The Duran Podcast - Trump signals Ukraine is losing and he wants to blame EU

Episode Date: September 26, 2025

Trump signals Ukraine is losing and he wants to blame EU

All right, Alexander, let's talk about Trump's truth social post and the comments that he made during meetings he held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly event. So the debate about that Trump truth social post, which is getting everyone's attention is whether Trump meant it or whether he was being sarcastic. What's your take on it? Well, I have no doubt at all that he was being sarcastic. In fact, I think if you read it carefully, it's absolutely clear that that is what he thinks. He intends. I mean, he starts the true social post by saying that he's now finally got to fully understand the military and economic realities of this conflict. Now, I mean, that is absurd. I mean, I don't think anybody takes that seriously. And I don't. I think we are intended to take it seriously. We've just had this whole procession of claims and statements from Kellogg,

from Zelensky, from various European officials, that in fact it is Ukraine that is winning the war, that it is Russia that is losing it. We have endless claims from Kayakales, Ursula von the Lion, and others about how the sanctions have brought the Russian economy to the point of crisis. collapse, what Trump is doing here is he's taking all that narrative and he's turning it round and he's throwing it into the faces of those who are saying it. He's saying to them, look, if things are as you say, if Ukraine is really winning the wall, if Russia's economy is really in the mess that you say, why do you need security

guarantees, more weapons from me and extra sanctions, because all of that is unnecessary. Just go on, just go on pushing a little longer and you will win and he'll get all the things you want and you don't need any further help from me. And there is a very interesting article today in the financial giants in which it says that that is what European officials. leaders are saying to each other. They heard what Trump said to Zelensky. They read that truth social post, but they're all saying to each other what Trump is doing is that he's walking away from the conflict in Ukraine and is preparing to blame them for the eventual defeat

that is going to happen there. And it is in the financial times. Yeah, it's a clumsy way of walking away, I have to admit. And it's not a very strong way to walk away. It's a bit of trickery in a way, right? He wants to present his position as being pro-Ukraine when in fact he's trying to extract himself from Project Ukraine, at least. at least himself, maybe not the United States, because Trump walking away from Ukraine is not really going to be the United States walking away from Ukraine or the neo-cons or the U.S. military. There will be parts of the United States and the military and parts of the U.S. that is involved in NATO, that will absolutely be engaged in project Ukraine and provide money and weapons and three-letter agency support and all of these things.

But for Trump, the man, the president of the United States, he wants to paint the picture of himself disengaging from Project Ukraine. I believe because he knows and his team knows that they're going to lose. Yes. And they're going to be blamed. And he's trying to shift everything over now. You're absolutely correct. You go to that Financial Times article. It actually says that there is a blame game now underway.

I mean, it's quite interesting. It's the article in itself is remarkable for the fact that it finally admits that Ukraine is likely to lose and that there is a blame game and recriminations about this. And that Trump is doing exactly what you said. He is distancing himself personally from what he can clearly see is an emerging debacle. But I would go further than what you said. You said that this is not a very good way to do it. I would say it's actually a very bad way to do it.

I think that what Trump ought to have done, we've said it time after time, on program after program extending all the way back to, I think it was August 24, he should have said This war has nothing to do with me. It is not a war that is being fought for any national interest of the United States. U.S. security is not engaged in it. If the Europeans want to continue with it, if the Ukrainians want to continue with it, that's up to them. If they want to make peace and to negotiate with the Russians, they can do that. The United States, will not from this point on be further involved. That would have been a clear, strong decision

that would have distanced not just Trump, but the entire United States from this debacle, this evolving debacle. But for all kinds of reasons, which we could discuss his psychology, we can discuss the weaknesses of his political position, We can discuss the power of the neocons. We can discuss Lindsay Graham.

