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Brigid Bergin: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Brigid Bergin, Senior Reporter in the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom, filling in for Brian today. Thanks so much for joining us. New York City is experiencing a surge in evictions and car bootings. Coming up on todays show, we'll talk about what's behind the uptick and how city marshals, who are private contractors appointed by the mayor, are profiting off that surge. We'll also talk to a librarian from Louisiana about her battle against GOP-led book bans in her state. We'll end the show by asking you, do you feel like you're suddenly spending a lot more money to attend weddings?

First, its been more than two and a half years since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine. Earlier this month, Ukraine pushed back, literally, invading Russian territory for the first time since World War 2. Ukraine is conducting what some are calling a bold new military operation, not only defending their own land, but pushing into Russia's Kursk region. The country is also building its own weapons, long range missiles that would be capable of striking further into Russian territory.

This comes after months of frustration on the part of the Ukrainian military who's been asking western allies for weapons to fight back against the Russians. Joining us to discuss the latest is Ishaan Tharoor, foreign affairs columnist at The Washington Post and author of Today's Worldview newsletter and column. Ishaan, welcome back to WNYC.

Ishaan Tharoor: Great to be with you, Brigid.

Brigid Bergin: Let's start off with how has this Ukrainian incursion into the Kursk region shifted the dynamics of the conflict?

Ishaan Tharoor: It's quite stunning. It's been a fascinating moment in this conflict. Of course, as you said, it's been two and a half years since Russia launched its full scale invasion of Ukraine on the premise that Russian President Vladimir Putin infamously gave this speech where he just basically suggested that he doesn't believe in Ukrainian sovereignty, sees Ukraine as part of a greater Russian project, and conjured a particular vision of history that eliminated Ukraine's own will and self determination from the map.

Now we have a scenario where there are thousands of Ukrainian troops essentially occupying a good chunk of this part of this district, the Kursk district, entrenched in a position that's going to make them very difficult to dislodge by Russian forces. It's really blown up some of the rhetoric that initially grounded Putin's invasion, this idea that, "Oh, it's this illegitimate regime in Kyiv that's the problem. Everyone here wants to be part of us." Now, there's parts of Russia that will have to be negotiated back into the Russian fold in some kind of settlement and that's been a big blow symbolically to Putin.

Brigid Bergin: In addition to the symbolic blow, are there other strategic objectives for Ukraine in launching this operation, particularly in this region?

Ishaan Tharoor: There are quite a few lessons to be learned and quite a few apparent goals that the Ukrainians have in doing this. On the most immediate level, this is a huge morale boost for Ukraine at a time when on other fronts they're struggling, they're losing ground on some of the other fronts in the war, particularly in the industrial Donbas region, where Russia is stepping up its offensive and trying to take further territory there. To turn the tables was a big morale boost.

Of course, on a more political and pragmatic level, seizing this chunk of territory gives Ukraine a degree of leverage in hypothetical negotiations in the future. It gives them a bargaining chip. It gives them also a buffer zone strategically. This is a war where Ukraine, all of Ukraine, has become vulnerable to Russian attacks. At least now, they can focus away some Russian fire from their territory onto Russian territory instead. You have these incredible scenes that you couldn't have imagined a few years ago of Russian helicopters and other forces bombing Russian territory. That's no small thing. It's a pretty big deal in the arc of this conflict.

Brigid Bergin: Absolutely. I want to talk a little bit more about this region, specifically the Kursk region and its historical significance. Can you talk a little bit more about that and how it plays into the current conflict, that history of it, if at all?

Ishaan Tharoor: Sure. Of course, I think anybody who studied high school history should probably have heard the word or phrase and the idea of Kursk. Kursk was the site or the area around the city of Kursk was the site of the largest tank battle in history in World War 2, a pretty decisive and emphatic Soviet victory that turned the tide of World War 2 along with other series of battles. I think for quite a long time, the region that's now Kursk had a mix of populations, including many Ukrainian speakers.

You've seen on social media some videos of Ukrainian speaking residents cheering the Ukrainian intruders, as it were, in recent weeks. This is a part of Russia that has been part of a borderland for many, many centuries. For a long time, it was under Mongol control in the medieval era. This is a part of the world that's no stranger to borders washing over it and empires washing over it. Now you have a scenario where indefinitely, if the Ukrainians really try to entrench themselves, it could be a border region or it could be a buffer region.

