President Trump has effectively surrendered to Putin before the negotiations have even begun. the positions that, Defense Secretary Haig announced in Brussels constitute the terms of a settlement that could have been written in the Kremlin. It's a complete reversal of the U.S. and NATO position on a number of issues. For example, up until today the official American position was that Ukraine should be returned to full sovereignty and territorial integrity. That's gone. The question of NATO membership as far back as 2008 had been that ultimately Ukraine would become a NATO member. That doesn't look like that's around anymore either.
Putin has scored a whole series of victories today. It's hard to encompass them all, but in addition to these substantive concessions is exactly what he wants: Putin doesn't want to negotiate with Zelensky. He wants to negotiate with Trump because he thinks he'll get more out of it. And he's absolutely right.
If you're going into a negotiation, you don't announce what's acceptable to you before it begins and give away positions.
And there are broader significances than just in Ukraine. This is a palpable harm to American national security, because what Hegseth and Trump did today was not only blow up the NATO position on Ukraine, it means that not only is unprovoked aggression by Russia against Ukraine now Okay, but every other former Republic of the Soviet Union is now vulnerable to the same thing without any indication that the U.S. will do anything about it.
The people who are paying the closest attention to this outside of, in Ukraine are in Beijing, where they see the United States unwilling to act against unprovoked aggression in the center of Europe. What are they thinking now about Taiwan?
Putin couldn't be happier. They're drinking vodka straight out of the bottle in the Kremlin tonight. It was a great day for Moscow.
Tulsi Gabbard's role as director of national intelligence going to be extremely harmful to our national security. Many allies are now going to think twice before they share, intelligence with us. it will impair our ability to gain confidence around the world.