What to expect from Trump's meetings with Netanyahu and Zelensky - Washington Insider

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0:59Hi, this is Katie Balls. We all know US politics doesn't stop, especially under this president. This is my latest Washington Insider conversation about what's going on right now in the US capital. You can also catch us early Tuesday on Times Radio with Hugo Rifkin, just after 12.30pm. And for today, I was speaking to Carolyn Quinn. Donald Trump's got a couple of important meetings today. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and it'll be the first time they've talked since the Iran war started in February. And then he meets the Ukrainian Prime Minister, Vladimir Zelensky. What do you make of it?

1:37Let's start with Mr. Netanyahu, first of all. What can you tell us about that? Well, I think it's a meeting that is controversial before it's even happened, because obviously the context is the Iran war. And then we know that Donald Trump and Netanyahu you entered that conflict in lockstep effectively. You had the Israeli leader even sitting in the Situation Room within the White House, which is pretty unheard of for a foreign leader or very unusual when they were beginning to think about the initial strikes. But in the months that have followed, you've had the two sides drift apart and clash because ultimately the end goal in terms of what Israel wants and what the US wants are now in different places.

2:20and the Israelis would still like regime change and Trump has been looking for an exit ramp for some time and therefore you have someone the America First magaside who looked with trepidation at this meeting wondering is Netanyahu going to drag Trump further into the conflict but Trump has also been pretty critical of the Israelis and in kind of recent weeks a bit more temperamental and so there is the risk that this meeting could actually be quite tricky for the Israeli leader. Obviously, these two have a relationship that people say is still pretty solid. Let's look at President Zelensky, though.

3:01And we know that the relationship and the meetings between him and Donald Trump, they haven't always gone as he would like. What are you expecting from this meeting? And could something solid come out of it? Yeah, it's interesting. on paper, the relationship between Trump and Netanyahu is much stronger than the relationship between Trump and Zelensky. You just think back to last year, early last year, and that infamous, you know, appearance in the Oval Office, where Zelensky fell out with both Trump and J.D. Vance, his vice president. And it really couldn't have gone much worse. But there seems to be in D.C.

3:40cautious optimism about the meeting between Zelensky and Trump, because it comes at a time where it feels as though the Trump administration is warming somewhat to Ukraine's position for a number of reasons. One is their use of drones that has impressed various figures in the US defense side. The others are the shifts within the mega base. So you have Laura Loomer, who is a Trump devotee and right-wing conspiracy theorist who recently went on a trip to Ukraine, and she sat down with Zelensky for an interview, an interview that Trump provenly shared. And Loomer has been one of the figures in the movement and there are many in this movement who have been claiming things even last year such as ukraine is full of nazis and are now apologizing for accepting russian propaganda and i spoke to um a man called stephen moore who runs something for the um ukraine freedom project is part of these efforts to counter russia propaganda so there's been a big effort to try and change republican and american conservative minds on ukraine and i think there's a hope that this could be if it all comes together and always there's always a risk for it to go wrong, this golden opportunity for Zelensky to try and get the help that he thinks he needs to help improve Ukraine's position to bring this war to your close.

4:53Well, look, what an amazing turnaround that would be if you do have some of the president's MAGA base now trying to shift his attitude on Ukraine. President Zelensky obviously will want just some hard measures. He will want to have more offensive and defensive help from the United States, won't he? Do you think he'll get a concrete offer like that? I mean, it's just impossible to predict, particularly when we're only a couple of hours away and I probably know better than to try. But we know that he has these asks. And I think, again, it just comes to the fact that the mood music feels in a very different place.

5:31And even when, for example, I interviewed J.D. Vance, vice president, last month, and I asked him about Ukraine, and he's seen as the biggest probably Ukraine skeptic within their administration. And I said, you know, Trump has recently said Zelensky looks a bit more like a winner. And this is another tactic, you know, some are using to change Trump's mind, to say, you know, Putin is a loser, the worst thing you can be in Trump's mind. And even J.D. Vance was saying, actually, he thought the Ukraine position had improved. They were holding off Russia in more impressive ways than before. When both presidents are joining Donald Trump or President Zelensky and Mr Netanyahu, rather joining President Trump, they're going to attend the memorial service for the Republican Senator Lindsey Graham.

6:19The Wall Street Journal has reported on an unreleased documentary following the late senator over the past three years. Now, in this little bit of sound you'll get here, he's recorded commenting on a news conference on the Iran war that was given by the president. Look what we've done here. I almost cried. I mean, like, how long have we been pushing this? You've been pushing this for years, right? Right, it's here. I talked to Trump this morning. Oh, he's Jack. It's the best thing I've ever done. He loves blowing stuff up. So, you know, there are a lot of people inside that didn't want to do it.