Brigid Bergin: Listeners, we can take your calls on the latest developments in Ukraine's fight against Russia's invasion. The number, of course, 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. My guest is Ishaan Tharoor, foreign affairs columnist at The Washington Post and the author of Today's Worldview newsletter and column. He can take your questions on this topic. Again, the number 212-433-9692. You can call or text. I'm wondering, Ishaan, what this incursion also reveals about potentially the vulnerabilities or limitations of Russia's military and what it means for their ability to protect against a larger fight from Ukraine?

Ishaan Tharoor: I think the success and the speed of the incursion showed us a lot about Russian vulnerabilities. The Russians did not expect this to happen. The troops they had defending the area melted away in the face of the Ukrainian incursion. Ukraine deployed a whole series of pretty 21st century tactics to disrupt communications and to make it even more tactically difficult for the Russians to mobilize a counter strike on their invading forces.

It's also showed us that a lot of this Russian Army, drawn from thousands upon thousands of conscripts, doesn't have the strongest morale, doesn't have the strongest desire to hold their ground. Now we're seeing as Ukraine beds in to the areas, they control some 500-plus square miles of territory in Kursk. As they bed in, now we're seeing some of the dynamics that have broadly shaped the overall war come to bear here in Kursk. Huge amounts of drones deployed against each other.

The Ukrainians have also shown that for so long, and this is especially in Washington, there's been an unwillingness to greenlight the use of particular weaponry or to back Ukraine in certain efforts to strike on Russian territory. By doing this, and they did this without the American blessing. The US officials only really found out about the Kursk offensive after it happened. They've shown that our fears about escalating things with Russia sometimes can be overblown and that a lot of the Russian rhetoric about certain red lines and about what would happen if US and Western weaponry is brought to bear on Russian soil, perhaps we shouldn't get so worried about it.

They've always been making this case for a very long time that, "Look, let us do this and let us use the tools you've given us to inflict further damage on Russia to raise the stakes of the war for Russians." That certainly has been the case in this incursion.

Brigid Bergin: There's more I want to talk to you a little bit later in this segment about the plans that Ukraine wants to propose to the US and other allies for additional support. Just sticking with what's happening on the ground in this Kursk region, I'm wondering, what does the reporting indicate about life for the Russian civilians who are in this portion of the country? You also mentioned the morale of those Russian soldiers. To what extent do we know about what the life is like for them in this area as well?

Ishaan Tharoor: It's mixed. The Russians did evacuate hundreds of thousands of people who have left. The Ukrainians are very keen to point out, and a number of journalists have crossed over from Ukraine into now this Ukrainian occupied territory to report on this. What we can glean from these reports, of course, you have to take with a pinch of salt, but the Ukrainian version of this is that, "Look, we are going to show that when we occupy other land, we're not going to behave the way the Russians have behaved in our land."

The Russians have notoriously carried out widespread looting. In certain stages of the war, a whole slate of atrocities were perpetrated, massacres, rapes, et cetera. The Ukrainians have been very clear about how none of this is happening under their watch. You do see from Russian social media a lot of bemusement, surprise, shock that this could happen, that the Russians could-- That another power could come and seize Russian territory like this. Also, I think it's been a profound political blow to Putin, who, far from redeeming his grander imperial vision, sees the Russian nation's integrity itself now severely threatened.

Brigid Bergin: I want to go to the phones and get some of our callers on this conversation. Let's start with Alex in Jersey City. Alex, you're on with Ishaan Tharoor.

Alex: Hi, Ishaan. Great to be on. Quick question. When Russian forces were amassing before the 2020 invasion, everyone knew about it. We were watching the organization for weeks or months happen. I'd like to know to what extent either Western intelligence sources or Russian sources, knowing that they have satellites and drones and everything. I find this Ukrainian incursion absolutely amazing and this lightening effect to it but to what extent did anyone know that this was going to happen? I don't think you can undertake such a military incursion without a lot of preparation and a lot of logistical and material support right on the border. That's my question.

Ishaan Tharoor: That's a great question. From the tidbits of reporting I have in my conversations about this, there were some intelligence assessments that the Ukrainians were up to something, but there was no clarity and no assessment that they were on the verge of launching this kind of incursion. I think for a long time, Western officials have known that the Ukrainians wanted to up the ante. They wanted to raise the stakes. They wanted to strike Russia in different ways. They have been striking Russia in different ways, largely through stealth drone attacks on oil and ammunition facilities around the country.

