Trump's Betrayal of Ukraine
The Atlantic13 hours ago
On this episode of The David Frum Show, The Atlantic 's David Frum opens with a warning: The United States' support for Ukraine is collapsing under Donald Trump's second term—and with it, the global system of peace and security that has protected Americans for decades. David explains what Trump's latest actions reveal about his motivations, and why Ukraine's survival may now depend on the outcome of the 2024 election.
Then David is joined by the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and now Democratic congressional candidate Bridget Brink, who served under both President Biden and President Trump. They discuss the true stakes of the war, the failure of the Trump administration to develop or execute a coherent Ukraine policy, and why Brink ultimately chose to resign her post. She offers a firsthand account of life in Kyiv during the early days of the full-scale invasion, the dangers facing American diplomats in war zones, and the institutional breakdowns now threatening U.S. foreign policy from within.
The following is a transcript of the episode:
David Frum: Hello, and welcome to another episode of The David Frum Show. I'm David Frum, a staff writer at The Atlantic. I'm speaking to you today from the offices of The Picton Gazette, one of the oldest continuously published newspapers in all of Canada. It's Canada Day week here in Canada, and many of our usual facilities are closed. So I'm very grateful to the editors and publishers of the Gazette for making their offices available to me to record this opening discussion.
My guest this week will be Ambassador Bridget Brink, who was appointed by President Biden as ambassador to Ukraine and then served under President Trump until her resignation earlier this year. Ambassador Brink is now running for Congress for the Democratic nomination in Michigan's Seventh District. Our conversation was recorded before she made that announcement.
Before I turn to our conversation about Ukraine and the struggle for independence, and about the inconsistent and unfavorable attitude of the Trump administration toward Ukraine that she observed as ambassador, I want to say a few personal words about what is at stake in this Ukrainian cause.
The United States has built, since 1945, an extraordinary system of peace and security embracing much of the planet. It is a system from which many countries benefit, but Americans too. That Americans do not need to learn a second language in most cases; that they can travel about the world with a feeling of security; that when they do business, they do business under legal systems that are often inspired by the American example; that when they travel as tourists or students or in any capacity, they can put down a credit card, and if they have a dispute, have that credit card dispute adjudicated, usually under American law—all of those things that we take for granted as we move about a world that is ever more accommodating to the American way of life and to American interests, all of that is one of the prizes for the American investment in global peace and security.
Now, that system of peace and security received one of its severest tests when Russia accelerated its attack on Ukraine. The war began in 2014 with the attack on Crimea and the occupation of Crimea. But in February of 2022, Russia made a direct lunge for the capital, Kyiv. The heroism and endurance of Ukrainian soldiers beat back the Russians, and Ukraine has continued to fight for its independence to this day. This is a war not about boundaries, but about Ukraine's sovereign existence. The Russians and President Putin, their dictator, have made it very clear that what they are offended by is that Ukraine imagines it has any right to exist as an independent nation at all.
As Putin has told many people, including American interviewers—including pet American interviewers, like Tucker Carlson when Tucker Carlson interviewed Vladimir Putin—what this war is about from Putin's point of view is that Ukraine is not a country. It's just part of Russia. It has no history. It has no language. It has no literature. It has no right to be any kind of separate people at all. It's little Russia, in his mind, that must be ruled forever by big Russia. The Ukrainians see it otherwise, and they have fought and struggled and died to maintain their national existence.
Under President Biden, the president who appointed Ambassador Brink, the United States assisted Ukraine, not as fully as it should. It often seems that President Biden's policy was to say, What does Ukraine need? Give them half, and give it late. Tanks and airplanes and other kinds of assistance always arrived too little amounts and too slow in time to turn the tide of war when the war was ready to be turned, especially in the summer of [20]23. It often seemed that there was a lack of urgency in the Biden administration, that they never took it seriously, that November '24 would be, among other things, a referendum on Ukraine's survival, and that if there was anything that was left undone by the United States as of November '24, there was a real chance that the next administration, which might be Donald Trump's, would turn off the flow of aid and doom Ukraine altogether. If the war was not won by November of 2024, it might never be won at all.
