Neera Tanden: ‘What Trump is doing is helping Russia, the aggressor’ 3:22

Neera Tanden, a former domestic policy adviser to President Biden, told a CNN panel that President Donald Trump's handling of Ukraine should not be mistaken for sophisticated statecraft. She rejected the notion of a grand chess game or a clever plan, arguing instead that the practical result is to benefit Russia while Ukraine pays the price. In her words, Trump is "helping Russia, the aggressor."

Other participants in the discussion, published on Monday, October 19, 2026, took the conversation toward Europe. They warned that undermining Ukraine would put the continent's security at risk, and they insisted that any settlement ending the conflict must come with concrete security guarantees.

The segment, which runs just over three minutes, appeared among CNN's politics video and was tied to its Newsnight program. Tanden's central point concerns who gains and who loses from Washington's current direction: Moscow benefits, she says, and Ukraine is left worse off. The other panelists, by contrast, centered their remarks on what a peace arrangement would require and what a weaker Ukraine would mean for Europe.

Summarized by PolitiKool from CNN’s reporting. Read the full story at CNN →