This kind of incursion was a genuine surprise. The extent to which it was a surprise because of its timing or because of the fact that I think certain officials assumed that the Ukrainians would at least give them a heads up in a way that they did nothing prior to this incursion. It was. One view of this is that Zelenskyy and his companions have watched what's happened during the Israel-Gaza war. I don't want to go on a bit of a tangent here, but they've seen that it's easier with the Americans to go ahead and then ask for forgiveness later rather than get permission in certain instances.

Certainly with the way that the Israelis have conducted certain operations during the Israel-Gaza war, that seems to be a lesson that Zelenskyy has drawn as well. That, "Look, we're going to do something that's provocative, potentially dangerous and risky and that any official sitting in the White House would, if it was brought to them, push against. Once we do it, then there's not much they can do to stop us and there's not much they would want to do to punish us." That's the kind of thinking that I think informed what happened here at Kursk.

Brigid Bergin: I want to bring another caller in in just a moment, but I'm wondering, we've talked about Zelenskyy in this context, obviously. What does all this mean for Russian President Vladimir Putin and what his country may see about this conflict and the vulnerability that they have as this war continues to go on?

Ishaan Tharoor: That's the perennial question over the arc of this conflict. I think it would be foolish to suggest that this is somehow a crippling blow for him, given that he has withstood a lot of supposedly crippling blows in the past. Remember, we're not that far removed from the astonishing mercenary insurrection led by the Wagner company's Prigozhin and scenes where you saw Russian mercenary forces marching up the road to Moscow in a confrontation with the Russian regime.

At that time, a lot of experts in the west thought, "Okay, this shows the paper tiger is collapsing. This shows that Putin is vulnerable and the elites are abandoning him." Of course, none of that happened and Prigozhin died in rather murky but not particularly surprising circumstances thereafter. We'll see. Putin has all the means to recover from this. He has an iron grip on media in the country. There is a pretty profound new, hard bitten nationalism that has taken root in much of Russian society.

For him and for the Kremlin's messaging throughout, they have cast the war in Ukraine as not exactly a war versus Ukrainians, but as a war versus the West's proxies and now in certain ways, indirectly with the West. While it is, of course, a huge political blow and embarrassing for Putin to see hundreds of square miles of Russian territory occupied by a foreign army, it may also help him illustrate the case that we are fighting a war of survival against the West.

There may certainly be more evidence for him to point to that if more and more Western weaponry and long range munitions provided by the west are brought to bear by the Ukrainians.

Brigid Bergin: We need to take a short break. More on the latest developments in Ukraine's fight against Russia's invasion when we come back with Washington Post columnist, Ishaan Tharoor. Stay with us.

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It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. I'm Brigid Bergin filling in for Brian today. My guest is Ishaan Tharoor, foreign affairs columnist at The Washington Post and author of Today's Worldview newsletter and column. We're taking your calls on the latest developments in Ukraine's fight against Russia's invasion. The number again is 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. Duane in Whippany, New Jersey, thanks for calling. You're on with Ishaan Tharoor.

Duane: Good afternoon, or good morning, I guess. Thanks for the program. I'd like to interject two thoughts that both revolve around historical American precedents for the Ukrainian invasion into Kursk. That is that on the positive side, if we think back about the Doolittle raiders, Colonel Jimmy Doolittle had the audacious idea of putting 16 B-25 bombers on the USS Hornet to go bomb Japan, a scant four and a half months after Pearl harbor. It was a huge morale boost, and it was just a completely crazy idea, but it really had an impact.

My second point is the gross similarity between our reticence to not just arm Ukraine, but to give them long range weaponry and the ability to hit Russia and the historical American precedent there, Vietnam. We were so afraid of angering China and of instigating something with them that our whole government platform was built around controlling every inch of what the military was doing in Vietnam to a horrendous deficit, particularly the air war, because it limited bombs that stacked up strategic bombers, the number of bombs strategic bombers couldn't even carry to bomb the north targets, all kinds of things, airfields that were too close to China. It was ridiculous. We are still holding on to that same stupid idea that, "Oh, no, if Putin's going to be saber rattling about nuclear war, then we better be careful."

Brigid Bergin: Duane, thank you so much for that insight and historical perspective. Ishaan, any reaction to his notion that this is a loss of historical memory on the part of American foreign policy?

Ishaan Tharoor: That's really interesting, and I appreciate those two anecdotes and examples. It is interesting right now to see how the conversation has shifted on loosening these restrictions on Western weaponry, long range missiles and so on, for the Ukrainians to use against the Russians on Russian territory. Now, it does seem that the US, of all countries, is the most reluctant to give the Ukrainians that kind of green light. The Europeans in recent weeks have become much more outspoken about, "Okay, I think it's time to let it loose."

