Americanswers… on 5 Live! What’s really going on with Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine?

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

0:30And to think, that's just a small taste of what Schwab offers. Because Schwab knows that when it comes to your finances, choice matters. No matter your goals, investing style, life stage or experience, Schwab has everything you need, all in one place, so you can invest your way. Visit schwab.com to learn more. Hello, welcome to another of our Monday editions of America Answers. when we answer your questions when we're talking to Matt Charlie on Five Live. And this week, you wanted to know about some of those cosy meetings in the White House where Donald Trump has been greeting Zohran Mandani and the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

1:11He has been posting on social media, talking about the behaviour of some Democrats, saying it was punishable by death. And he saw the end of Marjorie Taylor Greene, or Marjorie Traitor Greene, as he had called her, the Republican Congresswoman who has announced that she is retiring from Congress. And of course, we talk about what's going on with Ukraine because the controversial deal to try and end that war is still being discussed as we were recording this program. So do make sure you stay till the end because a lot of you were asking about Ukraine and we didn't have time to get through all your questions on 5 Live.

1:44Welcome to AmeriCanswers. AmeriCast. AmeriCast from BBC News. When Donald Trump calls, they say, yes, sir, right away, sir. Happy to lick your boot, sir. We are the sickest country in the world. Oh, dear. Are you worried that billionaires are going to go hungry? Of course the president supports peaceful protests. What a stupid question. Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?

2:15OK, let's get stuck straight in. Loads of listeners have been in touch asking about Ukraine after European leaders criticised the 28-point US plan, saying it was too favourable to Russia. A new plan has now been promised. The negotiations between the US, Russia and Ukraine are ongoing. Donald Trump posted on Truth Social this morning, something good may just be happening in relation to the talks. And we've had this voice note from Paul in Australia. G'day. Does the panel still genuinely believe that Trump is bothered with bloodshed and he wants to see an end to the killing? I've heard it mentioned a few times and on other podcasts as well.

2:59But all I see is Amanda wants to make a deal and wants a legacy and wants to profit. Thanks, everyone, for the podcast. Cheers. So, Sarah, what do you make of Paul's question? And just sort of against the background of Donald Trump and PT saying he wants to end all wars. Yes, and of course, famously during his election campaign, claiming that he could end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours, which has not happened. And now when he talks about it, he often expresses both surprise and frustration that it's taken this long so far. And of course, we're not guaranteed that we're getting to the end of it now, even though he has been, as you say, posting on social media that something good may be happening.

3:40So Paul was saying that he sees a man who wants to make a deal, a legacy and to profit. Now, all of those things I think are true. We know how obsessed that Donald Trump is with his legacy and his pursuit of the Nobel Peace Prize and how much he wants to be seen as a peacemaker around the world. And of course, because he thinks he's a dealmaker extraordinaire that he's the person who can do that. The plan that has been put to Ukraine does seem to involve the US profiting actually directly from some of the reconstruction efforts. And then there are many ways in which Donald Trump thinks that bringing Russia back into the international fold would allow for all kinds of dealmaking that would benefit both countries.

4:16But I think he does actually want to see an end to the killing as well. Now, maybe it's not his primary motivation. Maybe that's not the only reason that he's involved in this. But every time he talks about Ukraine, Donald Trump mentions numbers of soldiers who are being killed. He says he gets shown photographs and updates about what's going on at the front line. And he does seem to be genuinely moved or upset by the carnage that he says he is shown images of. And so I think it's part of his motivation to delve into making a deal. But I don't think that Paul is wrong when he suggests that, yeah, that legacy and potentially profit may be slightly higher up his priorities.

