JR Afternoon with Chris Renwick
Trump And Ongoing Conflicts
So, as this transition takes place over the next couple of months, one of the things that has been top of mind, or must be top of mind, in my opinion, is these these foreign affairs and the and the place that the United States find themselves in, in both of them, and particularly dealing with Russia and Ukraine and Israel. And I guess mostly Hamas, but but certainly particularly Iran. And how how does this next administration, this this next, this next Donald Trump presidency? How does how will Donald Trump taking office impact things in Europe and in the Middle East? It's where we bring in Ben Friedman. He's the policy director of defense priorities and joins in this afternoon. Ben, happy Friday. Good to have you. Thanks for having me on. How do you see, first of all, what what in this moment of transition? How how how does Donald Trump get into the fold of what's been happening over the last couple of years in involving things in the Middle East and and in Europe? Well, in Israel and Ukraine in particular, Trump has fairly sharpened to find policies in comparison to some other places. He's going to be even more pro Israel and pro bombing Gaza, least for a while. His position seems to be during the campaign, you know, do what you got to do, but get it over with. So he's not concerned about the war crimes there and so forth, but he is potentially concerned about the duration of the war. And then, you know, with Ukraine, as everyone knows, he said he's going to cut a deal with Russia fast. I think he'll find that very difficult, if not impossible, given that, you know, it'll be hard to get both Russia and Ukraine to agree no matter how bad you want to do it. But you will see probably a withdrawal with some U.S. support for Ukraine and pressure on the Ukrainian government, which hasn't been there before to get to the table with Russia with less leverage than they had during the Biden administration. So those things are fairly clear, but in a broader sense, I think his foreign policy is still quite undefined. And that's because, you know, the in part because of these fights about personnel that are going on with sort of competing factions trying to get in front of Trump and get their people into the administration and the key position secretary of state secretary of defense, things like that. And it remains to be seen if we get kind of a redo of last time he was president, when you had people like Mike Pompeo and Jim Mattis, a target master who were very conventional hawks, as opposed to the more less conventional Trump, more maybe true to Trump foreign policy people that he got later in the term who are a little more open to doing deals and ending some wars. So Donald Trump spoke with Vladimir Zelensky this week. And it sounds like, according to reporting that Elon Musk was was on the line with that that call. We don't know what they said. But what what what position would Elon Musk have in talking with Zelensky aside from I mean, you know, the Starlink connection might be one, but but what what what what would Elon Musk involvement signal to you? Well, sort of a signal of how wild things are when Donald Trump's in power. I mean, you know, the kind of randomness of who's kind of with them in the room on a given day seems to matter a lot. And you know, Elon Musk has been touted in Trump said this and Musk has said it as this kind of regulatory czar would be looking into waste in the US government and things like that. But I've not heard anything prior to that hearing about that call that he'd be intimately involved in foreign policy. So, you know, in some ways, your guess is as good as mine about what exactly it means. I mean, you know, other than the fact that, you know, Trump's pretty close to Elon Musk these days. So he he decided to invite him onto this call with Zelensky for whatever reason. And so let's go back to the Middle East. And you mentioned kind of the differing mentalities of of those in higher aspects of power within Donald Trump's first administration and the ways that they handled things. How do you think Donald Trump views these these appointments now? Right? It feels like I don't know that he necessarily goes after, as you mentioned, kind of that Warhawk again. But but he made a lot of promises on the campaign trail to get these these these these conflicts settled quickly. So how does that impact who he chooses in his cabinet? Well, I think he made a promise to get the Ukraine Russia conflict settled quickly. I don't think he made many promises about settling any other conflicts. In fact, it's sort of notable to me how little he talked about getting out of Syria, which is something he started to do the first time he was president and then didn't follow through on because he talked out of it. His position on Afghanistan was that it was a mistake to get out as far as I could tell, even though his administration correctly, it might be initiated that process of exiting. So he's a little back and forth on these things. But you know, I think he does have some instinct to sort of be the peace candidate or the peace president. But on the other hand, you know, I think he's like many presidents, but maybe particularly so he's very into loyalty. So people who have proved that they're loyal to Trump, maybe he's willing to overlook the fact that they violently disagree with them about some of these matters, like Mike Pompeo, who's trying to get, you know, a top job in the second Trump administration, or Tom Cotton, who's the center for Arkansas has been rumored to be maybe Secretary of Defense, who, you know, he's a hawks hawk, you know, he's for all the wars and some new ones, which he wouldn't think would be what Trump would want at Secretary of Defense. But his loyalty might overcome that. So I think, you know, those things are going to play out. And there are certainly people who are in Trump world who are eagerly trying to stop those appointments. But I'm not sure how we'll shake out. And I don't know if anybody can be if you were advising him, what would what would be the advice on the first couple of things that he should consider? Well, I think in addition to trying to get Ukraine into a peace deal with Russia and putting some pressure on the Ukrainian government to do that, which really I think just takes looking at the situation on the ground. Honestly, I would say we're going to take NATO for Ukraine off the table. I think it's always been kind of a lie that we've told Ukraine that we would put the NATO eventually. And now we should just admit that it's been a lie. And I think that would actually be conducive to a settlement in Ukraine. And in some ways, we'd really be doing them the Ukraine a favor in a weird way of cutting off false hope that, you know, at some point we're going to be their savior by having them in this alliance. So we could do that. I think, you know, another thing would be to say that they're going to follow through on this agreement, the Biden administration signed with the Iraqi government for some at least partial withdrawal withdrawal of US forces there. And I think they, the Trump administration ought to announce that they want to get out of Syria and set some sort of time to able to do that. You know, those would be some good steps right off the bat. And you know, there's other things involving burden sharing with allies shifting the burden of defending Europe. But you know, I think those anti war things would be good starting points. Yeah, I'm, I'm with you. And as those issues continue to escalate in the region, I think the fears of a lot of Americans is that, well, we're going to get more involved before potentially things start to slow down. And, and that, I don't think anybody's for that. Ben Friedman, thanks so much for your time and insight is always appreciated. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me again. Yep, you got it. That's Ben Friedman with Defense priorities here on JR afternoon. Love to hear from you. 800-859-0957-800-859-0WJR. All of that. And as we find today, that those three connected to an Iranian plot to assassinate Donald Trump pre-election have been charged. That that was thwarted by the FBI. That more as we continue on JR afternoon. [BLANK_AUDIO]
November 8, 2024 ~ Chris speaks with Defense Priorities Policy Director, Ben Friedman about the ongoing conflicts around the world and how a new Trump administration will affect them.