How Trump changed his mind about Zelensky

0:28Shipping, billing, admin, payroll, marketing. Your team just added its 67th AI tool and also your 67th security blind spot. The good news? The Vanta agent works like a GRC engineer in the background, finding every app your team uses, scoring the risk, and drafting fixes for you. Vanta is the platform used by over 16 ,000 fast-moving companies like Ramp, Cursor, and Harvey, who are shaping the future with AI and staying ahead of AI risk. Get started at Vanta.com. she has become one of the biggest cheerleaders online for helping ukraine laura loomer is a certified lunatic hello and welcome to the state of it usa i'm jerry baker times columnist and editor at large the wall street journal and i'm katie balls washington editor and columnist for the times and sunday times this week relations seem to be getting warmer between president Vladimir Zelensky of Ukraine and President Donald Trump.

1:26We'll look at what could be behind that and what it means for Ukraine's prospects in the war. And later, we'll discuss the furious reaction to the Times story that Gianni Infantino may be planning to sell off part of FIFA and turn it into more of a business. We'll talk about all that. But first, that meeting at the White House yesterday between President Trump and Vladimir Zelensky of Ukraine. They were both in town here in Washington for the funeral of Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator who died suddenly. It was an opportunity for Zelensky to get together with Trump, and they met afterwards at the White House.

2:03No reprise of the infamous Oval Office meeting from a year or so ago, we all recall. After the meeting, there were more signals that the relationship between Ukraine and the US may be getting more positive. There's talk that Ukraine may be getting help with some of the septimisals that it's looking for. There was discussion of the possibility of a renewed diplomatic effort by Donald Trump. So tell us, Katie, what's going on? Is this a kind of a, is Donald Trump finally, after many years, finally come around to loving Zelensky in Ukraine after all? Loving might be too strong a word, but I think it's definitely fair to say that there's been a warming in relations.

2:41The reason that Zelensky and also Israel's Netanyahu were in town this week in Washington, D.C., where I am, was Lindsey Graham's funeral. And both used that as an opportunity to meet with the U.S. president. And at that service, there were various tributes. But even in these tributes to the late senator, you had a situation where Ukraine came up. And I think we can hear the Fox News host, Sean Hannity, here. He saw you, and he said it to me once, as a warrior poet or a warrior comedian. He used those terms. And on paper, I think everybody would agree, on paper, Ukraine would have been defeated in months.

3:24And here we are nearly five years later, and your country has shown a fighting spirit that no one ever predicted. I think it does speak to perhaps what we might call a vibe shift in Washington, D.C. that is felt in parts of the Trump administration. Now, I don't think we can get completely ahead of ourselves. There's one thing which is you think about that bout last year in the Oval Office, which I think is ingrained in many people's minds, where early in 2025, Zelensky turns up and clashes heavily with both Trump and his vice president, J.D. Vance. They suggest that he doesn't have any cards to play.

4:03Russia have all the cards. And you fast forward to now. And I think that the U.S. side have been surprised by how long Ukraine has hung on. I think they've been impressed by the drone technology, for example. I think there are US defense figures who think that America can actually learn from bits of what Ukraine is doing. And you also, I think, have had a shift in parts of the MAGA base, which I know we'll come on to. But all of this means that the worst thing you can be in Donald Trump's eyes is a loser. And I think that how Russia is doing in the war in terms of how many of its own they are losing every day to try and either take, you know, tiny bits of land.

4:43It's starting to look as though this isn't a situation where Russia has all the cards. And that is reflecting in how much time Zelensky is given by the Trump administration. So the main takeaway from that meeting, yes, licenses for patriot interceptors, but also talk of a visit by Steve Witkoff, who is Trump's peace envoy, and Jared Kushner, who is Trump's unofficial peace envoy, and also his son-in-law, going to Ukraine at some point. And I think that is significant because if you think about Steve Wyckoff, one of the big criticisms of Trump's bestie to some degree, who he knew from the real estate days and thought if you can broker a New York real estate deal, you can broker a peace agreement, is that parts of the state apparatus in Washington think that Steve Wyckoff is far too naive and close to Vladimir Putin.

