i want to bring in colonel cedric leighton about this. also getting some news in, colonel, just in from our national security team that says u.s. intel believes putin is not seriously prepared to engage in peace talks. this is despite donald trump claiming that putin wants to stop and does not want control over the entirety of ukraine. but our reporting is that that putin does not want to engage in peace talks with ukraine, that he that do not favor his maximalist aims in the country. that's pretty significant. >> it's really significant, and it confirms a lot of our suspicions, pamela, that we've had because putin has started the ukraine war, at least the invasion part of it with very maximalist aims. he wanted to decapitate the ukrainian regime. he wanted the russians to take kyiv within three days. and when he was thwarted in that ambition, in that, in that plan, it really set him back considerably. he thought he had a military that could take the ukrainian military and in essence, destroy it. that has obviously proven to be not the ca

joining me now, cnn military analyst, retired air force colonel cedric leighton. good to have you, cedric. david frum, former special assistant. we should note to george w. bush, now a writer at the atlantic, he made a point about trump's comments about zelenskyy because you've had these comparisons recently to 1939, neville chamberlain, peace in our time. et cetera. from writing neville chamberlain to do him justice never amplified under his own byline, hitler's propaganda against the czechs. a little history lesson here. when, at the time the idea was, well, give hitler a little piece of czechoslovakia and we'll avoid war. of course we know how that worked out. that is a notable point here, because trump is not just saying, i want to end the war in ukraine. he is. he is repeating russia's framing of this war. and can you just explain how big a deal that is, just in the simplest terms, to have a u.s. president endorse the kremlin's view of an invasion that it started? >> yeah. >> good morning jim. >> it's a really unprecedented situation. >> because when a preside

now, you heard what cedric leighton had to say about the undertaking militarily and otherwise. this would actually entail to do so. so could this be consistent with his policy of america first? >> i don't know what could be more america first? we're talking about a region and that has been mired in terrorism and war that has cost us trillions of dollars. it has cost us manpower and man hours and troop involvement over there. i mean, it's one of the the great problems we have in this world. and let's just look, i mean, it's yes, this is a bold proposal. as donald trump, i would expect nothing less from him. but it's an outside the box proposal into what shelby was talking about and what the administration is talking about. what is wrong with saying, what are the other options? because hamas would love nothing more than to go back to exactly the way things were to move back into gaza, to use the palestinians as human shields and go right back to creating terrorism and trying to destroy israel. so for me, it's like, yeah, nothing else has worked. let's let's take a shot at somethi

now, you heard what cedric leighton had to say about the undertaking, militarily and otherwise. this would actually entail to do so. so could this be consistent with his policy of america first? >> i don't know what could be more america first? we're talking about a region that has been mired in terrorism and war that has cost us trillions of dollars. it has cost us manpower and man hours and troop involvement over there. i mean, it's one of the the great problems we have in this world. and let's just look, i mean, it's yes, this is a bold proposal. as donald trump, i would expect nothing less from him. but it's an outside the box proposal into what shelby was talking about and what the administration is talking about. what is wrong with saying, what are the other options? because hamas would love nothing more than to go back to exactly the way things were to move back into gaza, to use the palestinians as human shields and go right back to creating terrorism and trying to destroy israel. so for me, it's like, yeah, nothing else has worked. let's let's take a shot at something e

air force colonel cedric leighton. thank you all for being here. nick, to kick it off with you.ce president vance is making his debut here on the international stage, and his comments sounded, frankly, a lot like what we heard during the u.s. presidential campaign railing against illegal immigration and what vance claims are attacks on free speech and the free will of voters. how do you think his european counterparts viewed this? >> well, to be honest, it sounded like he was talking about russia when he addressed the european allies of the united states, talking about them, jailing opponents, talking about their desire to see elections interfered with a bizarre litany of complaints about culture wars, and very much a reinterpretation of freedom of speech, which has many laws attached to it in the united kingdom and around europe to prevent it turning into hate speech and extremism. but he was railing very much there against some parts of law changes or protections put in across europe to protect minorities. not even really dog whistling when it came to xenophobia about migratio

