What A Day - 1,000 Days of War In Ukraine

Episode Date: November 20, 2024

Tuesday marked 1,000 days since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine, plunging the European continent into its largest and deadliest conflict since World War II. The milestone was marked by yet another major escalation of violence, when Ukraine launched U.S.-made long-range missiles into Russia for the first time. Russian President Vladimir Putin responded by issuing a new nuclear doctrine to lower the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons. It all comes at a tense time for Europe, as leaders prepare for the return of President-elect Donald Trump, who campaigned on a promise to wind down U.S. support for Ukraine. McKay Coppins, senior staff writer at The Atlantic, explains how Europe is preparing for Trump’s return to the White House.And in headlines: South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace introduced a resolution to ban transgender women from female bathrooms in the Capitol, Trump picked Dr. Oz to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the White House says this year’s Christmas tree will come from North Carolina.Show Notes:Check out McKay's piece – https://tinyurl.com/2u862wvfSupport relief efforts for Hurricanes Helene and Milton – https://tinyurl.com/bdfc8j38Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/3kk4nyz8What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcastFollow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday

It's Wednesday, November 20th. I'm Jane Coaston and this is Waterday, the show where we're feeling a little sick thinking about two federal health agencies run by R.F.K. Jr. and Dr. Oz. Which department will Dr. Phil get? Is our government secretly being run by Oprah? Is Judge Judy about to get a life-changing call? On today's show, a South Carolina congresswoman introduces a resolution targeting a freshman

member. And Trump is truthing marching orders to Senate Republicans. Let's get into it. Tuesday marked 1,000 days since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine. The start of the war plunged the European continent into its largest and deadliest conflict since World War II. And since then, hundreds of thousands of people have died, and more than 6 million Ukrainians are living as refugees abroad.

The thousand-day milestone was marked by another major escalation of violence. On Tuesday, Ukraine launched US-made long-range missiles known as Atacams into Russia for the first time. That's after President Joe Biden gave Ukraine the green light to use the missiles earlier this week, a major policy reversal just as he prepares to leave office. In response to Ukraine's attack, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a new nuclear doctrine, lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons, which is very, very bad.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky didn't confirm or deny shooting the attack on Stipend to Russia, but during a video speech at the European Parliament Tuesday, he urged European leaders to keep up the fight against Russia. While some European leaders think about, you know, some elections or something like this as Ukraine expands, Putin is focused on winning this war. He will not stop on his own. The more time he has, the worse the conditions become. And unlike those European leaders, Putin doesn't have to worry about elections.

To be clear, our European allies are scared about what President-elect Donald Trump's win means for the future of the war in Ukraine, broader Russian aggression, and NATO's existence. McKay Coppens is a senior staff writer at The Atlantic. We had him on the show back in June for a big piece he wrote about how Europe was worried about the potential for a second Trump presidency. We invited him back to talk about how our allies abroad are now preparing for Trump's return to the White House.

McKay, welcome back to What A Day. Thanks for having me, Jane. So it happened, Trump won re-election. What's been the reaction from European leaders and diplomats, both publicly and privately? You know, it's interesting. The reaction is different whether they're on the record or off the record.

I spoke to one European official shortly after Trump won and asked him, you know, what do you make of this? And his initial answer was, answer was, on the record, we're totally calm. We look forward to fostering transatlantic cooperation with our new partners at Washington, da da da da da, all the kind of diplomatic speak. And then he said, can I talk on background? And I said, sure. And he said, obviously a million things could go wrong. And I think that kind of captures the general mood in Europe. I mean, I was reporting there earlier this year. I talked to a lot of elected leaders, NATO officials, diplomats, and all of them at the time were obsessively following the presidential election.

And all of them basically said the stakes for Europe are existential. So, you know, it's no surprise that there's a certain amount of dread from European leaders, but at the same time, they realize that there's nothing they can really do about it at this point other than try to cozy up to him and his allies, try to flatter him, and hopefully get him on their side. Yeah, we had you on to talk about that earlier piece. So how are European leaders planning to deal with this? What's the short-term approach to trying to mitigate the potential damage?