5:32And there are stories of him, you know, saying that he has great chemistry with Putin. You know, Putin's a great guy, but he has bad PR. And therefore, if Zelensky is getting time, I think with Wyckoff, it could start to, you know, perhaps even out a bit. So I don't think we can jump to Ukraine as, you know, the favorite of the White House and Russia is in the doghouse. But I do think there's a sense where Ukraine is able to get on the conversation more than they perhaps were in the past. What are you picking up, Jerry? It looks as though something has changed. I mean, clearly, you know, we have the following pieces of evidence.

6:05Trump, you know, they had a Trump had a pretty good meeting with Zelensky at NATO, the NATO summit a month or so ago. That seemed to go quite well, quite warmly. The talk of these these patriots was pretty positive. Then we've had indications from Russia. Interestingly, I've been sort of following some reporting out of Russia. The Russian sort of official media keeps talking about how, you know, Trump has reneged on his commitments from his Anchorage summit of a year ago, where, remember, Vladimir Putin went to Anchorage, Alaska, and they had a very warm meeting, and they now say that Trump's reneged on all that.

6:37I don't think we can rule out the role of Iran in all this. You know, obviously, Trump has pushed back on the idea that Russia's helping Iran, but it's pretty clear. The evidence has been pretty clear that relationship between Russia and Iran is strong. And Trump is increasingly in a terrible mess in Iran. And the last thing he wants is to be dragged deeper into a mess. And the suggestion that Russia is actually helping or benefiting from Iran's actions against the US and maybe even using, Iran may even be using Russian information, Russian intelligence or whatever, that's not helping. And I think you're absolutely right.

7:15I think we should be a little skeptical. Trump's stance on Ukraine seems to have been driven by two things. One, this sort of weird admiration that he seems to have for Vladimir Putin and this longstanding hostility to Zelensky going back to when Zelensky, when he wanted Zelensky to investigate supposed corruption by Joe Biden in Ukraine, and Zelensky wasn't very helpful over it. Trump never kind of lets a grudge go lightly. So I remain to be convinced that there's been a complete turnaround here. By the way, and I think one other quick thing, I think maybe a lot of people have been talking about the legacy of Lindsey Graham.

7:52I think there is a kind of I don't think Trump is sentimental at all, but I think there is there's a push from people who are very pro-Ukraine to use Lindsey Graham's sudden and unexpected death as a kind of opportunity almost to really, really to achieve what he was trying to achieve in life. And that is to, you know, to give Ukraine the weapons it needs and the support it needs. The complications of the administration on this are getting deeper. Remember, it was J.D. Vance who said earlier this year or last year that one of the things he was most proud of in this administration was the fact that the U.S.

8:29had stopped giving direct military support to Ukraine. So you have to see multiple kind of vectors here going on. But clearly a lot goes going on behind the scenes. And Katie, you've written about this just this week about one particular, perhaps rather improbable diplomatic effort involving someone quite close to Trump. Can you tell us about that? Yeah, I think as you say, when it comes to getting Trump on side, part of it is it was not just Trump and for example, J.D. Vance's skepticism on Ukraine. When you had the original Oval Office meeting, and lots of figures in UK and Europe were just looking at this being, you know, why is Zelensky getting such a hard time?

9:05it went deeper into kind of what the MAGA movement think about Ukraine and Russia. And therefore, you end up in a strange situation where I think one of the most important shifts when it comes to where we are. And yes, Ukraine, where they are in the battlefield is clearly the most important. But another key one is what does Laura Looma think? Now, for those who don't wake up and think, what does Laura Looma think? Laura Loomer is a MAGA influencer, a right-wing conspiracist. Her name, I think, sparks fear amongst Republicans in Washington, D.C. She often finds people she thinks are sufficiently disloyal to the president, who have roles in their administration, outs them.

