perceptions of ukraine to the dismay of some of his advisers. quoting now from the washington post, quote, over time, you just see a wearing down of defenses, a former white house official said, describing the struggle to contest the influence of giuliani, putin, and orban. and just pause a minute to consider the implications. the leader of the one country that no president before this one has fully trusted was telling this president not to trust ukraine, a country that russia seeks to dominate. joining us now is john hudson, who shares a byline on the story. john, what exactly happened in these conversations between president trump, putin, and orban? and i understand at least one of the conversations with orban was face to face in the white house, and there wasn t anyone else present. is that right? that s right. u.s. officials described to the post an alarming sort of evolution in president trump s view of zelensky and ukrainian officials in general. now, it started out a little
how is this good for u.s. security? i do not understand. also as if there s no corruption in hungary or in vladimir putin s russia. i mean, steve, i also want to play this back and forth from one of the 2016 debates that kind of rings a bell right now. let s listen. 1,800 nuclear warheads, and she s playing chicken. look, putin, from everything i see, has no respect for this person. well, that s because he d rather have a puppet as president. no puppet. no puppet. and it s pretty clear you re the puppet. would you put this in the category of president trump acting as putin s puppet? well, it s certainly a case of, i know you are but what am i, down to the play school level. just over the past couple of weeks, who has benefited out of this president s decision-making, especially vis-รก-vis foreign policy? it s got to be none other than vladimir putin. vladimir putin is now running up and down the syrian border with
of course. trump was very much open to it, as he is open to many world leaders that are not necessarily allies with the united states. and so ultimately trump s desire to meet with this person, who has been one of the most prominent backers of trump in europe, a continent that hasn t been necessarily warm to the president, he got that meeting. and in that meeting, orban, who is a skeptic of ukraine, some of that historical, some of that personal with the ukrainian president zelensky, again reinforced a view of ukraine that is corrupt and not favorable to president trump. thus further reinforcing these negative views the president has. i also want to be clear about this. in the report, you say there s no indication that vice president biden came up in the president s conversations with either putin or orban. it would make sense for president trump, who has now asked not only ukraine to look into the bidens but also china,
time. thank you, neil, again. appreciate it. tip my hat. absolutely. thanks, don. thank you, everyone, for watching. really appreciate it. i m don lemon. our coverage continues. good evening. all roads lead to putin. that is what house speaker nancy pelosi famously said about president trump. tonight there s breaking news on what could be yet another road. the washington post tonight reporting on conversations the president had with vladimir putin and the hungarian prime minister. the headline, putin and hungary orban helped sour trump on ukraine. according to the report, which cites current and former u.s. officials, the conversations reinforced president trump s perception of corruption in ukraine. the post reports neither orban nor putin specifically encouraged the president to see ukraine as a source of dirt on joe biden, nor did they describe kiev as complicit in that conspiracy theory about the 2016 election. however, the post reports that their disparaging descriptio
we shouldn t be pollyanna and think countries don t engage in spying or espionage. president trump has held himself up to be a great deal maker, somebody who can sit across a negotiating table and you have to wonder all the branchs he continues to try to hand over to russia, he seems to be getting a dead stick in return from vladimir putin. shouldn t putin be coming to the table maybe offering a detente on this espionage or a cooldown? we are seeing him increase it. we re seeing president trump hasn t seemed to grasp it. the fact it was a private corporation, publically traded company but the private sector that found this, how important is that in terms of really everybody coming together to get at this? clearly, intelligence government can t do it on their own. that s right.