A Starlink Slowdown in Ukraine?

Right.

Well, what we know about the Starlink matter is, I'd say, relatively little.

We know that Ukraine's experiencing connectivity issues for some of their weapons at high speeds, and that they believe that that's somehow goes back to Starlink itself.

The president said that he has not ended intelligence sharing with Ukraine, which others had reported or speculated on.

So it's a very murky situation, at least with regard to Starlink.

We know that, of course, Elon Musk has kind of gone back and forth on his attitude toward, uh, the Ukraine war over time.

And of course, Elon Musk is a close advisor to the president on, you know, every...

It depends on which day of the week, I guess [laughs], when they're arguing or not.

But, yeah, [laughs] but they seem to be back in good graces, uh, these days.

I think the larger picture here, Kate, is, as you said, Trump believes that the way to lower diesel prices is to pressure Ukraine.

Now, Russia itself, according to the Institute, uh, for the Study of War, admits that the increase in diesel is not connected to the Ukrainian strikes on Russian, uh, refineries.

The Russians themselves blame the Strait of Hormuz for the increase in diesel fuel, but Trump thinks it is.

And so we've seen weeks now of stepped up pressure and also at, at the same time, an openness to dealing with Putin.

And really, you can go back to last -- to the summer, uh, when a Russian economic minister attended the G20 summit in Asheville, North Carolina, under the auspices of Treasury Secretary Bessent as an observer.

And at, at that moment, people were kind of raising eyebrows saying, "What's going on here?" And out of that came the news that Putin would be invited to Florida for a summit at the end of the year.

And so ever since the summer, Trump has tried to, I think, reestablish a relationship with Putin, and that has come at the expense of his relationship with Volodymyr Zelensky.

I want to get back with Matt on the, the politics here.

But Joe, staying with the substance of aiming for a peace in Ukraine.

I mean, look, it would be great if the president could get a peace deal in Ukraine, and I think everyone accepts now that even an imperfect one might be worth it to stop the war.

But the problem, of course, is that Putin won't agree even to a ceasefire, even to a temporary ceasefire on even some types of targets.

And we've had multiple Silborn ceasefire attempts at this point.

And Joe, this is starting to feel like a pattern where the Trump administration, you know, starts to do -- they start turning the screws on Ukraine in various ways.

They start making concessions to Putin, you know, some that Matt mentioned.

But I remember, too, last year, remember, there was a 28-point plan for peace in Ukraine that looked like a very bad document of capitulation.

But then once it became clear that that wouldn't work very well and that Congress really wasn't going to tolerate it and that Putin himself might not even accept it, they backed off.