Will America stop Europe from bailing out Ukraine?

0:01This is a Global Player original podcast. Volodymyr Zelensky is in Brussels. He cannot understand why Europe won't hand over frozen Russian assets to help him fight the war. Just like authorities confiscate money from drug traffickers and take weapons away from terrorists, Russia's assets must be used to defend against Russian aggression. Well, Moscow's opposed to it. You'd expect that. Hungary's opposed to it. You'd expect that. But why is America siding with Russia? Welcome to The News Agents.

0:44The News Agents. It's John. It's Emily. And at the heart of this is a very tangible problem. Ukraine is fast running out of money. Kiev needs around$136 billion in the next two years just to fund its defence, to keep it afloat, to keep Russia at bay as far as it can. That's according to the European Commission. So without new funds coming in by the spring, Ukraine risks going bankrupt. It would be unable to pay soldiers, unable to pay police. It would be unable to function as a country. And so on the one hand, this seems childishly simple, that if you have the money from the aggressor already sitting, frozen in a bank account in Brussels, then why on earth don't you just use it to fund the country that is fighting it on behalf of many of us, many European countries?

1:46And yet it has got tangled up in diplomacy, bureaucracy, fear and Donald Trump's America.

1:55Megan:Yeah, because it looks to be the most obvious piece of low hanging fruit that you just put your arm up and you can pluck it off the tree. The two hundred and ten billion euros or one hundred and eighty five billion pounds worth of assets that are held by the EU in a Belgian based organisation called Euroclear. And so you've got all sorts of weird bits of alliances taking place. So let's try and navigate where we are with it, because a lot of European countries are saying, absolutely, Belgium should release this money and we can then give it to Ukraine or loan it to Ukraine so that they can carry on the war effort.

2:36Megan:Belgium is saying, hang on, Russia is going to be very, very angry, not with Europe, but with Belgium and will really target Belgium. And in a Moscow court, the Russian government have moved to try to dismiss it. Then you have got the need for a unanimous vote to release these funds. So you need to get Belgium on board. Oh, and there's one other country that might prove sticky. Hungary. Viktor Orban is saying, no, this money should not be released because, as we know, Viktor Orban is close to the Russians. And the final piece of it is the USA. The USA thinks it's quite close to getting a deal across the line.

3:14Megan:The last thing it wants is for Ukraine to suddenly feel, oh, look, we've got the money now for all the weapons that we need to keep fighting Russia. So in a way, America is now threatening Europe and saying, don't do it. America's position is so compromised through what we now understand to be Trump's relationship with Putin. If you go back a year when Trump was saying, I'll end the war on day one, ha ha, the sense was that he understood the difference between the aggressor and the victim in this war, as much of Europe does. And the further away we've got from that statement, the more we understand Trump's sympathies lie essentially with Putin and presumably with the kind of deals he believes he can do and affect in Russia with Putin.

4:04and he doesn't particularly want him angered. And Russia has said, I mean, Russia has called this theft, theft of someone else's property, which I guess takes you, you know, to the delicious, ironic heart of how Russia sees its own place in this war, which is we're taking Ukrainian land because it's essentially Russian land. We're taking land that was always ours because we felt threatened by Ukraine. and we just don't understand why you've started freezing our money. We just don't understand why you're stealing it. That's where they have landed up. They have issued some pretty dark warnings about the consequences for European economic stability if this money goes.

4:48And I think that is a threat. I mean, we've seen how Russia operates. We've seen what it's willing to do on British soil. We've seen what it's willing to do in terms of influencing, steering, manipulating elections, you know, here and elsewhere. And we've seen the ability it has to manipulate Trump by suggesting that somehow Europe is at fault, that Europe are the thieves in this equation which delivers frozen Russian assets to the people trying to fight the aggression.

5:21Megan:And the AFP news agency are reporting that, according to a White House official, US and Russian leaders are due to meet in Miami this weekend for further talks on the peace plan, which we know is very much in Russia's favour. And that Kirill Dmitriev, a key ally of Vladimir Putin, will be in talks with Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner. So you kind of see that this is all being, you know, the alliances are just so head scrambling in the idea that, yeah, Kremlin and Washington absolutely aligned. Yeah, they're on the same side. They're on the same side. And you've got the useful kind of Viktor Orban as ever acting as it.

