During a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing last month, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) questioned Ambassador to Estonia Nominee Roman Pipko about Russia.
00:06I want to assure all the nominees that the fact that there's not a lot of filled seats
00:11here is a good sign, not a bad sign.
00:14I assure you that if any of your nominations were controversial, it would be jam-packed.
00:19So that's great, and congratulations.
00:22There's just a couple of things I want to touch on.
00:26And, Mr. Merrick, you talked about General Patton, which reminded me of my dad was a B-17 pilot
00:33in the Army Air Corps and flew 26 missions over Germany before he was shot down and captured as a POW.
00:41And I know he and what Tom Brokaw called the greatest generation thought that that would be the last time
00:49the United States would be involved in a land war or a world war, certainly a land war in Europe.
00:58But we see the importance of America's role in that.
01:05But I want to agree with several of you who talked about the importance of NATO members' investment
01:14in their own self-defense.
01:16The treaty, in fact, of course, is an agreement for collective self-defense.
01:21But it also includes a section, Section 5, which says if one member of NATO is attacked,
01:28the others will come to its defense, including the United States.
01:33So this is a very precarious situation.
01:36I don't think we've seen a more dangerous time since World War II in the world.
01:44And, of course, the United States has responsibilities not just in Europe,
01:49but responsibilities around the world and most emphatically in the Indo-Pacific,
01:56which could be an existential threat to the United States and our way of life.
02:01Mr. Pitko, let me – I was intrigued by, of course, the fact you were an immigrant.
02:09Mr. Rinaldi, to me, it's something we should celebrate in America.
02:15And you – both of you alluded to this.
02:17The American dream is still alive.
02:20And I think we need to be constantly reminded of that today.
02:24But you also have had a fair amount of experience dealing in Russia.
02:28Not only – you were born in Estonia during the time of the Soviet Union.
02:33And I think one of the things that most Americans maybe don't fully understand
02:38is sort of the cultural and historical mindset of the Russian leadership.
02:45President Trump is doing exactly what we would all hope he would do
02:49by trying to bring peace to the conflict between Ukraine and Russia
02:56because they're approaching a million casualties already.
03:01And as he said, the dying must stop.
03:05But unfortunately, it takes more than one person, one more party, to try to negotiate that.
03:11Is there anything that maybe you could share with us based upon your experience in Estonia
03:18and dealing in Russia over the years that could help inform us about how best to think about this potential resolution of the conflict
03:30or about the sort of what – I'm not going to ask you to read Putin's state of mind.
03:36That's a very inscrutable thing to ask.
03:39But anything you'd like to share with us on that topic?
03:43Thank you, Senator, for your kind words.
03:48The American dream is clearly well, clearly alive, and hopefully will be that way for at least another 250 years.
03:56That's what we're all working for.
03:59I would say two things in response to your question.
04:05Number one, I would actually quote the foreign minister of Estonia, who in my mind said just a few weeks ago an incredible thing.
04:16He said, we in Europe were awakened by President Trump, not by President Putin.
04:24I think that statement says it all.
04:27I think Europe now recognizes that President Trump was right.
04:33He managed to change the narrative of the conflict, and I certainly support his efforts to bring peace to the continent.
04:44I think it's incredibly important.
04:46The second thing that I'll say, which I think echoes a little what Tulsi Gobert said a few days ago, but I'll put it a little bit differently.
04:59I'm probably one of the few people here who knew personally very well, actually, high-level individuals who were negotiating during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
05:13I knew the person in the United States who was President Kennedy's advisor, and I knew, I see my time is running out, the person who had the same position in Russia.
05:25All I can say based on my discussions with them, we have to stand firm, very firm, but we have to be creative in order to avoid another crisis.
05:35Well, I appreciate that, and I agree with you that President Trump's call to greater vigilance by our NATO partners, which means not only a financial contribution, but a contribution to reestablish deterrence, to me is one of the most important things that we've seen during his tenure as President of the United States.
05:58His call reminder that peace only comes through strength and that weakness is a provocation to authoritarian figures like Mr. Putin and others.
