top of it, if we tried to get a deal on iran in syria, we already know russia can t deliver on that. i don t think syria is the point here. i actually think that the only area that trump could even try to negotiate on has nothing to do with syria. i think it s too late. i think it s about iran. generally. and the nuclear deal. yes. so much to talk about here. yes. if only we had time. another hour to talk about the iran nuclear deal. okay. ambassador thomas pickering, thank you for joining us. very much appreciate it. next, everybody, friends or foes? the president s latest insult to the european union and how it s helping push putin s agenda. that s next.
extradition treaty. so the notion that anybody has that that would do anything useful i think is very poorly stated. what is important, interestingly enough, is that if we had a normal president who could find a way to get along with president putin, and try to deal with some of the major issues that are out there between us, everything from nuclear weapon to diplomatic breakups, everything from syria to ukraine to crimea, to his efforts to split off the west europeans from the united states, those would all be important questions to treat with. and a solid determined and indeed significant president would have a plan for those as he goes in. which are the priorities, what he s prepared to work hard to get, what he might be prepared to give on one side or another to get those kinds of things. for trump, it s all new york real estate.
syria/israel border, in exchange for the withdrawal of u.s. troops from that area. and we know that the president spoke by phone today with the israeli prime minister. so i think it s fair to assume that israeli security interests will figure into this conversation. but as you ve been talking about on the show today, you have the national security adviser saying that this meeting by design is loosely structured. there are no concrete deliverables that the u.s. is looking for coming out of this summit. you ve got the russian ambassador telling me that that one thing they re looking for is to figure out whether russia is serious about pressing this reset button. if they can be a willing partner in trying to arrive at a better relationship between the u.s. and russia. that is the very lowest of low bars that we re hearing from the president and his advisers as they head into this meeting tomorrow. geoff, quickly, i don t have much time here, but we know that sergey lavrov said it was
thugs, nato s resolve is not what it used to be. the president working through several meetings but on july 16th in helsinki, to have this conversation with f and a lot of people have been critical of it, they don t think it is a good way to be spending his time. you think one of the key things they will talk about is syria. to say the president shouldn t meet with vladimir putin because he has been so aggressive and tampering on our interests is beside the point because the issues are so serious and affect the international community thousands of them in ukraine and syria, hundreds of thousands of people, 9 or 10 million people displaced from their homes, a major human catastrophe and we shouldn t bring leaders together that should stamp out some kind of progress on what used to be an intractable solution,
commitments because others see you as a role model. he will take a tough message, a little awkward as we are watching. he sent that to 6 to 8 other leaders as well as he is right on the mark. this is a goal they established themselves, 28 nato members, now there s 29, to meet this goal by 2024. they are not even close on the path of doing that. there is another thing that is operating, not just having military capability which defense spending would indicate but also indicates the political and moral resolve of the people that their own security and collective security of nato is important to them so it sends a week message to the russians his aggressiveness and malign behavior trampling all over nato s interests and as far south as syria so that is being told to vladimir putin and his