We can discuss what Robert Kagan is doing in the United States. But for all sorts of reasons, Trump has failed to do that. I think he should have done it. I think after he was elected president, he had the political strength to do it. I think the American people overall would have supported it. I have just been to the United States. I've had encounters with people there. from every demographic, I am confident that he would have had majority support for a decision

of that kind. But for any number of reasons, he hasn't done it, and I'm afraid future generations will probably feel that this was messy, unsatisfactory, and frankly weak. And he leaves the door open for the neocons and people like Lindsay Graham to push them towards actually doing the things that he posted on truth social and that he said to the media during the sideline bilateral meetings. Instead of closing the door on this issue and on Project Ukraine, definitively closing the door on it, he keeps the door open and the neocons are going to take advantage of this. And they're going to still try to push Trump to shoot down fighter jets, to provide security guarantees, to put in place a no-fly zone, to give money, to give more weapons, weapons that the U.S. does not have.

We know that Reuters has reported this now. Writers has said the U.S. The Pentagon doesn't have weapons to give, at least the important weapons like Patriots. They do not have them. He leaves it open. Yes. And this is the big problem in all of this.

Yes. He thinks he's distancing himself. But ultimately, by taking this line, he's simply storing trouble for himself. And by the way for the United States also in the future. And this is what he has been doing for months now. He's started to do it back in May. He's been stringing the Europeans and the neocons along.

People always accuse Putin as stringing Trump along. The person who's doing the stringing is Trump. He's been stringing the neocons in the United States along. He's been stringing the Europeans along. He's been stringing Zelensky along. And sooner or later, he'll find, that they come to him and they'll say, enough, enough. We now need you.

You've been saying that, you know, you want to take a strong line with Putin. You are frustrated and disappointed with Putin. We demand action following from that now. And we're not going to wait another week. We're not going to give you time for another call to Putin. We're not going to do any of that. And, of course, if Trump's position, politically in the United States begins to weaken, because the economy begins to go sour,

or because there's problems elsewhere in the world, or because there's criticisms or there's a scandal, I mean, any number of things, then when he finds himself in that weaker position and the neocons come, and the neocons and the Europeans and the Ukrainians come to him, he will have nowhere to hide because he said all of these things about the Russians being transigent, about Putin disappointing him, about all of those things. And they will throw all of those words back at Trump. And they will say, this is the moment when you have to come forward and you can't let Ukraine go down. You've said that you don't want that to happen. You've implied that this is what the United States doesn't want.

to see. So you've got to make sure that it doesn't happen and you've got to intervene in some forceful way, perhaps not through no-fly zones, which might be difficult, but perhaps through massive sanctions or something of that kind, which up to now you've shown no willingness to do. The problem with all of that is that he can't really put the sanctions, right? He may be on India, But even there, India has already shown that it's not going to work. So he's going to, what, sanction China? He can't do that.

He's going to lose that and he knows it and everyone knows it. So he's backed off on the sanctioning of China. He can't provide any weapons that's going to change the trajectory of the conflict. There's not one weapon that the United States has that will change the outcome of the conflict aside from long-range tomahawks, nukes, or boots on the ground. That's it. Boots on the ground and some sort of no-fly zone. is pretty much the only thing that he might possibly be able to do.

And even there, it's going to fail boots on the ground is a non-starter, not going to happen. So what are you left with, really, outside of just money? Money and just giving whatever weapons you may have lying around, which they really don't have. They don't have any more weapons of the United States. Not to mention that the United States is holding back those weapons for a conflict with Iran, a possible smash with Venezuela and, of course, a longer term conflict with China. So, I mean, on the priority list, Ukraine is probably third or fourth down the list.

Which is what people like Elbridge Colby are trying to explain to Trump. And which Trump, if he had the necessary strength and courage, would be explaining he would be going to Congress. he would be explaining to all of these people there and he would be saying to them, look, we've done everything. We've thrown everything that we can at this. We organized that offensive in 2023. We supported the Coos Corporation. We've given Ukraine a disproportionate share of our air defense missiles. It's not a question of will. It's a question of resources. We simply don't have the resources. to go on doing this. The United States is not in a situation where it can afford to fritter away resources in all sorts of places like Ukraine which are not centrally important to the United States

because the situation is changing and arguably deteriorating in far more important places around the world. Now, that is the conversation that Trump ought to have putting boots on the ground, embarking on no-fly zones, would quite potentially lead us into an armed clash with the Russians, which even Joe Biden said would be World War III. We all know where that might end. But in immediate terms, it would smash the Maga Base. I mean, they would be up in arms about this. They were promised that this. They were promised that this. would not happen. And every opinion poll shows that they take that promise that the president made and which they elected him on. Seriously, the opinion polls show that it was one of the leading issues upon which people decided to vote for him back in the presidential election,