9:48And Trump often listens, calls her up, and then ends up sacking them. So she has a lot of influence, and her posts are very controversial. Now, a year ago, Laura Loomer was saying that Ukraine was full of Nazis. Over the past week, she has visited Ukraine. She has sat down with Zelensky for an interview. And she has become one of the biggest cheerleaders online for helping Ukraine. And there have been efforts now for a couple of years by various figures, some journalists, some of the Ukrainian government. And for example, a guy I spoke to, Stephen Moore, who is a former Republican staffer on Capitol Hill, who moved to Ukraine early on in the conflict to counter Russian propaganda.

10:32And one of the things I've been most aimed at is trying to get the MAGA base and MAGA thinkers, MAGA influencers that Trump listens to and to rethink some of the conspiracy theories they're spouting. He invited Laura Loom as producer Andrew Moore on a trip to Ukraine. We just showed him everything. You know, we didn't put on a show or anything. We just embedded him with troops that were shooting down Shehad drones. We put him together with a Christian relief organization, helping people on the front. We took him to drone factories. We met with the head of the office of the president. We were able to help him understand firsthand with no filters what's going on in Ukraine.

11:14and he was able to report back to Laura. Yeah, I think this is for real. So what Stephen Moore was talking to me about was how do you get, how do you suddenly bring a group that have decided Ukraine is full of Nazis, that Ukraine can never win, that Russia is the pro-Christian, pro-family country and for example, Ukraine supports transgender people unlike Russia. And all these things were floating around And for some of the reasons, it wasn't just we don't want to spend money on Ukraine, which is what, you know, J.D. Vance has heralded as his proudest achievement. It was a sense of this almost becomes a culture war when we think about what Ukraine is doing.

11:57And therefore, there's been a sympathy in parts of MAGA towards Russia. Like Tucker Carlson, for example, has spoken about Russia as a country that is more Christian. and therefore speaking to Stephen Moore he was saying that there's been a few tactics they tried Laura Leuma organised her own trip some are asking who funded it but it wasn't his project however he did get Laura Leuma as we just heard's producer over there and put him out on the battlefield in a sense that if you're going to I suppose de-myth these various conspiracy theories there's no better way than actually getting Americans to actually see things for real themselves If you see soldiers on the battle line, it's much harder to say this is all a joke.

12:40I'm fascinated by the extent to which Laura Loomer may have played a role here. She does seem to have been influenced by the president. We should say, you know, and I know you know this and you've written about this. I mean, Laura Loomer is a certified lunatic who has said, I mean, well, at least that's the role she plays in public. I mean, you know, who said the most really appallingly outrageous, racist, you know, bigoted, offensive things. One of the things I remember she talked about during the 2024 campaign, she claimed that Kamala Harris wasn't really black and then said that the White House would smell of curry if Kamala Harris was elected president.

13:21And Jerry, this is the same Laura Loomer who is held responsible or credited, depending who you speak to, for the U.S. president bringing up the Haitian dog theory during the election. And this was the idea that the Haitian immigrants in Ohio were eating dogs. So, I mean, you're on one level, you know, if you're Ukrainian, you know, be grateful for any help you can get. But if you're, you know, this is sort of, you know, Rasputin level kind of conciliary stuff for the president. I mean, if, you know, yeah, if this person is influential and if she's changed her mind on Ukraine, all well and good.

13:59But if Trump is changing his mind on Ukraine because of this woman's change of mind on Ukraine, that is a rather that, to be honest, one may welcome the consequences, but one should be very disturbed about the way that he got there. I think it does raise this interesting question, which is the more argument is you have to focus on the audience of one. So how do you change Donald Trump's mind? And I think Laura Leumann is a factor. I don't think she is the main reason. And I think there are other things. But Laura Luma is also claiming that she called the White House this week. And it was her idea that Wyckoff and Kushner should go to Ukraine.