6:05And on the other side, you've got Mertz, the German Chancellor, saying if we don't succeed in this, then the European Union's ability to act will be damaged for years. We will show the world we're incapable of standing together and acting at such a crucial moment in our history. And it is, as we record this at two o 'clock, It is all basically coming to a head because I guess the figure around whom all this coalesces is one Georgia Maloney, who is adored by much of Europe and adored by the Trump administration. And she finds herself. I mean, she has been actually very forthright in her condemnation.

6:42A very tough one in Moscow. Exactly. Condemnation of Putin. And so I think a lot is going to fall on her shoulders as to who, which way she is pulled now. because European leaders are, and I think this leads us into another area of that discussion, but the drumbeat of war in the last few weeks has definitely come closer. There are many more European governments now talking about remilitarisation, a kind of form of military service. The word conscription has been used in a way that we haven't seen for decades. Now, Now, this doesn't mean that all our sons and daughters are going to get conscripted in the next five years to fight a war against Russia.

7:24But it does mean that what was once unthinkable no longer feels unthinkable. And the fact that French governments are talking about your sons and daughters going out to fight a war, the fact that Germany is reintroducing this idea of military service and what it means and how widespread it would be, I think clarifies minds. if you think well is it going to be russian money being used to defend ukraine or is it our children yeah i mean that's it becomes a bit of a starker reality doesn't it look the whole national service conscription the draft call it what you will as far as i can see is still a long way off but it's being thought about and it's being spoken about and this does represent the most fundamental change in this country.

8:13I mean, national service ended in 1960, so 65 years ago, and the last people came out of doing national service in 1963. So it would be a seismic change. But you just listen to the generals, you listen to the military planners, you listen to the defence chiefs, and they clearly think that what Russia is doing, and there have been a number of warnings this week in terms of, you know as you say the political interference the economic interference cutting underwater cables the hybrid warfare that is going on incursions into other people's airspace it's becoming more and more aggressive and you know i think that we get this impression that russia has got its hands totally full with fighting the war in ukraine russia is a heavily militarized country and it It's still got a lot of assets of submarines, of surface vessels, the shadow fleets that we talk about that are there to cause mayhem and to cause intimidation of European countries.

9:17And that's why you're seeing now people starting to talk about what we might have to do to meet the Russian threat. Yeah. Two days ago, Chief Defence Staff Richard Knighton warned that the situation had become more dangerous than he says he'd known in his entire career. Sons and daughters, colleagues, veterans, will all have a part to play, to build, to serve, and if necessary, to fight. So what does that mean? I mean, that is a chill down your spine when you hear sons and daughters must be ready ultimately to fight. Now, he clarified those remarks and he said, look, I'm not talking about conscription next year, I'm not even talking about it in the next 10 years, but this is the shape of things to come.

9:58And it's a conversation that a lot of parents that I know are having, which is like, are we going to, if you've got kids in their teens or in their 20s, 30s, whatever, you know, is this going to happen? Is this going to happen in their lifetime? That they may get called up in some shape or form and told, yeah, you have to start fighting for your country. And I guess if you've got that stark message being said out loud by senior members of the armed forces now and you've got Russian money sitting in a vault and Ukraine saying, just give it to us. This is the cheapest way possible for you to fight this war.

10:40We'll do it for you. Just give us the money. Why wouldn't you do it? Look, we kept on hearing that phrase in the lead up to Rachel Reeves budget of of rolling the pitch, of trying to get people ready for certain sorts of things. I feel that when Sir Richard Knighton comes out and says stuff like that, there is a certain amount where they feel that the conversation needs to change to start preparing the British public that something like this might need to happen. and we are part of a blessed generation that we haven't known war on our doorsteps. We haven't faced military service. For many years, we thought there was going to be a peace dividend with the collapse of the Soviet Union and that liberal democracy had won.

