Rep. Mike Quigley on Trump’s Capitulation to Putin

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Fox continues to be in a total panic over this disastrous meeting that Donald Trump had in Alaska with Vladimir Putin, then the meeting that Donald Trump had with the European leaders.

And here we are, you know, as we approach August 20th, August 21st.

And all of the things that Donald Trump said were going to happen did not happen.

He said there was going to be severe consequences if Putin didn't agree to these things.

There's no ceasefire.

There's no trilateral meeting scheduled.

There's literally, like quite literally, none of the objectives that Donald Trump said were going to be achieved were achieved.

So then they bring in on Fox the Treasury Secretary.

I'm not sure why he's the guy right now who they have on here, but the Treasury Secretary Scott Besson.

Oh, I think because Donald Trump thinks that Putin just cares about money.

And if we can just do bribe for bribe, maybe that's how it'll be done.

They bring in Treasury Secretary Scott Besant and Besant goes, It's a great meeting.

The greatest meeting ever.

Here's what Besson said on Fox.

Here, play this clip.

Well, Laura, it goes all the the way back to Friday in Alaska because President Trump had a great meeting with President Putin.

My take was he had President Putin on his heels for most of the event after the flyover.

And then yesterday, a

fantastic meeting with Zelensky, then with the Europeans, and then back in the Oval, he had a call with President Putin.

And I'm very optimistic they'll be able to have a bilateral meeting.

A bilateral meeting happened in Alaska.

A trilateral meeting?

You think Putin wants to meet with Zelensky?

That's been tried multiple times.

Zelensky said, I'm ready to do it.

And I'm sure we all watched that.

Absolutely.

Donald Trump had Putin on his heels.

I mean, why do they just say the most brazen and ridiculous?

How do they do it?

It's a talent.

Like, how does he get up there and do it?

Like, literally.

And then

you have Besant talk about, you know, look, what we all know is that Trump had a strategy and he executed that strategy.

And Laura Ingram now pretends pretends that Putin agreed to Article V, like NATO security guarantees, when Putin and Russia said they absolutely don't agree to these things.

Here, play this clip.

Why didn't you do it yesterday?

So NBC's take on what happened yesterday is that

the president was susceptible to total flattery, that the European leaders were there wooing him, that Zelensky put on the suit and it was thank you, sir.

Thank you, sir, for all your effort.

And that's the only reason President Trump was as magnanimous and as open to security guarantees and so forth.

You were there.

Tell us what we should understand and take away from what happened.

Well, Laurel, again, let's go back to Friday because the security guarantees go back to Friday, President Trump's meeting with President Putin in Alaska.

And President Trump has wanted to end this conflict that never would have started if he had been president.

And he convinced President Putin

the security guarantees that it is

what the Europeans call.

No, he didn't.

He didn't.

He didn't do that.

That didn't happen.

That never happened.

Putin's not agreeing.

Putin's state regime media there says that that didn't happen.

But here's what Jesse Waters is saying.

This is how Box wants to portray the meeting with our European allies.

Here, play this clue.

The Europeans were sitting around the Resolute desk yesterday like they were waiting for class to start.

Trump was giving Europe a geography lesson.

He even put up the big, beautiful map and sent it home with Zelensky as homework.

Zelensky can read a map like Trump can read a putt, we'll have a deal in no time.

Well, how about Donald Trump making a phone call to Putin while he's with the European allies?

This is how it's framed by Scott Bessinth: that Putin said, you can call me tomorrow or call me in the next 15 minutes.

And then Donald Trump rushed and said, Let me call you before you go to sleep.

Daddy, here, play this clip.

And

as I said, I'm optimistic.

Was Putin up waiting for the call?

Did you get the sense?

Well, the president gave him the option.

I could call you,

send a message, and Putin said, well, I'll be up for 15 more minutes, or you could call tomorrow.

And I think Putin wanted the call last that night.

So that shows he was eager to hear what the president had to say.

The way that the meeting

Let's bring in Democratic Congressmember Mike Quigley from Illinois' 5th Congressional District on the House Intelligence Committee and co-chair of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus.

It's great to have you here.

I mean, I show you those clips.

I mean, just they're talking about a meeting that maybe they wished happened, but that's just not what happened at all.

I mean, what do you make of those clips I showed you and just where we're at now with

the Russian invasion of Ukraine?

I think the way Trump world works is you and I grew up with, I'll believe it when I see it.

I think now we live with, I'll see it it when I believe it.

I mean, forget the reality that's in front of you.

It's what you want it to be.

Whatever you want it to be, that's what it is because Trump said so.

I think we're also on

the perch of a new era here.

Forget the Truman doctrine, forget the Reagan doctrine, right?

Which was we will always help our allies against Soviet aggression at the time.

Now, the Trump doctrine.

Trump doctrine is the U.S.

will be tough until it's not, and that the invader of a sovereign democratic country will be rewarded for their invasion with the land that they took, and their war criminal president will not be held accountable.

