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00:00The US President Joe Biden has today announced a surge in assistance to Ukraine, including
00:06nearly $8 billion in military aid. The cash injection comes as President Zelensky is in
00:12Washington. He's due to meet Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in the coming hours.
00:18And during their sit down, Zelensky is expected to present his so-called victory plan to the
00:24White House designed to end the war with Russia.
00:28Ketivan Gorgiastani, our foreign editor, is with me now. Ketivan, first of all, how significant
00:32is it that there's this new cash injection for Ukraine?
00:35Well, obviously, the amount, $8 billion, and the symbolic dates, just hours before Joe
00:42Biden is set to meet with Zelensky, is significant. But another thing that is very interesting
00:47is one of the lines in the statement put out by the White House announcing this cash injection.
00:54Joe Biden saying, I have directed the Department of Defense to allocate all of its remaining
00:59security assistance funding that has been appropriated for Ukraine by the end of my
01:04term in office. Really giving the idea that for Joe Biden right now, it's give as much
01:10money to Ukraine as possible, as much military aid as possible while he still can, because
01:16of course, there is that November 5th election in the United States. And the fact is that
01:21there is a very real possibility that it will be Donald Trump in the White House come next
01:26January, and not Kamala Harris, who would have been seen as someone who will simply
01:31continue the sort of policies that we've seen from Joe Biden in supporting Ukraine. Zelensky,
01:37of course, has already thanked the United States for this latest package of military
01:42assistance. But his meeting with Joe Biden, and then followed up by a meeting with Kamala
01:48Harris, has two other goals. You mentioned one of them, which is to present that victory
01:55plan both to Joe Biden and to Kamala Harris. But it's also to continue his push for those
02:01long-range weapons, and most importantly, for the green light by Joe Biden to use these
02:07long-range weapons to strike deep within the territory of Russia, something Joe Biden has
02:13so far been reluctant to do, despite pressure from the Ukrainians, from some Western allies,
02:20for fear in part of escalation with Russia, which brings us to something that the Russians
02:26said just recently about this new positioning on their nuclear doctrine, where basically
02:35the Kremlin was opening the door for a potential nuclear response to a conventional attack
02:41on its soil by any country with the support of powers that have the nuclear weapon, basically
02:49meaning Ukraine with the support of countries like the US or France. The Kremlin clearly
02:55sending this as a warning signal to Western allies of Ukraine as they are debating this
03:03possibility of green lighting the use of long-range weapons deep into Russia.
03:07And Ketivan, meanwhile, look, there is this growing rift between the Ukrainian government
03:12and the Republicans in the United States, not least of all Donald Trump himself.
03:17Absolutely. Just a few weeks ago, we were still talking about the possibility that not
03:21only was Zelensky going to meet Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, but that he was going to
03:25also possibly meet Donald Trump. That has gone out the window, it seems. And now Donald
03:32Trump, who has in the past been really iffy, if you might say, about supporting Ukraine
03:39just at the debate with Kamala Harris. He was saying that he was refusing to answer
03:44a question on whether he wanted to see Ukraine win the war. Now he is out there outright
03:51publicly criticizing Vladimir Zelensky. That was the case in North Carolina during a speech
03:57yesterday. Let's take a listen.
04:03Ukraine is in our country and he's making little nasty aspersions toward your favorite
04:08president, me. But take a look at the war happening right now in Ukraine. It would have
04:16never happened if I were president to start off with. I watched this poor guy yesterday
04:21at the United Nations. He didn't know what he was saying. They just don't know what to
04:28do. They're locked into a situation. It's sad. They just don't know what to do because
04:34Ukraine is gone. It's not Ukraine anymore.
04:41And Donald Trump clearly frustrated with Vladimir Zelensky. And this comes from a New Yorker
04:46story that was published on Sunday, where Zelensky criticized Trump saying that he doesn't
04:51really know how to stop the war, even if he says he does. And Trump's running mate
04:57J.D. Vance that Zelensky called too radical for suggesting that Ukraine should give up
05:02some land in order to have peace with Russia. But really what annoyed Republicans and Donald
05:09Trump is when Zelensky on Sunday actually toured a factory in Pennsylvania, in Scranton,
05:16the hometown of Joe Biden, a factory where workers are building weapons that are sent
05:23to Ukraine for the Ukrainian army to use in its war against Russia. He was joined by the
05:30Democratic governor, the Democratic senator, Democratic representative. And so Republicans
05:35are calling this simply a political stunt in a battleground state. The House Speaker,
05:42the Republican Mike Johnson, calling it election interference. He even sent a letter to the
05:46Ukrainians saying they should fire their ambassador to the United States over this so-called political
05:54stunt. Now, obviously, not all Republicans are angry with Zelensky, but you're seeing
05:59a growing rift within the Republican Party between those who are allied with Donald Trump
06:04and the so-called old school Republicans like Mitch McConnell, who still believe that the
06:10U.S. must continue to support Ukraine.