But that lack of urgency was a flaw from a generally positive policy. President Biden did seem to understand what was at stake and did want to help, even if it was never in time and never enough. But now, in the Trump presidency, we are in a very different world, a world of outright hostility to Ukraine, where Donald Trump's goal seems to be to pressure Ukraine, sometimes risking Ukrainian lives, sometimes dooming Ukrainian lives, pressure Ukraine to a negotiated form of submission to Russia.
I don't know that we have yet or ever will get to the bottom of the reason for Donald Trump's strange attachment to Russia. The why question—it's been speculated about, psychological blackmail, cronyism. It's been speculated about forever. And I have to admit, I sometimes have joined in some of the speculation, but I think always we need to have skepticism about it. We don't know and maybe we'll never know the why of the Trump-Russia attachment.
But we can see the what. We can see the thing. We can see that there is something going on here that is way beyond the usual about how Americans feel about foreign dictators—a kind of something that is influencing American policy in ways that are injurious to all kinds of societies, not only Ukraine, and that has biased American policy toward the support of the goals of this aggressive dictatorship in Moscow.
Now we find ourselves, really, in a moment of crisis. The United States has demonstrated in Iran that American power can be used. This administration has proven that all those op-eds and think pieces and campaign propaganda about Trump as a dove, as a noninterventionist were nonsense. Trump struck Iran. Right now, there are American Predator drones flying over Mexico. And many in the Trump administration, including the vice president, have talked about using American military force inside Mexico—again, with or without the permission of the Mexican government. They're not noninterventionists. They're not pacifists. They're not doves. What they are are people who are hostile to the Ukrainian cause.
The Ukrainian cause is a great cause. It's one that deserves respect and support from Americans, as it has gained and deserves support from America's allies. Ukraine has done so much by itself. It has fought and struggled and defended itself, but it probably cannot win by itself. To win, it needs help. That help was forthcoming—inadequately, but forthcoming—from the Biden administration, and it's been dialed back by the Trump administration. It needs to be a top-of-mind issue in our national discussion today.
What can be done to help Ukraine? Why won't Donald Trump do it? How can it be pressured to do it? In that debate, Ambassador Brink has been and will be one of the most important voices, first as a successful and effective ambassador, then as a powerful critic of the administration she served, and now as a candidate for Congress.
So in a few moments, my conversation with Ambassador Bridget Brink, but first: a quick break.
Frum: Ambassador Bridget Brink, is a career diplomat, a native of Michigan, and a graduate of Kenyon College. Her service to the United States commenced during the Clinton administration. She has represented the United States in Uzbekistan, Georgia, and the Slovak Republic. In between, she rose to higher and higher positions and ranks at the State Department and on the National Security Council staff.
In February 2022, as Russian columns raced toward Kyiv to capture that Ukrainian capital, and as Russian airborne troops descended on the Kyiv airport, President Biden asked Bridget Brink to serve as his ambassador to Ukraine, an emerging war zone, one of the most dangerous posts in all of U.S. diplomacy.
She was formally nominated in April of 2022 and has led the mission until earlier this year. She resigned in 2025 to protest President Trump's persistent refusal to acknowledge Russia's responsibility for the war Putin started.
And Ambassador Brink, thank you so much. Welcome to The David Frum Show. Let me ask you to take us back to that moment when you got the nod to serve in this historic role at this historic time. How did that happen? What was that like?
Bridget Brink: Well, thanks David. Thanks so much for having me on. Well, I remember it like it was yesterday, but now it was more than three years ago. As you know, or probably know, we have a long process to bring new ambassadors into positions.
So I knew for a while, even before the war started, that I was the president's candidate and had to go through the formal confirmation process. And when the war started, I got a call. And I was asked, Are you still interested in this post? Because we think we may have to close the embassy. We don't know where the embassy will be. We don't know what will happen with the war. What's your position?
And I remember very distinctly, I said, No, I absolutely am committed. I think this position is more important now than maybe ever, and so keep going. And I also said we need to stay and then go back, and that's what we did.
Frum: Yeah, I want to protect us both against the temptation that a lot of Americans have to think that the war started in February of 2022.
Brink: Yes.
Frum: In fact, it started in 2014. But for a long time, the fighting was localized to certain border regions between Russia—the Ukrainian territory but near Russia. In February of '22, we had an escalation of the war where the capital itself became under siege.
So when did you arrive in Kyiv?
