are two world wars in the last century that kind of demonstrate that we were the
security umbrella for Europe.
And for good reason.
We needed to hold these countries together because they had centuries of slaughtering
one another.
We needed to be the glue that kept the security across Europe.
And that was in America's interest.
I think right now the Europeans are coming to a very stark realization that that reliance
(04:33):
on the United States for security is really in question.
And on any given day, based off of the posture of this administration in Washington, they
just don't feel like they can rely on it.
And Germany is always and has always been the critical.
Tell me about your perception of Capitol Hill, where the Hill website today reports that
(04:57):
Republican lawmakers, including Tom Tillis and Susan Collins, are becoming increasingly
restive about Trump's cessation of aid to Ukraine.
Do you based on your long experience on Capitol Hill, do you think that this amounts to anything
or is it just a hill of beans, so to speak?
(05:20):
Well, again, I choose to be hopeful.
You know, Senator Collins has been to Ukraine.
Senator Tillis is a big believer in NATO and the Western Alliance.
The question is whether it's just more than words.
Senator Collins is the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, so she does have
some leverage here.
It is a Republican controlled Congress, unitary controlled Congress.
(05:43):
So she does have some leverage.
The question is, what is she asking for?
I am sort of in this place where I appreciate anyone who's willing to speak their mind on
things like Ukraine and NATO.
I appreciate that.
But I think we're kind of in the point at the point where I would hope that it's more
than just words.
And I guess we'll see.
She's in a position of power and leverage.
(06:05):
And I would never underestimate Susan Collins.
She is a fierce woman, but she's only one.
So the question is, what can be done?
And I think there are probably a lot of behind the scenes discussions going on considering
the government needs to be funded by the end of March.
So I'll be hope springs eternal again with some faith and confidence in Senator Collins.
(06:27):
But again, we need more than words.
We need actions right now.
And when you listen to Trump's adversaries among the Democrats and liberals, you get
the sense that they view him as a kind of James Bond villain and Ernst J. Blofeld craftily
plotting to subvert the liberal order and that he has a clear and coherent plan.
(06:52):
However, I'm starting to get the feeling once more that he's hopscotching around.
When you see how he zigs and zags on the tariffs and now is blustering about Russia, are we
actually dealing with a president who's just kind of winging it?
I think two things can be right at the same time.
(07:14):
I think many people who work for him have a very specific worldview.
And I think he shares some of that.
But at the end of the day, he wants to be the guy that makes the decision.
He sits, as we've all seen him in the Oval Office, at his resolute desk.
And he signs these executive orders and holds them up.
He did with tariffs on Mexico and Canada yesterday.
(07:38):
He likes to keep the world guessing.
It's what he's done the first four years in the White House and he's doing now.
And that's why they come out really hard in one place.
And then he says, well, maybe not.
And so tariffs being the most profound demonstration of that.
The problem, though, is he likes to be the one that everyone's staring at.
(07:59):
And they are.
The world is.
There's no question about it.
The problem is that for businesses and for the economy, the global economy, frankly,
doesn't work very well when there's so much uncertainty out there.
You can't build a factory and then, oh, Donald Trump has changed his mind on what those tariffs
are.
And if you've built a factory in Mexico, you can't just move it to America.
(08:24):
It takes a lot of money.
So I think there is a lot of business anxiety and economic anxiety out there.
So I think he's seeing that with the stock market.
But I don't think we're going to see much change in terms of him making these big pronouncements
on tariffs and then what rolling them back.
But it's very unsettling to the global economy and is bringing about a lot of fear and a
(08:48):
lot of anger, by the way, in some of our allies.
Are we in some ways slitting our own throat, at least economically?
If you look at capital flows and the European defense industry, have we in fact awakened
a sleeping giant in Europe?
The EU, I believe, has loosened restrictions on parliamentarians interacting with Chinese
(09:14):
officials.
Is the EU going to be a more independent bloc?
And is that going to attenuate American influence, not only in Europe, but maybe in the Middle
East, because we rely on those military bases in Europe for power projection into the Middle
East?
So there are many things to sort of unpack with that.