You have the EU's top diplomat, Josep Borrell, saying that essentially today. The US now is in this curious place of being the most cautious of the Western countries, even though the US, of course, has really in many ways led the way in supporting Ukraine and giving Ukraine what it needs to hang on and survive, if not necessarily win, in this war. About the raid, Ukraine is desperate for some kind of morale boost. They're suffering huge casualties. They're completely outmanned, outgunned in the south and southeastern fronts where they're no longer really trying to gain much territory, but just hold on to what they have so this is a huge boost. They've also captured hundreds of Russian soldiers. This is something that for them, this has been a tremendous strategic success.

Brigid Bergin: Thinking about how this particular raid might impact the operation or deployment strategy in other parts of the region, what does it make you think when you think of places like Zaporizhzhia or Kherson and how this deployment and strategy of Russian forces in those regions might be impacted by what we've seen in Kursk?

Ishaan Tharoor: We've seen the Russians have redirected some troop deployments away from Ukraine to Kursk as the Russians try to mobilize some kind of counter strike to reclaim territory there. Although the Ukrainians are doing a pretty good job making it quite difficult. They have blown up certain bridges and they seem quite ready to hold their ground indefinitely. Unfortunately, these regions that you talked about, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson and Donbas, the Russians have really entrenched themselves very effectively.

The Ukrainians are pretty well entrenched as well but there's little forward momentum for Ukraine there. Carving out a new front was almost critical for the Ukrainians to have some sense of optimism as the war dragged on and as we near the grim winter months of the conflict. They needed to have some kind of opening and it's essential. I think what's been quite startling is that Ukraine has taken more territory in just a few weeks than either side has taken over the course of the conflict this whole calendar year elsewhere in other fronts. Its been really a dramatic turning of the tables.

Brigid Bergin: This week, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenskyy said that Ukraine carried out a successful test of its first domestically produced ballistic missile. To this point, Ukraine has relied on long range missiles from allies like the US as we've talked about. How could a domestic-made missile alter the dynamics of this war?

Ishaan Tharoor: It would certainly give them more license to carry out strikes as they see fit but lets not kid ourselves, whatever Ukraine's new domestic production will be. I think that's important for Ukraine in the long term as they see themselves permanently in a defensive posture against Russia in the years to come, that's important but nothing is happening in the war right now without a huge amount of Western support in terms of munitions, arms, and funding.

I think Ukraine needs to make the political case in the months to come, certainly as we enter an election cycle that it's fully committed to standing on its own feet and protecting itself. In many ways they've proven that but for now, and especially as we talk about the war in its current phase, nothing, there's no war without-- There's no ability for Ukraine to really manage and survive in this war without constant and significant western support.

Brigid Bergin: Let's go to Larry in Brooklyn, who has a question that I think a lot of people think about as this conflict continues to drag on. Larry, thanks for calling WNYC.

Larry: Hey. Hi. Here's my concern, and just to get this on record, I'm not a Republican. That's not my fight here. I try to stay informed, where does this end other than some negotiated settlement with the Russian Federation keeping a significant part of maybe most of the territory it has seized, rightly or wrongly? If I'm right about that, what has the cost of Western support been, other than a couple of hundred thousand lives, if that settlement couldn't have been had a year ago? Is that what we bought with American dollars and weapons for this? It's just endless death. If we could have had this settlement a year ago. How else can it end? That's my question. Thanks.

Ishaan Tharoor: If I may, that is perhaps the most important and most probing question surrounding this whole conflict. It's one that I think about quite a lot, and I put to various interlocutors, and it's certainly the view of a lot of leaders outside the West. I've been to a bunch of forums in Singapore and elsewhere with Asian leaders and African leaders, and this is their knee jerk view of the conflict. Why are we prolonging this? We don't necessarily support what Russia did, but let's be real about what the situation is now.

I think one thing you will hear from US officials is that there have been any indication from them-- They've never had the view that the Russians are ready for any kind of meaningful process of negotiations and ceasefire. Of course, the Ukrainians are committed and determined to protect their territorial integrity and want to reclaim their lost lands. Now, I think we all know, as you said, that this war will not end militarily. This war will have to end through some political process that probably, given the way things are looking, does not make officials in the West and Kyiv particularly happy in terms of the outcome and saves a degree of face for the Russian regime.