11:27As we end 2025 and begin 2026, it does not feel like that. Yeah, and I guess that is why, if this comes to a head between European leaders and Donald Trump and America, you kind of want what the EU wants to do to win, right? I mean, you are kind of looking at Starmer and saying, what are you even thinking? Just get on with it. I mean, you know, look, the Ukraine peace deal that, you know, Washington thinks is so close. Donald Trump has made absolutely clear that American troops are not going to be part of risking their lives in any confrontation between Russia and Ukraine. So you are to take Russia's word that if there was a peace deal now and they get all of the Donbass, they won't come back and try and take the rest of Ukraine at some future date.

12:20I mean, if you're Vladimir Zelensky, why on earth would you take that sort of assurance? And when you hear the Prime Minister of Poland, Donald Tusk, saying, we face an existential threat if Russia, you know, continues to expand. And that is a real fear now in Europe that hasn't been seen since the 1930s.

12:43News you can trust and the conversations that matter. With award-winning journalists at the heart of the stories from the UK and around the world. Breaking news here in Edinburgh. I'm Simon Marks. My American Week is next. Reporting from the heart of Cardiff. Discover how today's story affects your life. Listen on our free Global Player app or the new LBC app. LBC leading Britain's conversation.

13:11The news agents. But what can you do about him? And people like him who have enormous reach. Yeah, we need to firstly make sure that online platforms are only putting out appropriate content and in accordance with the law and the frameworks there. But we need to talk to young people about this. Many young boys are exposed to Andrew Tate and many other things of the same type, which is, on the one hand, a sort of an attraction, but on the other hand, loaded with misogyny. We have to talk about it. Keir Starmer was talking on Channel 4 News there about the efforts his government wants to make to end violence against women, starting with young boys in classrooms.

13:55They say that teachers will be given training to spot and tackle misogyny in the classroom. So it's all about sort of recorrecting behaviour before it sets in. It's about how we rewire our young men. It all sounds fine and healthy and thoughtful. But over in the US, you have an administration that has gone out of its way to actively facilitate the likes of the Tate brothers in freeing them, wanted on charges for human trafficking, let's remind you, from jail. So is any action that Starmer takes locally in a primary school, in a classroom, ever going to counter the weight of social media that is backed by some of the most powerful people in the world?

14:46look it's difficult enough for a government to try to change people's behavior and you know we had starmer at the liaison committee earlier on in the week saying you know pull levers and nothing seems to happen i mean pulling the lever which will affect the way young people think about the opposite sex i mean is quite a big ask for a government to do but look as you say emily laudable that that is what they're trying to do because undoubtedly there is a misogyny kind of in the manosphere that has taken hold and captured the imagination of so many young men.

15:20Megan:But as you say, look what's happening in America. Donald Trump on Air Force One and a woman reporter from Bloomberg asks him a question and he says, quiet, piggy. I mean, that is some of the stuff that you're up against. And America seems to be facilitating and welcoming with open arms the Tate brothers because of what they were able to do to help Donald Trump win re-election with the bro vote. Yeah. And we're going to dig into this a little bit further with a woman whose name you'll recall from the Harvey Weinstein investigation. She was one of the journalists who wrote the story, Megan Tui, and she has done some reporting about the links between Barron Trump and the Tate brothers, between those around Trump and his inner circle and how much they have put into getting the Tate brothers free from Romanian jail.

16:21Megan, it's great to have you on the News Agents. Just take us back to, I guess, the place we should start is that Andrew Tate and his brother were under criminal investigation in Romania. They've been under investigation for the last three years, accused of coercing women into pornography and also, I think, of human trafficking. Where do we think the relationship between the Tates and are we going to say Trump himself or those those in the sort of MAGA sphere? Where do we think that relationship began? So our reporting found that the relationship with members of the Trump family started as early as 2017.