Brink: I arrived in Kyiv at the end of May—May 29, 2022—and I came in by land. At that time, we were driving, and I came in; I had a chargé [d'affaires] that I was replacing. We hadn't had a confirmed ambassador in Ukraine for over three years. And I remember that very distinctly because it was me and nine other diplomats.
That's who returned back to help reestablish and reopen the embassy. And when I got there—of course, embassies, when they close, they're taken down in a way to protect our national security. So areas that are sensitive or things that are sensitive are removed or destroyed. And so when we got to the embassy, we literally had nothing that you could plug into the wall.
So if you think about What do you need when you're working? well, you need your computer, and you need your various things that help you do your job, and because of a closure, that did not exist. So this was the unexpected, I'd say, challenge that we had in the first few days and weeks. Because not only were we coming back into a war zone, not only did we not at the time have any air defense (because it was the early part of the war, it was very uncertain)—we also didn't have a functioning, operating embassy. And that, I have to say, was a huge and heavy lift because usually when you reopen an embassy, you reopen it in conditions of peace, not in conditions of war. But here we were, trying to do that in conditions of war.
Frum: Where did you sleep and eat?
Brink: So in the first three months, I slept in the embassy. So I actually was given a room in the Marine house. So we didn't have Marines at that time. Marines usually protect embassies overseas. Me—and it's a small seven, six or seven rooms—and so I had a room just like everybody else's room in the Marine house, whatever Marines live in. I think it's now called, like, the 'ambassador's room.'
And I slept and ate at the embassy. We have a small cafeteria, and I ate there. And, in fact, I didn't want to leave, because after three months, we moved to another location—because we were getting bigger as I pushed very hard to bring more people back. And I didn't want to move, because literally from the time I opened my eyes in the morning until the time I closed them, I was working.
And I didn't want to take the time that I needed to do any kind of commuting back and forth to the embassy. And so I think I was the last one to leave the embassy, purely because of that—not because I didn't want to go and normalize, but because I worried it would, like, take precious seconds and minutes off of what we needed to do the job.
And as I told everybody, we're working at the speed of war. But finally, I was convinced: Like, no, it's important. It's important that the ambassador move, as an example. And if we were going to help the Ukrainians fight this fight, we needed, also, to give people a little bit of ability to have a little downtime and perform. And that was absolutely correct, and that's what I tried to do.
Your first question about Why did I do this job? It's because I believe this was the most important, or at least one of the most important diplomatic jobs on the planet for the United States. And as I think that we, as the United States, should lead and lead with our values and our interests, I was so honored to be asked to do this job.
It was like an honor of a lifetime—really, sincerely an honor of a lifetime to do it, even though it was so challenging and hard every single minute of every single day.
Brink: I mean, here's the challenge we faced: In the first year that we were there—this is prior to receiving any Patriot systems or other types of advanced American air-defense systems—there literally was not air defense. And so for the first year-plus, I think, that I was there, we were—everyone in the country was, but we were, as the American representation—in a situation where we didn't have the ability to protect people.
So when the air alerts went off, we had to make sure that we had everybody in a place that was the most safe possible, and that was underground. So many times we had situations where missiles—or at that time in the first year, it was missiles mostly—missiles would hit really close to wherever we were, and we had shrapnel hit a building, for example, that we were in.
I went, actually, with the USAID administrator—this was a bit later, actually, in the war, but—to Odessa. We had a meeting in a building one day, and then it was attacked and bombed the next day and destroyed. And then that was 12 hours or less later. And then, of course, I eventually was able to move into my residence, and we found some shrapnel missile fragments in the yard of the residence. And yeah, so the missiles and then the drones come down everywhere. And then, of course, when air defense is going up to counter that, there's a lot of activity. It's very dynamic in the air, and you gotta be somewhere where you can be protected.
Frum: And things fall back to earth. Friendly fire also falls back to Earth.
Brink: Eventually everything falls back to earth. Yeah, gravity works.
Frum: So you mentioned going to Odessa. Now, I think most people watching this will be aware that Ukraine is a large country. They may not understand how large it is in terms of hours and that there is no air travel. Anytime you went anywhere, you had to go by land, and with all the risks.
So tell: How did you move about the country, and what kind of protection did you have as you did?
