Title: Monday Morning Politics: Trump's Ceasefire Reversal, The DC Police Takeover and More

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Brian: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. On a Monday, we already know will be a consequential news day, as Ukraine's President Zelensky and several European leaders will meet with President Trump to consider what appears to be, as you've been hearing on the BBC and elsewhere, some kind of land for peace deal that President Trump and Vladimir Putin may be offering. Is it acceptable for Ukraine to give up so much of its territory as the result of Russia's invasion? Is the offer of peace and security afterwards even real? The meeting is scheduled for this afternoon.

It's also a day when we'll discuss Trump's nominee to run the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Have you heard this yet? EJ Antoni from the Project 2025 Producing Heritage Foundation said, after Trump was elected last year, that he thinks the US should sunset, his word, the Social Security program. Sunset Social Security. We'll have finance journalist William Cohan later in the show on that, including a clip of Antoni where he inadvertently suggests that one of Trump's core policies is making Social Security's financial problems worse.

Our Albany correspondent, Jon Campbell, will join us with new reporting on how the saga of Peanut the Squirrel may be hampering enforcement of any of New York State's hunting or wildlife protection laws, but we start here. President Trump is now importing National Guard members from three Republican led states, not just the DC National Guard, to help police the streets of Washington. The troops from Ohio, West Virginia, and South Carolina will soon join the actual DC National Guard, policing exactly what is unclear, and that's a key part of this story. We'll talk about it.

He is also threatening to nationalize policing in other cities, including New York. I wonder, is it a way he's intervening in the New York City mayoral race with a wedge issue that he hopes will hurt the Democratic nominees around Mamdani and presumably help Andrew Cuomo? Cuomo's already trying to capitalize on it. We'll talk about that. Oh, by the way, can the National Guard and the FBI agents the president is deploying actually do anything in the wards of DC, where street crime is actually a problem? Reportedly, that's not where they're being deployed.

With us now, USA Today, Washington bureau chief Susan Page wrote a column on this last week, and as a longtime DC person, is obviously following this personally and professionally. You may also know Susan from her recent books about Barbara Bush, Nancy Pelosi, and Barbara Walters. My sources tell me she's working on one about Queen Elizabeth. Our question today is more about whether Trump is acting like a king and whether Democrats have any meaningful response. Hi, Susan. Always good to have you. Welcome back to WNYC.

Susan: Hey, Brian, it's always good to be with you.

Brian: I actually want to start by reading from Maureen Dowd's New York Times column from this weekend and see if this rings true to you as a DC person and DC bureau chief. Maureen Dowd, for people who don't know her work, is consistently withering in her writing about Trump. This new column is called "Criminal Fights Crime." You could see where that comes from. Listen to these key lines that are starting to get a lot of attention.

Maureen Dowd writes, "The tableau of National Guard troops, even unarmed, raises the specter of martial law being normalized and weaponized. It is also true that many DC residents are secretly glad to see more uniforms, no matter what statistics say, they don't feel safe." She writes, "I find myself packing pepper spray again. I feel more wary walking around the city." She writes, "While the district's homicide rate has fallen, it's almost as high as New York's at its most dangerous in 1990."

She writes, "The diva of distraction, Trump, is putting on a show, but progressives should not fall into Trump's trap and play down crime, once more getting on the wrong side of an inflammatory issue. Even if Trump is being diabolical, Democrats should not pretend everything is fine here." Those lines from Maureen Dowd in the New York Times this weekend. Susan, for you personally, as a woman in DC or professionally as a journalist covering it, how much does any of that ring true as a starting point or reality check for how to talk about Trump's deployment?

Susan: I feel pretty safe in my neighborhood, where I live and where I work, both in central DC. I haven't been a victim of a crime personally for a couple decades when we had taken our kids to Disneyland, someone broke in our front door, and the only thing they stole from our house was my son's soccer shoes. That was mostly not terrifying, but peculiar. That is not to say crime isn't a problem in DC. Of course, it is.

Even though crime is going down in DC, and we know that from the statistics, it's still of concern to people, and it's of concern to people who don't live in my neighborhood. There's a special concern to people which have the highest crime rates. Those are not the places, by the way, that these National Guardsmen have been deployed. They've been deployed at the mall, at Union Station, and in Georgia, not the places of greatest need when you talk about crime in the District of Columbia.

