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The Opinions

By Thomas L. Friedman and Patrick Healy

Produced by Jillian Weinberger

President Trump appears ready to cut a deal that could end Russia’s war in Ukraine without ever consulting Ukraine. In this episode, the deputy Opinion editor Patrick Healy talks to the Opinion columnist Tom Friedman about Trump’s unpredictable approach to foreign policy.

Below is a transcript of an episode of “The Opinions.” We recommend listening to it in its original form for the full effect. You can do so using the player above or on the NYT Audio app, Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.

Patrick Healy: This is “The First 100 Days,” a weekly series examining President Trump’s use of power and his drive to change America.

I wanted to talk to Tom Friedman this week because we seem to be on the cusp of a major international realignment. Secretary of State Marco Rubio just met his Russian counterpart to talk about ending the war in Ukraine without Ukraine there, and without the rest of Europe.

This came right after Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave speeches in Europe that boiled down to: What are you guys good for?

And then there’s Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin acting thick as thieves. Are the presidents of the United States and Russia playing a giant version of that old board game Risk, with the future of the West hanging in the balance?

Tom, thanks for being here.

Thomas L. Friedman: My pleasure, Patrick.

Healy: OK, Tom, you’ve written about Trump, how he sees himself as a disruptive figure, as someone who thinks that his stock in trade is to be a great negotiator, a great deal maker. And yet, he’s a guy who doesn’t do his homework. And I find myself wondering what Trump is really up to with these moves.

I mean, he can’t actually think that he can move all of these people out of Gaza. He can’t actually think he can wave a magic wand and end the Ukraine war. Is something bigger going on with him when he makes these radical ideas in the foreign policy space?

Friedman: You know, what concerns me about Trump, Patrick, is that he’s got a real upside. The upside is that he is ready to shake up the game board. And the game board sometimes really does need to be shaken up. Why are we still talking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Why are there still Palestinian refugees 75 years after the birth of Israel? Why is this Ukraine war just dragging on as a war of attrition?

So I think there’s something actually quite healthy about going back to basics and asking those questions. But Trump, at the same time, is a chump. And what’s troubling is his combination of being ready to ask really radical questions and then, when it comes to the answers, just buying everything Putin says.

Healy: Buying it all, Tom, exactly. And Bibi Netanyahu and Putin — all of it. That’s the thing, that when I said “thick as thieves,” I don’t understand how Trump sees these guys who are clearly acting in their own interests, not in America’s interests.

And it makes me wonder, for a President of the United States, does he think about America’s interests or is it just Donald Trump’s interests, whatever those are in the moment? So, I want to run my theory by you and have you slice and dice it.

Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Bibi Netanyahu: I think Trump looks at these figures as people who are the strongmen of the world. And then there are all these weak societies and weak people. He looks at something like Europe and he sees it as a collection of failed economies and open borders and weak national identities. And he basically sees the world as up for grabs, as available to be carved up by the strong people, and I find myself wondering, in two years, if we’ll have a situation where the U.S. takes Greenland, Putin has done what he’s wanted in Ukraine, Netanyahu has a free hand in Gaza, in the Middle East, Xi does what he wants in Taiwan.

I’m just wondering if this flows from a big assumption that Donald Trump has about the world where, in this day and age, we’ve reached the point where societies are so weak that the strong must prevail and reorder the world.

Friedman: I think that’s a fair description of how he looks at the world. He looks at........

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