which brought him back to the White House. So I agree. We'll go back. We'll go back. The alternative is to go back giving the old Patriot missile system there, a few more Abrams tanks, giving the old billion. It's not going to make any difference. It's just going to be more money and more weapons thrown away, making not just the defeat worse, but the humiliation of the United States when that defeat happens worse, undermining Trump's own legacy, because if he starts doing that, he will own the conflict beyond a shadow of a doubt. It's clear that this is the worst possible thing he could do, but he seems to understand it,

but he doesn't seem to have the courage to say stop. I mean, he doesn't have the courage to do even the most simple thing, which is to tell Kellogg, Keith, you're a wonderful man. You give me all sorts of great advice, but it's fine time for you to go. He doesn't even have the courage to do that. He doesn't have the courage, exactly. He does not have the courage. That's just the honest truth of the whole situation.

He also doesn't have the diplomacy skills because in that truth social, for a reason that I can't figure out, he thought it would be a good idea. to bash Russia. Okay, maybe he's playing to his collective West European neocon audience. Maybe he thought they would like that. They would find it amusing. They would find it endearing that Trump is bashing Russia and the Russians and the paper tiger, the war economy, the long lines and gasoline. So maybe he was just playing to that audience. But from a diplomacy, foreign policy, perspective, it was about the dumbest thing you could write on a post. Very, very dumb and unnecessary, to be quite honest. Russia's kind of brushing it off. But how much longer can they continue to brush stuff like this off? Well, absolutely. I mean, your father was a senior

diplomat. You come from a diplomatic family. What you say, is born, therefore, of experience, and is absolutely true. That true social post violated all the fundamental rules of diplomacy. It used manipulative language. It was ultimately dishonest. And that is not what you do. You see that the Europeans aren't happy. The Russians are inwardly furious about this. I mean, they're not going to, I mean, they may say to themselves, look, we've got to go along with this because ultimately it's in our interests that we, you know, we keep patient with Trump, we continue to flatter him and all of that because it serves our interests to keep the United States at a distance while we finish off Ukraine. But deep down, the Russians, who are a very proud people, are going to be very angry. And ultimately, when this is all over, and if Trump still wants some kind of reproshment with the Russians, or wants to work with the Russians, say, to try to get the Russians to distance themselves from China,

things like this stick, they will remember that he called them a paper tiger, they will remember what he said about them, and it will have an effect. And Putin and Demetriev and people like them who perhaps still want some kind of relationship with the United States, their work has just been made more difficult. So this is extraordinarily bad diplomacy. Again, being manipulative is a sign of weakness. It is not intelligent and it is not strong. Diplomats, true diplomats, are careful in what they say, but fundamentally they're

straightforward. Yeah, I mean, how can Putin or Dimitriev or even Lavrov? come out with a statement and talk about our American partners or the United States is the one country in the collective West that is that is rational or that is reasonable. How can you now say that after the president of the United States just completely lashed out at you and bashed you? You know, Trump may be saying to himself, it's okay, I'll write this. I'll please the neocons. I'll please the Europeans. And the Russians will understand, but it doesn't work like that. And I'll take it even one step further. Why are you trying to please these losers

all the time? Why is Trump trying to please these losers who, when you put them all together, when you put the leadership of the EU altogether, they probably don't have a combined popularity of more than 50 percent, approval rating of more than 50 percent. But Trump is publicly, publicly, he is constantly trying to please them and he's constantly kissing up to them and they're kissing up to him. And he's aligned himself with the side that is going down so hard that it's, does he not see this? Are people not telling him this?

