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Jeffrey Price: Former US Defence Department official on the fallout of Trump-Zelenskyy meeting · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: We all got to see it, the huge spectacle of
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: the weekend between US President Donald Trump, Vice President Jed E.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Vance and Ukraine's President Valodimyr Zelensky. I'll take you back there.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: You're gambling with World War three. You're gambling with World
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: War three, and what you're doing is very disrespectful to
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: the country. This country that's back you far more than
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: a lot of people said they should have. Have you
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: said thank you once.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: In this entire media said h.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, it was fire. He wasn't it. And President
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Trump told Zelensky to make a deal with Russia or
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: the US will be out. European leaders are our meeting
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: in London for a summer to discuss an outcome for
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: all of this. They're prepared to give security guarantees. Former
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: US Defense Department official Jeffrey Price joins me now from America.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: Hello Jeffrey, Good morning and morning everybody who's up so
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: early in New Zealand.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: How's America reacting to what happened? You know, are they
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: are they happy with their president or not? Or is
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: it split a next Like the rest of the.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: World, there is a bit of a split. Many Republicans
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: are at least publicly defending what the President and Vice
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: President Advance did. But a great many Americans are frankly embarrassed.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: It was a disaster, no matter how you look at it.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: And this is the kind of diplomacy that should not
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: be taking place on television exactly. And so I don't
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: think anybody comes out ahead except for the Russians.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about what actually happened to that, because
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: that's the other thing. The analysis of it has got
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: all weird too. So at the basic point of it,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: President Donald Trump will not agree to a cease fire
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: plan if it includes a security guarantee, and Zelenski demands
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: a security guarantee. So if Trump won't include a security guarantee,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: does that mean America is out now of both the
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: war and the peace.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: I don't think so. This is so important for the
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: security of Europe, for the security of the world, that
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: we have to come to some resolution here. And the
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: problem is that we're We've got the Americans, we've got
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: the Europeans, we've got the Ukrainians and the Russians. So
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: it's a complicated negotiation. The last time we had something
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: that's similar to me was the war in Bosnia in
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  Speaker 2: the nineties when you had different players as well. So
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: Zelenski is going to want to see that any ceasefire
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: does not just allow repeated aggression. There needs to be
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: some deterrence of future Russian aggression in any ceasefire that
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: is likely going to involve Europeans. And the question that's
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: being discussed during the Americans and Europeans and the Ukrainians
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: is is what role the United States might have, say
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: backstopping what will be at the front a European presence
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: that's also being worked out right.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: So security guarantees guaranteed by Europe, but if a goal
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: got a bit po shaped and Putin still took them on,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: that America might come back in.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: So America plays a crucial role even when we're not
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: at the front of a conflict, in logistics and command
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: and control, in intelligence, surveillance. So anytime you have a
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: serious conventional force right now, NATO was organized to have
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: America at the core. When we had the war in Bosnia.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: It started out with a European force under UN command
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: that did not work. It was replaced by a NATO
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: lead force with a one third American component that did work.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: So I think that's what people might be thinking about.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: President Trump is me career. He doesn't want the United
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: States to be in a front role. But to me,
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: any force that's going to be credible and effective is
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: either going to have to be a NATO force or
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: something like a NATO force, even if it's a European
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: pillar in NATO, and.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: The Europeans are starting to talk about a European force
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: to run in conjunction within a NATO. NATO seems to
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: be completely deempowered. It's a very interesting time, and Jeffrey Price,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: I thank you so much for your thoughts.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live
• 4:10
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• 4:13
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