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Also headlines coming from Ukraine. President Zelenski met with reporters a bit earlier today and it's giving us a little bit more information ahead of the summit on Friday in Alaska, when President Trump sits down with Vladimir Putin. This is not going to be easy, remembering that the idea floated for a truce would include freezing lines in place, effectively giving up the eastern part of Ukraine, the dun Boss
and Crimea to Russia. That's what Vladimir Putin was calling for, not that we even know that it would be in a final deal. President Zelenski sat down with reporters a short time ago, saying no, he will not withdraw troops from the Dunboss and will not give the Donatsky Lahansk regions to Russia if it means unlocking a ceasefire. Here's the quote for Russians. The dun Boss is a bridgehead for a future new offensive. Any of territorial issues, he says,
cannot be separated from security guarantees. It's where we start our conversation with Congressman Jake Auchincloss, the Democrat from Massachusetts, fourth District is with us now live on Bloomberg TV and radio.
It's great to see you, Congressman.
As a marine combat veteran, I know you have very strong feelings about this. When you hear language like this from President Zelenski, it doesn't sound like we are any closer to a deal with Vladimir Putin.
Why are we hosting him for peace talks this week?
Good afternoon, and good question.
This public fracture underscorees why it has been so critical for NATO and Ukraine to collectively define victory in the public imagination as well as, most importantly, in the Ukrainian imagination. And I've been saying this for two years. I said it to Joe Biden, I'm saying it to Donald Trump. So it's not partisan, it's policy. We need to define victory. And that's three things. It's a secure eastern border. Two, it's freedom of navigation in the Black Sea, and three
it's Ukrainian accession to the European Union. You deliver those three things, you have a sovereign, prosperous, democratic Ukraine.
That's a victory.
Okay.
Does that sound like something that President Trump can accomplish on Friday?
No, what he could accomplish on Friday would be to issue an ultimatum to Vladimir Putin that Putin must release the kidnap Ukrainian children as a good faith beginning to negotiations. There will be no deal in this summer, but Vladimir Putin's release of Ukrainian children who have been kidnapped and held in captivity, held under false premises, would I think be a good faith marker towards what could be productive negotiations around that definition of victory.
Well, there been a lot of questions about why were the host nation here, beyond why the talks are even happening at all. Even in the pursuit of peace, typically there are agreements that are made, there's a framework before the two leaders sit down at the table, so you don't have any major surprises. The idea of having Vladimir Putin on American soil, presumably, and you can tell me if you know differently on an American military base. This is going to be somewhere in Alaska. I don't know
what the facility will be. Has been compared with, for instance, yourself having served in Afghanistan, where you let an infantry patrol almost like George W. Bush hosting Osama bin Laden for peace talks. Am I going too far with this, Congressman? How do you see it?
You're addressing what is Donald Trump's approach to most foreign policy issues, which is that he's all showhorse, no workhorse.
He doesn't want to actually do.
The hard work of mid level and high level negotiations between officials that would preface a principles level meeting between the presidents. He doesn't want to do that work. He wants a photo op. He wants to wind and dine in Vladimir Putin because he has always sought Vladimir Putin's approval.
It's like this weird.
Fanboy thing that he has, and nothing's going to come of it, and it's going to further a road America's geopolitical standing when we need to be spending that political capital. On appropriating Russian frozen assets and Brussels and taking that three hundred billion euros and sending it to Ukraine to strengthen their military industrial complex. On getting Ukraine to join the European Union's Lisbon Treaties collective Defense article, on authorizing
Ukraine to use long range missiles to strike Russia. On tightening oil price caps on Russian exports. All of these things that are geopolitically achievable but intensive. Those are the hard work that Donald Trump is not doing that could have actually made a summit productive. Instead, it's going to be yet another sizzle without the stake.
No, he did at one point of I think want to invite or suggested inviting the Taliban to Camp David. What should be the parameters then for this meeting. Should it be on a military base. Should these guys put two chairs out on the runway and talk this out?
Because if it's nothing.