17:01So at this point, Andrew Tate and his brother, younger brother Tristan, you know, they're kind of ascending into the so-called manosphere, where they're now huge stars with massive followings of young men. In 2017, they had relocated from Britain. They have U.S. and British citizenship and had been in Britain, but had relocated to Romania and were kind of operating on three different tracks at this time. They were running a porn business in which they sort of installed women, oftentimes women that they were dating, as they tell it, into rented apartments both in Britain and in Romania to perform, you know, make sexual content and perform or post online for paying followers with them taking most of the profit, as they tell it.

17:51They would eventually also start to teach courses to young men on how to make money and exploit women, sort of selling the lessons they had learned from their porn business. And Andrew, in particular, was also starting to build a online following, kind of preaching, brazen masculinity and chauvinism. And during this time, he was also, going way back, a massive and fervent Trump supporter. So as he tells it, in 2017, he did a post in supporting President Trump that was liked by Trump's son, Don Jr. And Andrew reached out to Don Jr. and soon they were hanging out at Trump Tower in New York. And that friendship grew and continued into 2023 as Andrew and his brother came under criminal investigation in Romania for, you know, allegedly at this point, the accusations are that they have coerced dozens of women into that porn business and that Andrew has raped one of the women and has had sex with and beat a 15 year old.

18:57So, you know, 2023, 2024, Don Jr. is openly sort of supporting and defending Andrew and his brother against this Romanian criminal case. We also found that by 2024, Barron Trump, the teenage son of the president, had also become a fan. and in fact that they spoke by phone last year about the criminal case that Andrew, according to a mutual friend who spent time with Barron, Barron is a fan of the Tates and that they spoke by Zoom last year and talked about, discussed the case. And so that's a family, but it goes beyond the family into administration officials and other kind of media figures here in the United States.

19:39I want to get onto that. I mean, the Tate brothers here have an almost mythical status amongst sort of parents and teachers, which is, you know, don't let your kids get involved. Don't let them watch their stuff. Don't let them look at their stuff. You know, if your kid kind of enters into the Tate Manosphere, then you have sort of failed as a parent kind of thing. You know, this is the way that the Tate brothers are discussed here amongst parents who are trying to, I guess, shield particularly young men, boys from the dangers and from the rhetoric. And yet, in a sort of old fashioned world, once they'd been arrested, you would have expected anyone at the top of government to say, right, we've got nothing more to do with you.

20:21The opposite happened this time when Trump got reelected. He made a big show of saying these guys are my guys, and they're going to be out of prison. That's right. So in terms of Trump himself, our reporting did not find any direct communication between President Trump and the Tate brothers, but Trump was seemingly aware of them. And in, I can't remember exactly, I think it was around 2023 or 2024, Tristan Tate had defended him in his legal battles here in the United States. And Trump had like basically reposted Tristan. But what's interesting is that you're absolutely right. As the Tate brothers came under growing numbers of criminal investigations, not just in Romania, but as you guys I'm sure are aware, British prosecutors have authorized charges against them for trafficking of women and also of rape against both brothers.

21:18And we also found that here in the United States, they've quietly been under criminal investigation by anti-human trafficking agents and federal prosecutors. But to your point, as these criminal allegations and other accusations are multiplying, they are forming more and more kind of mutually beneficial alliances with prominent figures on the American right here in the United States. So in addition to members of the Trump family, they also are forming alliances with, you know, really prominent media figures like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, who actually flew to Romania and interviewed Andrew as he was under house arrest and conducted sympathetic interviews.

21:58in the case of Tucker Carlson, really misrepresenting what those criminal allegations were against the brothers. And then once Trump was reelected, the supporters of the Tates ascended into the new administration. And we found that one of those officials, Richard Grinnell is his name, he's a special diplomatic envoy for Trump, actually discussed the case. I think he was the sort of the U.S. ambassador to Germany in the first one. He was, yes. He's long been a supporter and served Trump in a variety of capacities. And so when Trump was reelected, he gets tapped with this new kind of roaming diplomatic, special diplomatic envoy title.

