00:00At one point, President Trump accused Ukraine of starting the war.
00:06We don't even need to quote the Time magazine article again.
00:09And now he's calling Putin BS.
00:12You have seen up close President Trump's sympathies towards Putin over the years.
00:18Do you believe that he has fundamentally shifted his view on the Russian president?
00:23Or could Trump be one happy phone call away from blaming Zelensky again?
00:29Well, my hope is that the president's starting to recognize that Vladimir Putin doesn't want peace.
00:39Vladimir Putin wants Ukraine.
00:41And again and again, President Zelensky, who I came to know during my time as vice president, has made it clear he's prepared for a ceasefire.
00:51He's prepared to negotiate a lasting peace in the region.
00:56And while we saw again just last night, you know, a barrage of merciless attacks on civilian populations.
01:04And I welcome the president's decision to reverse a decision somewhere out of the Pentagon that suspended aid to Ukraine.
01:15You look back at our administration, Kate, and we were the first administration to provide lethal aid to Ukraine.
01:23Remember, Barack Obama only provided, you know, military meals and blankets.
01:27We came in and gave him the kind of stinger missiles and resources that that I think prevented Vladimir Putin from invading Ukraine during our four years in office.
01:39And then it literally in the aftermath of the Biden administration's disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.
01:46I think Putin was emboldened. He rolled across the border. He's made no secret of his ambitions.
01:51And while I had concerns and expressed them in those first hundred days about the president's kind of ongoing hope and desire for a negotiated settlement, I welcome his decisions this week and his rhetoric.
02:07And I think what may have changed is that some of the isolationist voices in and around this administration that recently condemned the president's correct and courageous decision to launch a military assault against Iran.
02:25And I think I think I think they may have lost some of their footing with the president.
02:29I mean, but by leveling criticism in our effort to ensure that Iran could never obtain a usable nuclear weapon, I think some of those isolationist voices may have have literally lost some credibility with the president.
02:42But whatever the cause, I welcome it because I do believe the time has come for us to renew our military support for Ukraine, make it clear that we're going to continue to provide that support.
02:54Along with our European allies until a just and lasting peace is achieved.
02:59I also am hopeful that that Senator Thune will bring the new Russia sanctioned bill to the floor of the Senate next week.
03:08There are issues with two of those things, but with both of those things, there are issues right now.
03:11And I saw you almost shake your head in disbelief at what the reporting has been, which is today we learned that U.S. weapons shipments are starting back up to Ukraine.
03:23But this comes after the reporting is that the Pentagon paused shipments on some weapons, signed off on by the secretary of defense without the knowledge, without informing the president of the United States.
03:37The idea that a decision that big was made without getting the approval of or even informing the president of the United States.
03:46Does that make any sense to you?
03:47Well, when you've served at the level I've served at, it's a big government and a lot of people in your agencies and in departments are making decisions all the time.
03:58But that one was troubling to me.
04:01And my bet is it's very troubling to the president.
04:04My expectation is that he'll get to the bottom of it.
04:08He will he will find out who initiated that decision.
04:13But the most important thing is that he reversed it and and and made it clear in a phone call with President Zelensky last Friday that the the support is going to continue to come.
04:25Now, I will say and I say respectfully to the president, if he's looking on, it's just about defensive weapons.
04:32Right.
04:32We've got to continue to provide President Zelensky and the Ukrainian military with the offensive capability, as well as, you know, the kind of support against aerial assaults.
04:45This isn't that will allow them to achieve a real peace.
04:48I'm sorry. This isn't the first problem at the Pentagon that has come out under the leadership of Pete Hegseth.
04:57Tom Tillis is suggesting he's questioning his support for his confirmation.
05:02Do you think Pete Hegseth is up for this job?
05:05Yeah, I saw Senator Tillis's criticism and I don't think it's fair.
05:10Look, I've known Pete Hegseth a long time.
05:15He's someone who's worn the uniform.
05:17As you know, I've got a couple in our immediate family that are currently serving in the armed forces of this country.
05:24And I got to tell you, I'm very encouraged overall with the president's leadership and his team at the Pentagon.
05:34I think I think General Cain had demonstrated his extraordinary capabilities with the success of that mission over Iran.
05:43Our airmen did an incredible job after the president made that courageous decision to launch U.S. forces.
05:51I think the launching efforts earlier this year that caused the Houthis to stand down on what had been years of attacks against U.S. military vessels in the region.