More than a photo op, why should he enjoy the hospitality of the United States.
Yeah, I'm not a protocol officer. I'm not getting into the details on that because it doesn't matter because it's not going to actually achieve.
The outcomes that we want.
The outcome that I want from this poorly conceived summit. The only achievable outcome here would be an ultimatum about releasing the kidnap Ukrainian children as a beginning, not as a conclusion to negotiations.
Okay, that's a good answer, Congressman. I'd like to ask you, as a former member of the House China Select Committee about some of the headlines we've been hearing about trade with China. The President has allowed another ninety days for talks to continue and has now made an arrangement with in Nvidia and AMD, two of the most important American companies, never mind important chip makers, to give fifteen percent of their sales of AI chips to China to the US government.
It's been called unprecedented. I don't know if you see it that way. I don't know where the money is going. We haven't heard that either, But is that the cost of doing business?
My one question is how many Trump meme coins does in Nvidia's senior leadership own, because that kind of deal is so grotesquely inappropriate and contrary one to the interest of Nvidia and two to American interests that I just have to question whether they're buying Trump coins on the side, because we know that the trump coin allows foreign policy excuse me, foreign officials and senior executives at corporations to buy influence with the president anonymously but securely, and I
question whether they bought those Trump coins because this deal is hugely inappropriate. It basically makes the federal government a co partner in helping China leap progress on AI.
WOW.
You could also suggest that the government is now going to be invested in the chip industry. And you could also ask shareholders who bought stock in companies like in Vidia and AMD if they're comfortable with the government getting fifteen percent of the revenue that they may have factored into the stock price. Congressman, will there be oversight from Congress here?
There should be.
Republicans will say one thing in private and do nothing in public, as is their norm, because this, as I said, is one I think a violation of Nvidia's fiduciary responsibility to shareholders, but also grossly inappropriate for the American public. Why would we be helping to equip China to surpass us in AI We did the Chips Act, we made investments in the semiconductor industry which I voted for, which was bipartisan, precisely so that we would have the lead.
And this deal makes me shudder to consider what a TikTok do you might look like, what an ultimate tariff deal might look like. And again, orbiting around these considerations is who is buying the Trump coin. This is the central issue of corruption of his first year in office, more than half of his net worth is tied up in this coin.
We have no idea who owns it.
The people who showed up at the White House for this crypto dinner, those are just the ones who want to be seen. The Kataris, the Turks, the Venezuelans, the Chinese.
They probably didn't want to be seen. We don't know who's bought him.
Okay, you've brought this up a couple times, and this is serious, Congressman, how do you find out?
Well, Senator Warren and I have asked both the sec and the Treasury to investigate.
They're not.
Ultimately, this is going to have to be when Democrats take back control of the House and hopefully the Senate, and we can do subpoenas and investigations without having to be obstructed by the cowardice of Congressional Republicans because Congression Republicans have made clear that they're courtiers, they're not members of Congress, and they don't want to hold them to account for what is the most grotesque example of corruption
that this president has yet exhibited. It and I understand how high of a bar that is, but I'm standing by it.
Wow, So if Democrats take the House, prepare for an investigation into the Trump coin. I think is what we've learned. Congressman, we've got a minute left. Do you expect to deal with China? We've got another ninety days? Is that enough to do it?
I doubt it in ninety days.
Let me say one thing more to the point though, about this back and.
Forth with China.
What he has done is he has bundled in fentanyl, tariffs, TikTok into one giant, sort of performative set of negotiations.
It's a mistake.
There is bipartisan supporting Congress and legislation that I've helped draft with Republicans on getting much tougher on China for fentanyl. China exports about ninety eight percent of fentinal precursors. That issue needs to be addressed right now on its own merits, because it's unacceptable that China is directing state sponsored poisoning of the American public seventy thousand deaths every year from opiodor overdoses. Tackle that, don't tie it into TikTok and tarots.
It was great to spend some time with you, Congressman, and I appreciate it. I hope your summer's going well. Jake Aukin class the Democrat from Massachusetts,