4:56Anthony, you've got Trump saying, told reporters Zelensky could accept the deal or continue to fight his little heart out. Clearly, he's not been as steadfast alongside Ukraine as, you know, Joe Biden has and European leaders have. Is he? And so as a result, people say, well, he's too close to Putin. And, you know, the initial plan just looked like a sort of Russia wish list. Is there a sense that he wants Russia to pay in any way for, you know, bluntly, they started, they invade, you know, Russia invaded Ukraine? Yeah, you know, he doesn't really like to assign blame to Russia. And sometimes, in fact, over the past year, he has said that or at least implied that Ukrainians are equally to blame for this war.

5:37When very clearly this was a war of Russian aggression, that they were the ones who rolled the tanks in and the justifications that Russia offered for it were fairly flimsy. flimsy. But yeah, it is. If you look at the details of this plan, this plan is by and large what the Russians want. And there are some what appear to be concessions, things about, oh, Poland gets to have military jets on their own soil that aren't really concessions at all. And so it's the guarantees that he says he's making in this, the American security guarantees, Again, they're very vague, and they're only as good as Donald Trump's word, and there are guarantees and assurances that Russia won't invade again that they made before.

6:20They have made multiple times before, and yet they have launched these attacks on Ukraine. So maybe this document is a work in progress, and that's certainly what America's European allies want to characterize it as. This is a starting point, and there are things that can be tweaked and adjusted and improved. but at least at the moment where this lands down, Donald Trump is not asking Russia to make very much in the way of concessions at all. I was going to say he's a very online president, probably the most online president we've ever had, Marianne. There's a sense of sometimes he puts stuff out, he sort of just sees how it goes.

6:54Is it bang online or not? Does it get the reaction from his base that he's looking for? Is there a sense that he's doing that this time? Where are his... Because a lot of his supporters liked all the stuff about no more forever wars and with America First meant not being the world's policeman.

7:09Marianna Spring:Yeah, it's worth saying that there's a bunch of particularly MAGA, so Make America Great Influencers Online, who are very anti-war and particularly anti-the idea of American money being spent on protecting, say, Ukraine or other places. So certainly when he kind of has a go at Zelensky, it plays to that base. But then also there are people certainly within the kind of Republican Party more broadly and people who also exist online, perhaps less vocally, who are very patriotic but also believe in standing up against, you know, foreign aggression or are not very keen on Russia and Putin in particular.

7:41Marianna Spring:So Donald Trump kind of treads this fine line, although treading a fine line is perhaps the wrong way of describing it. It's more like he sort of hops between either side of the line all the time with his social media posts, particularly the ones on Truth Social. What I think and what I found interesting in terms of the way this has all played out is like if you track his posts on Truth Social, so for example, when he was having a go at Zelensky saying, you know, Ukraine leadership has expressed all in capitals, of course, zero gratitude for our efforts to some extent it's hard to work out how strategic Donald Trump is in what he posts but posts like that are effective in terms of like you know the narrative was actually I'm annoyed at Ukraine now suddenly it seems a little bit less fractious today and it and it moves on it's like it's almost like he puts his most extreme positions out on social on social media and then sees how they play out in real life and almost almost uses that as part of a taxing yeah it sort of walks it back what's interesting and obviously we'll wait and see what happens.

8:33It's still very much a live conversation. Well, exactly. It's only quarter past

8:36Marianna Spring:three. What time are we? Twenty past three on a Monday. Who knows what will happen? There's a lot of time to go yet. Let's move on and get some more questions on. We've got Daniel from the Peak District. Hi, Daniel. Hello, guys. This is the thing about Trump saying that he'd rather be fixed Democrats who dared to say that the soldiers should not carry out orders which violate the law or the Constitution, which is actually the legal position. That is what soldiers are entitled to do and must do in fact and trump has threatened them with what he's called them seditious and and it should be punishable by death so he's associating opposing him with being killed my mind it's just jaw-dropping and what i wanted to know from you guys was how's this going down not just in the media but in public opinion is this something that would play out in the midterms as an attack out for example here we've got a president who actually threatened his opponents with killing them.

