GEOFF BENNETT: Let's turn now to one of the country's leading historians on Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, who has written widely on Ukraine, Russia, and this war.

Timothy Snyder is the Richard C. Levin professor of history at Yale University.

Thank you for being with us.

From your perspective, as one who has written extensively on Ukraine, its struggle for independence, its role in European geopolitics, what did you see in that spectacle in the Oval Office earlier today?

TIMOTHY SNYDER, Yale Historian: Well, what you see is that the president of the United States has a little bit of trouble controlling political reality once he gets beyond the United States.

The premise was that we are working towards a peace arrangement between Russia and Ukraine.

But, thus far, all we have done is make concessions to Russia.

That's all we have done.

And then the second thing we have done now is, we brought the Ukrainian president to the White House and tried to humiliate him.

So we have created a situation where we have favored the aggressor and weakened the defender.

You can't really get to peace on that logic.

You have to do exactly the opposite.

There's a lot of wisdom in what Representative Lawler just said, but in order to have the right people at the table, though, you have to have the right balance of strength.

And encouraging the aggressor and attacking the country that's trying to defend itself is not going to get you.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, after the meeting, the White House put out a press release with the subject line: "President Trump and V.P.

Vance are standing up for Americans."

To hear White House officials tell it, they got what they wanted out of this meeting.

From their view, it was a projection of strength and that Trump and Vance castigating Zelenskyy is what it looks like to stand up for American interests.

I know you have a different view.

How do you see it?

TIMOTHY SNYDER: Well, I mean, I think you're setting a pretty low bar for yourself when you think that yelling across the room at your guest is a show of strength, regardless of whether it's the Oval Office or not.

And I think you're setting a pretty low bar for yourself internationally if you think that doing things that please countries that wish to destroy you is a show of strength, which is, of course, what just happened.

Strategically, what we are doing, what the United States is doing, is trading a set of Western alliances for an alliance with Russia.

Now, the main way Russia engages with us is by stealing our technology and by hacking into our infrastructure.

The Russian economy is smaller than Canada's, but we are nevertheless going to trade 80 years of alliance with reliable partners that are 15, 16, 17 times bigger than Russia as an economy for an alliance with Russia.

There is no way that that is a show of strength, in any other than perhaps some kind of distant psychological way that I'm afraid I can't really understand.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, let's talk more about that, because we saw European leaders today side with Ukraine in tweets and written statements.

Our Nick Schifrin reports that European leaders are coming up now with security guarantees.

What are the real-world implications for the U.S. if Europe no longer sees us as a reliable partner?

TIMOTHY SNYDER: I think there's a sort of mode here, which is very important to understand.

In domestic politics, Trump has gone a long way by bullying people and by bluffing.

And that when it comes to our allies only works negatively.

They just draw the conclusion that we can't be trusted.

And then, when it comes to our enemies, like Russia and China, or countries within which we're in a rivalry, it doesn't work at all.

It simply has no effect on them because they are not afraid of Trump.

They have no reason to be afraid of Trump until he can marshal some kind of American policy instrument, which he doesn't seem to be able to do with respect to them.

So, where we are now is that we have created the world very quickly, four or five weeks, in which the level of American strength is incomparably lower than it was in late 2024, and in which it's hard to imagine how we would get that level of strength back up.

Because it's very easy to have -- it's very easy to break relationships, but it's very hard to build them back up again.

And it's very easy to fantasize about some kind of wonderful relationship with a country like Russia, but it's very hard to imagine how that relationship, in fact could benefit the United States as a whole.

GEOFF BENNETT: Let's talk about what might come next, because, after the meeting, President Trump posted on social media that Zelenskyy can come back when he is ready for peace.

The president, when he was leaving for Florida earlier tonight, he told reporters: "I want anybody that's going to make peace."

Is it possible that cooler heads could prevail and that Trump and Zelenskyy could arrive at some sort of wary agreement, or is the damage done here?

TIMOTHY SNYDER: Well, I mean, I would like to - - I would disagree with Representative Lawler, I'm sure, about many, many things, but there was something important about what he said.

The only way you can get to peace is to have the Ukrainians at the table, because they're the country that is being attacked.

You have to create a situation in which the Ukrainians believe that Russia might, in fact, stop killing them.

That can be done.

American power could be applied.

European power could be applied.

We could change the structure of the situation such that Russia wouldn't just pretend, which they have done numerous times already, as President Zelenskyy, by the way, quite rightly said in the White House to J.D.

Vance, who I'm afraid just doesn't know his history of these things.

We could do that, and it would be the right thing to do, and it's, of course, not unimaginable.

But I'm afraid what it requires is that the leadership of our country, of the United States, get away from these very predictable psychological vulnerabilities, where we can be goaded on and prodded and provoked by one another, or by the Russians, or whatever it might be into doing things that don't make sense for us, let alone for the world as a whole.

And that's what we saw today.

We saw a lot of psychological vulnerability.

We saw a lot of people not able to maintain any kind of poise.

We saw people who were representing their momentary impulses or their feelings of strength, rather than the interests of the United States of America.

And it's easy to criticize other countries and other people, but, frankly, we're going to have to have a much better game if we're going to do the sorts of things that you're talking about, like bringing about peace.

GEOFF BENNETT: A final question about President Zelenskyy's role and responsibility in all of this, because Lindsey Graham, who has spoken in support of Ukraine in the past, said that he spoke to Zelenskyy this morning, told him, don't take the bait.

Donald Trump is in a mood to do a deal.

President Zelenskyy is a wartime leader who clearly did not take kindly to being lectured and lied to in the Oval Office.

But what responsibility does he have to make sure that future meetings don't go off the rails?

Donald Trump is a known quantity.

It's clear to many people what angers him and what animates him.

TIMOTHY SNYDER: A deal which is a result of being intimidated and the precedent of being publicly humiliated can't be in the interest, not only of the president, but of the country.

Of course, President Zelenskyy should be open to peace process led by the United States, but if we are leading it by openly humiliating him, that is a bad sign, which a wise leader can't fail to recognize.

GEOFF BENNETT: Timothy Snyder, our thanks to you for joining us this evening.

We appreciate it.