Speaking with DW's Washington Bureau Chief Ines Pohl, retired US Army officer Ben Hodges discusses what Donald Trump's second presidency will mean for Ukraine, the future of NATO and European stability.
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00:00Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States. What does this mean for Ukraine?
00:04What does it mean for NATO? What does it mean for Germany and Europe? I will be talking to
00:08Ben Hodges. He is a retired U.S. Army officer and served as a general in Europe. Ben, what was the
00:16first thing which come to your mind when you learned that Donald Trump will be the next
00:21president of the United States? I think probably two or three different things came to mind
00:28immediately. First, obviously, disappointment, because I really felt going into last night that
00:35Kamala Harris was going to win. I knew it would be close, but I really felt optimistic about her
00:42and also about my country, that we were going to pull back from the abyss. I really thought that.
00:49The other thing that I emotion was I felt foolish that I had so grossly underestimated
00:59how many people in my country would embrace him, knowing completely who and what he is.
01:09Nobody's confused about who and what he is, yet more Americans prefer that than the alternative.
01:17I feel foolish that I so grossly underestimated that. Ben, we have to talk about Ukraine, of
01:23course. What does this mean? What does it mean that Donald Trump will be moving back into the
01:28White House for Ukraine? Well, of course, my assumption, based on how he's acted and talked
01:35about Ukraine when he was in office and in the four years since then, and also how he dealt with
01:42Russia, I'm not encouraged. I don't see a positive development there for Ukraine, at least
01:52initially. Now, to be fair, the Biden administration wasted, I think, the last several
01:58years when we could have had a much stronger, more decisive policy, could have solved the Russia
02:04problem for Europe for decades. Instead, we didn't. They took an approach that was appeasement
02:11and only prolonged the conflict, and here we are. So, perhaps European leaders that will be able to
02:22put enough influence on Trump to explain that it's in America's interest that America not
02:28turn their back on Ukraine. It's in America's economic interest. And then also, of course,
02:34enough European countries will increase their own defense spending and investment and other things
02:41that that might be appealing to Donald Trump. But European countries should not do that to
02:48appease Donald Trump. They should be doing that for their own people. Because if Ukraine fails,
02:56it will be because the United States and Germany turned their back on Ukraine. And then you're
03:01going to see millions of Ukrainian refugees coming to Germany. You're going to see continued
03:07disruption of food and energy supplies. And you're going to see tens of thousands of Ukrainian
03:13soldiers absorbed into the Russian army. So, there's no positive outcome to any kind of
03:21negotiated settlement or to the United States turning its back. So, this is going to be a real
03:27test for Europe. Trump said that he would end the war in Ukraine within one day, maybe even before
03:35he comes to office. I mean, of course, the thinking behind that, or the fear for many,
03:40is that he would kind of offer a deal to Putin to say, you keep Crimea, maybe the Donbass.
03:47Do you think this might happen? Well, that sort of scenario certainly
03:53sounds like something he would do. I mean, to get the deal. That's exactly what he did with
03:58the Taliban. You know, I mean, he made a deal with the Taliban without informing the Afghan government
04:04or our allies that were there with us in Afghanistan for all those years. And so,
04:09I think that's exactly the kind of thing he is capable of doing when it comes to Ukraine.
04:15The difference is, first of all, I don't think the Ukrainians will go along with it. I mean,
04:21you know, they're not just going to do whatever the American president and the Russian
04:25president say. Secondly, I think that several European countries also will not just stand by
04:33and accept that kind of an outcome because they understand what it means. So,
04:40I am hoping that enough serious European leaders will be able to influence the president,
04:47the new president. And also, by the way, there's always been a lot of support in the Congress
04:53for Ukraine from the Republican side. People like Lindsey Graham or Chairman Mike Turner. I mean,
04:59these are very senior influential Republicans who care about the transatlantic relationship.
05:05And so, I'm not so sure that they'll just sit on their hands and allow Trump to walk away from it.
05:13I don't envision it being better, but it may not be as terrible as we fear.
05:18There were already reactions, like from the German member of parliament,
05:23who said in case Donald Trump kind of would stop supporting Ukraine, then Germany would
05:30need to jump in. Is this even feasible, that Germany or other European countries
05:35really would replace the support the US is offering right now?
05:41Well, of course, Germany looks like it may be forming a new government here in the elections
05:46very soon. And I've heard Friedrich Merz speak very clearly about his views about
05:54Ukraine and Russia. So, if it comes down to political will, the current coalition does
06:03not have it, but maybe a new coalition would. I'm not sure about UK. I think Italy, yes.
06:11France, at times. I mean, Poland, no question. Finland, no question. So, it might be a group of
06:22countries working together that could help fill some of the gap that the US might leave behind.
06:28And frankly, I can envision President Trump telling European leaders, hey, you need to fix
06:34this. This is your thing, or else we're out of here. Now, I hope that's not the case,
06:42but I can envision that sort of a conversation with Trump even saying we'll continue to provide
06:48nuclear protection and blah, blah, blah. But if you add together the industrial capacity of just
06:54the EU countries, forget UK, forget Canada, just EU countries, it's enormous. It dwarfs Russia's
07:04economic potential and current capabilities. So, to me, this is about political will, not
07:13Europe can't do it. And do you see the possibility that under a new German government,
07:18the will might be stronger? Absolutely. Absolutely. Completely.
07:25Vladimir Zelensky reached out to Trump immediately. Do you think it's the right
07:29approach to praise the commitment to peace through strength?