9:31So interesting, actually. It is connected to our previous conversation. So Trump posted on Truth Social last week, accusing the Democrats of seditious behaviour, punishable by death, but then went on Fox News, and we've got a clip of him denying he was threatening death to Democrats. Take a listen. I don't know about the modern day things, because, you know, modern day is a lot softer, but in the old days, if you said a thing like that, that was punishable by death. Yeah, but you're not saying, you're not threatening them. And a lot of people are interpreting there's a threat and there's security.

10:00I'm not threatening them, but I think they're in serious trouble. I would say they're in serious trouble. I'm not threatening death, but I think they're in serious trouble. In the old days, it was death. I mean, you use the word death there quite a lot for someone who's not talking about death. Anthony, just give us the background of this case for listeners who don't know, and then why Donald Trump has weighed in so strongly on it. Sure. This all started with a handful of Democratic members of Congress, ones who had military backgrounds, releasing a video where they said that soldiers didn't have to obey illegal orders.

10:34And this was done in the context of Donald Trump ordering strikes, say, on Venezuelan boats in international waters. Donald Trump sending soldiers and National Guard to American cities. So it's pretty clear the context of this, that they were saying if Donald Trump gives an order that they view as illegal, that soldiers don't have to obey it. But then that set off a kind of a firestorm on social media that Donald Trump picked up on and amplified and then began echoing not just his own calls for death, but other people on social media who are calling for this. And that's where you get get into this kind of muddled mess again.

11:11It's Donald Trump. He'll say one thing and then he'll say, oh, no, I didn't really mean that. And maybe some conservative commentators or interviewers will say, well, you don't really mean that, do you? And he's like, no, I don't. But kind of I do. It is the way Donald Trump talks. And so it's going to be, it'll be interesting to see if this becomes an issue with legs. But it's the kind of one where if you wanted to find a soundbite where Donald Trump was specifically calling for people to be executed for this, you're not going to find it. You're going to find a little bit that points in multiple different directions.

11:40Marianna Spring:Matt, I do think it's worth saying as well, there you summarized one of the posts that he'd put on Truth Social. There are other posts. This is a common bit of behavior that Donald Trump displays on social media where he'll repost other posts that perhaps go a bit further than he did. So, for example, he reposted this one that said, hang them, George Washington would. But on the question itself, Daniel, I do think that this kind of rhetoric has become more normalized within American politics. And we've been talking about it in relation to the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the killings of various other politicians, including on the left in the United States.

12:14Marianna Spring:And I think that lots of this language like about treason and treachery, you know, this idea of traitors, it's what Marjorie Taylor Greene was talking about in terms of it causing threats to her, is language that Donald Trump has not been shy of before. So in some ways, this just feels like part of the evolution of that language, even though it is shocking to some people that he could go so far as to suggest that. I'll just put in there, so you had these six Democrats saying you can refuse illegal orders. In fact, it's your constitutional duty to do so. And now they've been unable to come up with what they think are any illegal orders that Donald Trump has issued.

12:50One of them, Alyssa Slotkin, was on the TV over the weekend saying, no, she wasn't aware of any illegal orders, which slightly undermines their case a little bit. I mean, they wanted us to think, obviously, they were talking about National Guard deployments in American cities where it's unusual to have troops on home soil and also the attacks on boats coming out of Venezuela. But if they can't actually say they think there has been illegal orders issued to the armed forces, then why are they advocating that people disobey orders? I think that muddies the water slightly of who's right and who's wrong here.

13:21Well, it's a great question, Daniel. It's good to shine a light on something which may not have caught the attention of all our listeners. Good to speak to you, Daniel. Thank you for that. Right, let's turn our attention to an unlikely sort of... Bromance might be a bit strong, but Zohar Mamdani, the new Democratic mayor of New York City, went to the White House to see Donald Trump and they got on famously, albeit there's one slightly tricky moment.