14:35And we know that she's been called into the Oval Office various times. But David Axelrod, the former Obama advisor, when he saw Zelensky sat with Laura Luma, completely to your point, given the things she said in the past, the things she even says now about Muslims, for example, he said, you know, it might help change Trump's mind. But, you know, how how awful that's a lengthy in his position where he has to sit with this woman to get his point across. And it does, of course, raise some questions. But I think the argument is, you know, if that's what you have to do in Trump, well, this is the way you do it.

15:09And then they guess, you know, it's worth taking a chance on if after various years of kind of almost preaching to the converted hasn't got you that access to the White House. Yeah. I mean, again, there's no doubting her influence in the past. I mean, she almost certainly did get several National Security Council, senior National Security Council staff fired very early in the second Trump term when she claimed they were being disloyal to Trump. and she went to Trump and accused them of disloyalty and Trump fired them. So she does have, again, I don't know whether Rasputin or Svengali or somebody else is the right kind of historical model, but it's a weird set of circumstances.

15:50But it is part of that, what seems to be a general trend towards a turn to a more favorable position on Ukraine from the administration. And we're going to have to see where that goes from here. Yes. And when it comes to influencing Trump, Jerry, of course, Laura Loomer is one avenue because these world leaders never quite know who is up and who is down. And even a year ago, I think you would have said Netanyahu was in a very good position with Donald Trump. Zelensky less so. Both met him this week and it seems as though slightly changing fortunes. But the pair themselves also met at Lindsey Graham's funeral.

16:28I remember when I read This Town, the book before I moved to DC, and it made the point that funerals are the best way to network when it comes to the power capital. And Zelensky and Netanyahu did get a moment to speak, which hasn't always come off, has it? No, that relationship is a difficult one. Netanyahu has gone out of his way to maintain good relations with Moscow, with Vladimir Putin. Despite the fact, again, one of those strange tangles and twists that you get in international relations is obviously despite the fact that Russia, as we've said, has been one of Iran's biggest backers. Netanyahu has long maintained, tried to maintain a good relationship.

17:12And in fact, you know, in the early stages of the war between Ukraine and Russia, while Israel didn't sort of formally support Russia, of course, it did. You know, it certainly it certainly didn't join the world in in the sort of almost universal condemnation of Russia. So that relationship has always been slightly, slightly tricky. As you say, there's now perhaps, you know, there's if we if it's true that Zelensky is now getting more attention than Netanyahu and there's growing frustration with Netanyahu and the Trump administration and sort of growing openness to good relations with Zelensky.

17:49And maybe that could be causing a bit of tension to between the two. It's a little bit like maybe Zelensky is suddenly becoming Buzz Lightyear to Netanyahu's Woody in Donald Trump's Toy Story. And look, you know, the other thing is, obviously, you know, the Ukrainians have done a pretty good job, a really good job, actually, of tying Russia to Iran and of actually doing what they can to help the U.S. to fight Iran. We know Zelensky's offered the drone, the extraordinary drone capacity that they have, sharing that drone capacity with the US. We shouldn't go too far in the idea that Ukraine has become now the, you know, the favorite.

18:26But given political tensions here over Israel, given the clear tension between the U.S. and Israel over whether and how to pursue the war in Iran, relations between Netanyahu and certain of the MAGA crowd and the anti-Israel position that some of the MAGA crowd have, you know, that whole relationship, you know, is also interesting and is also contributing, I think, to this sense that the U.S. is kind of maybe switching horses. And with that, we're now going to take a break. And when we come back, we're going to be talking about Jannie Infantino's plan to sell off part of FIFA. Lots of people that are very cross.

19:05Is Jerry Cross? Perhaps not. Let's...

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20:04Get started at vanta.com. I doubt.