Brian: We'll get to that deployment, because I think that's such a key part of the story. Where are the troops actually going, and where are they not going? At the end of this experiment, or whatever it is, a few weeks from now, a few months from now, are there any indications yet? Is crime going to be reduced where crime is actually the biggest problem? You note in your article about this that crime stats are down 35% since 2023, and those are federal government, US Attorney for DC numbers, down 35% since 2023, another 26% already just this year. Does your reporting indicate, as Maureen wrote, that even despite that drop, crime rates are almost as bad as New York said it's most dangerous in 1990?

I think we'll have a little problem with Susan's connection. We're going to get her back. In the meantime, we'll open up the phones and invite you all in. Listeners, first priority to anyone with ties to DC, anyone who lives and works in Washington, DC, currently. I know we have some listeners in DC. Describe the state of street crime as you experience it or understand it, and react to the Trump deployment as a solution to it or not, or ask any questions of USA Today Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, call or text.

Also, I'm curious, if you live in New York or any other place where a similar deployment by the president might come to your city, how much would you welcome it, or the focus on the issue coming from the White House or not? For New Yorkers in particular, we're going to play a clip here. Do you think this has anything to do with the mayoral race when Trump says things like this?

President Trump: We're going to take back our capital. We're going to make it beautiful again, but we're going to make it, more importantly, safe again. It's going to be so safe, it's going to be a model, and then we'll look at other cities also.

Brian: Trump last week when he says we're going to look at other cities. Also, if you are in or have ties to DC or New York or anywhere else for that matter, for Maureen Dowd, if you're listening, 212-433-WNYC, Maureen Dowd, that's an invitation to you to call in if you didn't pick it up, if you happen to be listening. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. As we're hooking up our line for a better connection with Susan Page, I'm going to play another clip about the nature of the deployment itself.

On Morning Joe today on MSNBC, they were saying the troops are not being deployed in the places where crime is actually high. Susan was just saying that too. Rather to high-profile places, more for media consumption, it looks like, like the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, and Susan mentioned Union Station. Here's Reverend Al Sharpton reacting to the coming deployment of more National Guard troops from those three Republican-led states, asked if that's the answer to addressing Black residents' concerns about crime in some of their neighborhoods.

Reverend Al Sharpton: Not the answer, and it really, in many ways, perverts the concern that many of the Black residents in DC and elsewhere have. One, yes, there is a crime problem. It is not as bad as it was, but it is still bad. I think that if you had a blended strategy, it could work effectively, but how do you feel if you're a resident of Washington, DC, in a high-crime area, and you're Black, and I have Office of National Action Network there, people work there that I'm talking to that have that fear, and I'm in and out of Washington, and you bring in the National Guard and you send them to the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial and Dupont Circle and Georgetown?

Joe Scarborough: Because there is an Apple store. Maybe [crosstalk]

Reverend Al Sharpton: I'm supposed to feel better?

Willie Geist: The National Guard from West Virginia and Ohio.

Reverend Al Sharpton: Now you're insulted on top of being concerned because you have all this ruckus. You even talk about displacing the police chief, and you dispatch the National Guard and bring in people from other states to areas that don't face the crime problem. This clearly looks racial and political.

Brian: Reverend Al Sharpton on MSNBC this morning with some crosstalk, as you heard from Joe Scarborough on Morning Joe and others, as we are still reconnecting with Susan Page. We'll have her back up in just a second. Let's take some of your calls and texts. One listener writes, "It's not just the presence, it's the presence without accountability." Someone else writes, "Didn't we already have the National Guard sent to New York City to make the subways 'seem safer'?" That's a question that I have for Susan, too.

If anybody's reporting on this with respect to Trump, how is this different, despite all the objections from Governor Hochul in New York deploying the National Guard to the subways, at least when he deploys it within DC, which is to some degree under federal control? That doesn't solve everybody's perception of it for sure. Like, for example, Tristan in Brooklyn. Tristan, you're on WNYC. We appreciate you calling in.