13:43Marianna Spring:Are you affirming that you think President Trump is a fascist? I've spoken about... That's OK, you can just say yes. OK, all right. It's easier. It's easier than explaining it. I don't mind. But apart from that, they've gone on quite well. Zach has sent us an email saying, I was watching the press conference in the Oval Office between Mamdani and Trump and I don't know what to think. Can you offer your thoughts as to what was going on there? Was it Zohan Mamdani has the ability to play some sort of charm offensive? Was it the classic theory of horseshoe politics that left-wing and right-wing populism both meet over very similar issues?

14:14Was it that Donald Trump thinks it's signing with Mamdani or will cause Mamdani political pain by association? Or was it something else? Sarah? Well, at root, I think Mamdani is a winner. He won big in New York and in slightly surprising circumstances, He came up from outside politics. He was written off by a lot of people who didn't think that he was going to make it. A lot of similarities with Donald Trump's rise in politics there with that. And he does like to be associated with people who have been electorally successful. It's probably one of the reasons why he seems so keen on Sir Keir Starmer as well, because he won big in an election in 2024 and Donald Trump decided he looked like a winner and therefore he was on his side.

14:55So, you know, that will get you an in with Donald Trump. But it is true that they are talking about the same kind of issues, making life in America more affordable. Now, they have different views of how to do it, and we don't know to what extent they got into any kind of detailed politics or policies about this. But they do have similar aims with very, very different views of how to get there. I think it suits Trump to be seen to be getting on with someone he thinks is winning. Mamdani can say, well, look, I'm doing what I have to in order to try and make things better for New Yorkers. people I feel sorry for are the Republicans who have probably already spent millions cutting adverts and working on publicity that was going to say Mamdani is a dangerous communist.

15:35This is what the whole of the Democratic Party is like. Don't vote for them in the midterm elections. And now suddenly Donald Trump has embraced this man. And yeah, no longer can he be used as a sort of bogey figure to put people off Democrats. Well, we'll see how that plays out. And if this Is this a small romance or I just sort of wondered whether it was just the two of them. They're both sort of quite similar in their approaches. And actually, you know, they both probably get out of it what they wanted. Well, let's turn our attention now to another visitor to the White House. We've had this voice note in from Maria.

16:08Hi, AmeriCast. It's Maria from Derbyshire. I was disappointed not to hear a mention of the complete meltdown of President Trump with the reporter's question about the Saudi Crown Prince and the murder and dismemberment in the embassy. It was extraordinary and it wasn't mentioned on AmeriCast. But anyway, love you anyway. Bye. Love you anyway is great. Don't worry, we're mentioning it now, Maria, and we're still glad you love us. So, yes, Trump welcomed Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to the White House last week. That's despite a US intelligence assessment in 2021 which determined the Crown Prince had approved an operation to kill the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

16:54It was his first US visit since the assassination and this is the particular moment Maria was talking about.

17:00Marianna Spring:Your Royal Highness, the US intelligence concluded that you orchestrated the brutal murder of a journalist. 9-11 families are furious that you are here in the overall world. Why should Americans? Who are you with? I'm with ABC News, sir. You're with who? ABC News, sir. Fake news. ABC fake news. One of the worst in the business. But I'll answer your question. Thank you. I have nothing to do with the family business. I have left and when I've devoted 100 % of my energy, what my family does is fine. They do business all over. They've done very little with Saudi Arabia, actually. I'm sure they could do a lot.

17:33As far as this gentleman is concerned, he's done a phenomenal job. You're mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial. A lot of people didn't like that gentleman that you're talking about, whether you like him or didn't like him. Things happen. But he knew nothing about it. And we can leave it at that. You don't have to embarrass our guests by asking a question like that. Yeah, things happen. That's a very interesting way of talking around that. And the ABC reporter pressed Donald Trump on that. And he started criticizing ABC, as he often does, and going after the reporter personally.

