Ex-VP Warns: Trump Has ‘Zero Leverage’ on Putin: Former U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle gave a sharp, surprise critique of President Donald Trump’s handling of the Russia-Ukraine war at CNBC’s CEO Council Summit in Arizona yesterday.
Trump Has a Putin Problem He Can’t Easily Solve
The politician has publicly backed Trump in all three Presidential elections he contested.
Quayle told the audience that he was baffled by the one-time Apprentice host’s “affinity for Putin,” and warned that the president was placing no pressure on the Kremlin leader to strike a peace deal.
Quayle, who served as vice president under George H.W. Bush during the post-Cold War years, suggested that the war’s trajectory was bleak, with no end on the horizon.
Trump’s “Troubling” Hopes for Putin
But it was Trump’s response to Putin’s aggression that appeared to trouble Quayle the most. Referring to Trump’s famed deal-making persona, he asked, “What leverage is he trying to put on Putin? Zero. Absolutely zero.”
Over the weekend, Trump posted to his Truth Social site that he hoped for a productive day and an end to “this very violent war,” but after hours of chats with Putin and a separate phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, little progress had emerged.
According to Quayle, Putin told Trump he was not interested in a ceasefire, but merely talks, and Trump simply agreed.
Quayle complained that under current arrangements, America was “pulling the rug out” from under all of its European allies, not just Ukraine. He slammed Trump’s failure to join the coordinated effort to impose secondary sanctions on Russia if it shirked serious negotiations.
The “Three Things” Putin Fears
Quayle claimed that “three things”: handing unfrozen Russian funds to Ukraine, ramping up military aid, and forcing a wave of secondary sanctions would prompt Putin “to come to the table tomorrow”. He expressed doubts that Trump was up to this job.
He also dismissed Trump’s tariffs as incoherent, and suggested that China was squaring up to invade Taiwan due to the West’s “failure to contain Putin”.
Naturally, Quayle’s critics have taken to the internet to criticise him in turn. “Was Dan Quayle ever relevant?” asked one X user, while another mocked him for having a website that looked “straight out of 2003”.
But Quayle’s message was serious: a failure to deter Putin could come at great cost. “Let Russia gobble up Ukraine, and then Poland, and then the Balkans,” he warned. “Then you are going to be talking about World War III.”
About the Author:
Georgia Gilholy is a journalist based in the United Kingdom who has been published in Newsweek, The Times of Israel, and the Spectator. Gilholy writes about international politics, culture, and education.
What Are Europe’s Best Weapons of War?
Pingback: Ukraine Can Win the War Against Russia - National Security Journal
Pingback: NATO's Nightmare: Putin Might Not Be Able to End the Ukraine War - National Security Journal