Tristan: Hi. Thank you for having me. I guess my question for you and your guests is, why not just call it for what it is? It's fascism. It's a fascist takeover of the nation's capital. We saw just days before Trump started this whole thing, Kash Patel said that crime is at a 30-year low according to the FBI.

Now the FBI is changing the stats. They're changing their hiring process to get more unqualified people into the FBI, and they're cutting existing FBI agents, and they're no longer targeting what the FBI was designed for, counterterrorism or all these other things. Instead, they're going after "crime." This is a secret police takeover of our nation's capital. Can't see their faces. They're taking down signs of protest, putting inappropriate boys in place of some protest signs. What are we doing here?

Brian: Listening to those quotes from Maureen Dowd's column, does it complicate your thinking on this at all that maybe it is a fascist kind of flex on one level, and especially as he suggests doing similar things in other cities where there isn't as much formal legal authority to do it as there is in DC, which is to some degree a creature of the federal government, but at the same time acknowledge that, as she acknowledges, that crime is as high as it was in New York City at its worst in 1990, that some White House attention to this taps into something that people might actually want? Does that complicate your thinking on this at all?

Tristan: No, but I think it seems to complicate other people's. I'm sure that in the 1990s, DC crime was even worse than it is today. We never called in the National Guard for those instances. We didn't call it into New York City in the 1990s, yet crime went down. I don't see how this has anything to do with the federal government. It's a local issue. In my mind, like the way that Trump sent in ICE to Gavin Newsom's press conference, it's hard for me to see this any other way. I would ask you, if this were happening in another country, let's say Argentina or something like that, would you view it as just, "Oh, the president of this country is getting tough on crime?" Would you view it as something else?

Brian: Oh, it's obviously something else. Besides the legal question, which the mayor of DC, Muriel Bowser, has acknowledged that Trump has the authority to do it, part of the political question here is what to do about it, because part of Maureen Dowd's critique-- I'm looking to see-- I think somewhere in here, she uses fascism and says if Democrats and other opponents of what Trump is doing just call it fascism and stop at that, then it's going to put the opponents on the wrong side of a public opinion issue. What's your take?

Tristan: My take is that she completely misreads the situation, and that we've seen that-- One, Washington, DC is doing things on crime. The crime rate has gone down. We've seen other cities that have had more problems, like neighboring Baltimore. They have a mayor that they reelected because he did such a good job on bringing the crime rate down by having better services, more intelligent use of policing, things like that. Chris Hayes of MSNBC did an interview with him recently that I heard, and it was fantastic. We're not looking to them for solutions. We're suddenly looking to the National Guard. Is this Kent State?

Brian: Tristan, we really appreciate your call. Thank you very much. Now, I think we have Susan Page back. Susan, who's been a guest here so many times and usually on such a reliable line. For some reason, that line is shaky today. We could get some good conspiracy theories going here, Susan. You know that, right?

Susan: I think that would be very much in tune with the moment. [chuckles]

Brian: I played the clip while we were reconnecting of Reverend Al Sharpton on MSNBC this morning, a place where you often appear, sometimes alongside him, and I've wondered about what he was talking about from when Trump first announced this deployment last week. Sharpton was talking about the fact that they seem to be deploying, as you mentioned earlier, to high-profile media presence spots like Union Station, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, not to the wards of DC, where street crime is the highest.

Are they really going to measure success by actual violent crime rates or by something that's more about theater? Because if this is mostly performative, like we were discussing with the last caller, if Trump is going to come out as a winner on this in any way, instead of just being even more broadly labeled as a fascist, then they've got to show results, but they're not going to show results by going to the Lincoln Memorial.

Susan: I'm pretty sure President Trump will say it's a success at the end. We'll be looking for traditional measures like crime rates and arrest rates and prosecution rates. One of the biggest problems we have in DC is carjackings by teenagers. That's caused a lot of concern. You started out this program by mentioning Maureen Dowd's column. She talked about her sister having her car stolen and that being a very bad experience. It's possible it'll show a decrease in crime, or maybe it won't. It seems like it would most show a decrease in crime if you were deploying these troops in the neighborhoods that have the most of it, but these are still pretty early days. We gather from the White House that we're going to be seeing more, not fewer, National Guardsmen on our streets.

