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Speaker 1: That we've solved seven wars. Seven wars. Wars that were unsolvable,

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Speaker 1: was that couldn't be negotiated or done, We've done. The

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Speaker 1: US has done seven of them. The one that I

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Speaker 1: thought would be easiest would be because of my relationship

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Speaker 1: with President Putin. But he's let me down. He's really

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Speaker 1: let me down. Who's going to be Russia and Ukraine.

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Speaker 1: But we'll see how that turns out.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, what's the next step on that? I'd love to

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Speaker 2: know that Donald Trump. He is standing right next to

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Speaker 2: Kars Starmer, the Prime Minister of Great Britain right now,

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Speaker 2: and they're doing a press conference as Trump is over

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Speaker 2: in England, and we thought we would talk to Jim

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Speaker 2: Tankerslee and welcome back to the Armstrong and Getty Show.

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Speaker 2: He knows a lot about what's going on with European politics.

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Speaker 2: He's the Berlin bureau chief for the New York Times.

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Speaker 2: Jim Tankersley, welcome back, are you hey?

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Speaker 3: My pleasure to be back. I'm doing great.

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Speaker 2: Any news out of Great britainy you think is worth

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Speaker 2: talking about to start off with?

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Speaker 3: I mean, I think what we just heard the President

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Speaker 3: talking about is what he's been saying for a while,

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Speaker 3: he really did think that this conflict was going to

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Speaker 3: be a lot easier to broker a pc alaon. He

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Speaker 3: keeps expressing varying degrees of annoyance with Vladimir Putin for

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Speaker 3: not coming to the table and broken ideal, but he's

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Speaker 3: also not you know, we didn't hear him say any

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Speaker 3: new big things that he's going to do to put

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Speaker 3: the pressure on So I think I think what we're

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Speaker 3: hearing from from President Trump is what a lot of

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Speaker 3: Europe has been kind of hearing and a little bit

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Speaker 3: wary about for weeks and months now, which is kind

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Speaker 3: of just like status quo. We're just kind of hoping

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Speaker 3: this is going to get better and we're not sure

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Speaker 3: how it's going to happen.

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Speaker 2: Okay, well, that's really interesting. I want to ask you,

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Speaker 2: this is one of my favorite statements of the last

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Speaker 2: couple of months. Is that guy from Poland, Tusk who said,

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Speaker 2: why do we need why do we the five hundred

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Speaker 2: million need the three hundred and forty million of the

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Speaker 2: United States to protect us against one hundred and sixty million.

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Speaker 2: I love that just as a point of view of

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Speaker 2: why don't we take care of this ourselves? In Europe.

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Speaker 2: Do many people in Europe agree with his attitude?

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Speaker 3: Well, I mean, you know, it's really interesting. I came

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Speaker 3: to Germany for the Times in January, and in the

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Speaker 3: time that I've been here, I think we've seen like

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Speaker 3: a real flood of Europeans toward that test perspective for

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Speaker 3: lots of reasons, but this real idea like, hey, we

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Speaker 3: we need to be spending the money here to defend ourselves,

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Speaker 3: to make ourselves ready, not just you know, to help Ukraine,

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Speaker 3: but to ward off possible attack from Russia. Something you

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Speaker 3: hear in Germany all the time now. I mean, the

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Speaker 3: Germans are massively increasing their ability, and it's because they

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Speaker 3: are afraid that they could be next or really they

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Speaker 3: could be drawn into some sort of Yes, I mean,

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Speaker 3: people don't believe me sometimes when I tell them this

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Speaker 3: back home, but the German German leaders I talked to

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Speaker 3: are constantly worried that that that Putin would not stop

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Speaker 3: at Ukraine, that he might go to some place like Lithuania,

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Speaker 3: or he might go into Poland, as we've seen Russia

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Speaker 3: flying groans over Poland already, and that you know, Berlin

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Speaker 3: is not that far away from there, and that they

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Speaker 3: need to be ready on their own, you know, with

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Speaker 3: or without help from the Americans, to defend against that

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Speaker 3: sort of an attack. And that's that's why they're just

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Speaker 3: going to spend a lot of money trying to build

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Speaker 3: up their defenses.

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Speaker 2: Again, Well, that's really interesting. I mean, on one hand,

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Speaker 2: I'm glad they're taking it seriously. On the other hand,

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Speaker 2: that would be insane for Putin to take on Germany

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Speaker 2: and NATO and everything that goes with it.

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Speaker 3: It would be I mean, but I think that people

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Speaker 3: thought it would be a lot of people thought it'd

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Speaker 3: be insane for him to go into Ukraine. And and

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Speaker 3: so there's I think there is is really a sea

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Speaker 3: change in how a lot of European leaders, and by

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Speaker 3: the way, not all the public is there. There are some,

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Speaker 3: you know, East Germans in the Former East, for example,

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Speaker 3: who still would like to re establish much friendlier ties

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Speaker 3: with Russia and try to avoid war that way. But

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Speaker 3: particularly among the sort of German leaders I cover, there's

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Speaker 3: just been this big shift, And I got to say

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Speaker 3: part of it is because they have been shocked at

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Speaker 3: the idea that maybe America won't be there. Maybe it's like,

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Speaker 3: maybe America will not have our back but we hope

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Speaker 3: they do. We think they're still our friends. And either way,

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Speaker 3: we need to do the right thing for ourselves here,

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Speaker 3: which is to have our own defense capabilities get better.