In the short term, the discussions have revolved a lot around how do we flatter Trump, right? Like they recognize this guy as a man who is very susceptible to flattery, to obsequiousness. One idea that's being circulated among European officials is to plan a big state visit in some European capital in France or Italy, Spain, have him come, roll out the red carpet, really try to make him feel loved. And their thought is that between that and working various back channels to people like Marco Rubio, who most of the people I spoke to were pretty relieved to see as the choice for a state department.

They think between those two things, maybe they can convince him to continue to fund the war in Ukraine, to continue to support allies in NATO. But they also recognize that they're facing political headwinds domestically because people in Europe, the average voter in Europe hates Donald Trump, right? They think he's kind of like a caricature of America, that he represents all the worst things about America. And you know, Wolfgang Ischinger, who's a veteran German diplomat, said to me, you know, I would be worried about planning one of these big state visits in a European capital because there could be really big, ugly, potentially violent anti-Trump protests. And if Trump sees that, it could end up backfiring. But Europe's been dealing with its own explosion

of right-wing populism, or whatever it is Trumpism is. What does Trump's win mean for those movements in countries like France and Italy and the United Kingdom, where we keep seeing people who keep sounding like Trump? I think even like in the Netherlands, for example. Well, that's the interesting thing. Most people in Europe don't see Trump as this like black swan event.

Like a lot of Americans kind of treated him that it was this total fluke and accident of history that he won. In 2020, he lost and that kind of set things back to normal. In Europe, the brand of politics that he represents, this kind of right-wing populism merged with nationalism, merged with kind of anti-immigrant attitudes, xenophobia, that stuff has been upending European politics most of this century, right? It's how you got Brexit in the UK. It's how you got Marine Le Pen as a major figure in

France. I spoke to one political scientist in Italy who's been an advisor to the EU, and she said that Trump's win is going to be galvanizing to these far-right movements and parties. These people are going to see Trump getting reelected as a huge bump in momentum to their cause. As this one source put it, she said, you know, how can you say that when you see someone like Trump win in the heart of liberal democracy, America, how can you then turn and make the argument and say, oh, but we can't do it in Europe? With Trump running the government for the next four years, at least, what are the immediate threats our European allies see coming

down the pipeline? The very first thing everybody's gonna be watching is what he does in Ukraine, right? Trump has said that he could end the war in Ukraine on day one. Of course he could, of course he could. Well, you know, I spoke to somebody in Ukraine actually, and she kind of said, it's possible that what he means by that is he makes some major territorial concession to Russia

and basically tells Ukraine and NATO, we're going to cut off all funding and support for the war unless you take this deal, right? So it's possible and what a lot of Europeans fear is that ending the war means basically letting Vladimir Putin win. In the medium term, there are questions about NATO, right? It's funny, I feel like sometimes when I talk about NATO on shows like this or just in general, people's eyes kind of glaze over because it is kind of this like wonky, alphabet soup thing, but it really does matter.

It's the most powerful military alliance in history. Not here, not on this program. This is a NATO respecter. And look, it matters a lot. This alliance has basically maintained peace on the European continent for 70 years at this point. The war in Ukraine has tested NATO because the fear is that if Vladimir Putin comes away from that experience feeling like he won, like it was worth it, the next front is going to be to challenge NATO. Putin has made it very clear that he doesn't want that alliance to exist anymore. And if he sees a weakening of American

will on this front, whether from Trump or from somebody else, he's probably going to try to exploit it. And the question is, does Donald Trump stay committed to this alliance? Does he keep America committed to it? Or does he throw up his hands and say, I'm not gonna risk American blood and treasure for some village in Estonia that I've never heard of? What does NATO look like without the United States?

