Ukraine Expert Reveals The 1 Thing Trump Cares About — And It’s So On Brand

Retired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman on Friday said preparing Donald Trump for high-stakes meetings is “notoriously hard,” and he laid out the most effective approach to use to convince the U.S. president to adopt a tough stance against Vladimir Putin during their face-to-face talks.

In an interview with “CNN News Central,” Vindman, who served as the director for European Affairs at the National Security Council during the first Trump presidency and also testified against Trump in his 2019 impeachment trial, was asked what advice he would give the president ahead of his hastily arranged Alaska summit.

“I’ve attempted to prep President Trump on numerous occasions in preparation for meetings with Russia, Ukraine and so forth,” Vindman said. “It is not the easiest task. He does not take good prep. He does not understand the history. He doesn’t care to understand the history.”

Vindman recalled Trump’s stance toward the Russian dictator during their meeting in 2018, when Trump infamously declared he believed Putin over the U.S.’s own intelligence agencies about Russia’s efforts to help him win the 2016 election.

“When Putin starts spouting off about grievances against” former Democratic Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, “that’s gravy, that’s like red meat to Trump to kind of sink his teeth into,” Vindman said. “That’s what happened in Helsinki.”

Vindman said that while “it’s notoriously hard” to prep Trump for critical meetings like the one with Putin, the president cares about his image and could take a harsh stance against the Russian president if he were convinced that this would make him look strong.

“I think the best thing to do is just to point out that he could be embarrassed looking like a weak president, and that he’s being toyed with and played with. And on that basis, he might take a tougher line,” Vindman said of Trump. “With that tougher line, he’ll suss out whether Putin is sincere about peace.”

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on his trip to Anchorage, Trump said he wouldn’t dictate territorial swaps Ukraine would need to make with Russia, seemed open to having the U.S. provide security guarantees to Kyiv alongside European countries, and warned Putin that the U.S. would do no business with his country until the war was over.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Vindman said those Trump comments “show a good level of preparation for the meeting with Putin.”

“The tone suggests Trump’s willing to apply pressure on Putin to coerce a peace settlement,” he wrote.

“Of course the [proof’s] in the pudding,” he added.