22:36And we found that he discussed the Tate's case with at least two Romanian officials. And the second discussion was with the Romanian foreign minister at a conference in Munich. And within days of that second conversation, prosecutors in the Romanian case got an order from high above in the Romanian government saying, you've got to work out a deal with these guys. And they ultimately lifted their travel bans, which was like they were outraged. They did not want to do this. For years, they've been saying these guys are a public danger. You know, they're a flight risk. But the Romanian prime minister, we found through our reporting, believed that this would appease the Trump administration.

23:18And so in February of this year, as I'm sure you guys will recall, the Tates were on a private plane on their way back, like with like, yeah, being like we're massively back. And since then have really been kind of traveling in and out of Romania and Dubai and Turkey and have really kind of claimed this as a victory.

23:36Megan:And it's so interesting because, you know, as we're doing this interview, there's about to be the release of the Epstein files, which has divided the MAGA movement between those who think, hang on, what Epstein did was disgusting and therefore people need to be held to account. And I would imagine there are similar divisions over the relationship with the Tates who face very serious accusations. there was an impending trial. And yet, thanks to the kind of intervention of Trump land and some of those around Trump, like Grinnell, they get their passports back and are kind of in and out of the country.

24:13Yeah, absolutely. And in fact, you're right. I mean, as soon as they arrived in the United States, it didn't go as smoothly as I think they and their supporters believed. There were, in fact, prominent conservatives, more traditional conservatives here in the United States, who were very upset that these guys were back in the United States, like our Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, who said, you're not welcome here. And in fact, the attorney general in Florida launched an investigation of them. There were other prominent media figures like Megyn Kelly, who was saying this is like the version of toxic masculinity people.

24:52And so what you did see was that this was cracking over yet another rift on the right within the sort of MAGA world, in which you kind of had more traditional conservatives kind of squaring off against the supporters of the Tates. And I don't, you know, they left, the Tates left the United States in March for a court date in Romania and have not been back. And their supporters here have been a little bit less visible or more quiet if their support has remained. But remarkably, another thing that happened right after they left is that one of Andrew Tate's then, well, ex-girlfriends now, went to police and said that, you know, he had actually assaulted her when they reunited in the United States.

25:36And so even as they kind of take these victory laps and, you know, have been able to sort of juice their brand with, as they've resumed their jet-setting lifestyle, their legal battles remain. And, you know, there's a real question of like, you know, if and when they're going to catch up with them. I mean, once the Romanian case is complete, however it concludes, they're going to have to go back to Britain and face those charges that have been authorized against them there.

26:02Megan:Megan, there's one other question I'm interested in, and you mentioned it briefly, which is that Barron Trump, the son of, you know, Melania and Donald Trump, has been in touch with him. And whenever we've seen Barron Trump, he's looked like this rather awkward, very tall, gangly teenager who sort of doesn't seem that comfortable in his own skin. And yet kind of we've heard about Eric Trump. We've heard about Don Jr. We've heard about Ivanka playing their political roles in various different guises. And it sounds like Barron is kind of coming into this world as well. Yeah, right. I mean, that was one of the there were so many things that were kind of illuminated in the course of our investigation.

26:42And we thought it was really interesting to get some insight, some rare insight into Barron Trump. You know, he has been a bit of an enigma. He hasn't done, you know, a lot of interviews. He hasn't been very visible. There was some coverage that he had really encouraged his dad during the last presidential election here to go on some of the podcasts and do interviews with some of the kind of media figures in the so-called manosphere who connect with young male voters who have become like a crucial block for Trump and other conservatives here in the United States. And so there had been some coverage of that.

27:23You know, what I found through my reporting is that he had actually hosted a dinner at Mar-a-Lago in the spring of 2024, in which he had invited some of these figures, some of these, you know, male media figures who connect with a male audience. And it was interesting to talk to a couple of those folks who said that he's very engaged, he's very ambitious, and he really is connected into this kind of manosphere world. There is a guy called Justin Waller who has worked closely with the Tates. And as he tells it, is kind of widely seen as the third brother. And he was in attendance at the dinner that night and talked about how, you know, their conversation meandered from calling each other degenerate names to discussing geopolitics and who Trump's vice presidential pick should be.