20:13Jani Infantino wants to sell off parts of FIFA to private members. This was a Times exclusive by Martin Ziegler. He's written a letter to FIFA's various members, making the point that they can join up and get behind the plan. And if they do, there is a financial incentive. This has led to lots of condemnation and anger from various football bodies. There's talk of boycotts. Andy Burnham, the UK's new prime minister, has wrote in saying that this is not something that is true to football or he could get behind. We're yet to hear from President Trump. But given it's his son-in-law's brother that's helping to broker the deal, according to Times reports.

20:49He perhaps won't take such an anti-stance. Jerry, what's your read on the situation? Yes, I've been struck by how the world has taken to its fainting couch, as it does. All the right people, you know, the media, football fans, the British Prime Minister, the entire, all the grand pandrandums of the European sort of media and cultural establishment and government establishment have taken to the microphones to declare this to be absolutely outrageous. And how dare they Americanize our sport? How dare they try to make money out of our sport? This is more corruption. Infantino's corrupt. Trump's corrupt.

21:27The Kushners are corrupt. What a terrible thing. Let's get out. Let's have nothing to do with FIFA. Let's return football to its pure, pure state. I've got to say, I find all that to be an absolute, complete balderdash. Look, I'm not a big fan of Gianni Infantino. didn't like don't like many of the innovations he's done there are long-standing sort of suggestions that not all is always conducted above board at fifa i'm familiar with all of those things but look football is the most popular form of entertainment in the world we just watched the world cup and i as a fan have watched many many many of those 104 games um it's an astonishing spectacle people around the world love it even americans watch watch it in quite great numbers right now.

22:10When you have a very popular thing where people are willing, demonstrated willingness to pay large amounts of money to buy players, to buy clubs, to pay tickets to go to games, it's generally speaking when you have something as popular and in demand as that, this is part of this is after all, we live in a world dominated by economics. When you have something in demand is that there's a it represents a great opportunity to invest in it. And I think what Infantino is doing is coming up with a plan which would result. Yeah, no doubt he'll get rich from it. Oh, I'm sorry. That happens. Right. OK, powerful people get rich when they come up with ideas that make money out of things that are popular.

22:52And other people will get rich. But this the potential for this is to pour billions, tens of billions of dollars, pounds, euros in into global football. and to make it an even better, more impressive spectacle, event, competition than it's ever been. Look at these people who complain about, oh my God, how dare you bring money into sport. Look at the way in which English football, I'm old enough, Katie, much older than you and a football fan. I can remember going to watch football matches in England in the 1970s and the 1980s. And let me tell you, it was not a very pleasant experience. And part of that was because there was no money.

23:33We watched in stadiums with no seats where, you know, people, by the way, you know, kind of routinely took part in violence or suffered appalling consequences as a result of very poor infrastructure. We watched, you know, pretty mediocre players kicking lumps out of each other. Right. Somebody came along, including some people who, you know, run this company and said, you know, actually, it's a very popular sport. Why can't it be better? Why can't we do a better job with it? Why can't it look better? Why can't it be better? Why can't the experience be better? And they poured a lot of money into it.

24:07And guess what? The Premier League became the most dynamic and the best league in the world. This is the way, you know, I'm sorry. This is the way the world works. And it works out. Yeah, of course, there are consequences that not all of us like. But it works out, generally speaking, when you open up something to the opportunity for market forces and investment. Surprise, surprise. The market works pretty well and ends up improving the products. And that's what we've had with football in the last 30 years in my lifetime. And these people who complain about this, oh, my goodness, how dare you? How dare you bring money into football and how the corrupt, terrible, corrupt people want to bring capitalism into football?

24:43We want to go back, bring football back to its roots and to make it pure again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What they want to do is they want kind of football that, you know, where football's played in stadiums like cow sheds on, you know, on football fields like kind of rural, rural car parks played by blokes who, you know, had to work down the pub in their spare time to get by. You know, look, again, no fan of Infantino, no fan of FIFA, but hold the pearl clutching on this, please. And, you know, look at the idea of how, you know, sport can work. And don't just instantly say the idea of bringing some more money into a sport is necessarily going to make it worse when the evidence over, over decades is precisely the opposite.