Brian: One of the recent developments, just in the last day or so, is apparently that the National Guard troops are going to be armed. I didn't realize to be to be honest that they weren't going to be armed. I thought National Guard troops would come with arms. Why were they not originally? If you know, why are they going to be now in this deployment?

Susan: I don't know the answer to either question. There are limits to what National Guardsmen can do. Federalized National Guardsmen, like we have here in DC, they can't enforce local laws. They can only enforce federal laws. I think the point is really their presence and the fact that their arm makes them seem like a stronger, more threatening kind of presence, both for maybe would-be criminals, but also for just residents.

Brian: Aaron in Branchburg, New Jersey, you're on WNYC. Hi, Aaron.

Aaron: Hi. Good morning, Brian. How are you today?

Brian: Doing all right. What you got?

Aaron: All right. I went to college at the University of Maryland, College Park, so I lived in the DC area for the better part of five years. My brother currently works for the Department of Energy. He can see the Capitol from his building. I guess I wanted to bring the point up that there's always been crime in DC. I don't think there is an epidemic of crime in DC now. It was worse in the '90s, as has been mentioned by many, many people. The role of police, when you think about walking the beat, they have the pulse. They know what's going on in the community.

Bringing in the National Guard, it's almost tantamount to going to an auto mechanic to have heart surgery. They're not trained in law enforcement. Then on top of that, they're not even deputized. I say that to say this: if you've ever been to Mardi Gras, New Orleans, the police presence is enormous, NOPD, Louisiana state troopers, and they even deputize officers from Georgia and other states to come in. Why? Because they know law enforcement. A soldier and a police officer are not the same thing. This has the potential to go really bad.

I just think that it's a total grandstanding and making much ado about-- I'm not going to say about nothing because crime is not nothing, but crime is everywhere. DC is no different than Cincinnati, it's no different than Charlotte, North Carolina, it's no different than Fresno, California. The same things happen in all places. I just think that this is a really bad idea, and I wish that there were some people that had some brains or some balls that would really stand up and say, "You know what, we're not doing this."

Brian: As the mayor of DC wishes she could do under the law. Let me ask you one follow-up question. When you say there's crime in DC, like there is in Charlotte and this city and that city, the stats that Maureen Dowd was citing indicate it is worse in DC than it is in New York. I don't know about some of the other cities in particular, but that it is worse than a lot of cities. Let me read you one quote from a conservative columnist in USA Today, where our guest Susan Page is the Washington bureau chief.

Their conservative columnist, Nicole Russell, writes this question. "Just how much violence should we accept in our cities? Is there really no viable way to help more Americans feel safer in their homes and neighborhoods? Trump is challenging an unacceptable status quo, which is what good leaders should do." What's your reaction to that?

Aaron: Oh, wow. That's a bit of a loaded question right there. I'm definitely not against challenging status quo and wanting to provide better solutions. Brian, I think a lot of the solutions we have to look at why do people commit crimes? What drives somebody to commit armed robbery or carjacking? There's some economic driver behind that. A lot of people have mental issues. They don't have stable food and security, their substandard living, housing conditions, education. This is not just a, "Hey--

Brian: Comes from nowhere.

Aaron: -lock everybody up." It's not coming from anywhere. This is our society. This is a product of America.

Brian: Aaron, thank you very much. Please call us again. Susan, to Aaron's excellent point at the end, it doesn't seem to me that we hear much, maybe ever, Trump talking about root causes of crime, right? This is an issue in the New York City mayoral race. How much do you deploy the police? How much do you address root causes of crime where we know the kind of street crime that we're talking about here comes largely from lower-income communities and communities where there's a history of marginalization, often extreme marginalization. For you as a DC bureau chief, does Trump ever talk about root causes like those?

Susan: Donald Trump's been talking, in a consistent way, about crime politics when he decried violent crime in New York City, not talking about root causes, and in more recent years, not talking about social justice. He talks about the victims of crime and the terrorization of big cities. That is a message that strikes a chord with a lot of voters. If you think this is performative, it is a performative action that is likely to pay off politically. It puts Democrats in a squeeze because if you're arguing, yes, but crime's going down, it sounds like you're dismissing crime as a concern.