Brink: Well, of course, going in and out of the country—and I did travel in and out of the country a lot to go back to Washington to make the case on the hill or with the administration—to do everything I could to get around the country,
I was the biggest proponent to push for ability and permission, because some of this was controlled initially by Washington, to move around the country so that we could do really important jobs to implement the president's policy and the administration's policy. That includes outreach to people, including people that are suffering from the war, but to also oversee and check on weapons and other assistance that we are giving to Ukraine. And third, to provide advice and support in various ways that we do diplomatically or militarily. So we did all of that—most of that—by train, and the reason was it was the most efficient. The Ukrainian train system is amazing.
I think they've kept their trains on time throughout the war; the trains were used to evacuate people at the beginning of the war. They're used to transport people. Now they're used to transport many different things, probably. I wouldn't want to go into detail, but they're a very effective part of the war effort.
And so I relied on that same thing on the Odessa trip we had, maybe, early on. I think this was in July. Again, this is a very early part of the war, so it was quite—you know, these early moments are really critical to kind of what we do. And I'm a big believer in using American power wisely and using it to shape the environment and shape events and that diplomats are not people who sit back and watch what's going on, but actually shape toward a goal that matches our interests and our values.
So in July, we were trying hard to help get—or keep the economy alive, because Ukraine's economy is really dependent on exports. And the world is also dependent on grain to feed people, especially in food-scarce countries.
And so Ukrainian grain, we were trying to figure out ways to help get it out. And one of them was through the Black Sea ports. But they had been shut down, effectively, by Russian attacks. And so I worked with the Ukrainians and the UN and the G7 partners, and we came up with an idea to go to Odessa and have a G7—that's the Group of 7; that's the main group that supports Ukraine diplomatically—have a G7 meeting down in Odessa to get this Black Sea Grain Initiative going. It was an agreement that would be with the UN and Russia, so I traveled down there. But it was a very hard decision to make.
But we were on our way down, and the train stopped in the middle of the night.
And I probably had a group of—I don't know how many—maybe 20 people, including the security people who were traveling with me. And the train stopped, and I could hear my security guy get a call in the next train cabin. I hear him just say, Yes, yes. He comes back to me, and he says, There's a missile directed. It's going to land somewhere near us, somewhere nearby.
And we're stopped. And I thought, Okay. And at that point, I hoped and I prayed that my team would be okay, and that that decision had been the right one. And then we waited, and that's all you can do is wait. Fifteen minutes, 20 minutes went by, and the train started again. And then we went down.
Frum: Let me ask you about your assessment of the war, as it stands today. We're speaking in the middle of June. At the beginning of June, Ukraine scored one of its most remarkable successes in this war, disabling some number of Russian strategic bombers. I don't know the exact count. You probably do.
It's maybe as high as 40. But it's a big war with many factors. Life for the people of Ukraine—the 40 million people who remain in the country—is very difficult. They're trying to operate schools and old-age pensions and hospitals. Give us a sense of both the military and the economic state as of mid-June 2025.
Brink: Well, I mean, I think one thing's very clear, is that Putin has figured out that he can show—or pretend, I would say—that he's ready to negotiate while he continues to fight on the ground and to try to gain more territory and change facts and conditions on the ground. I think that's a mistake for us to allow that.
I think the situation for the Ukrainians is: The Ukrainians continue to fight. And I think they will continue to fight until they can't in any way, shape, or form. And so I think that in this situation, we face an ongoing, continuing war, and one that risks a greater war by not putting more force and pressure on Putin to come to the table. The Ukrainians did have a very, I'd say, successful attack on Russian military assets last weekend. And I think that that was something that they had—I was not aware of this plan—but that is something they had, I heard, in the planning for a long time.
But I just want everyone to remember that this is in defense [that] the Ukrainians hit military assets. The Russians also, in the last week or so, have launched hundreds of drones and missiles across the country of Ukraine that have killed many civilians, including children. And this is happening and has been happening throughout the war.
Frum: As I listen to you speak, I hope this comes out the right way, because I don't mean this in any way a disrespectful or querulous point. But I notice you're arguing with a lot of things that you would think no rational person would propose in the first place.
You're arguing that Russia is the aggressor, not Ukraine. You are arguing that the defense of this embattled, invaded democracy is something that Americans should care about. You sound a little bit like someone who's been on the receiving end of arguments with the most anti-democratic, anti-social, anti-American people you can possibly imagine over the past number of months. And that is the judo pose in which you are ready to spring into action.