You know, Trump, the more you meet with Stamer and Macron and Ursula and Zelensky, the worse you look, man. I mean, you just look weak. You look bad. Yes. He doesn't get it. And that goes with Lindsay Graham and all of these guys, too. No one has told them. These people are extremely unpopular. They're very unpopular and they're politically toxic. And they are going to try always to pull you in directions which work to your disadvantage and to the disadvantage of the United States, at least to the disadvantage of the United States.

at least to the disadvantage of the United States, as you say yourself you believe. So why are you doing it? It's incredibly frustrating. It is the story, however, of Donald Trump. You say that, you know, this is not how you should do it. I want to just give an example, a recent historical example, which Americans should perhaps be aware of. during the Vietnam War, the Soviets were arming the North Vietnamese. And as we all know,

the United States ran into all kinds of military problems in Vietnam. Did the Soviets insult the United States? Did they call the president of the United States at that time, Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon? Did they call them crazy? Did they actually use the word paper tiger to describe Mao did, but the Soviets never did. On the contrary, the Soviets at that time were seeking proper rapprochement with the United States. There were extraordinarily polite and friendly meetings between the Soviets and the Americans, between Lyndon Johnson and Kasekeen in Glaspera, between Nixon and Brezhnev on many occasions, because the Soviet, whatever there many faults, now I'm not yet to defend them, did understand diplomacy.

And that is how diplomacy is done. You do not insult or ridicule your adversary, especially not when they're a nuclear superpower, which you must work with and must work with successfully in the future, in the interests of your own country and for world peace, about all of the things that you've been saying, about why just Donald Trump, waste his time, with losers like Stama, who is now the most unpopular prime minister, I think, ever in British history and who is, I mean, I've been reading more information this morning in the newspapers about how the plots against him are thickening. I mean, he's going to be out fairly soon. Macron. Well, I mean, we don't need to discuss Macron. We've done it many

times. Merths. We don't need to discuss myths either. We've done it many times. I mean, why he's wasting time with these pointless, worthless people, I am absolutely unable to understand why he takes their calls, why he agrees to visit their countries on state visits, why he spends time with them, why he invites them the way that he does to the Oval Office. I just really just do not understand. He's got real friends in Europe who are looking to him to lead. And he's not doing it. He doesn't do it. He doesn't do it. I mean, he's now telling Victor Orban, stop buying Russian oil. And Victor Orban is one of the few people in Europe who actually is his friend. The other guys campaigned against him, all the other people that you named, openly, openly

campaigned against him. And they were siding with, come on. Victor Orban, he openly campaigned for Trump to his detriment because they got upset with Orban in Europe because he was openly campaigning for Trump. I mean, he went on on a limb to supports Trump. And what does Trump do? He tells the media that he's good friends with Urban and he's going to call him and tell him to stop buying Russian oil, which would effectively sick his economy and would effectively lead to his losing the election in 2027, no doubt, or 2026, no doubt about it. So he's basically telling Orban to destroy himself. To destroy himself. Thank you very much, Roban, for going on a limb and supporting me, now destroy yourself, because I have to please Ursula? Exactly. Well, that's the point. That is exactly the point.

So to please Ursula and Kyakales, who on the contrary, don't like you, who tried and supported your opponent? I mean, it's, I mean, it's, I mean, it's, as I said, it is so weak and so lacking in courage. I mean, the last man who, in my opinion, had the potential and would have been a great president of the United States. JFK wrote a book, Profiles of Courage. He understood all about courage about what a French prime minister, Pierre Mondes-France, one said, to govern is to choose. These are the things that Donald Trump needs to learn. I doubt now that he ever will. I'm afraid we're going to have another three years of this mess.

One moment is one thing. The next moment is another thing. I mean, Nixon. Nixon could go to China, for example. I mean, had the courage and the will to do that. You might have been a deplorable man in all kinds of things. Trump doesn't even seem to. have that. Yeah. Get on a plane and go to Moscow. That's what Trump needs to do. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Get on a plane, go to Moscow and send the message that this is over. Exactly. That's what he needs to do. He will never do it. He will never ever do it. My final question on this topic is, as you said, this is going to go on for the next three years. They're all trying to buy time. Are they not? The Europeans are trying to buy time to wait out Trump. So they want to keep