If you talk about social justice issues, which is what a lot of Democrats have focused on in recent years, it sounds like you're also kind of minimizing your side criminal, not with the victim. I think, whatever you think about the reality of the crackdown that we are seeing in DC and what the effect is likely to be, it is almost a political winner and one that has created enormous complications for Democrats that is serious about crime, but also addresses other things like root cause and social justice.

Brian: I think Kylie in Northern Virginia, in the DC area there, is calling in about that last point that you made. Kylie, hi, you're on WNYC.

Kylie: Hi. Yes, I do live in Northern Virginia. I'm not often in DC, so that's just a coincidence. I don't understand why the Democrats, again, are being outsmarted by this. I don't understand why this is a conundrum. I don't understand why this is a difficult thing for Democrats to deal with. Donald Trump wants to do a crime bill. Awesome. Let's do a crime bill. Let's do a crime bill that addresses some gun regulations that maybe some people from the right might want to lean in on and say, "Oh, we want to make it so that people are better able to maybe carry guns to bring people over." Let's also talk about services.

Let's make a robust, accountable, creative crime bill that we know Donald Trump will say no to, but then use it as a chance to teach to the American public and say, "Look, we are wanting to be tough on crime. Look at all the creative, effective solutions we've come up with that he's now saying no to." I don't understand why Democrats can't ever do that. It doesn't seem like a losing issue to me at all. That's my comment.

Brian: Kylie, thank you. Susan, report on the Democrats in that context.

Susan: First of all, the Democrats should be calling Kylie to recruit her for office, because that is just the kind of attitude that I think a lot of Democrats are yearning for, aggressive, creative, responsive, the kind of thing that Democrats have trouble coming around. The Democrats are just in a pickle because, for one thing, they have no base of power here in Washington, not the House or the Senate or the White House or really the Supreme Court. They have had trouble coalescing. They've got no obvious levers of power.

They've had trouble coalescing behind a coherent message about what it is they stand for, because they stand for such different things as your New York City mayor's race epitomizes. I think maybe in time, history tells us that political parties have ups and downs, and maybe in time, the Democrats will agree on what they agree on and move forward in an aggressive and creative way, but that has not happened yet.

Brian: Listener texts, "All we need to know about Donald Trump and crime is a full page ad he took out on the Central Park Five." That, of course, refers to him calling for the death penalty, if I've got this right, a long time ago. Of course, they became the exonerated five, and Trump never acknowledged that, even though the legal system did. To that point, and this will be our last point on this, and then we're going to segue to Ukraine.

Listener writes, "Can we get real about this? He's specifically targeting Black majority populations with Black local leaders. Anyone can see that, and it's important to point this out." I believe there's a column in USA Today that's making that case. When he talks about Baltimore, when he talks about New York, when he talks about Chicago, as well as DC, he's catering to white grievance space by singling out cities that have Black mayors. Did you see that column?

Susan: I didn't see the column, but of course, it's true. When he talks about targeting additional cities for federal action, for instance, for federalizing National Guardsmen, they are consistently cities in blue states with Democratic mayors and very diverse populations.

Brian: Coming up in a minute, Susan Page stays with us, and we're going to preview the Ukraine talks coming in Washington today. We already know this is going to be a historic day one way or another, and we're going to set that up a little. Stay with us.

[MUSIC - Marden Hill: Hijack]

Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. A few more minutes with Susan Page, Washington bureau chief for USA Today. The other big thing that she's covering, as the whole world is covering, is Ukraine. We already know this will be a historic day one way or another, as Ukraine's President Zelensky and several European leaders will meet with President Trump to consider what appears to be some kind of land-for-peace deal that President Trump and Vladimir Putin may be offering. Is it acceptable for Ukraine to give up so much of its territory as the result of Russia's invasion, and is the offer of peace and security afterwards even real? We have to ask that. The meeting is scheduled for this afternoon.

Susan, your column on this, published Saturday, is headlined "From no deal to Putin's deal? A flummoxing summit, a Trump flip." Remind us of how the President flip-flopped after meeting with Putin in Alaska on Friday. I know I spent too much of my Friday night watching the breaking news on this, but a lot of other people probably had a normal weekend. What was this Trump flip?

