Hey, everyone. I'm David Chalian, CNN's Washington Bureau Chief and Political Director, and welcome to the CNN Political Briefing.

We've discussed a plan today to reach a pace that is tough and fair, that Ukraine will help shape, that's backed by strength to stop Putin coming back for more.

That's UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, speaking from the White House after meeting with President Trump about the war in Ukraine. He gave a warning about this critical moment, a warning that was in stark contrast with the messaging that's been coming out of the white House.

We agree history must be on the side of the peacemaker, not the invader. So the stakes, they couldn't be higher.

Last week, Trump started repeating some Russian talking points about the war. He falsely blamed Ukraine for starting the war and called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a, quote, "dictator." During Starmer's visit, Trump expressed his trust in Russian President Vladimir Putin.

I don't believe he's going to violate his word. I don't think he'll be back. When we make a deal, I think the deal is gonna hold.

And downplayed his attacks on Zelensky.

The president and I actually have had a very good relationship. It maybe got a little bit testy.

'Perhaps those tensions will continue to ease as Trump welcomes Zelensky to the White House on Friday. Susan Glasser is a columnist and podcast host for The New Yorker. She's covered both Trump and Putin extensively in her career. She's co-written books about each of them. She says this pro-Putin turn has sent a, quote, "shock wave" through Europe. And since Inauguration Day, she says she's seeing more than just a change in American foreign policy. She's also seeing what she calls the "Putinization of America" by Trump. Susan, thanks so much for joining us.

Oh, great to be with you.

'So obviously it's been a bit head spinning in the Ukraine-Russia space. I mean, a week after Donald Trump suggests that Ukraine is at fault for starting the war and suggests that Zelensky is a dictator, now Zelensky is going to be showing up at the White House, striking an agreement on the rare earth minerals. How that all can happen in a week to ten days' time — can you explain to me sort of where we are and how we sort through the Trump rhetoric and what the actual goal and attempt here is to bring a resolution to this three-year conflict?

'Well, first of all, you know, you have to say that for anyone who's still under the illusion that there is a kind of long-term U.S. commitment to Ukraine or to Europe that is inviolable and durable, you know, don't be under that illusion anymore. You know, the US at best case scenario emerges from this as an extremely inconstant partner and ally, at a minimum. And, you know, we've seen Donald Trump on the public stage for more than eight years, and he has had a consistent predilection and preference and admiration for America's adversaries, in particular, this one adversary, Russia and Vladimir Putin, and willingness to run down our allies and degrade their security and their interests. So I think we've seen this sort of very clarifying moment. And we're also having this conversation, David, on a week when the United States voted at the United Nations on the third anniversary of Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, where the United States voted with Russia and Belarus against our allies in Europe, against Ukraine — a really breathtaking moment. And, by the way, we throw the word unprecedented around. That was unprecedented.

We throw it around because it applies.

'Exactly, but, just to be clear, this one really is unprecedented and indicative, not a one-off. So, to the specific question on this rare earth mineral deal and what does it really mean? And I would say this: The US has brought Ukraine to the table here in a sort of gunboat diplomacy, essentially, you know, stuck a gun to Ukraine's head and said, you know, your money or your life. And, not surprisingly, Zelensky, while a prideful politician who did push back on Trump, comes back to the table.

Because his country's very existence depends on it, right? I mean...

Correct. It's an existential matter for Ukraine to continue to have whatever support it can from the United States. Now, again, what's remarkable is that we talk about Donald Trump as if he's pursuing, quote unquote, peace between Russia and Ukraine. Right now, he's negotiating with our vulnerable ally and not with the bad guys. The terms of this deal are not advantageous to Ukraine. They're not as bad as initially advertised, which was, give us $500 billion worth of rights to the United States, and we will provide or guarantee no further assistance or no security. Now, the thing that Ukraine really needs to make any peace deal with Russia is security guarantees from the United States and not just Europe and of a specific nature. As far as I understand it, those are not forthcoming. And, in fact, Donald Trump was very clear. You and I are having this conversation on Thursday morning. Donald Trump was very clear on Wednesday — absolutely no way, Ukraine can forget about NATO membership is what he said, although it has been the official policy of the United States of America and NATO since 2008 that Ukraine in the future should find a way to NATO membership.

Though, Susan, let me just stop right there to ask you, though. My understanding — and correct me if I'm wrong, please — it was never envisioned, like that was decoupled from whatever may have come about to be the resolution of this invasion and this conflict. NATO membership, or the path to NATO membership was never likely to be part of the resolution to the war, yes? Like that would be a postwar pursuit.