We do not have any clear indications that the Russians want to participate in good faith talks, nor do the Ukrainians at this point have any desire to concede the territory they've lost in ways that they feel quite furious about. So far, the Western governments that support them have viewed what's happening in pretty stark moral terms that you can agree with or disagree with, that if we allow Russia to get away with what it's done, then it sets all sorts of new, grim precedents. That is a line that you will still hear from every European capital that's invested in this conflict.

Brigid Bergin: I want to go to Roger in Sandwich, New Hampshire. Roger, thanks for calling WNYC.

Roger: Hi, Brigid. I just wanted to tell you that I've been following this conflict since before it started and actively following the whole story for the past 10 years and since the Maidan. For the Ukrainians, the issue is completely losing their country. It's not a question of a negotiated this or that. They have so much to lose, and they consider themselves European. It's part of Europe, and they are leaning to striving to be considered and included in the whole European project.

The Russians see things differently, and their idea is that Ukraine is merely a wayward child that needs to be punished and subjected back into the bosom of the mother Russia. The Russians, in this case, I believe, really have to be defeated militarily by the Ukrainians, which is indeed possible, but not under the circumstances of the current program. There are many reasons for this, but the Russians are not restrained to attacking any kind of a target, whether it's a children's hospital or a hotel or private homes or apartment buildings. They have absolutely no restraint, and they are not interested in Western standards of moral behavior. They will not stop unless they are stopped.

Brigid Bergin: Roger, thank you for that call. Ishaan, I want to get in one more before I let you respond, but it's on a similar theme. Steve in Brooklyn, thanks for holding. You're on with Ishaan Tharoor.

Steve: Hi. I'd like to address the question some Americans are having as to why should we care about what's happening in Ukraine? It's a war going on halfway around the world, and America has its own problems. Ukraine is not only fighting for its democracy, it's fighting for the world's democracy. This is the fight of democracy against authoritarianism. It's a fight against whether or not we will respect the international rule of law. It's a fight of freedom versus terrorism.

If Russia should win, not only Russia will get stronger, Iran will get stronger, Hamas will get stronger, Hezbollah will get stronger, North Korea and China will be more emboldened. It's absolutely in America's interest to support Ukraine. The two most important things for any country is national security and the economy. If Russia should win, our national security, be more threatened. We'd be pouring more money into defending NATO on the European countries and our economy would be affected because Russia will be getting more emboldened, European economy will be affected.

It's absolutely in the United States interest to not only support Ukraine, we've been giving Ukraine the weapons to defend itself. We need to give Ukraine the weapons to win. We need to have the political will to have Ukraine win and by any means possible for them to win. It's absolutely in the United States interest to support Ukraine and for Ukraine to win.

Brigid Bergin: Steve, thank you so much for that call. Ishaan, I'll note that Steve told our screener he was Ukrainian, so some of that passion may be very personal. I want to get your reaction to those callers and a different sense of the stakes of this conflict for not just the United States, but for all of Europe, for the rest of the world and for liberal democracy.

Ishaan Tharoor: Sure. Of course, for Ukraine, this conflict is existential. This conflict is against a Russian regime whose leader has essentially denied the existence of Ukraine and believes that Ukrainians aren't worthy or deserving of their own self determination. It's completely understandable that those who support Ukraine and those who are Ukrainian see the stakes in such dramatic terms. They are under attack. They've lost lots of land. They've lost so many lives. They are subject to constant bombardments. Now in the wake of the Kursk incursion, Russia has stepped up its various attacks on Ukraine's energy grid again and other civil infrastructure.

It is quite clearly an existential conflict for them and certainly for neighbors in Europe and in the West. There's a long memory of being under the shadow of the Kremlin, of what the Kremlin represents in the lives of their own nations so the moral terms, the moral stakes are huge. That definitely animates a lot of exactly this kind of support for Ukraine. That is, we are right now giving what we can to Ukraine to help Ukraine hold the line. We should be giving them much more. We should be enabling them to fully reverse the Russian incursion.

Now, there are a lot of more cynical or realist views of this that suggest that there is no way that Ukraine could actually militarily defeat Russia in any kind of significant way. That we are then essentially greenlighting a conflict that will have much more death and destruction and risking an escalation with Russia that will certainly bring in the West into the war in a way that it's not already involved. That has its own concern that there are a lot of people who are genuinely concerned about what Russia would do in those situations.