6:59So I've had my challenges. But President Trump, when he gets into the zone, he listens. He asks good questions. You know, no tweeting. Well, that was Lindsey Graham there. Sounded like they were having a bit of a laugh. Can you just explain what was going on? Yeah, this is pretty fascinating. So this guy, Alex Holder, independent filmmaker, and he has been following Lindsey Graham around for three years. And the idea was the documentary had come out at some point. Obviously, Lindsey Graham's unexpected death means there's now increased attention and he's given various clips. We don't know when the full thing will come out to the Wall Street Journal.

7:41And they show things we already knew in the sense that Lindsey Graham has always been very hawkish. He's backed the Iran war. He also has backed Zelensky on the Ukraine war. and he has been one of those figures which you know MAGA isolationists don't really like Lindsey Graham or in the past they've had suspicions about his impact on Trump because he had a good relationship but I think to just hear Lindsey Graham saying you know Trump you know Trump loves the war he loves blowing stuff up I think in another clip he says you know Netanyahu and Trump together and the unstoppable team he's always wanted it's almost you know it's the things that some dream and some have nightmares about depending where you sit in your positions on the American interventionism and it has got a lot of people talking about you know the effect Graham had and also potentially does Trump now feel now that his friend they were close has gone does he feel as though he needs to protect his legacy by doing certain things on the world stage that he perhaps was in two minds about before well and obviously that clip also gives us a sense of open mic and the kinds of things that you can hear may be unintended.

8:54Talking about interesting things to listen to, Katie, you attended the White House Correspondents Dinner last week. You've written about it. It was, of course, rescheduled after the security breach and attempted assassination in April. How was it? It was an interesting night. It was quite a long night. I think the closest we've had in Westminster to this was I remember back in the day we occasionally tried to the Westminster correspondence dinner which was a knockoff of the White House correspondence dinner so it's been interesting to go to the real thing last year and twice this year because of course the first one this year we all attended and then it was cut short because a gunman tried to enter the ballroom he wanted to try to assassinate Donald Trump they stopped him near the door and so we could hear the shots but everyone was sent home and this was a rescheduled dinner and therefore it was a smaller affair the guests were very slimmed down from you know over 2 000 to 700 people and it has uh lots of awards for american journalists which go on for some time and then you have a speech from the president which ran on for over an hour and this is the first time donald trump has ever spoken at the dinner in the first term he boycotted it um maga really saw it as the sign of almost everything that's wrong in cozy at washington between um this in the establishment um but this time he decided to show up and it was a slightly strange atmosphere because um he's obviously has such a fractious relationship with the u.s press corps um but yet he was trying to make jokes but also because of the attempt at assassination which in some ways had brought everyone together to say you know there are some things where we will unite you know people trying to kill us um he was he had some warm words but he also then would take aim at individual journalists such as the cnn's caitlin collins which you know the atmosphere would turn very tense at that point in the room you said that he was uh cracking jokes this was a speech that was written for him did you find yourself having to sort of force out a chuckle i don't think anyone in the room felt pressure to laugh because some in the room if anything um pride themselves on not laughing at donald Trump jokes, which meant it was just a slightly strange atmosphere.

11:09And I think it was almost like awkward laughter at times. And I think that when it when it came to those jokes, traditionally, that speech is a roast, you know, you have the president come on. And obviously, that's getting the tone right. I think the funny thing with Donald Trump is lots of people will say, you know, regardless of what you think of his politics, there was something about him, which is very watchable. And I've had, you know, people who say, I do not agree with a single thing he said but he is funny and he has comic timing i'm not sure that necessarily translates when he has jokes that are written for him and even halfway through these gags at points he'd almost just give up or say oh who wrote this um and and perhaps even saying who wrote this was funnier than perhaps longer jokes which could have been perhaps if you had more um even like the energy to all the purpose or the intentionality to deliver deliver them which i think he seemed to lack and he had He had to explain some of them, didn't he, which is the mark of a bad joke.

12:02Exactly. Oh, Katie Balls, lovely to talk to you and really good to get your insights on what's happening there. And obviously somebody who's been at that dinner and seen Donald Trump face to face. At PwC, we optimize the systems that put your data to work so you can scale your AI from proof of concept to competitive edge and accelerate your tech evolution so you can redefine what's possible. From blueprint to breakthrough, we take you further with tech. So you can outthink, outpace, and outperform. PwC. So you can. PwC refers to the PwC network and or one or more of its member firms, each of which is a separate legal entity.

12:46Your 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.