'Well, right. This was a very difficult and thorny issue throughout the Biden administration after Russia's full-scale invasion. You know, there was a really strong sense from the U.S., from the Biden administration that it was completely unfeasible as long as there was an active military conflict between Russia and Ukraine. They weren't going to take Ukraine into it. So, there was also a very robust effort to try to find security guarantees for Ukraine going forward that would exist outside of the framework of NATO for that reason. Now, by the way, Vladimir Zelensky had offered to Russia to head off the war before the invasion. He had said that he was willing, potentially, to consider trading off Ukraine's future in NATO for real, meaningful peace with Russia. And, you know, that's another one of the many lies and calumnies that Donald Trump has is to say that Ukraine somehow triggered this invasion and never tried to head it off. Totally, totally untrue. And, in fact, this specific offer that Zelensky made before the war is evidence of how serious they were because, believe me, the vast majority of Ukrainians at this point want to belong to NATO as a result of Russia's aggression against its neighbor. So, okay, stipulate to that. So what does it really mean going forward? I think not much, because Trump, in addition to ruling out NATO, has also essentially said it's up to Europe to provide security, whereas Europe says, we can't do it without the United States in a meaningful way. So Ukraine is still in an enormous amount of trouble, and that seems to be largely because Donald Trump doesn't really support Ukraine.

The president said in the Cabinet Room when pressed on this, he did say that Putin and Russia will have to make concessions in this process. He didn't specify what those were in any way. I'm wondering what you took of that and how you think Moscow may respond to that line from Trump.

Yeah, well, I think he said that because everyone has been pointing out for the last two weeks that while Donald Trump has been pivoting American foreign policy from the side of its allies to openly supporting its adversary, that he's never made any public demands that are specific on Russia, and he continues not to do so. So, you know, to me, that was very notable that he says that in a general sense. I suppose the concession is that Putin isn't still fighting to swallow up all of Ukraine, at least for the moment, right?

They want it all, and they're not going to get it all, right?

Right. And, you know, by the way, that's the real problem in resolving this conflict, it seems to me, to pull back. First of all, there's the classic American hubris here, believing that just because a bully in the White House clicks his heels, that the two adversaries are going to do what he says. And, in this case, Ukraine is fighting for its very existence, and Putin is fighting to reabsorb a country that he has said in every way possible is not a legitimate sovereign nation. Putin is fighting also an existential war in the sense that he has set himself out the goal not of hiving off a few pieces of Ukraine here and there, not of carving up the territory, but of taking possession of this illegitimate country. And so they both have existential reasons, on some level, for continuing this conflict. And it is my view, at least as of right now, that were Trump to try to impose an unpalatable peace deal on Ukraine, Americans seem to be vastly underestimating the extent to which Ukraine will continue to fight on, backed by at least some members of the NATO alliance for quite some period of time.

We're going to take a quick break. We're going to have a lot more with Susan Glasser in just a moment.

Susan, I don't quite know what you make of this. So, do you read everything Trump has said throughout the entirety of this campaign. I mean, I remember back almost two years ago, we at CNN held a town hall with Trump. Kaitlan Collins asked him flat out, who do you think should be the victor in this conflict? And he couldn't answer. And as you were just noting and discussing, it seems in every one of his public pronouncements, he seems to side with Putin or at least be enamored by Putin and Russia. And I guess, I just want to know if we — are we missing a strategic approach here from him and that this is how you get — you're rolling your eyes. I can see.

I am rolling my eyes. I have to say, like, sorry, you know, Donald Trump is on the side of Putin. Let's be clear about that, okay? Now there are American strategic interests. There are American interests inside of Trump's own government. There are people who support Ukraine. But Trump himself not only has a long history of admiring Putin, he called the invasion of Ukraine strategic genius. He believes that Zelensky, you know, is a failed leader who allowed his country to be, you know, destroyed into rubble, even though that's not really true. He is what he says he is. Okay, we are eight years and five weeks into the Trump era in American politics. And, you know, I just think it's important that we finally look at this without the blinders of obfuscation and lies around it. You know, there are a lot of people, a lot of Republicans, who've been blowing a lot of smoke over the course of the 2024 campaign, since Trump's election in November. How many times, David, were there people saying, you know, on CNN's air and elsewhere, oh, no, Donald Trump believes in peace through strength. Oh, no. Donald Trump is really — he's going to give more money to Ukraine. He's going to do this. That is not true. That is not true.

His advisers now say that part of the rhetoric we hear from him now — and I hear you saying, that's not true, and I want to explore that — is to get Putin to the table on this. And you just reject that, that that is not how you get Putin to the table?