Susan: On the way to Alaska, Trump said that there was a ceasefire that would be followed by peace talks. That is something that European leaders and President Zelensky have been in a consistent position, a cease first, then talks, but during the summit with Vladimir Putin, Putin did not agree to that. Trump came out of that meeting looking disappointed, unhappy. The summit was cut short. Instead of a news conference, they each made a brief statement and left town. By the next morning, Trump had flipped to Putin's position, which is a no-ceasefire--

Brian: Again, we're having trouble with Susan's line. We're getting to the end of the segment anyway. Let me try one thing, and we'll see if we can get her back a little better just for another few minutes. I'm curious if we have any listeners who want to help us report this story. Anyone with ties to Ukraine listening right now, call us up, you'll get right on. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Anyone with ties to Ukraine, how are you watching this? 212-433-9692. Do you think anything good can come of this?

Do you think Trump is just caving to Putin or always in reality supporting Putin, despite what he may have said in recent weeks, to build this new right-wing authoritarian new world order? It's another lane in what one of our previous callers was talking about, a fascist takeover, as many people see it, not just of the United States, but of a new authoritarian world order by allying with people like Putin rather than with democracies.

Could there be something more subtle and strategic happening here, art the deal stuff, if you want to call it that, toward brokering a permanent peace that makes both sides give things they don't want to give, land from the Ukraine side, no more invasions of Ukraine or elsewhere in Europe from the Russian side, if you can even believe a promise from Putin. 212-433-WNYC, for anybody, especially with any personal ties to Ukraine. 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692, or if you have a take or a question for Susan Page.

Susan, I know your line is shaking, and we only have a few minutes left in the segment. Let me play one Trump clip from Sean Hannity Show Friday night when he was discussing his summit with Putin, but in a candid acknowledgment of how he thinks might makes right in many cases, he said this about the choice facing Ukraine on whether to accept such a deal.

President Trump: Got to make a deal, yes. Look, Russia's a very big power, and they're not.

Brian: Russia's a very big power, and they're not. That doesn't make it sound, Susan, like he's giving Zelensky a choice as opposed to an order. Today's meeting in DC with Trump and Zelensky also includes quite an array of backups for Ukraine's president. The president of France, Emmanuel Macron, I read that Keir Starmer, the UK Prime Minister, is going to be there and others. Why all of them, and what role will they play? Maybe not, huh? All right. I apologize to everybody about that shaking line this morning. We've been going as far with it as we could, and we appreciate what Susan has given us this morning. Let's get a couple of calls that have come in, and then we'll end this segment. Paul in Nanuet, you're going to have your say. You're on WNYC. Hello.

Paul: Hey, thanks for taking my call. I just want to say I'm married to a Russian woman who is mortified by what's going on in Ukraine and in Russia, for that matter. They were promised, after the Soviet Union dissolved, that they were going to have a democracy, and instead they got Putin. Those many people over there, like many people here, who are disillusioned, thinking that Trump is the answer, there's a lot of people in Russia that think that Putin is the answer. He's the strong man. He's going to take care of us.

The fact is, when the Soviet Union dissolved, a third of the Russian nuclear arsenal was in Ukraine, and we came in with the French and the British and promised them protection if they'd give up their arsenal. We reneged on that. Why should the Ukrainians trust anything we say? Much less what Putin says.

Brian: That trust issue is going to be very much on the table today. People are comparing it to appeasing Hitler in the 1930s. Oh, if we just give him Poland, well, okay. If we just give him Eastern Ukraine, that'll stop him, and then the question hangs out there. Is that analogy overblown, or is that what Putin has in mind? Of course, that's what you're saying and what a lot of people are saying. The Europeans will have to navigate in terms of whether to make any kind of deal.

Paul: The other thing we need to tie into this is the whole of the Project 2025 scheme backed by the Christian nationalists. They're really not interested in seeing peace anywhere. They want the authoritarianism. They want someone like Trump who is lighting fires everywhere. He's not solving any problems. He's creating problems that didn't even exist, whether it's violence. He's not addressing the cause of crime. He's just making it an issue that he can say, "See, only I can solve this crime." It's typical authoritarian.