06:02And probably the most hopeful thing, I would say, and I credit first the president, but also the secretary of defense and his entire team, is recruitment is up.
06:11I mean, we we had fallen behind in every branch in the service in meeting recruitment goals at the end of the Biden administration.
06:19And now I'm told that we're exceeding goals in every branch of our armed forces.
06:24And so all of that is all that is welcome news positive.
06:28You also mentioned sanctions.
06:29Thune's talking about bringing it forward, but has said he's not going to bring forward this big sanctions bill pushed by Graham and Blumenthal and has 80 co-sponsors.
06:38I mean, nothing has 80 co-sponsors in this kind of bipartisanship anymore in Washington, but he won't do it unless Trump signs off.
06:44And Trump is not a yes yet.
06:46Is there any good reason in your mind to not be moving forward with this sanctions bill right away?
06:51Well, my hope is the president to make it clear that he wants that bill on his desk.
06:57He keeps saying, yes, maybe, no, I don't need it yet.
07:01He suggested to advisers he thinks it won't deter.
07:04You know, Kate, I spoke Trump fluently for four years.
07:07So decipher, please.
07:09So when he said when I saw him the other day, say that he's strongly looking at it, I know what that means.
07:15And I saw Senator Graham actually put out on social media that he talked to the president and the president wanted them to move the bill.
07:22So you think it means?
07:23Well, I my hope is that the president will understand the value of the Senate acting and they can put that on his desk and it has broad waiver authority in it.
07:35But but I literally think that the very presence of those new sanctions, especially the secondary sanctions that are included, that are that essentially going to go against countries that are subsidizing that war effort.
07:47The brakes.
07:48Well, I think it's I think and hope the president will see the value of Vladimir Putin seeing those sanctions on his desk available for a signature.
08:00But the most important thing is that we continue to make it very clear that we're not going to tolerate Vladimir Putin redrawing international lines by force.
08:09He didn't do it in our four years.
08:11He had done it.
08:11But it's important to remember, Russian forces had crossed a border in in Europe broadly under the Bush administration, under the Obama administration in Crimea and, of course, under the Biden administration.
08:28But under our administration, we we we built up our military.
08:32We unleashed our armed forces to take down the ISIS caliphate.
08:36We even took down the leader of the Iran Revolutionary Guard, Qasem Soleimani.
08:42We sent cruise missiles into Syria not once but twice.
08:45I think Vladimir Putin saw us supporting Ukraine with lethal aid.
08:50I think he saw us willing to use force to defend our interests and our allies.
08:56And he stood down and the pathway today to peace in the region in in Eastern Europe, in the Middle East, in the Asia Pacific is American strength.
09:05You add this together with just what you said and the strikes on Iran and you have isolationists, as you tell you, the isolationist wing of get no get no more.
09:14You get get out of every foreign conflict you've been speaking out against it.
09:18But do you about against that growing part of the Republican Party?
09:23Do you see Donald Trump as a hawk or an isolationist?
09:27President Trump is not an isolationist.
09:33And what do you say to the isolationist wing of the party that says he is and he ran on it?
09:39And what do you say to the isolationist wing of the party that says he is and he ran on it?
09:45I said this in a major address in Washington last fall, that the president I serve with is not an isolationist.
09:52His bias is to lead.
09:55I think he understands that America is the leader of the free world.
10:00One of the reasons our administration demanded that our European allies live up to their commitments.
10:04And I'm also very encouraged with the news that our NATO allies are now moving to five percent.
10:11Again, that's that is that's not the action of an isolationist.
10:15That's the action of a president who understands that America's role is to lead the free world.
10:20But make no mistake about it.
10:21There's a there's a vigorous debate in the Republican Party today.
10:25By some of the loudest voices around the president that say that America needs to pull back, that we need to we need to pull the shutters in.
10:34We need to worry exclusively about what's happening here at home.
10:37And while while we should always be concerned about what's happening in our country first, our economy, our security, our prosperity, our values.
10:44I think for the better part of the last century, the American people have understood that our role is to lead the free world.
10:54And one of the things I learned as vice president is if America is not leading the free world, the free world is not being led.
11:02There's no backup.
11:03There's no leading from behind, as Barack Obama said.
11:06And so I'm what what I saw in the last week was was the president kind of, I think, returning to his well-honed instincts and bias for leadership on the world stage.
