Jared Kushner: belief

Transcript context

…So I didn’t deal with Russia a ton, but in my interaction with Putin and with Russia, I would kind of point out a couple of things. Number one is, when America was hit with COVID and New York was looking like we were going to run out of ventilators and masks, Russia was the second country that sent us a planeload of supplies. And they didn’t send that because they hate America, they sent that because we were starting to make progress together as countries, and they thought that they wanted to show goodwill to figure out how can we start working together. And again, people may attack me for saying that that sounds naive. Again, the past 15 years may show that that’s not the case, but I don’t believe that countries have permanent enemies, and I don’t believe countries have permanent allies. Right? Again, you think about the US and Russia and World War II, we worked together to defeat the Nazis, right? And now we’re great allies with Germany, who basically was our great enemy in World War II. We’re great allies with Japan, who was our great enemy in World War II. So it goes back to the notion we discussed earlier of you shouldn’t condemn tomorrow to be like yesterday if you’re unhappy with yesterday. So number one is I would definitely ask him about that. The phone call that you mentioned was after we did a pretty intense negotiation to create the largest oil cut in the history of oil production. So during COVID, demand just shut off like crazy, and it was stopping very quickly. Saudi and Russia, at that time, were having a conflict. They created this thing called OPEC+, which goes back again, history between the two countries where they had conflicts, and then all of a sudden they were working together to try to stabilize the oil markets. But they couldn’t agree on the cuts, so Saudi actually increased production. So you had two things hitting at once where Saudi and Russia were both increasing production and demand was dropping. So you were headed for a real crisis, and I was starting to get calls from a lot of the oil industry executives here in America saying, “You don’t understand. We can’t just flip a switch and turn off our oil wells. We’re running out of storage here.” And I said, “Look, president Trump likes low oil prices, so he’s not upset about what’s happening. You have to call him and if he gives me permission or the instruction, then I can try to intervene. But right now, he’s not inclined to intervene.” After a little bit, he said, “It’s time. Get involved. Go do it.” It was right over Passover. This was during COVID. I spent three days nonstop on the phone with [inaudible 03:16:09] from Russia and with MBS directly, and I was dealing with Dan Brouillette, who was our energy minister, going back and forth, and it was crazy. I mean, it was just one of the craziest negotiations. We ended up agreeing on the largest oil cut in the history of the world. tte, who was our energy minister, going back and forth, and it was crazy. I mean, it was just one of the craziest negotiations. We ended up agreeing on the largest oil cut in the history of the world. But the story you went to before, which was pretty funny, was finally make the deal, and we set up a call between King Salman, Vladimir Putin, and President Trump to announce the deal. I’m like, “Oh, this is great.” So President Trump gets on, “Congratulations. We have a deal.” And then King Salman says, “We don’t have a deal. Mexico hasn’t agreed to their cuts.” He’s saying, “What do you mean?” So they were part of the OPEC+. And so I get a note saying, “You got to go call Mexico. So I’m calling Mexico and we’re dealing, they’re saying, “We’re not doing any cuts.” I said, “Why? I said, we’re hedged at $55.” I said, “Why didn’t you tell us that at the beginning?” So I’m telling the Saudis. So we were working through this whole thing. So meanwhile, we were trying to find the compromise with Mexico. I set up a call with Trump and Putin, so they can kind of talk this through. And he was always trying to play the game of how do we get Russia away from China? He always thought that that was not the right strategic framework for US interests. And again, we had no problems with them during that time. What I would say is that for Zelenskyy and Putin, any conversation with both of them is about understanding their perspective. I think with Putin, he’s a student of history from the things that I saw with him. If you look at Russia over the last 500 years, I think they were attacked by the Polish in early 1600. I think they were attacked by the Swedes in the 1700s. I think they were attacked by Napoleon in the 1800s. And then in the 1900s, they were attacked by Germany twice. And so from his perspective there is… In the early days of Russia, they were attacked by the Mongols. They were- … Russia, they were attacked by the Mongols. They were very vulnerable. And a lot of the geography of Russia today is really designed for defensive purposes, that they have natural barriers that makes them easier to defend. And Russia is a massive land mass, it’s twice the size of America, they have 11 times zones in the country, and so I do think that for Vladimir Putin, his biggest concern is, “How do we create a security paradigm in the west of this country that won’t be a creep?” And I think that there’s two different parts of the mindset. The people who are most cynical of Putin will say, “Well, he’s just trying to recreate the USSR. He’s being expansionist,” and the people who want to be sympathetic to him will say, “Well, if you think about it, the Russian perception of the NATO arrangement was that they wouldn’t be expanding westward. Over the last years they’ve included all these countries that they said, they promised they wouldn’t include,” who knows what the promises were or were or weren’t? they wouldn’t be expanding westward. Over the last years they’ve included all these countries that they said, they promised they wouldn’t include,” who knows what the promises were or were or weren’t? But what I do know from his perspective is allowing Ukraine and to NATO was always a red line, and that’s why we never offered it. We never provoked it. We never brought it up. We said we’re going to arm them, and we basically said, “Just calm down. We don’t want any conflicts there. We have bigger issues and bigger opportunities to work from.” So I do think you have to think through, what’s a paradigm that he can accept? And I do think that he’ll give the justification for why he’s done what he’s done, and then I think the framework for a solution is about, how do we move both parties forward? Tough job. I hope you get the opportunity to do it because I think it’s a conversation that will only help the world hopefully find a pathway forward.…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.