Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front, Unclaire Harvey.
Speaker 1: It's Tuesday May twenty seven, twenty twenty five. Private hospital
Speaker 1: operator health Scope has collapsed into receivership and the government
Speaker 1: says it won't use taxpayer funds to bail it out.
Speaker 1: The receivers will now try to sell off its assets,
Speaker 1: including the troubled Northern Beaches Hospital in Sydney. There's a
Speaker 1: huge drama brewing over the Port of Darwin. It's owned
Speaker 1: by a Chinese government linked firm, but Anthony Albinizi says
Speaker 1: it must be sold off or forcibly acquired.
Speaker 2: By the government.
Speaker 1: Now, a US private equity firm or its strong ties
Speaker 1: to the Trump administration is preparing to make an offer
Speaker 1: its owners can't refuse. That's an exclusive live now at
Speaker 1: the Australian dot com AU. Vladimir Putin is pounding Ukraine
Speaker 1: more intensely than ever, despite Donald Trump's boasts.
Speaker 2: He could bring peace within a day.
Speaker 1: In today's episode, why Trump's peace process has failed and
Speaker 1: why he can't just walk away.
Speaker 2: Remember when Donald Trump said this.
Speaker 3: If I'm president, I will have that war settled in
Speaker 3: one day twenty four hours.
Speaker 1: That was during the presidential campaign, and he was talking,
Speaker 1: of course, about Russia's twenty twenty two invasion of Ukraine,
Speaker 1: which has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths with.
Speaker 4: A barrage of missiles on multiple targets right across the country.
Speaker 1: Trump was inaugurated in January. The war didn't end.
Speaker 3: We're having very serious discussions about that war.
Speaker 1: Trying to get it ended with Russia. America's efforts to
Speaker 1: negotiate a peace resulted in little more than a spectacular
Speaker 1: blow up in the Oval Office.
Speaker 2: What kind of diplomacy US became boved?
Speaker 1: What?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 4: What do you mean?
Speaker 5: I'm talking about the kind of diplomacy that's going to
Speaker 5: end the destruction of your country has But President, mister President,
Speaker 5: with respect, I think it's disrespectful for you to come
Speaker 5: into the Oval Office to try to litigate this in
Speaker 5: front of the American media.
Speaker 1: Going into that meeting, Trump thought he had made a
Speaker 1: deal with Ukraine's President Volodimi Zelenski. Ukraine would agree to
Speaker 1: allow America to exploit its critical minerals in return for
Speaker 1: American protection. That would involve an agreement that Russia could
Speaker 1: keep the territory it had already seized that would be
Speaker 1: a huge win for Vladimir Putin, whom Trump has repeatedly praised.
Speaker 1: Zelensky balked at Pope Francis's funeral in Rome. Other world
Speaker 1: leaders shepherded Zelensky and Trump together for a brief conversation,
Speaker 1: and then Trump's rhetoric changed again.
Speaker 6: I don't know what the hell happened to Putin. I've
Speaker 6: known him a long time, always gotten along with him.
Speaker 6: But he's sending rockets into cities and kelly people and
Speaker 6: I don't like it at all. We're in the middle
Speaker 6: of talking and he's tuning rockets into Kiev and other cities.
Speaker 6: He's killing people. And something happened to this guy, and
Speaker 6: I don't like it.
Speaker 1: And now on his truth social platform, Trump is doubling down.
Speaker 1: We've used an AI voice generator to bring his words
Speaker 1: to life.
Speaker 3: I've always had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin
Speaker 3: of Russia, but something has happened to him. He has
Speaker 3: gone absolutely crazy. He is needlessly killing a lot of people.
Speaker 3: And I'm not just talking about soldiers. Missiles and drones
Speaker 3: are being shot into cities in Ukraine for no reason whatsoever.
Speaker 1: Cameron Stewart is the Australian's chief international correspondent, Cam We
Speaker 1: don't usually see world leaders talking this. Frankly, how do
Speaker 1: you interpret Donald Trump calling Vladimir Putin crazy?
Speaker 2: Is this just a Trump tantrum or is it.
Speaker 1: A big change in the way he's thinking about Vladimir Putin.