Am I hearing the reverberation of six months of discussions against people who would say things like, Well, maybe Ukraine's at fault. Maybe this isn't important?
Brink: Well, I mean, of course, you've heard what the administration and what the president's position has been, you know, to be some kind of independent—or, yeah, like, independent mediator.
I strongly disagree that that is a position that is good for U.S. interest. In the small sense, and this is really important for Ukraine, it's really vital that we don't allow Putin as an aggressor to just change borders by force, because this sets a terrible precedent here. It sets a terrible precedent in other places around the world.
But I think what I want to say is that, more strategically, I think Putin's goals are much bigger. I don't think it's just Ukraine. I think people who think that, Oh, Putin will stop at Ukraine, that's not my experience in 28 years working in this part of the world. Putin doesn't stop unless stopped, unless given clear positioning that we and partners will oppose a specific direction. I believe he's going to keep going. I think it's clear to me that he wants to reverse Ukraine's path toward not just the EU, which is where this all started, but also to NATO, to weaken NATO, to divide Europe, and to weaken the United States.
And to me, we need a policy that is strategic in the sense of framing what our actions are to achieve the goal, which I think should be to stop Putin from being successful in this attempt.
Frum: But you've spent a lot of time arguing things that one would've thought were settled, like this war is Russia's fault, not Ukraine's fault.
Brink: Yes. I mean, the challenge in the current moment—well, maybe two things I would say. One, I think what's at risk now is so much bigger than just Ukraine. I think Ukraine is—I care very deeply. I spent three years of my life in a war zone trying to protect my team but also advance our goals of keeping Ukraine free.
But I think even more broadly than that, what's at risk is the peace and prosperity that we have enjoyed for 80 years since World War II—because we have relied on some fundamental principles, including, especially: We, the United States, support democracy and freedom at home and abroad. We, the United States, believe that it's important to work with our friends and allies. We, the United States, think that we need to stop aggressors from achieving their goals and compete with China.
I think people don't maybe think about it in this sense, but I think about how undermining some of these principles is risky. It's risky for us. It's risky for our children and future generations because we're taking away some of the foundation of what has built our own prosperity, what has built our own success as a nation.
Frum: I suppose where I'm going with this is: Every major conflict, there are many, many choices. They're all very difficult. If the questions weren't difficult, they wouldn't be at your level in the first place. And the way we think the United States government operates is: people of good faith and unquestioned patriotism and commitment to shared values, dealing with hard issues of what's the right way to go, dealing with un terrible uncertainty and lack of information and trying to come to some kind of balance.
And certainly, in the first years you were in Ukraine, there were many of those discussions, and my opinion: And a lot of them went the wrong way. The United States was late to give Ukraine the things it needed and the chance to score more-decisive gains in the summer of 2023.
Maybe it wasn't ever there, but if it was there, it wasn't seized. But as I listen to you, I hear the reverberations of something that sounds like some kind of cheesy, paranoid Cold War novel—where back home, in Washington, there are important voices that aren't people of good faith, aren't imbued with shared patriotic values, don't stand up for democracy and actually want to see our friends lose, not our friends win.
Brink: Well, I think the challenge we have now with—well, what happened with me is pretty simple, is that for 28 years, I felt very strongly that I could and I was able to offer my opinion and my advice about what's the best course for foreign policy. In our business, you sometimes prevail in that effort, and sometimes you don't. And sometimes because I did it for so long and worked in an area that was in a similar area, I had the ability to come back to issues sometimes and then prevail in a different administration.
For example, when I worked before in Washington, I was part of the group that helped to give Ukraine—or make a recommendation that the then-President Trump, in the first administration, gave weapons to Ukraine, defensive weapons. Those weapons helped to save Kyiv. But now, coming back in the second administration, here's what happened. Every day I woke up, and I was told I might be fired, so I should be careful what I say and what I do. That's fine in terms of: We all serve at the pleasure of the president. That's the way the system works for ambassadors.
But what has happened under an administration with President Trump with such dramatic changes, for example, destroying and changing institutions, like USAID or Department of Education or other institutions, is that what happens with the bureaucracy is: The bureaucracy becomes not a strong advocate of whatever is the recommended approach. What we do as career people is that we make recommendations and then ultimately, of course, it's the leadership—it's the elected leadership and the president—who decides.
