‘Trump Has Effectively Surrendered’: President’s Former NatSec Adviser Blasts Him Ahead of Ukraine Talks

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin in what was a “lengthy and highly productive” phone call aimed at ending the war in Ukraine. However, the call earned him no plaudits from former National Security Advisor John Bolton.

Russia invaded its neighbor in February 2022, but quickly became bogged down as the U.S. and other Western nations have been sending the besieged country a steady stream of weapons. While Russia has taken chunks of territory in eastern Ukraine, it is not close to achieving its goal of ousting President Volodymyr Zelensky, who on Wednesday said he spoke with Trump via phone about attaining a “lasting, reliable peace.”

Trump has said Secretary of State Marco Rubio will meet with the Russian delegation at the upcoming Munich Security Conference. Meanwhile, speaking at a summit in Brussels, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth threw cold water on the idea of Ukraine joining NATO, and suggested that Russia will retain at least some of the Ukrainian territory it has seized.

Bolton, who was national security advisor in Trump’s first term, appeared on Wednesday’s edition of The Source on CNN to discuss.

“I think we know exactly what’s gonna happen,” he said. “President Trump has effectively surrendered to Putin before the negotiations have even begun. The positions that Defense Secretary Hegseth announced in Brussels – which I’m sure I’d be stunned if Trump didn’t convey them directly to Putin in their phone call – constitute terms of a settlement that could’ve been written in the Kremlin. Maybe they were written in the Kremlin and got out in propaganda channels. But it’s a complete reversal of the U.S. And NATO position on a number of issues.”

Bolton added, “Putin doesn’t wanna negotiate with Zelensky. He wants to negotiate with Trump because he thinks he’ll get more out of him, and he’s absolutely right.”

Watch above via CNN.