Well, you know, it's significantly weakened. Like the United States not only provides the entire so-called nuclear umbrella under which Europe exists, basically America's nuclear arsenal is what deters Russia from ever using its nuclear arsenal in Europe. It also provides an enormous amount of funding, intelligence gathering capabilities, ballistic missile capabilities. 85,000 US troops are currently stationed in Europe, which is more than many European countries combined. All of which is

to say, you take America away from NATO, the alliance basically collapses. Now that's not to say that there wouldn't be some different European alliance that comes into existence after that, but it would be much weaker and it would be much harder for Europe to deter Russian aggression without America as its partner. I have to ask about President Biden, why do you think he is potentially escalating the war in Ukraine on his way out the door? Do you think he would be as aggressive if this was a Harris administration coming in? It's a good question, and I don't know. I wonder if he basically sees a very short window before Trump takes office and, you know, potentially just withdraws US support for the war in Ukraine. So he wants to give Ukraine

whatever advantages they have right now while he can. You could also look at it as a kind of a negotiating tactic. If Trump is determined to come in, deal with Putin, and make some kind of concessions, if the long use of American long range missiles, for example, is on the table, Trump could offer to pull those back instead of making some other concession to Putin that he doesn't want to. At this point, it's hard to say exactly what the strategic thinking is other than the fact

that Biden wants Ukraine to win this war. And so he's trying to use his last months in office to make that happen. We had you on a few months ago to talk about European fears of a second Trump presidency. And at the time, we asked you who Europeans blamed for what they saw as the inevitability of a second Trump presidency. And you said it was kind of a mixed bag. Has that changed now, now that it's actually happened? Hmm. Well, you know, at the time, everybody I talked to in Europe was certain that Trump was going

to win. And at the time, Joe Biden was the nominee, and they all couldn't wrap their heads around why he was the nominee. Talking to Europeans now, the thing that they will say, they'll kind of grumble about on background is that if Biden had just done the obvious thing that he needed to do two years ago, announced that he wasn't running and opened up the Democratic Party to field the best candidate, that there might have been a different result. I did speak to one person in Ukraine who said, what happens in this country is going to be the responsibility of Joe Biden in the end. So she was pretty mad at Biden. And I think that that

sentiment is pretty widely shared at this point in Europe. Mackay, thank you so much. You are always welcome to talk about NATO with me. Thanks for having me. That was my conversation with Mackay Coppins, senior staff writer at The Atlantic. We'll link to his piece about how Europe is preparing for a second Trump presidency in our show notes. We'll get to more of the news in a moment, but if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends.

More to come after some ads. And now the news. Headlines. Is this effort in response to Congresswoman McBride coming to Congress? Yes, and absolutely, and then some. South Carolina Representative Nancy Mace introduced a resolution to ban transgender women from female bathrooms in the U.S. Capitol on Monday. Why? Because two weeks ago, Delaware Democrat Sarah McBride became the first

openly transgender person elected to U.S. Congress. Mace was elected in 2020 and is the first woman to represent South Carolina in Congress. She worked on Trump's 2016 campaign, but distanced herself from Trump after the January 6th insurrection. She was viewed by some as a less-maga politician, supporting both the Respect for Marriage Act and talking about her opposition to abortion bans with no exceptions. But her district has moved to the right since 2020, and apparently so has she.

Here she is speaking with another reporter, doubling down on her stance. With your piece of legislation about banning women from using— 100%, yes. My question to you is— It doesn't go far enough. I'll be filing more bills. You have said that it was created in response to Congresswoman-elect McBride. Absolutely 100%.

But should legislation be created targeted at one specific person? It doesn't mention anyone in the legislation, but I am not going— But you've said it was aimed at her. No, I have said it's a result of this. Sarah McBride responded to the resolution with a statement, quote, This is a blatant attempt from far right-wing extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing.