In my experience in this Trump administration, there was no space to make recommendations if they conflicted with whatever was the, I think, perceived view of the president. That's highly problematic. I can tell you many times during the Biden administration, I am sure I annoyed or aggravated people because I was so persistent, but I felt it was my duty and my job in my views, and I never—of course, I would implement, once a decision was made, whatever was required or decided—but I never felt that I was at risk of being fired or that I would, by annoying people, was going to be problematic for me personally.
And I believe sincerely that—even though, again, I'm sure in many times, I thought we should be doing something else; you don't get to win every argument—but what you need is a structured policy approach so that you can make the case, and so you can come to a decision, and so you can know the facts.
I need that as ambassador. The president needs that as president, and that's what doesn't exist. Moreover, this fear makes people not want to give their opinion, and so in that period, I said my view was that this is the most important diplomatic job on the planet. I've gotta do it in a way where I'm not fearful. I have to do it in the best way that I can. And then when I couldn't, that's why I left.
Frum: Can I press you to be more specific? Who had the job of advising you that you might be fired?
Brink: Well, I would say this is more the career folks that are literally, I think, pulling their punches and scared.
Frum: To whom do you report as ambassador to Ukraine? I mean, ultimately, the secretary of state, but who's your immediate report? To whom do you address your cables when you send them home?
Brink: Well, you report to the secretary of state, and you report to your chain of command, which goes through the secretary of state and then to the White House. But your day-to-day interactions are, in many cases, with career officials who are in very senior positions in the department.
Frum: Undersecretaries and so on. And so is that the person who would say, You might be fired if you say this thing in your cable?
Brink: Oh, it was many people. It was people in Washington. It was people on my team. It was many people.
Frum: Did you talk to—I mean, Secretary Rubio, who was once a friend of Ukraine, once an advocate of traditional American leadership, and who seems to be making his own calculations, did he ever communicate to you, You're going too far. You're in danger?
Brink: No, he did not.
Frum: Wasn't that his job?
Brink: Well, I don't know if that was true or not. I think a lot of it, I mean, I heard and respected. I always want to hear divergent views. And I heard that, but it didn't change what I did. I still believed that I had to do it a certain way. And I want to hear when people think—I need my advisers or I need people in Washington to give me a steer on which way to go. And I want to keep—as a person of the career service, you can't step out and have your own policy. You have to keep within the policy lines.
But at the same time, it was very hard to have a policy that had been very clear about who's to blame—who's responsible, what's happening on the ground that children are being killed, that people are losing their lives and their homes, and this is happening today, right now—and not be able to speak about that publicly. But it was my job to continue to try.
So that didn't deter me from trying to do the job, but it made it—it really underscores to me what worries me. Because having institutions that are strong, they need to execute policy as decided by the president. But you need institutions that can offer advice and guidance so that the president can make the best decision. And that is a structure that exists and has existed in every administration. And some are not so great and some are better, but there's always been the structure.
Frum: That's assuming that the president wants to make decisions in the best interest of the country, meaning this country. Sometimes you may have a president who wants to make the decisions in the best interest of some other country, and then you have a real problem.
But let me ask you: If there were someone in your shoes but one stage, one train car, back in her career and was considering the next step on the train car, how would you advise that person one train car back to think about service to this president and this administration? You're a person of normal American patriotism. You're being invited to do something for this administration. We've seen how it has sucked the soul out of some of the people who had those, like the secretary of state, once a normal American. How would you advise them to think about whether it's wise or not to serve, or whether they should wait for another moment?
Brink: Well, what I've always told people, now and before—because I've had to mentor and lead a lot of younger officers, and I've had myself fantastic mentors and leaders above me who have really shaped me and helped me—is that our job is to give the best advice and to fight very hard to relay that advice in the best way possible to our elected leadership as career people, and that if, at the end of the day, you feel you can't execute the policy that has been decided, you have some options.
The first option is: There's lots of places in the world that you can serve, and you can go, probably, find someplace or something that aligns with your own values. You can do that. Second option: You can go into our training cadre, which is really important to train the diplomats of the future. And I think and hope those diplomats will be very active, because I think this is very important. We are the frontline of freedom, as diplomats, in the area of Europe in which I worked.