'No, I'm not rejecting that. I'm saying that Donald Trump is on Putin's side. Those are different things. Sure, Donald Trump wants to have peace talks. He sees himself as the hero of every narrative. He wants to have a, you know, big signing ceremony of some deal. He wants to get the Nobel Peace Prize. You know, that's a constant with Donald Trump. So, you know, sure, he wants to have these talks. He doesn't care about securing Ukraine's future, first of all. Second of all, he has long accepted, to a certain extent, Putin's claim over Ukraine. It's remarkable and forgotten that in June of 2017, in his first term in office, Trump met with Zelensky's predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, in the Oval Office and told the president of Ukraine to his face that he thought Crimea wasn't really Ukrainian. It should be Russian, and that he knew it, and he also knew that Ukraine was just a corrupt country, because there was a guy at Mar-A-Lago who told him so. He told that to the president of Ukraine long before there was Zelensky. Also, he has a view of the world that's very, very consonant with Putin's, a sort of a 19th-century great power view of the world, that this is Russia's sphere of influence, in the same way that Panama and Canada and Greenland are in the United States' sphere of influence, and that, ultimately, it's a world of the strong doing whatever they want and the weak accepting it. And that is Trump's view of the world.

Do you think Putin's a bit of a role model for Trump? I mean, you lived in Russia. You covered the rise of Putin. You watched how the modern version of Russia and his grip on it came to power and utilized that power. Do you think Trump sees goals in that for him and America?

'Look, you know, you and I both have watched this unfold over the last eight years, and is there a word in Donald Trump's vocabulary that he likes more than the words strong and strongman? This is the ultimate form of praise for Donald Trump. And, you know, as I wrote in my New Yorker column recently, what's jarring to me in this return to power and what's different is not only the shocking kind of shift in American foreign policy to take a pro-Russia, pro-Putin tilt, but the deployment in a rapid and consequential way, of Putin-like tactics in American politics. And, you know, you can call that, you know, the "Putinization" of American power. Now, it's important to say, of course, the United States is not Russia. We have a different history, culture, politics. We have institutions, in particular an independent judiciary, that Russia has never had. So, you know, again, but if you look at the tactics that I observed 25 years ago in Moscow, it's the systematically going after any possible independent power centers, whether it's the independent media, whether it is taking over political parties, turning Congress or the Duma in Russia's case, into essentially an instrument as well of executive power. Those are the things that I see unfolding here in Washington in quite a dramatic way now that Trump has returned to office unconstrained by norms, traditions and a series of advisers in his first term who held him back from many of those things.

'What does this moment mean — and I hear you say about specifically for Ukraine security what it means — but broadly, given we've seen Macron this week, we've seen Starmer come to the white House? What does the US-European relationship, how does it move forward from here? And how lasting of an impact will this, however Donald Trump seems to extricate the US and the world from this war that that Putin began when he invaded Ukraine. What are the lasting impacts, you think, on U.S.-Europe relations?

Yeah, it's such an important question. I mean, I think we should not underestimate the extent to which this is really a shock wave for our European allies and partners. And certainly it's one that's been building for a number of years, predating Donald Trump. Going back to Barack Obama, there have been increasing warnings from American presidents in both parties, saying Europe needs to foot the bill more for its own security. Europe needs to focus more on the threat from Russia, get more serious about security, really understand that the world is shifting, understand about the geopolitical competition with China. Those messages have been, you know, increasing in volume for quite some time. But Trump represents a sort of, I think, a break, even a psychological break, for Europe's leaders right now. And they are, I think, getting the message in a way that they haven't before. So it's a very big deal because also previous American presidents, you could say, have tried to hit reset with Russia, and those have failed again and again and again. That's the subject of my next book that I'll be writing with my husband, Peter Baker. You know, George W. Bush, obviously, looking into Putin's eyes, Barack Obama with the actual reset, even, by the way, Joe Biden came into office in 2021 saying he wanted to have not a reset but a stable and predictable relationship with Russia. That included an early summit. Obviously, then Putin exploded that with his invasion. You know, so it's not just a reset this time, David. What I've seen that's different is that it's also a reset accompanied by a rejection. It's a pivot away from Europe at the same time, a pivot toward Russia. That's something, to be honest, we've never seen before.

Susan Glasser, on that ominous note, I thank you for your time. It's a pleasure to get to chat with you about this.

I really appreciate it. Thank you.

That's it for this week's edition of the CNN Political Briefing. Remember, you can reach out to us with your questions about Trump's new administration. Our contact information is in the show notes. CNN Political Briefing is a production of CNN Audio. This episode was produced by Emily Williams. Our senior producer is Felicia Patinkin. Dan Dzula is our Technical Director, and Steve Lickteig is the Executive Producer of CNN Audio. Support from Alex Manasseri, Robert Mathers, Jon Dianora, Leni Steinhardt, Jamus Andrest, Nichole Pesaru, and Lisa Namerow. Special thanks to Katie Hinman. We'll be back with a new episode next Friday. Thanks so much for listening.