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Speaker 2: Since Trump is in Great Britain, I'll ask you about this.

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Speaker 2: Let's listening to a podcast the other day with a

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Speaker 2: writer from The Telegraph talking about the financial situation that

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Speaker 2: Great Britain is. They're like, you know, several years further

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Speaker 2: down the road from us, of going insolvent because they

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Speaker 2: spend more money than they take in and they've made

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Speaker 2: all kinds of promises. They're not going to be able

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Speaker 2: to keep on the current trajectories. Is it that bad?

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Speaker 2: And can we look at our future ahead of us

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Speaker 2: in Great Britain?

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Speaker 3: I mean, I as as you know, I covered you

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Speaker 3: cannot and before I came here, So it's I think

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Speaker 3: a lot about this is this is what economists call

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Speaker 3: fiscal space. How much money do you have, you know,

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Speaker 3: kind of left before it gets really hard for you

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Speaker 3: to keep borrowing, and and and and Great Britain does

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Speaker 3: have a coming fiscal space problem. France does, I mean

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Speaker 3: a lot of a lot of the wealthy world does.

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Speaker 3: I mean America does too, And we've been there's certainly

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Speaker 3: been a lot of warnings about it for a long time,

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Speaker 3: but the situations have worsened in all of those countries,

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Speaker 3: and so it's going that's that comes at a time

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Speaker 3: when when all three of those countries also want to

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Speaker 3: be spending a lot more on the military, and when

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Speaker 3: nobody frankly, I mean, maybe I'm wrong about the American debate,

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Speaker 3: but I don't hear a lot of arguments coming out

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Speaker 3: of Washington that we we should ramp back this amount

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Speaker 3: of spending, particularly on on on you know, butter, so

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Speaker 3: that we can buy more guns. And that's those are

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Speaker 3: conversations that you know, most experts, I don't do you

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Speaker 3: think are going to be suddenly forced across Europe and

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Speaker 3: in America.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's a damn interesting time for you to be

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Speaker 2: in Europe. So you have the military situation, as you

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Speaker 2: point out, spending more money, worried about actually being attacked.

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Speaker 2: You got the financial problems, and then the immigration situation

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Speaker 2: that's just roiling so many countries.

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Speaker 3: Well, the immigration situation is fascinating because the I mean,

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Speaker 3: it's it's it's not a secret, it's it's the statistics.

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Speaker 3: But the the statistics are that the flow of immigrants

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Speaker 3: to Western Europe has fallen dramatically in the last year

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Speaker 3: and the new governments. There's plenty of new governments that

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Speaker 3: have cracked down on border control. The Poland and Germany

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Speaker 3: both have new enhanced border checks h and they're playing

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Speaker 3: a lot of credit for restarching those flows. But the

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Speaker 3: posts don't suggest that voters are giving them a lot

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Speaker 3: of credit any of it yet. It might take a

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Speaker 3: while to sort of show them progress. But it's sort

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Speaker 3: of this weird thing that people don't realize that that, yeah,

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Speaker 3: they had an enormous amount of migration over the last

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Speaker 3: ten years historically for Europe, but also that that flow

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Speaker 3: of immigrants has gone down.

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Speaker 2: Before I let you go, I'm sure there's a German

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Speaker 2: Germans have good words for things. I'm sure German German

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Speaker 2: language has a good word for the feeling I've got

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Speaker 2: right now. Maybe it's just envy that you and your

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Speaker 2: family are living in Germany for a while while you

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Speaker 2: do this job. That's got to be freaking cool. As

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Speaker 2: cool as it sounds, I mean.

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Speaker 3: If I'm going to make it sound even cooler by

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Speaker 3: telling you I'm currently on a train from Berlin down

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Speaker 3: to Munich because they have this annual event here which

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Speaker 3: for journalistic purposes I need to go visit, which is

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Speaker 3: called Octoberfest. And so, uh, you know, every we do,

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Speaker 3: we do a lot of we do a lot of

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Speaker 3: very uh serious and difficult reporting as reporters. And if

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Speaker 3: every once in a while you can go like I'm

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Speaker 3: going to do on on Saturday and and watch them

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Speaker 3: tap the first keg oh Wowfest for.

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Speaker 2: Journalism, for journalism. Yes, you're standing up for journalism. That's fantastic.

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Speaker 2: Good for you, man. Jim Tankersley, Berlin Bureau Cheap for

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Speaker 2: The New York Times. Thanks for your time today.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks for having me. It's always fun.

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Speaker 2: He's a really talented guy, so he's obviously earned it.

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Speaker 2: But man, he moved his whole family there and they've

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Speaker 2: been living in Germany for a little while. But cool

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Speaker 2: experience to get to have

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Speaker 3: Art