AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
And we'll turn now to NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson. Good morning, Mara.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Good morning.
RASCOE: So you were listening to the Congressman just now. What stood out to you about the position he finds himself in?
LIASSON: Well, what stood out to me first is that he is one of the handful of Republicans in Congress who are willing to stand up for Ukraine, to say plainly that Putin is responsible at a time when Donald Trump has suggested that Ukraine started the war, falsely. But also he sounded very optimistic that this could be gotten back on track, that the economic deal to give the U.S. rights to Ukrainian minerals could still happen. So that optimism really struck me.
RASCOE: Before we go a little deeper into Ukraine, let's take a step back because this past week has been extraordinary. And obviously, these days, there are a lot of extraordinary weeks, but we should really lay out why this past week was extremely unusual in U.S. history.
LIASSON: Well, it seems like Donald Trump has turned U.S. foreign policy on its head. In one week, the U.S. allied itself with Russia at the United Nations. It voted alongside Iran, North Korea and Russia and against Ukraine and the U.S. European allies. The president echoed Kremlin talking points this week. The French and British leaders came to the White House to beg the U.S. to commit to a backstop role to enforce a potential peace deal between Ukraine and Russia and guarantee it, but the president refused to do that.
And then you had the spectacle in the Oval Office on Friday, and it just raises a lot of questions. Does this mean that the Western alliance is broken? Can there be an economic deal between the Ukraine and the U.S.? Is the U.S. now aligned more with Russia instead of the democracies of Europe? We don't know.
RASCOE: You characterized it there, that spectacle in the Oval Office. What do you think happened there?
LIASSON: Well, it was quite extraordinary, and, of course, it was sort of normal for the first 40 minutes. But Zelenskyy decided that he would push back against Trump, try to convince him that Putin was the aggressor. Clearly, that didn't work.
After the meeting, the South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said that he had warned Zelenskyy, quote, "not to take the bait," almost as if Graham knew that there would be bait. And Zelenskyy did take it, and he angered Trump. Whether if he had acted more obsequious, there would have been a different outcome, we don't know. But here's something that Trump said about the meeting during it.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I think it's good for the American people to see what's going on.
VICE PRESIDENT JD VANCE: I understand, sir. I understand.
TRUMP: I think it's very important. That's why I kept this going so long.
LIASSON: And later, he said that the blowup would, quote, "make good television." So after the meeting, after Trump kicked Zelenskyy out of the White House, the State Department spokesperson, Tammy Bruce, said there was still a way to salvage the relationship and that President Zelenskyy, quote, "has a chance to turn things around."
RASCOE: I don't think we can talk about this without acknowledging President Trump's long and complicated relationship with Ukraine and with Zelenskyy himself.
LIASSON: That's right. Back in his first term, Trump pressed Zelenskyy to open an investigation into Joe Biden, who was, at that time, considering running for president. He threatened to withhold military aid to Ukraine unless the investigation was opened, and that led to Trump's first impeachment.
So later, the animus between Trump and Zelenskyy continued. He's called Zelenskyy a dictator. He said that Ukraine started the war, even though, as Congressman Lawler just said, it was clearly Putin and only Putin who was responsible with his unprovoked invasion. Whether this is all a negotiating tactic or not, so far, the pressure has been all on Zelenskyy and not on Putin, who shows no signs so far of wanting to negotiate.
RASCOE: Looking ahead, there's a speech to the joint session of Congress coming up from Trump. What are you expecting?
LIASSON: Well, the president has spent more time talking to the press than anyone else. In his first five weeks, some counts say he's taken over a thousand questions. So there's not much we haven't heard from him. But I do think he'll talk about his victory in November. He'll say he won a mandate. He'll probably say he found tens of billions of dollars of savings across the federal government, although that isn't supported by the evidence.
I'm also expecting him to talk about tax cuts and how he's ended DEI and how he's had the most productive five weeks in American history. And usually, presidents use speeches like this to unveil a program, but Trump has already done that. He's shaken up American politics. He's well on his way to dismantling the administrative state and possibly the world order. And the big question is whether voters will like what they see.
RASCOE: That's NPR's Mara Liasson. Mara, thank you so much.
LIASSON: You're welcome.
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