i want to bring in retired air force colonel cedric leighton. also with us is cnn's fred pleitgen, who is joining us now live from moscow. to you first, cedric, he made clear reiterating what we've heard from president trump that nato countries should pay more. they want 5%, but even the u.s. doesn't pay 5% of its gdp. >> that's right. we pay about 3.36% of our gdp. so i don't know if this means that they're going to ask congress for an increase in defense spending to make it to 5% threshold, or if the europeans are going to be basically asked to move in a direction that the u.s. is not going to be moving in. there perhaps hints that that might be the case, but it's clear that there is a difference in the way the u.s. is talking to its european allies, as opposed to how the u.s. is handling its domestic budgetary affairs when it comes to defense at this point. >> certainly be a question. if i was there, i would want to ask him right now to bring you in on this, fred. you know, he's speaking at the nato summit, and he said recently that he does no

let's expand the conversation now with cnn military analyst and retired air force colonel cedric leighton and cnn global affairs analyst kim dozier. thank you both. always great to see you. kim, aside from being highly unlikely as a resolution for gaza, these kind of comments also serve as a recruiting tool for jihadi groups. >> absolutely. i mean, this is the third rail in middle east politics. you do not fulfill the worst fears of everyone in the middle east that the u.s. would be on israel's side in all things by saying something like this. and this will be a recruiting poster for al qaeda, for i.s.i.s. most of all, for hamas. the moment anyone tries to move the palestinians out of gaza, you've got something like 2 million gazans there, more than half of them do not support hamas right now. but the moment you tell them that, you've got to leave because of a u.s. plan backed by israel, every single one will join hamas and fight. >> so this just isn't going to happen. this thing that trump is, is talking about, right? i mean, but it forces everyone to react to it. they have to work throu

with us now is retired air force colonel cedric leighton.o, colonel, there has been a lot of playing out when it comes to ukraine and russia. we know president trump spoke to president putin. do you think ukrainian president zelenskyy is being boxed out right now? >> it sure looks like that, pamela. >> and it's really disturbing because of course, the ukrainians have made all these incredible sacrifices. you know, they've lost, you know, possibly as many as 60,000 troops killed in action and certainly several hundred thousand wounded. and they have also been put in a position where they're losing population. and that is a considerable drain on their resources. they have done an amazing amount of military work. they've been able to basically stop the russians, although the russians are gaining some ground in certain areas, especially in the east of ukraine. but ukraine is definitely not being rewarded for its sacrifices at the moment. and that's very concerning, frankly. >> now, pete hegseth, for his part, has said that this is not a betrayal

with us now to discuss this further, we have cnn military analyst and retired air force colonel cedric leighton. also with us is kevin barron. he's a national security analyst and former executive editor for defense one. i mean, it goes without saying that if two people are in a fight and you were trying to broker some kind of resolution and you only invited one of them to the discussion, one might feel left out and it could feel unproductive. i just wonder, cedric, explain the dynamics here and why it's a problem that ukraine is not here as an equal partner at these talks. >> yeah, we. >> have. >> this tendency, i think, in u.s. diplomatic circles to exclude people who should really be part of the negotiations. and i. think of, for example, what happened with vietnam back in, you know, the early 1970s, we excluded the south vietnamese from a lot of the discussions in paris for those peace talks, and we risk doing the same kind of thing here with the ukrainians. this is a really bad idea not to have them as part of the main negotiations. and actually every part of the negotiations. now, on the

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joining us now is cnn military analyst, retired air force colonel cedric leighton, who is with us hereso this is interesting. these arab countries trying to counter trump's riviera plan, which i think a lot of people saw as just not realistic anyways. but what would the alternative be? >> so that really. >> depends on a lot of things, brianna. this is very interesting because there's a developer in the uae who is looking at this and saying that he can build prefab houses for about $2 billion. i think it was to house the palestinians in gaza while their permanent homes are being built. so that might be part of a the more concrete aspects of a resettlement or refurbishment plan for for gaza. the arab states, the gulf states, especially qatar, uae, saudi arabia have a long history of supporting efforts in gaza. and the egyptians, of course, as well. and they might may be coming up with a plan where they do something like this, where they keep the people in gaza, but rebuild kind of in a piecemeal type fashion, uh, maybe from north to south or from north to, you know, one way or the other