07:35Well, I think anybody who has paid attention to history knows that the only way you can be sure
07:41and have a sustained peace is if you are strong enough to defend that peace, to ensure it. I
07:48thought President Zelensky was smart to immediately reach out to President Trump. They've been down
07:56this road before together. So, it's not like they're just meeting each other when Zelensky
08:02was in office and Trump was the president. So, it's not like they don't know each other. I think
08:13that the Ukrainians are fighting for their life. And so, when you're fighting for your life,
08:21you're willing to reach out to anybody that might be able to help keep you alive. And so,
08:28certainly, it would not have been wise to publicly come out and say, oh, I wish it
08:34was still Biden or I wish it was going to be Harris. And frankly, as I said earlier,
08:39I think most Ukrainians feel let down by the Biden administration anyway.
08:43And then there's, of course, NATO, Ben. Donald Trump has threatened to leave the
08:47alliance a couple of times. Is he really able to do that?
08:52I believe that legally, he cannot just unilaterally pull out. But there is no law
08:59that requires him to do anything. So, he could continue to be disruptive or to ignore or
09:09to not lead inside the alliance the way that the United States has done in the past. And frankly,
09:19it was always to our advantage to be a leader inside the alliance. And hopefully, there will
09:25be enough people in the Congress that are Republicans that will impress on him. Hey,
09:30yes, of course, the other countries should be doing more. But here's why it's good for America
09:35to be in this club where you've got all these friends. And by the way, at least half of them
09:41are spending enough on defense and are always good to go with us to do things. So,
09:47from a practical standpoint, I think that he will not just completely turn his back on NATO.
09:57But this will be a challenge for Secretary General Rutte, who will have to do what Jens
10:02Stoltenberg did, which is figure out how to keep the alliance together in dealing with President
10:09Trump. I think Mark Rutte probably has the political talent and the leadership talent
10:14to be able to do that. But half of these problems that you and I are talking about, Enos,
10:22were made in Europe. They created this problem that Trump seized on and that many Americans,
10:29even those who love Germany, who love Ukraine, who love NATO, are frustrated about. And so,
10:39this is something for Europeans to fix. Donald Trump's party, the Republicans,
10:44didn't only win the White House, but also both chambers, right? Congress and the House,
10:50or the Senate and the House. And the Supreme Court, of course, is also kind of somewhat
10:55Trump-friendly. How worried, Ben, are you about Trump's government and the people he wants
11:02to appoint? With the backing of the Senate, he's able to basically pick whoever he wants.
11:08So, there's a couple of things here. First, yes, for sure, the Republicans
11:12will control the Senate. And that's who does the confirmations for judges, ambassadors,
11:19generals and admirals. So, that is a powerful place. And that's who also ratifies treaties.
11:26I think that he will be able to get, by and large, mostly who he wants. Although, in the Senate,
11:35the rules are that individual senators can block nominations, even if they're on the minority side.
11:42So, it's not going to be a total blank check, which tells me that Trump will probably
11:49end up using a lot of unconfirmed acting people at different levels, which inherently
12:01is a weaker position, obviously, than if someone has been confirmed. But they did that the last
12:06time he was in office as well. So, we'll see how that plays out. The court, this is a problem.
12:12For me, the Supreme Court was always the ultimate guardrail. And only in the last couple of years
12:18did I come to lose confidence in the court as an impartial, really blind justice,
12:26focused on the Constitution. Of course, there's always been differences. And you've had
12:32every administration tries to nominate people that they think are more
12:38philosophically aligned. I've never seen it where it was like this. And that does worry me.
12:45Of course, if he's got four more years, I would say, chances are he'll get at least one more
12:51court nominee, whether it's Alito or Thomas. I would imagine at least one more of those.
13:00And that will have an impact for the next 20, 30 years.
13:04So, Ben, finally, how did we get there? How did it happen that Donald Trump was reelected?
13:11Well, of course, when you're talking about 80 million people, there will be several different
13:16motivations. Part of it is people that are evangelicals would vote for anybody if they
13:26thought that that person would stop abortion or things like that. There are a portion of
13:37that 80 million that care only about their taxes and investment portfolio, so they could hold their
13:46nose. They would say his stupid policies or his vulgar manner, that won't affect me. What I care
13:52about is my portfolio. And so I think a lot of his supporters, obviously at the high end,
13:59are in that category. By the way, I've met a lot of Germans that felt the same way,
14:03that also supported Trump for their own portfolio reasons. And then there's a category of people that
14:11I think really support or can embrace this vulgar character because then it sort of frees them up
14:21to behave the same way, whether it's how they treat women, their racism. These things are now
14:29out in the open in a way that I have not seen, and I'm 66 years old. I've seen open racism that
14:36I haven't seen since I was a young man. And the treatment of women, and surprisingly, how many
14:45women are okay with it. That blows me away. There's not one explanation. I thought Kamala
14:54Harris was an excellent candidate. She did well in every facet, especially given the fact that
14:59she only had three or four months to do it. But we could not overcome the built-in
15:08racism and misogyny and the selfishness and the willingness of a lot of Americans,
15:16who I think, it's not about education. I mean, there are a lot of people I know that are very
15:20well educated that endorse Trump completely. It's more about, they don't care or they don't value
15:28the constitution and our democracy, what it truly means. Ben, thank you very much. And I'm sure we
15:35will be talking again soon. And really, I appreciate your time. Well, I always enjoy
15:39speaking with you and thank you for the privilege. Thank you.