25:27it look I'm not going to claim to know as much about football as you Jerry but isn't the slight complaint and concern here this idea that you look at the World Cup the fact that you know the final $15 ,000 tickets um the you know how expensive the World Cup was a whole that strange halftime show that was taking it closer to the Super Bowl and if they do this plan it takes it further and further away from the fans and more into these kind of commercialization and interests um but already football's in a fairly good you know you don't need lists for it to um not go back to you know the scenes you're depicting of you know um no food at half time and you know awful stadiums or not even stadiums at all there was food at half time you could get good old-fashioned you know sausages and you know meat pies and things like that look look again i i do think the price that's that's a separate debate there the pricing of the tickets of the world cup first of all they were market prices they were you know despite all the fears that people wouldn't pay and wouldn't go people did pay all the stadiums pretty much every single game was was was sold out so that wasn't quite right i've got i do think the pricing was i do think the pricing was excessive i think they could have made more tickets available in the way that premier league tickets or um other other professional sporting events look at look at look at everybody oh my god american football or american sports oh god we don't want to look like that american sports stadiums sold out every week especially football stadiums.

26:52They're not exorbitantly priced. You can get a ticket to go and see a good team for a reasonable amount of money. We can argue about the details of the ticket pricing and things like that. But the idea that you shouldn't attract investment into a cultural, the world's most popular cultural activity, if you like, and certainly spectator cultural activity, the idea that you shouldn't be able to bring investment into that to improve it, yeah, for people to make money. But again, that is how the markets work. Just seems to me, and again, you can have rules, even say, look, we have to make a certain amount of tickets available, you know, at reasonable prices.

27:30You don't want to price people out, of course, completely out of being able to go and see games. You can have other rules that, you know, capitalism works by some extent by being regulated. But it's just this principle, just very sort of, I hate to say it, Katie, but this, maybe I've lived in America too long, with this sort of English, instinctive English opposition to the idea of people making money out of something and making the product better in the process. You know, no, no, no. You know, if I have a choice between, you know, privatizing, between giving people the opportunity to spend money, to invest their own money and to make money in a product and make that product better, or, you know, nobody gets to make any money, but the product continues to be crap, then, And, you know, this classic English view is, oh, I'd much rather take the crap than risk anybody getting rich.

28:17My final question to you on this then, before we say farewell to everyone, is just, sure, but do you trust Infantino and the Kushner brothers to be the ones to do this? First of all, you know, Infantino, again, I'm not a fan of Infantino, but he has put on a couple of very successful World Cups. And by the way, FIFA has made a lot of money, which of course it claims it's pouring back into football, which it does to some extent. Secondly, yeah, there are the Kushners. Josh, who's involved in this, does have a pretty good track record in investing. But thirdly, the whole point of this is to open up the sport potentially, to open it up at the national level in the way that's been opened up at the club level, to people who want to invest.

29:04And whatever you think of Infantino or the Kushners or anybody of those people, there are lots of investors with money who want to spend it and invest it in the sport. And they've done it in the Premier League. Again, I know a lot of them are not popular with regular fans, but they have contributed to making the Premier League the best football league in the world, to making the stadiums better than any stadiums pretty well anywhere in the world, to making the experience, you know, a generally, you know, a generally very, very much better one and an appealing one. So, yeah, I don't trust Infantino particularly, but I do trust in the market.

29:42And I think the idea that the market will not produce, you know, will not produce more money, better quality and overall, you know, significantly improved products, I think the chances are very good that it will. We shall see. And perhaps we'll have updates next week on how this plan is progressing or not in the face of English skepticism. With that, thank you for joining us this week and do join us again next week.

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