That's kind of the sum and substance of this.

There is nothing that should give anyone any hope that there's going to be a resolution for this.

And look, we all want peace, but this is appeasement in the worst form.

And the reason we were helping and are trying to help Ukraine is the same reasons we fought the Second World War, prevent a sovereign democratic country from being wiped off the face of the earth, with the recognition that Putin's aims go well beyond Ukraine, so that this is a strategic as well as a moral imperative for us.

and one we're failing at miserably right now.

It seems that if we were to report accurately on what's taken place Friday, earlier this week with the European allies, what we're seeing across Ukraine, in Kyiv, in Sumy, in Kharkiv, in Zapricia, things are worse.

Things are appreciably worse.

Like, to me, that's just what the objective data is.

Putin is emboldened.

The attacks since Trump has been in office and the killings on innocent Ukrainians have doubled or are getting higher.

And we are further away from peace because because Putin got what he wanted, legitimacy, no ceasefire, continue the war.

And now you see Russian tanks having American flags on them.

And the Russian military bloggers are bragging about that as a troll.

That's how I see it.

You're closer to the ground.

How do you see it?

Are we in a worse position now with these meetings?

We're in a far worse position because it's bought Putin time.

Putin has always understood that he wins a war of attrition, not just because he has six times the manpower, but because he treats his troops like cannon fodder and he can run 40% of his economy into this war machine.

And he knows one thing.

Putin understands strength and he doesn't see it in Trump.

He sees a president that's never stood his ground, right?

Or six deadlines that were passed.

President Trump has never even said who he wants to win this war

so he's given uh putin every opportunity to continue this war when when zelinsky was in dc and i've been to ukraine five times since the war started he's always said help us win quickly because he understands why that matters

and the fact that the president will never say who he wants to win and that that we're not going to promise nato and when they say article 5 but it doesn't involve our troops and it doesn't involve NATO.

I'm not sure what they're talking about, but hollow promises and words that only encourage

Putin to go on.

So what can we do?

I mean,

once upon a time, you know, this was a bipartisan issue.

You still have...

some Republicans who

definitely are out there supportive of Ukraine, but they do it and they create a fan fiction of what Donald Trump says that really doesn't meet the statements that

he's making.

I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing when you go, well, Donald Trump said that.

Okay, he didn't say those things, but I don't know if that's,

you tell me from your

core group of Republicans who,

I think McCall, Fitzpatrick, French Hill, Bacon,

who are true believers in the Reagan doctrine, and they're trying.

Maybe half of the Republicans in the House would vote for another military supplemental to arm Ukraine as it needs to happen.

But the rest, you know, not so much.

So your question,

what can we do?

There's still a lot we can do.

There's somewhere between five and eight billion dollars of Russian assets frozen in the U.S., 300 billion in Europe.

We should seize those assets and use them to help Ukraine defend itself and to help Ukraine rebuild after this conflict is over.

And if there's a bipartisan bill to

put additional sanctions on Russia, but really punishing secondary sanctions on those countries still trading with Putin,

funding this war machine.

Those are two pretty strong things we could do in addition to saying, hey, what would a new supplemental look like?

Putin is willing to do a lot, but I think he has a breaking point.

Trump, when they talk about ending this war, Trump could have ended this war showing Putin, again, the only thing he understands, and that's strength and resolve.

Before we go, anything you think that's not getting enough coverage out there, whether it's about Ukraine

or just another thing that you're seeing out there that you're like, I think is just important.

We have 6 million subscribers here, just from your vantage point.

I want people to remember

when we started this conflict, and I was in Ukraine the first time, and I stood on the

battlegrounds, and I stood on the mass graves when the maternity hospital was flattened.

I talked to the families that had their kids stolen by Russia, taken there, tens of thousands of them,

and heard of the bloody war crimes.

We asked, what was victory, right?

And victory was

security guarantees, and not fictional ones,

helping Ukraine rebuild after the war, holding Putin accountable for his war crimes, and getting the territory back.

Now we're down to talking about maybe one of those.

The rest of the tyrants of the world are watching eagerly to see what we do.

And when they see Trump's NATO ambassador say that no big chunks or sections are going to be given away that haven't been fought or earned on the battlefield, that's Trump's NATO secretary saying, in effect, that Putin has earned that land because he won it on the battlefield.

Well, I'm sure Beijing will find that very interesting as they look again towards Taiwan.

And just Xi Jinping's testing Donald Trump on that, too, saying don't allow the Taiwan president to land in New York and go to Central America.

And Trump, like, stopped the guy from, like, going.

It was crazy.

I mean, just Trump's a tough guy when it comes to going after some kid

who's undocumented, right?

He can take their mother away from them, right?

Break a window in a car and take their mother away, screaming, right?

He's a tough guy there.

But when he comes up against somebody who's tougher than him, this president is a wimp.

Congressman Mike Quigley, thanks for joining us.

Anytime, thank you.

Everybody, hit subscribe.

Let's get to 6 million subscribers.

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