18:06But it is a kind of a dramatic shift to see the American president welcome Mohammed bin Salman there, brush over the very real evidence that the United States itself has presented that he had knowledge of the killing of Khashoggi. And to say that, well, he had lots of different enemies and he wasn't a well-liked guy, just incredibly dismissive. And that has, of course, angered Khashoggi's widow, has angered people who have been critical of the Saudi government and created a bit of a firestorm around it. But Donald Trump doesn't seem interested in that. He seems perfectly happy to sit in the same room and to look towards a future of warmer U.S.-Saudi relations, which is something that has been a through line for Donald Trump since the beginning of his first presidential term, where his first international trip was to Saudi Arabia.

19:00He seems very intent on tapping into Saudi money and increasing cooperation between the United States and Saudi and getting them to sign on to these Abraham Accords, which would involve them recognizing the state of Israel and normalizing relations with them. So that's Donald Trump's relations with Saudi Arabia. Back close to the home, relations less good with Marjorie Taylor Greene. There was a great episode of AmeriCast last week all about her. So you might want to check that out. So she's an influential Republican congresswoman who says she'll be resigning after a big argument with Donald Trump.

19:34So Lundy on the Discord asks, are we starting to see which side of the Republican Party will take over after Trump, or is it still too early to tell? Is this a sign that we'll see others, like Lauren Boebert or primary dad of Congress, replaced with those more aligned to Vance or the traditional roots of the party? Sarah, fill us in. What's going on with Marjorie Taylor Greene? What's a massive cheerleader for Donald Trump? Yeah, absolutely fascinating. This is so she broke with Donald Trump in the last few weeks over several issues. She's been demanding the publication of the Epstein files very vocally all along and actually signed on to a measure in Congress that would force their publication.

20:13And that annoyed Donald Trump. She's also been speaking out about subsidies for health care. She's worried about the cost of health care going up for her constituents, about other affordability issues and criticising Donald Trump for spending too much time on foreign affairs. So she would say, and with some justification, actually, she was representing what the MAGA base really care about and keep trying to keep Donald Trump true to his America first principles, whereas she thinks he's been distracted by other things in the White House. But it did become quite a spat with Donald Trump calling her a traitor and other things as a result of it.

20:48And it looked as though we were seeing the first fight back from Congress, from somebody actually prepared to take on the president. So you can't just do absolutely everything you want and expect us to acquiesce all the time. But then suddenly over the weekend, she announced that she is going to leave Congress, not even when her term runs out in just under a year's time. She's going to leave at the beginning of January. She's had enough of politics since she started this fight with Donald Trump, apparently. So suddenly it doesn't look as though the fractures in the party endanger him in any way.

21:18You know, if she had gotten away with this, if she had been able to carry on whilst disagreeing with the president, it would have made him look slightly weaker. But actually, it does appear for whatever reason that he has won this particular bout.

21:39We've just come off air on Radio 5 Live with Matt Charlie, where we've been answering some of your questions. But we had so many in about what's going on about Ukraine, we thought we would try and answer some more of them. I should warn you that this is a pretty dynamic situation going on with these talks. It's half past 10 in the morning US time, So half past three in the afternoon in the UK on Monday. Forgive us if by the time you're listening to this, some of the things we're talking about have gone out of date. But as things stand at the moment, we've got a great question in from David, who is asking whether or not we underestimate President Trump.

22:13He says he produces a peace plan that he knows Russia will accept and gives it as a take it or leave it plan to Ukraine. I wonder if President Trump knew this would put the cat among the pigeons and hair would fly and that the European leaders would all rush in to support Ukraine. This doesn't strike me so much as Donald Trump looking for something nice to say on Thanksgiving, but an archetype move by Trump to solve a problem. And if this is the case, can we suddenly see why the White House briefed that the media are biased and that they reduce President Trump's motives to narcissism? He says he's not a fan of Donald Trump, but we do need to understand him, not stereotype him.