the war going in order for Trump's term to end, right? So they're trying to buy time and kissing up to him and trying to keep the money flowing. Trump is trying to buy time so that the defeat of Ukraine is not blamed on him and you have this big blame game and the weapons are going to continue to go to Ukraine while he's going to tell the American people this is not his war and he's not involved in this war. And if NATO and the EU want to fight Russia, go ahead. Good luck to both few countries, as they put in its true social post. The interesting part is that Russia is buying time or no, or not? Because Russia is giving the European Union and Trump the time. True or not true? Well, a lot of people in Russia are going to be saying this. They're going to

be saying, why are we wasting our time with all of this? Why are our diplomats using our valuable time, negotiating with an administration, which says one thing one day, the next thing the other day, insults us one day, pretends that it's going to move forward and negotiate with us another day. And of course, what we're doing by being so accommodating is we are giving ultimately encouragement to those hardliners in Europe who are saying, look, the Russians are really weak. They are, you know, not really strong. They are constantly delaying. They're constantly negotiating. What we need to do is to exercise strength, take a strong stand, support Ukraine, send our troops into Ukraine, shoot down their fighter jets. And if they do that, then we will win. I mean, that argument in Moscow,

absolutely exists. It is getting stronger every day. We've discussed this on programs. You're starting to see it spread into the official media. I'm not talking about the unofficial informal media in Russia. I'm not talking about newspapers like Radovka or even more strong ones, which take an even harder line, adds on the telegram channels. I'm talking, you're starting to see it on official media. as well, people coming out and basically, quietly saying, why are we wasting our time? Why are we giving these people this opportunity to come after us with sanctions and with all of those things? And Putin himself is going to find it more and more difficult.

I felt very strongly after the Anchorage meeting that when he came back to Moscow, there was this, he gave an account of the Anchorage meeting to the Russian leadership. And I watched the film and there was this row upon row of stony faces listening to what he was saying. And you could sense that basically he was. was having to argue with them because of course we were only shown a few clips, but that they were not really convinced by any of it. So he is increasingly out on a limb and eventually, given that Putin never likes to be in that kind of position, his position will change.

Yeah, it's just to end the video, it goes back. to what you said, it makes it impossible for Putin to have dialogue with Trump or anyone in his administration to have dialogue with the United States. I mean, they're meeting. Rubio met with Lavrov at the UN for about an hour. But it just, the more this goes on, the more Trump bashes Russia, for whatever reasons, he wants to bash Russia, but the more he does it so publicly and so openly and so viciously and so childishly, it's just childish this stuff that he says it. He's outright lying about it as well. But the more he does this, the Russian people see this. They read these messages. This is reported on in their media. It makes it impossible for Putin to come out

in a speech and say, you know, we're discussing things with the United States and with Trump, because I feel he's a man of rationality and respect and he's a strong leader. How can Putin come out in a statement now and say, which he has said in the past, that Trump is a strong leader and he has respect for him. How can Putin say that? You end up looking bad. You end up looking bad when you say that because then someone can come to you, President Putin, and say, wait a minute, you're calling this guy a strong leader, or you say that you, you say that you have respect for the president of the United States, and here's his true social post where he just bashes you guys. How can you do this? Well, exactly. And it's not as if the Russians don't have options.

One of the big unreported stories this month is that China has basically said to itself, we're not going to worry about Western sanctions anymore. So they're now accepting mere cards. They've given Russians visa-free access to China. They're letting Russian companies float bonds in Chinese financial markets. They've revived the aerospace projects. They're going to buy Russian aircraft engines. They're buying natural gas, liquefired natural gas from a heavily sanctioned Russian LNG facility.

They are sending their ships, their merchant ships to Crimea. They are doing one thing after another. They are moving forward on all of these things. And the Russians, the people in Russia, the people in the economics ministries, in the businesses, they're going to say, look, why are we there for? wasting our time with the United States. You see what their president says about us. You see that he cannot follow a consistent line. And just to repeat, this is a highly educated, very sophisticated society. People absolutely do follow and listen to what the president of the United States

says about their country. It is completely wrong to think that they do not. They say, look, Why should we constantly seek the breadcrumbs from America's table when the Chinese are inviting us every day to a feast? All right, we will end the video on that notes. The duran.com. We are on Rumble odyssey, Bitchut, Telegram and Rockfin, as well as X, and go to our locals page, the duran.com. The link is in the description box down below. pick up some merch as well. Take care.