(09:35):
But I would start with number one.
Yes, I think that Europe is waking out of a slumber.
It's taken too long.
They unfortunately, the thing that worries me in all of this, and again, I do want to
commend them, right?
They are taking bold steps and we need to give credit where credit's due to the European
Commission, to the French, to the Germans, the Brits, et cetera.
(09:57):
But again, maybe this is because I'm an old school conservative.
I like to say I'm so old school that I might be new school.
They can't just rely on statist approaches to all of this.
Like they cannot just be through big purchases of weapons systems from the big guys.
They need to really undertake a revolutionary process across Europe.
(10:17):
And this is going to be hard for them where they are liberalizing their capital markets,
where they're really, really changing their attitude toward innovation and to risk.
They cannot keep doing what they've been doing.
This requires an attitudinal shift.
This requires, for example, the Germans lying on a psychiatric couch and saying to themselves,
(10:39):
we can do this.
Because the challenge they have is that the American economy is so big and strong and
dynamic and it is for a reason.
And this is just something the Europeans are really going to have to play catch up on.
And I don't want to underestimate their strength and their power because they do have it, but
(11:00):
they really need to have a massive attitudinal shift.
Now, to your question about the Middle East, yes, I mean, the United States has bases all
across Germany and this isn't just for European defense.
This is how we are allowed to force project into the Middle East.
And the idea, anyone who's saying we can just go into the Middle East and fix it all and
(11:22):
leave has not paid attention for the past however many decades, centuries.
Every time the United States thinks it's done with the Middle East, something happens.
And I think that's going to always be the case or at least for a long time.
I think it's very interesting.
The Trump administration has announced today it wants to hold talks with the Iranians.
Interesting.
(11:43):
That's a very different position than it had in the first administration.
But we'll see.
I mean, again, Donald Trump likes making big deals.
So at least, you know, whether they're actually as big a deals as he says they are is a whole
other question.
But, you know, he wants big deals.
So I guess we'll see what happens with the Iranians.
But to a certain extent, we are cutting off our nose despite our face with some of these
(12:06):
actions in Washington that are going to hurt the United States and hurt consumers.
I have hope and faith in the Europeans, but they are going to have to really radically
change how they think about themselves and how they actually grow their economy.
Because if they just continue to do big status approach like the French love to do, then
(12:28):
they're going to struggle.
The point about Iran is fascinating.
I've always wondered, do you think Trump will be the American president who reopens the
American embassy in Tehran and visits the capital?
I cannot see that.
I mean, I don't know.
I have no idea.
That is just such a bizarre image to me.
But I cannot see that.
(12:50):
I would be very curious what the Israelis think about all of this, because the past
year and a half have seen Israel absolutely upend the sort of paradigm for the Middle
East.
I mean, you can not like what the Israelis did, but they certainly took bold, very bold
action after the Hamas attacks of October 7th.
(13:12):
So they have upended the Middle East because I think they were probably from their perspective
tired of this rinse and repeat where they do small incursions, say, into southern Lebanon,
do some strikes into Iran from time to time.
They just totally upended everything.
I'm very curious to see what the Netanyahu government thinks about all of this, especially
(13:34):
after there has also been some direct contact between the Trump administration and members
of Hamas over some of the American hostages.
So I guess we're in a position where the United States government is taking a maximalist
approach in terms of negotiations and will see where they end up.
But again, it's not just, it can't just be the photo op.
(13:56):
What matters is what's inked in any deals.
And you know, when going back to Russia, my very strong opinion, which is not unique,
is that with regimes like in Moscow, they only understand power and we cannot let a
power vacuum be filled in Ukraine by abandoning the Zelensky government and the Ukrainian
(14:20):
people.
But it's power.
And so it can't just be some parade somewhere.
It's got to actually be filled with real security guarantees and a real European military commitment
to Ukraine to save itself and protect itself.
Oh, Antonia, I love your observation that old is new and that retrofit.
In fact, old style conservatism could become retro.
(14:44):
So thank you very much for all those insights.
And we definitely have to do this again.
Thank you, Jacob.
Wonderful being with you.
Thank you.
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