Speaker 4: I think it's a big change, Claire. I think this
Speaker 4: is a big moment in this conflict, because what we've
Speaker 4: really seen ever since earlier this year is Trump trying
Speaker 4: to get a deal together, trying to intervene personally in
Speaker 4: this by appeasing Vladimir Putin very deliberately to try and
Speaker 4: get Putin to the negotiating table in a serious way.
Speaker 4: He's made all sorts of demands on the Ukrainian Vladimir Zelenski,
Speaker 4: but not on Putin. He has just held out in
Speaker 4: the hope that Putin would actually come to the table.
Speaker 4: He hadn't said anything publicly until now, but Putin has
Speaker 4: provoked him by having this massive series of attacks on Ukraine.
Speaker 4: And really, I think a lot of the rest of
Speaker 4: the world has looked at Trump and been puzzled as
Speaker 4: to why he has been so tolerant with Putin. He
Speaker 4: always claimed a good personal relationship with him in the
Speaker 4: first term as president. He always believed that he could
Speaker 4: actually use his charm, I guess or his persuasive techniques
Speaker 4: to actually get Putin to come to the table. But
Speaker 4: this language suggests that Trump has had enough.
Speaker 1: Trump's argument all the way along was it Putin just
Speaker 1: needed to be treated as a businessman. This needed to
Speaker 1: be a negotiation rather than America accusing him of being
Speaker 1: a war criminal basically, and that he would respond to that.
Speaker 2: Was that a miscalculation?
Speaker 1: Do you think, cam given that Vladimir Putin is not
Speaker 1: a businessman.
Speaker 2: He was an agent in.
Speaker 1: Russia's secret service, the FSB who became president, has a massed,
Speaker 1: enormous wealth.
Speaker 2: He's not a businessman like Trump, is he?
Speaker 4: No, not at all, not at all that you say.
Speaker 4: He's KGB trained, is very skilled in manipulating people, and
Speaker 4: he had no particular reason to come to the table.
Speaker 4: I mean, Putin has a lot greater resources as far
Speaker 4: as money and manpower than Ukraine does. He sees what's
Speaker 4: happening in the United States or the Republican Party. The
Speaker 4: isolation is stwing that doesn't want to give aid to Ukraine.
Speaker 4: He's not losing the war, he's not particularly winning it,
Speaker 4: there is a starmate along the front line, and believes
Speaker 4: the long game is very much in his favor. And
Speaker 4: so therefore it's Trump that actually doesn't have the cars
Speaker 4: rather than Pusin.
Speaker 1: Over the weekend, and this is the thing that triggered
Speaker 1: Trump's angry social media post, Russia launched one of the
Speaker 1: biggest single night attacks of the whole war.
Speaker 2: Why is Vladimir Putin ramping it up now?
Speaker 4: It's a great question. I think that Vladimir Putin is
Speaker 4: effectively trying to ape the peace process. I don't think
Speaker 4: there's any other conclusion you can come to here. Just
Speaker 4: the other day, after the two hour phone call with Trump,
Speaker 4: the olive branch that Vladimir Putin put out was that
Speaker 4: he was happy to start direct negotiations between Ukraine and Russia.
Speaker 4: And he said that, and then he fired a barrage
Speaker 4: of missiles over these last coming days, huge attacks on
Speaker 4: Ukraine and very cruel ones directored towards residential buildings, certainly
Speaker 4: not military installations. You can only imagine that Putin doesn't
Speaker 4: want these talks to go ahead, and he's doing everything
Speaker 4: he can to talk p do them because he just
Speaker 4: doesn't want peace. And in fact, Donald Trump briefed European
Speaker 4: leaders some days ago and it was leaked that he
Speaker 4: had told them that he doesn't think that Putin is
Speaker 4: ready for peace because he thinks he's winning the war.
Speaker 1: Russia, of course, has a long history of winning long
Speaker 1: ground out wars on its own territory or what it
Speaker 1: considers its territory. Do you think Russia can just grind
Speaker 1: its way to victory here and never back down?
