Trump appears to wear rose-colored glasses on Putin that, however, might come off soon, former US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Joel Rubin says. #Trump #Putin
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00:00I mean, do you think Russia's position is, look, we've got the momentum on the battlefield
00:06at this particular moment, after these long winters where not a lot happens on the battlefield
00:11because everyone's frozen into their positions, so why would we stop fighting now?
00:15Do you think that's where they're coming from?
00:17Well, you know, I think that's where they've always been.
00:20And that's what's been most perplexing about President Trump's view of Vladimir Putin's
00:25intentions, which is he seems to think that Putin does want to cease fire, claims that
00:30that was discussed on the phone.
00:33And the result is that the United States, we've given up much of our diplomatic leverage
00:37over Russia through rhetoric in particular related to, for example, the Secretary of
00:43Defense saying that the United States would not accept Ukraine into NATO, of course, the
00:49dressing down of Vladimir Zelensky in the Oval Office.
00:53And then after that, the withdrawal of American military and intelligence support, which led
00:59to a surge in Russian offensive activity.
01:03So it might very well be, and this is a lot of the discussion in Washington, that President
01:08Trump has rose-colored glasses on what he thinks Vladimir Putin's intentions are.
01:14Well, I think those glasses might now just be about ready to come off.