And then the third is you can decide that your conscience doesn't allow you to execute, and you can resign. And I always said it's important to work and do everything possible to serve our country and do the best that you can. But if you come to that point, you have to make that decision. And I believed, and I've always said, you should work as if it's your last day in government and think about everything you do, especially in places that are such high stakes as Ukraine, as if you're not going to have a job tomorrow.
It's really hard to do that, but that's my advice.
Frum: Let me interrupt you there just to say: What you're describing is a thinking process that one might have had in January of 2025, when it was uncertain what the second Trump administration would look like. In June of 2025, we know exactly what the second Trump administration is going to look like.
So if you are someone who's offered to be ambassador to one of the countries that Trump doesn't like or one of the countries that Trump likes a lot, you know what it's going to be. You don't have to do that three-part assessment you just described. You know the answer already. So knowing the answer of what this administration is like, how do you advise then? Because obviously, the business of government has to be carried on. If someone is offered a job as ambassador to Ukraine, how should they think about that?
Brink: I think that has to be an individual decision. I think being ambassador is one thing. You're the public face of the policy, and so you really have to make that decision individually. I think for the staff and the younger officers, it's extraordinarily important that we have this career service, and it's extraordinarily important that they serve and provide the knowledge and recommendations and active diplomacy that makes us like the tip of the spear of our government overseas. So I just think that has to be a decision of individuals, and they have to make it with their own conscience.
Frum: Well, let me ask you this way: When and if President Trump appoints new people to run Ukraine policy, he's got a special representative who's in charge of negotiating, who seems very in thrall to the Russian point of view, whose son is operating a crypto business that is getting money from God knows who and God knows where. How do we as citizens evaluate the people who are making these policies supposedly in the interest, in name of the United States?
Brink: I think it's a mistake not to rely on people with expertise in the area. I think it's a big mistake, especially in Russia. Putin has a larger strategic plan, which is very dangerous to the United States, and we ignore that plan at our peril.
And although he operates tactically, so he can be defeated. But I think it requires a very thoughtful, strategic, coordinated approach, and that's something that in the second Trump administration, my challenge had been getting advice to the right person, because there are a number of different people who are working on Ukraine and on Russia policy. And in that bifurcated way, it was very difficult to get advice.
And when I asked, How I best relay advice and information? I was told I had to go to a multiple number of people across our government in order to affect the policy because there wasn't, as I said, a policy process, a decision-making process. And my problem was: I was in a war zone.
I was really busy. I did not have time to call individual people to try to make the case for a specific policy recommendation. And I think that's something that can still be put in place. But that was and is a big part of the problem. It's the chaos of the policy process, which: I don't know why that's the operating style, but it is not conducive to our ability to execute and implement a strategic foreign policy that deters Russia, sends the right signal to China, and advances American interest for Americans here at home.
Frum: So you're saying that it's kind of a secret hierarchy, where, theoretically, the secretary of state is in charge, but, actually, the president of the Kennedy Center is a lot more important than the secretary of state to American foreign policy.
And that's not a hypothetical example. That may be a very real one.
Brink: I think the challenge I had was that I didn't know who was—I could, of course, talk to some people within the administration who I thought genuinely understood the challenge of Ukraine and how to approach it. I did not sense that there was an ability to inform the president in a way that would help us advance our policy.
And that's an untenable position for an ambassador, an ambassador in a war zone, an ambassador has a thousand people to protect and make sure are safe, and that is trying to accomplish one of our top foreign-policy goals.
Frum: Let me ask one final question: As you departed from Ukraine, when the Ukrainians in the summer of 2025 look back toward the United States, the country that gave them some if maybe not enough aid at the beginning of the war, what do they see now? And what do they think of Americans?
Brink: Well, maybe I'll tell you a story of my last few days, when I was in Ukraine and met with a very senior official. It was one of my last calls. Basically, he showed me what he said had been presented to the Ukrainians as a possible way forward in terms of a peace negotiation.
That paper, which I won't go into detail of, included what I would say Putin's wish list of everything that he wants. And he looked at me and he said, You are our closest strategic partner. That's all he said. And I had nothing I could say, because I myself, as someone who dedicated a big part of my life to supporting freedom and democracy in Ukraine and in the wider European space for the benefit of Americans, I had nothing to say either.