Speaker 4: I think Russia has the ability to do it for
Speaker 4: at least a couple more years. And probably the more
Speaker 4: important question is they can do it for longer than
Speaker 4: Ukraine can. Where is Ukraine going to get its resources
Speaker 4: from now? Obviously Trump wants Europe to step up. Europe
Speaker 4: has said they will step up in their age to Ukraine,
Speaker 4: but there are limits to that and Ukraine has a
Speaker 4: lot of manpower problems. They have fewer resources than Russia
Speaker 4: on that front. So when you're talking the long game,
Speaker 4: there is an advantage that Russia has. Does that mean
Speaker 4: they can eventually roll across Ukraine? That is a huge
Speaker 4: question which no one can really answer, and that wouldn't
Speaker 4: be for quite a long time. But certainly the advantage
Speaker 4: is with Russia as far as time goes.
Speaker 1: Coming up, So why doesn't Trump just walk away? Let's
Speaker 1: talk about what's on the table right now. Trump and JD.
Speaker 1: Vance brought to Ukraine an idea that America would invest
Speaker 1: in Ukraine's critical minerals, and that would involve sending American
Speaker 1: personnel to Ukraine with an implication of essentially a security
Speaker 1: guarantee that there would be Americans there and that would
Speaker 1: mean that America would be heavily invested. Zelensky was open
Speaker 1: to that. Is that still the way that this would go?
Speaker 2: Do you think?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 4: Zelensky was very annoyed with America firstival in the way
Speaker 4: that the Trump administration in the sense that he thought
Speaker 4: they would basically going to take it and not give
Speaker 4: enough compensation to Ukraine, that it was a violation of
Speaker 4: sovereignty and sort of finances. Really, but I think Zelenski
Speaker 4: has come around, especially after the Oval Office blow up
Speaker 4: between Zelenskin and Trump, He's come around, I think to thinking, look,
Speaker 4: it's probably better to have American investments in these minerals
Speaker 4: because Americans will be based there as a result doing that,
Speaker 4: and that just makes it more difficult for Russia to
Speaker 4: be rolling across the border when there's American workers there.
Speaker 4: I think Zelensky has decided that there's a part of
Speaker 4: the deal. But of course Trump has been very reluctant
Speaker 4: to give Zelensky any security guarantees as far as in
Speaker 4: the future if there is a peace deal or a
Speaker 4: ceasefly deal, and that's been one of the real sticking
Speaker 4: points for Zelensky. He says, Look, we just can't have
Speaker 4: a cease fly I deal with Russia if we've got
Speaker 4: no promise that America will come to our aid.
Speaker 1: One of the things that Trump has been quite cavalier
Speaker 1: in talking about is the idea that Ukraine just needs
Speaker 1: to give up on the territory that Russia considers it
Speaker 1: has taken over the past several years, even before this
Speaker 1: latest round of conflicts started beginning. Of course, with Crimea,
Speaker 1: is Vladimir Zelenski ever going to give up that territory
Speaker 1: and agree that Vladimir Putin can just have it, Well, he'll.
Speaker 4: Never admit that it's a part of Russia. That's a
Speaker 4: big thing for Zelenski. But look, I think that Trump
Speaker 4: is on the right track here in the sense that
Speaker 4: if there is going to be a ceasfar idea. It
Speaker 4: almost certainly has to be along the front line at
Speaker 4: the moment, because neither side is going to give up
Speaker 4: what they've actually got at the moment. In fact, Putin
Speaker 4: wants to. He's annexed three regions of Ukraine, which his
Speaker 4: troops don't even control all of those regions, so he
Speaker 4: would have to step back and they would have to
Speaker 4: agree on a front line settlement. I think that is problematic,
Speaker 4: but I think it's something that is certainly doable.
Speaker 1: Zelenski is saying now that what he wants Trump to
Speaker 1: do is impose tougher economic sanctions on Russia. Why is
Speaker 1: Trump not doing that or is that the next step?
Speaker 4: Trump said this week that he is now definitely going
Speaker 4: to have a good look at sanctions. He's deliberately stayed
Speaker 4: away from that simply because he wants to get Vladimir
Speaker 4: Putin to the table, and so he's been so careful
Speaker 4: not to say that Russia invaded Ukraine and that was
Speaker 4: a breach of international law. All those things that Putin
Speaker 4: did wrong when he invaded Ukraine. Trump has been out
Speaker 4: of backwards, and he's got a lot of criticism for
Speaker 4: simply not criticizing Putin, so he's deliberately stayed away from sanctions.
