Just four weeks into his second term, Donald Trump has made major headlines on the foreign policy front, including in the wars being waged in Ukraine and against Hamas in Gaza.
The Trump administration helped secure the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas to free the remaining hostages and return the bodies of those killed in captivity. And now the president and his team have recently begun talks to end the three-year war in Ukraine.
On Friday’s show, Megyn was joined by National Security Adviser Michael Waltz to discuss the state of the situations in Europe and Middle East and which conflict will prove to be more difficult to resolve.
The War in Ukraine
Some three years after Russia invaded Ukraine hundreds of thousands have been injured or killed and billions of dollars of damages have been incurred. There was no talk of ending the conflict under the Biden administration, but Trump campaigned on ending the war on day one.
While day one has turned to month one, both sides have now agreed to begin peace talks. But those initial conversations have not been without controversy. Waltz was in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday for talks with top Russian officials. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has been vocal about his frustration with being left out of the meeting, a protest Waltz pushed back on.
“This notion that he hasn’t been consulted… [is] just not true,” he explained. “Just a week ago, President Trump in the Oval Office had Putin on the phone for the first time they’ve engaged since the prior administration… and then Zelensky on the phone within minutes.”
It was during those calls, Waltz asserted, that both leaders said they believe “only President Trump can bring this war to a conclusion.” He said the president knows “you can’t get us to a ceasefire and get this war to end if you don’t talk to both sides,” but the administration is practicing “shuttle diplomacy” in which “you talk to one side, then you talk to the other.”
Waltz said the tactic is common for the U.S., and, while people may be “frustrated about how it is going,” Trump has already moved the ball. “In a very short amount of time, [he] has taken this conversation from endless war, as long as it takes, open ended death and destruction all over Europe and expanding now with North Korea, is this war going to end to it is going to end,” he explained. “If you don’t like… President Trump’s approach, then what is the alternative plan? To continue this forever? What will the war situation look like at the end of this year or next year?”
While he believes land concessions from Ukraine will be a necessary part of the deal, there are some “fundamental principles” on which these negotiations will be based. “One, this is a permanent end to this war, not another temporary stop like we had from 2014 to 2022,” Waltz said. “And there will be security guarantees involved for the future of Ukraine, so that we ensure that this doesn’t start up again.”
European leaders have already begun to voice their willingness to participate in security guarantees for Ukraine without the step of NATO membership. “Not only are they saying they are willing to do it, they are putting operational plans in place with the NATO secretary general,” Waltz added. “President Trump, and I, and others have openly said… a first premise is Europe has to take more responsibility for their own security.”
For those concerned about Trump’s rhetoric about Zelensky and the cause of the conflict, Waltz said the president has been clear. “I’m repeating what he has repeatedly said: Russia invaded a neighbor, Georgia, under Bush. Russia invaded its neighbor, Ukraine, under Biden. And Russia invaded its neighbor under Obama, but not under him. Those are his words. ‘They invaded,'” Waltz said. “No one should be of the notion that somehow he’s going to get played by President [Vladimir] Putin. That is not going to be the case. He is the deal maker in chief, and if it weren’t for him, we wouldn’t even be having these conversations.”
Defeating Hamas
Large swaths of Gaza have been left uninhabitable as a result of the Israeli war efforts in the aftermath of the October 7 terrorist attack. With nearly two million people displaced, Trump dropped a bombshell earlier this month when he suggested the population be relocated to other countries in the region and the land be rebuilt into a sort of riviera of the Middle East.
While the concept was met with great backlash, there are new questions about the future of Gaza in the wake of the latest hostage release. Crowds gathered and cheered as the coffins carrying the remains of the youngest hostages taken on 10/7, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, were paraded through the streets before being turned over.
The body of their mother, Shiri Bibas, was also supposed to be returned, but the coffin instead contained an unidentified person. While Hamas claims the family was killed in an airstrike, it is believed the boys – who were four and nine months old at the time of their kidnapping – may have been strangled to death.
Waltz said one of the things that needs to be addressed is “the radicalization of a whole generation” of children who were taught “not only hate Israel, but hate America… and to love death.” And then there is the issue of the land.
“What President Trump is speaking to is a practical reality… When we looked at drone footage of Gaza flying over the miles and miles and miles of just rubble, the place looks like Hiroshima. It has been devastated, coupled with no sewage, no water, unexploded ordnance everywhere – all from a war that Hamas started,” he said. “But how do you rebuild that place with nearly 2 million people sitting on it? How do they even survive for the 10,15 years it is going to take?”
Waltz said that Trump recognizes the need for “real solutions,” and he believes leaders in the region are starting to recognize that as well. “What we saw after the visit of King Abdullah of Jordan was the Arab world is pulling… themselves together and saying, okay, we are gonna come to President Trump with an alternative,” he noted. “How do we prevent the same old thing from happening again, and how do we chart an actual positive future? Perhaps that has to kind of break some historic china. That’s okay. Come back with a different plan, and that is what people are doing.”
Conflict Resolution
Both situations remain perilous, but Megyn asked Waltz which one he believes will prove “trickier” to navigate in the weeks and months ahead. While he said both keep him up at night, he thinks finding a solution in Europe will be harder.
“Iran is on its back foot. We have a historic opportunity in Lebanon now with a… Christian Arab-led government. We have the fall of Assad, the decimation of Hezbollah. We have a tremendous opportunity in the Middle East,” Waltz explained. “We have to make sure that this never happens again to Israel… but we can see that pathway to get back to where we were the first term, which was the Abraham Accords. The more we get back to talking about data centers, and fiber, and infrastructure… these historic animosities become smaller and smaller. That pathway is going to happen.”
In Europe, Waltz said the administration is largely starting from scratch. “We just started this first step of our process of bringing the war in Europe to an end and charting that future,” he noted. “[But] we have seen the introduction of American leadership in the Western Hemisphere again, and that is from the Arctic all the way down to the border and taking on the cartels to the Panama Canal.”
The groundwork, Waltz said, is already being laid because of Trump’s desire to make change. “It is all moving in the right direction,” he concluded. “We told the president we have four years, and he said, ‘No, we don’t. We’re doing it right now.'”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Waltz by tuning in to episode 1,011 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.