Yes, while Putin has, throughout this conflict, rattled the saber about using nuclear weapons and in many cases his bluff has been called, there is still the underlying fear that when backed into a corner, that option could still be on the table. Do we want to be in a scenario where that happens? Now, there are lots of views about this, and we don't have time to litigate this debate here but that is a genuine concern. I would say that when I was at this forum, as I said earlier in Singapore earlier this summer, where Zelenskyy appeared speaking to Asian leaders, talking about the need for support from the global south and the rest of the world for Ukraine, and he was immediately challenged by a bunch of interlocutors there.

I remember a Cambodian official stood up and called him out for his support of Israel during the Gaza war and said, "You can talk about international principles in one place, but how do you view international principles in other places? We don't buy this kind of rhetoric." While many in the west feel the Ukraine war in incredibly existential moral terms, that is not how this conflict resonates in much of the world elsewhere.

Brigid Bergin: Ishaan, President Zelenskyy has vowed to show President Biden a "Victory plan" next month. He says the success of this plan would depend on whether the US would give Ukraine what it's demanding in this plan. Obviously, you haven't seen this plan, but based on your report and the conversation we've had so far in terms of what Ukraine has been asking the US and the world for, what's your sense of what he will be demanding and what the strategic objectives will be?

Ishaan Tharoor: I think along the lines of what we've been seeing in recent weeks come out from Kyiv, this desire for a, of course, faster and speedier transfers of weaponry. They're still desperate for more Patriot missile batteries to defend against Russian air attacks. They're also, of course, very keen for the rules currently presiding over Western munitions to be loosened so that they can strike Russia in more telling and impactful ways, strike targets on Russian soil.

I think that'll be this crescendo clamoring for this, is already building up right now, will get quite loud in the weeks to come. I think there'll be a big discussion about a lot of these major issues at the UN for the high level meetings of the UN General assembly in September. I think that that's probably what's going to govern this. Of course, with Biden now in the last few months of his presidency, he may also want to have some kind of departing legacy based on finding some meaningful pathway to end this war or to give Ukraine a real boost in the months to come as it tries to seek further advantage in the conflict.

I think the name of the game for a long time has been we have to not only help Ukraine survive, but also help Ukraine win as much leverage as possible for future negotiations. I think in this Kursk incursion, you're seeing it's really opened up the possibility that Ukraine has the means to turn the tables and really hurt Russia politically and militarily.

Brigid Bergin: My last question, and forgive me, Ishaan, because we could probably have an entire segment on this last question, but what do you think about in terms of the stakes in the upcoming US election for Ukraine? Of course, you know, I'm not just talking the presidential contest, but also the large number of Senate and House races that could shift the balance of power in Congress.

Ishaan Tharoor: That is, of course, the big elephant in the room. It's not just a GOP elephant in the room. I think public opinion. There's, right now you could sketch a very crude clash between the liberal internationalism of Kamala Harris and the MAGA, isolationism is not the right word, but the kind of skepticism from the Trump camp and certainly articulated more clearly by JD Vance, the vice presidential candidate, about what are our actual goals here in providing all these billions of dollars to the Ukrainians.

There is a wing in Washington among foreign policy thinkers, certainly among a coterie of thinkers on the right now that sees the efforts to support Ukraine as a distraction from efforts to really build up America's deterrent threat in Asia vis a vis China. That's a conversation that's not going to go away anytime soon. There's also, I think, on multiple fronts, and this is not a Republican conversation, this is a broader American conversation, concern about spending billions of dollars in fighting foreign wars.

That's something the American public as a whole is increasingly-- The polling shows that there is growing skepticism about supporting Ukraine, supporting Israel, and that's also a new feature of the American political discourse that is not going to go away. While the positions in this particular election seem pretty clear, the Democrats will offer a much more full throated, optimistic view of what it means to support Ukraine and back the Ukrainians in their struggle.

Trump will express probably quite a lot of skepticism and cynicism about this war and advocate for more pragmatic deal making with Putin. I think there are deeper political issues that will linger with us in the months and years to come, and certainly will be expressed every time we go to Congress for funding bills and see that a growing number of lawmakers and the voters who elect them aren't necessarily keen on outlaying all this cash for foreign wars.

Brigid Bergin: I look forward to having conversations with you, Ishaan Tharoor, foreign affairs columnist at The Washington Post, about those issues as we go forward. Ishaan is also the author of Today's Worldview newsletter and column. Thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate it.

Ishaan Tharoor: Thank you.

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