The ultimate goal of these 2025 people is to bring about Armageddon. Moving nuclear subs around and threatening Iran, everywhere. These people really believe, and if you listen to a rural radio, they talk about it all the time now, how Armageddon is what's going to bring Jesus back when the world is destroyed. It's really frightening, and people need to wake up and read Project 2025.

Brian: Paul, thank you very much. Hopefully, even most Project 2025 people don't want to see it end that way, but there's so much consensus on all the rest of what you said with respect to them. By the way, as a program note, later in the show, we're going to be talking to finance journalist William Cohan about how a leader from the Heritage Foundation, which is, of course, what gave us Project 2025, is now being nominated by Trump to run the Bureau of Labor Statistics. We'll connect those dots as well, coming up. One more call on this. Max, you're on WNYC. Max, in Manhattan, hi.

Max: Hi, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. Long time listening. [unintelligible 00:39:36]

Brian: Glad you're on.

Max: With the developments recently, with Trump opening the door to Putin, meeting with him, having a summit in Alaska, I think to a lot of Ukrainians, and I myself am a Ukrainian. I came to the US in '98. I have family still in Ukraine. I think it's just been very confusing and has at least bred a great sense of mistrust with the constant changes of position.

I think everybody was expecting for there to be some tariffs, some sort of punishment or encouragement towards a peace deal that was a little more heavy-handed than a red carpet. I think it's bred a sense of mistrust. People are confused. They don't know who to believe in the Trump administration. Hearing all types of things from the president himself, the secretary of state saying one thing, and then it being slightly modified by somebody else. It's very confusing and hard to know who to trust.

Brian: Given your family ties and everything you've experienced and everything you know, how do you think it could go over with the Ukrainian people to have any kind of land-for-peace deal for parts of Eastern Ukraine, even if there is enough trust to give it a shot? I heard one report, I think it was on the BBC this weekend, that said there would have to be a referendum first. I wonder how you would vote in that referendum if you want to go there or if you think this could be acceptable in any way.

Of course, the alternative to keep fighting when, as Trump said in the clip, Russia ultimately does have so much more military might, is also challenging. So far, not just Zelensky, but the Ukrainian people and the public opinion stories that I've seen have been willing to hold that line and sacrifice so many lives. What do you think about that deal? How do you think it would go over? How do you even feel about it personally if you want to go there?

Max: I think it's controversial for everybody. I have my own opinions, and I have my family in Ukraine have their own views. I personally feel like there's too many people that are dying, and I think it's no way to live to constantly be worried about bombs falling on your home and then having to run into a basement all the time. At the same time, so much has been sacrificed in order to preserve Ukraine's sovereignty. To just bargain it away in exchange for something temporary, I think it's something that most of my family in Ukraine finds dubious.

I think that 20, 30 years could go by just like they already have, and another war could start because the premise of whatever peace deal may not feel legitimate to the eyes of the Ukrainian people. Regardless of what administration is in power now, views change rapidly. Our positions change rapidly rather within even a single administration. Who knows how these things will play out? I don't think that a lot of Ukrainians right now are willing to exchange territory for a promise. That's happened before for Ukrainians.

Brian: You mentioned that the death toll, the numbers I was seeing this weekend, are an estimate of about 60,000 Ukrainians. That's as many people as we hear have been killed in the war in Gaza. How many Gazans? We hear those numbers all the time, as we should, but we don't hear that number of how many Ukrainians have been killed in this war. The estimates that I saw in the press this weekend were about 60,000 and hundreds of thousands of Russians.

I don't know that that gets reported in the Russian media. I'm sure it doesn't, but it also touches hundreds of thousands of families. There's a price to be paid on both sides, obviously, in terms of lives, and I wonder if that motivates Putin at all here to end the war, because ultimately his people will come for him. I don't know it. I don't know that. That's just the question. Max, thank you for your call. I appreciate your input.

Max: Thank you so much, Brian.

Brian: We will leave that there. Obviously, we'll have lots of coverage on the station later today and tonight after that summit in Washington.

 

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