I also have a statement for Nancy Mays. Go to hell. Donald Trump continues to roll out TV personality nominations for his administration. And this one you may recognize. Dr. Mehmet Oz was named Tuesday to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Yes, that Dr. Oz. The daytime talk show host, failed Pennsylvania Senate candidate, purveyor of COVID misinformation, lover of raspberry ketones available for the low,

low price of $21.68, and just a general quack. And the one who said this to Sean Hannity last week about Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who would be Dr. Oz's boss if they're both confirmed. I think President Trump is wise in the recommendation of R.K. Jr. I know him personally, I have for a while. I understand exactly what he's getting at.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services operates in overseas programs that provide health care coverage to almost half of Americans, including Obamacare. Trump said in a statement, quote, There may be no physician more qualified and capable than Dr. Oz to make America healthy again. Which isn't true, because I'm pretty sure Dr. Seuss would be more qualified and capable. On Tuesday, Trump laid out the blueprint for Senate Republicans to block President Biden's judicial picks during the last few weeks of his presidency in a post on Truth Social. He wrote, quote, The Democrats are trying to stack the courts with radical left judges on their way out the door. Republican senators need to show up and hold the line. No more judges confirmed before Inauguration Day.

First of all, I wish they were stacking the courts. Biden has nominated 261 federal judges according to a November 8th White House press release. 216 of those have been confirmed by the Senate, and there are 45 vacancies still open. Less than half as many as when Trump was inaugurated in 2017. Luckily, since the Democrats control the Senate for at least a few more weeks, the Republicans shouldn't be able to block the nominees entirely and can only slow them down, barring absences from Democratic senators. So don't get sick, Democratic senators.

Stay well. The White House has selected this year's Christmas tree from North Carolina. The tree comes from a farm in Avery County, which was devastated by Hurricane Helene in September. The Kartner family has owned their family Christmas tree farm for decades and were chosen as the source for the White House's tree last year. Sam Kartner Jr., one of the owners of the farm, spoke to the Associated Press about what his parents would think of the honor. Here in the western North Carolina where we've experienced these this horrific hurricane and flood,

they would want this tree to represent the faith and hope and love and joy and family and generosity. During the storm, the Karteners lost at least 5,000 trees to a mudslide, while another Christmas tree farm nearby lost 60,000. Some farmers in the region will have to bulldoze their land and start from scratch. North Carolina was one of the hardest hit regions, and Asheville just got drinkable tap water back after 53 days. If you want to support the relief efforts in North Carolina, we'll link you in our show notes. And that's the news.

One more thing. As you might know, Donald Trump has spent a lot of the last few years in court. There are four criminal probes of the former and future president, and all four are still pending. In May of this year, Trump was convicted on charges relating to hush money payments made to an adult film actress. He was indicted in 2023 on federal charges based on his efforts to interfere in the 2020 election.

Remember the whole riot thing? Also in 2023, he was indicted in Georgia for his efforts to find more than 11,000 votes in an attempt to steal the election. And then there's the classified documents case, where Trump was charged in 2023 by special counsel Jack Smith for having more than 100 classified documents at his home, Mar-a-Lago. But the Supreme Court ruled in July that Trump could only be prosecuted for non-official acts, throwing all of the federal cases against him into total chaos.

And on Tuesday, the prosecutors in his hush money case asked for a delay in the proceedings, given that, while Trump has been convicted, he's also won the 2024 presidential election, and well, no one exactly knows what that means for a sentencing, which was scheduled for November 26. I will not lie to you. While I have seen pretty much every episode of Law and Order released before 2008,

I did not actually go to law school. So I called up our good friend, Norm Eisen. He served as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee Majority during the impeachment proceedings against Trump in 2019 and 2020. Norm, welcome back to What A Day. Thank you, Jane. Glad to be back with you. So, New York prosecutors told the judge in Trump's hush money case that the sentencing should be postponed while they file the paperwork to get the case dismissed.

