On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher said that while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s declaration that it’s not realistic for Ukraine to return to its pre-2014 borders “is just surrender” but “the problem is that I don’t know how it doesn’t end this way.”
Maher stated, “So, here’s what Pete Hegseth, our new Secretary of Defense said…he said, returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective, which, to me, is just surrender. Then again, we can argue about whether that’s true or not. The United States does not believe, also, that NATO membership for Ukraine is realistic. And Trump said, it’s when Biden let them say, we’re going to want to join NATO, that’s when the trouble started. There’s some truth to that.”
He continued, “The other side of this is, then how does the war end? Ukraine beats Russia, without any help from any other country? … I’m just putting it out there, because I don’t know. It’s so easy to sit here and go principles, the principle of — and then somebody on the ground is getting a Kalashnikov rocket in their head. That’s the problem is that I don’t know how it doesn’t end this way. Are they just being realistic or are they being cynical, or they don’t care?”
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