Latest / THE DAILY BRIEF / Putin could turn to NUCLEAR option amid rising NATO tensions, expert warns

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Putin could turn to NUCLEAR option amid rising NATO tensions, expert warns · THE DAILY BRIEF

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: President Trump brushing off concerns that Russia would attack any
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: NATO countries after CIA Director John Ratcliffe made a covert
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: trip to Moscow on Tuesday. President Trump calling that trip
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: standard business. For more, let's bring in retired Lieutenant General
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Keith Kellogg, former envoy, special envoy for Ukraine, who now
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: co-chairs the Center for American Security at the America First
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Policy Institute. General, always great to see you, sir. We
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: were talking in the break about the interview I just
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: did with Senator Kennedy, and you were just in Ukraine,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: and have some thoughts about the timing for a sanctions bill.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, Look at this world as a giant Venn
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: diagram with the United States right in the center. The
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: president's got Iran going on right now, doing quite well. Militarily,
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: we've gone away from military operations to economics. Look, the real,
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: it takes 2 million reals to buy one U.S. dollar.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Their inflation is 90 percent. So he's got the right
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: idea about the economic piece. The other part is the
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: defense industrial base. And now with Secretary of War Hegseth,
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: And Feinberg ramping that up with the arsenal of democracy,
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: that's important. The Tomahawk missiles, he's building that up. Those
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: are exquisite weapon systems that we're building up. We're low
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: on them. We're going to build up more as they
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: develop more from $ 60 to $ 1, 000 over a year. They've
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: got a $ 29 billion contract to do that over seven years.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: The Defense Appropriations Act needs to do that. The same
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: with the Patriot missile. We need to ramp that up
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: from $ 600 to $ 1, 000 as well. When it comes to Russia,
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: that's the third part of the Venn diagram. That's really
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: kind of interesting right now. Putin keeps thinking he's winning
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: the war. He's not. I mean, he's irrational about it.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: I mean, his definition of winning is not the same
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: as mine. When you look at, he hasn't gotten into Kiev.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: He hasn't gotten to Kharkiv, the second largest city. He
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: hasn't crossed the Dnieper River. His casualties are between 1.2
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: and 1.4 million, which is unheard of, dead and wounded.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: And he's just stubborn about it. The Ukrainians are not
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: going to give up land. I was there last week,
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: and I talked to President Zelensky. They're not Basically, he's
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: telling the Russians, you're going to fight for it. And
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  Speaker 2: they're going to fight. They're doing exceptionally well. He's launched
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: a terror campaign. I mean, he's hitting the cities. Why
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: is he hitting the cities? He's not hitting military targets, really.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: But every night he goes after them with drones or missiles.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: One night we were there. We spent a night in
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: the bunker because the ballistic missiles were coming in. But
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: he's just going to say, what are you doing? He's
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: irrational about it. You want to develop rational actors as
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: you go along. We don't have them in Iran. We
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: sure don't have them in Russia as well. And I
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: think by John, hopefully, I don't know, because it wasn't
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: part of the meetings. But I hope, you know, Ratcliffe
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: went there, John Ratcliffe, and he's really good. He talked
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: those things. He talked about Iran. He talked about Russia
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: supporting Iran as well. He talked about the economic issues.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: He's really got a losing game going. And Senator Kennedy
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: brought that up really well.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: So do you believe that the president sent Ratcliffe to
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Moscow because he does believe that Putin's planning an escalation?
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Because there was a lot of reporting to that, to
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: suggest that. You know, how serious does the intelligence need
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: to be to deploy Ratcliffe.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Or something like that? Well, I think he's got, we
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: have exquisite intelligence. And I think there's always a fear
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: of doing something. If he does that, he's just dumb.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's no reason, he doesn't have the combat
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: power to do that. To start with, I mean, he'd
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: be crushed right away. And I think the big worry is,
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: is he going to go, you know, there's a, Always
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: a threat in Ukraine is he's going to do a
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: limited nuclear strike, meaning what we call a demonstration, where
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: you take something, small-yield nuclear weapon, and you put it
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: in the middle of nowhere and say, I've crossed that threshold.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: I think the Chinese would completely cut him off if
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: he doesn't. But I think that fear is always there.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: And I think the fear needs to be addressed. He
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: needs to be told, you're already irrational. Don't go really
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: irrational on us. And I think Radcliffe kind of said
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: that message, which I hope he did.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Putin usually does this when, you know, he's sort of
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: backed against a wall, does something crazy in order to
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: suggest that, you know, whenever the U.S. is going to
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: give a different kind of weapon or the Brits are
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: going to, you know, give a storm shadow, you know,
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: launches this rhetoric suggesting that they're escalating the war and
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: there's going to be a consequence. And that's always just
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: a signal that Putin's back is against a wall. But
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: there is also this warning from the prime minister of
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Poland after he met with the secretary general of NATO.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: basically saying he has shared the assessment of the situation
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: in the Ukrainian-Russian front, escalation from Russia is progressing, can't
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: rule out provocations from Russia against one of NATO's members.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: The president said this week he doesn't think that Putin's
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: going to do anything. Does that mean he's not going
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: to do anything he was planning to do? He's not
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: going to do anything crazy? Can you tell us what
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: the president thinks? is actually thinking.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: Well, we have a rational actor with the president. The
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: difficulty right now, he's dealing with two irrational actors, one
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: in Iran right now with the Supreme Leader, who you
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: don't even see him in public. He sends things out
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: through written notices. And you've got Putin, who you look
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: at him and you go, you've got to understand that
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: you could do a ceasefire in place today. You are
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: not winning this war. Ukraine is not going to quit.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: They're not going to give you up land voluntarily. And
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  Speaker 2: so that's what I mean about two irrational actors. And
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: you hope you're going to get a rational actor. And
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: when you go to Europe, there are concerns about they're
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: dealing with an irrational actor right now. And, in fact,
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: he's not winning the war at all. So I think
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: that fear is there. It's very palpable. You could feel it.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: When I was in Ukraine, you know, you had the
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: British prime minister was there. You had the president of
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: Finland was there. And I had a chance to talk
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: to both of them as well. And so the fear
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: is there. They understand it's in their backyard. Here's the
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: problem I've got, Jackie, is they've lived for years off
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: our back. by supporting social programs off our defense back.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: Now they've got to come in on the line about
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: developing their defense programs. The problem is they're two and
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: three years behind. And that's a major problem. You cannot
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: build something right away and develop it. They are doing it.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: It's going to take time to do it. But they've
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: relied on us to do it before. And Ukraine admits
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: that they've relied on the United States to provide Patriot
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: missiles and support as well. They understand that. But it's
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: a really, it's an unusual situation when you're dealing with
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: these actors like Putin and the Supreme Leader of Iran.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: And don't envy that job.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: I don't either.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: General Keith Kellogg, great talking to you, sir. Thank you
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: so much. Appreciate it. Be sure to like and subscribe
• 6:29
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• 6:32
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