MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
For a closer look at how the U.S. and the Kremlin may be negotiating, we're going to turn to a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul. He served in the Obama administration from 2012 to 2014. He's now a professor of political science and a Hoover senior fellow at Stanford University, and he's with us now. Good morning, Ambassador. Thanks for joining us once again.
MICHAEL MCFAUL: Thanks for having me.
MARTIN: So I'd like to start with a Bloomberg report about a phone call between Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, and a Kremlin official last month. The report says Witkoff was giving advice about how Vladimir Putin should talk to Trump in order to curry favor. Now, NPR hasn't confirmed the details of that call, but the president was asked about it last night on Air Force One.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I haven't heard it, but I heard it was standard negotiations. And I would imagine he's saying the same thing to Ukraine 'cause each party has to give and take.
MARTIN: Is that a standard negotiation or tactic for a White House official to advise a foreign government about how to talk to the president?
MCFAUL: No, it's not standard. I worked at the White House for President Obama for three years and then two in Moscow. I talked to the very same Yuri Ushakov that's on this call. I met with him and talked to him many, many times. I never gave him advice for how to talk to President Obama, and I can't recall anytime in the Obama administration or studying history when this has happened before.
MARTIN: Why not? I mean, that might seem to be a thing that envoys might do, to say, look, this is what would be persuasive in this situation.
MCFAUL: Members of the government are supposed to advise their own president for how to deal with interlocutors, not the other way around. But, number two, let's be precise about what he was advising him to do. He was advising President Putin to call the night before President Zelenskyy arrived in Washington to disrupt the negotiations between President Zelenskyy and President Trump. And that's exactly what happened.
They thought they were going to get new missiles, tomahawks were being talked about. There was a lot of momentum leading up to the president's arrival with the Ukrainian delegation. And then the day before, Putin called, it appears, because Mr. Witkoff advised him to make that call. And then all bets were off and we were back to square one in terms of not providing new military assistance.
MARTIN: You recently wrote that, quote, "there were signs that Trump was beginning to understand Putin," unquote, but those signs are fading. Could you just say more about that? What do you mean by that?
MCFAUL: Well, for many - almost a decade, President Trump's been very loyal to President Putin. He's never criticized him until in the last few months when you could hear frustration in the president's voice. So I was cautiously optimistic that President Trump was beginning to understand he's not going to persuade Putin to stop his war in Ukraine.
However, when this plan was floated a few days ago, it just was right back to the old Trump just giving Putin everything he wants. And that, to me, is not a way to end this war in a permanent way.
MARTIN: But is there leverage that Washington could be using that it is not using?
MCFAUL: Yes. I think that, you know, if you look at history and you look at successful negotiations, there's an engagement track and a pressure track - coercive diplomacy, it's often called. President Trump makes the mistake of just doing the engagement, just doing the carrots and not any sticks when it comes to Putin.
I think wars tend to end in one of two ways. Either one side wins and dictates the terms, or there's a stalemate on the battlefield, and both sides have to compromise. Right now, to achieve a stalemate on the battlefield, Ukraine needs more weapons. They need better weapons, they need better missiles for their F-16s. They need better air defenses, and we could provide that if we wanted to help them stop Putin's army on the battlefield. That the president could do overnight.
MARTIN: So before we let you go, do you have any sense of what might persuade President Trump of that point of view? - since in your view, there's no persuading President Putin.
MCFAUL: I hope he'll feel frustrated by this process when Putin rejects the new peace plan. And let me just back up one minute. I hope that's not true. I want to be clear. This war needs to end. The best outcome, of course, would be if Vladimir Putin accepts this new plan that Secretary Rubio and Andriy Yermak negotiated in Geneva.
But if it fails, I hope that President Trump then pivots to a much more coercive strategy. By the way, it doesn't require any American soldiers on the ground. They just need missiles for their airplanes. They need better air defenses, and that would help to create the permissive conditions for an actual end to this war.
MARTIN: That's former U.S. ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul. His latest book is "Autocrats Vs. Democrats." Ambassador, thank you so much for joining us.
MCFAUL: Thanks for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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