Speaker 4: Now he is talking about him. The great question, of course,
Speaker 4: that clear is will sanctions be able to change Putin's mind?
Speaker 4: Because people often forget that there's a lot of sanctions
Speaker 4: on Russia at the moment. Joe Biden put a lot
Speaker 4: of sanctions on Russia. There's only so much that sanctions
Speaker 4: can do, so you can levy more and more sanctions,
Speaker 4: but it's probably being optimistic to think that sanctions alone
Speaker 4: would actually change Russia's thinking on this war.
Speaker 1: The other thing that, of course, the United States could
Speaker 1: do is dramatically increase the support it gives to Ukraine
Speaker 1: in terms of money and in terms of the kind
Speaker 1: of weaponry that Voladimi Zelenski has wanted all along, really
Speaker 1: aggressive weapons that would allow him to take the fight
Speaker 1: to Vladimir Putin in Russia.
Speaker 2: Is that something that could change? Do you think can?
Speaker 4: I think that would be a very good thing for
Speaker 4: the Americans to do, because that's the only way Ukraine
Speaker 4: could actually technically win the war rather than simply hold
Speaker 4: off Russia, and that is to get long range weapons.
Speaker 4: You know, if they start lobbying weapons into Moscow, for example,
Speaker 4: that would change the calculus enormously. As you can imagine,
Speaker 4: Donald Trump isn't out a bind here. He has been
Speaker 4: critical of USA to Ukraine military aid, and so this
Speaker 4: hard for Trump now to turn around and suddenly give
Speaker 4: a lot of military aid to Ukraine. And that's why
Speaker 4: he's been saying a that the Europeans need to step
Speaker 4: up and be the ones who provide the aid to Ukraine.
Speaker 4: And he's also tried to deal himself out of the
Speaker 4: equation by saying that it's up to Ukraine and Russia
Speaker 4: to negotiate. In other words, brackets. I Donald Trump will
Speaker 4: not be inserting myself into this peace process.
Speaker 1: Given that big isolation is thread in America and probably
Speaker 1: in Trump's voter base, why doesn't Trump just throw Ukraine
Speaker 1: the wolves and say it's not our problem. Europe can
Speaker 1: deal with it.
Speaker 4: This is the great dilemma, I think for the Republicans
Speaker 4: with their isolationist policy here, because he can say that,
Speaker 4: and in a way he has said it's a European problem,
Speaker 4: it's not our problem. He said that to a degree,
Speaker 4: well at the same time trying to solve the actual war.
Speaker 4: But the trouble for Donald Trump is that he wouldn't
Speaker 4: want to be the president who loses Ukraine because it
Speaker 4: would be a black mark against his legacy forevermore. And
Speaker 4: so Trump is in a bind here. He doesn't want
Speaker 4: Putin to win, but he doesn't want to be the
Speaker 4: person who makes the conditions to make him lose.
Speaker 1: Is there any possibility now, do you think cam that
Speaker 1: Ukraine will get its ultimate wish, which is to be
Speaker 1: welcomed into NATO, and the rest of Europe would essentially
Speaker 1: go to war with Ukraine.
Speaker 4: I think that NATO won't be on the table for
Speaker 4: the Ukrainians because I don't think that the NATO countries
Speaker 4: in Europe want to prove folk Putin a lot more
Speaker 4: than they already have. But I think what is on
Speaker 4: the table is that you might see down that track,
Speaker 4: any cease fire would have to involve European troops peacekeepers
Speaker 4: being based in Ukraine. Otherwise it is simply a non starter.
Speaker 4: But to actually invite Ukraine to be a part of NATO,
Speaker 4: it would be very provocative for Putin, and I'm not
Speaker 4: sure that the Europeans are ready to do that just yet.
Speaker 1: Camerin Stewart is the Australian's chief international correspondent. You can
Speaker 1: read all the latest from the war in Ukraine and
Speaker 1: the rest of the world right now at the Australian
Speaker 1: dot com dot au