What exactly does that mean? The decision of New York prosecutors, Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg, was kind of a glass half full or half empty, depending how you look at it. What Trump wanted was the whole case to be stayed. He wants to try to get the thing thrown out because he claims he's immune under Supreme Court decision, Trump v. US. The DA said, it's okay to postpone the sentencing. We can wait on sentencing, but the DA wants to brief this question, is Trump immune or not?

He set a schedule where the briefing will move at a pretty brisk pace by December. I would have liked to have seen the DA say, let's surge ahead with sentencing, but at least the DA didn't give up. Is there any chance that this goes anywhere now that Trump is going to be president again? What's next? A jury of regular Americans, Trump's peers, found him guilty. 34 counts of election interference in 2016 by paying this hush money,

and then of covering it up by falsifying his business records. Let's not throw that out. That's very important. So I think we need to hang on to that verdict. We're now going to have some litigation about whether immunity applies, and that's going to go up on appeal. I think the Supreme Court is ultimately, if they apply the test that they announced in Trump v. US in their own case, they're going to have to say, wait a minute, only official conduct is immune. How can this be official conduct? The guy did this before he was president,

paying this hush money, interfering with the election, deceiving voters. That is an advantage of what Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan DA, did today. He's not throwing in the towel. Unlike some of the other prosecutions, he wants to continue to proceed with the briefing. And there's been an update in the election interference case against President-elect in Georgia. A federal appeals court canceled oral arguments in the case. What does that mean for the future of that case?

In the Georgia case, that's the Georgia state case where there was supposed to be an argument in the Georgia appellate courts about whether or not the DA had a conflict there because the DA had a relationship, and the judge held no conflict. But it's up on appeal. The argument has been canceled. That's a worse situation than in New York.

It's probably a sign that that court is dubious about whether the Georgia case can proceed against Trump. But remember, in Georgia, separately in a case where Trump is not a defendant, in Arizona and in other courts around the country, the alleged co-conspirators have been charged. False electors have been charged all over the country. So those other conspirators, the cases should continue to move. Last time Trump was president, it felt like there were these constant legal threats that had people all excited and convinced

that he was like one step away from going to jail as part of some hail Mary to remove him from the presidency. But obviously that didn't happen. Is this all the same thing? Are we getting excited over nothing? What's happening here? This has been a tough year for legal accountability, Jane. That doesn't mean that Trump will never be held accountable.

It doesn't mean we should stop pressing. I was there in court throughout the trial, and seeing him being held accountable by those jurors is still an important moment in the annals of 2024 and in American history. We have to protect that verdict and that is what Alvin Bragg is moving to do. So even if he's not pushing for the sentencing, given that Trump likely would not be able to serve a criminal sentence while in the White House. The best thing to do is protect that verdict, and that's what Bragg is doing.

The Trump administration was litigious. There was a tremendous amount of litigation and he lost a lot of that litigation. The courts are going to hold accountable in that fashion if he breaks the rules once again. Norm, thank you so much for your time and thanks for coming back on. Have me any time. That was my conversation with Norm Eisen, former special counsel for the House Judiciary Committee. Before we go, if you're new around here, make sure to check out Crooked's foreign policy show, Pod Save the World.

Hosts Tommy Vitor and Ben Rhodes covered the implications on Trump's national security picks, the recent news on Russia and Ukraine, and international summits like the G20 on their latest episode. Plus, Bernie Sanders drops by to talk about his effort in Congress to ban offensive weapons sales to Israel. New episodes of Pod Save the World drop every Wednesday. Tune in wherever you get your podcasts. That's all for today.

If you liked the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, buy Cher's new memoir because man what a life that must have been, and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just about Donald Trump assembling a worst hits of daytime television for his cabinet, like me, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Jane Coaston and you know what you did Oprah. What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producer is Raven Yamamoto. Our producer is Michelle Eloy.

We have production help today from Tyler Hill, Johanna Case, Joseph Dutra, Greg Walters, and Julia Clare. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our executive producer is Adrian Hill. Our theme music is by Colin Gileard and Kashaka. ["Sweet Home Alone"]