Frum: They feel that the United States is lost to them.
Brink: I don't think they understand. I don't think I understand, or many of us who are experts and long patriots and public servants understand.
Frum: Is it that we don't understand, or that we do understand and our hearts can't accept the answer?
Brink: I think it's a different administration, and it's a threat to our future, and that's why I've come out. That's why I left. That's why I'm speaking publicly. I think it's bad for America to be where we are. It's not who we are. And I just—we have to be on the right side of history. There are very few pivotal moments in history. And as someone who has now done this for 28 years, I think it's vital that we stand on the right side.
Frum: Ambassador Brink, thank you so much for your time today. Good luck with the book. I look forward so much to reading it as you work on it. And good luck to—I know you have some important personal decisions to make and career decisions to make about what comes next for you. And we're all watching those with keen interest, and we all hope that your service to the United States has not ended and that the United States that you believed in has not ended either.
Brink: I don't think it has. I'm sure it hasn't. Thank you. Thank you, David.
[ Music ]
Frum: Thank you so much to Ambassador Bridget Brink for talking to me for this edition of The David Frum Show. Thanks to the editors and publishers of The Picton Gazette for their generous hospitality on this Canada Day week, when so much in Picton is closed.
If you are enjoying this podcast, I hope you'll share it with friends, especially this episode, which is so urgent about Ukraine's survival. And I hope you'll like and subscribe, both the video form of the podcast and any audio form that you like and prefer.
I look forward to speaking to you next week for another episode of The David Frum Show.
Frum: This episode of The David Frum Show was produced by Nathaniel Frum and edited by Andrea Valdez. It was engineered by Dave Grein. Our theme is by Andrew M. Edwards. Claudine Ebeid is the executive producer of Atlantic audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor.
Then David is joined by the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and now Democratic congressional candidate Bridget Brink, who served under both President Biden and President Trump. They discuss the true stakes of the war, the failure of the Trump administration to develop or execute a coherent Ukraine policy, and why Brink ultimately chose to resign her post. She offers a firsthand account of life in Kyiv during the early days of the full-scale invasion, the dangers facing American diplomats in war zones, and the institutional breakdowns now threatening U.S. foreign policy from within.
The following is a transcript of the episode:
David Frum: Hello, and welcome to another episode of The David Frum Show. I'm David Frum, a staff writer at The Atlantic. I'm speaking to you today from the offices of The Picton Gazette, one of the oldest continuously published newspapers in all of Canada. It's Canada Day week here in Canada, and many of our usual facilities are closed. So I'm very grateful to the editors and publishers of the Gazette for making their offices available to me to record this opening discussion.
My guest this week will be Ambassador Bridget Brink, who was appointed by President Biden as ambassador to Ukraine and then served under President Trump until her resignation earlier this year. Ambassador Brink is now running for Congress for the Democratic nomination in Michigan's Seventh District. Our conversation was recorded before she made that announcement.
Before I turn to our conversation about Ukraine and the struggle for independence, and about the inconsistent and unfavorable attitude of the Trump administration toward Ukraine that she observed as ambassador, I want to say a few personal words about what is at stake in this Ukrainian cause.
The United States has built, since 1945, an extraordinary system of peace and security embracing much of the planet. It is a system from which many countries benefit, but Americans too. That Americans do not need to learn a second language in most cases; that they can travel about the world with a feeling of security; that when they do business, they do business under legal systems that are often inspired by the American example; that when they travel as tourists or students or in any capacity, they can put down a credit card, and if they have a dispute, have that credit card dispute adjudicated, usually under American law—all of those things that we take for granted as we move about a world that is ever more accommodating to the American way of life and to American interests, all of that is one of the prizes for the American investment in global peace and security.
Now, that system of peace and security received one of its severest tests when Russia accelerated its attack on Ukraine. The war began in 2014 with the attack on Crimea and the occupation of Crimea. But in February of 2022, Russia made a direct lunge for the capital, Kyiv. The heroism and endurance of Ukrainian soldiers beat back the Russians, and Ukraine has continued to fight for its independence to this day. This is a war not about boundaries, but about Ukraine's sovereign existence. The Russians and President Putin, their dictator, have made it very clear that what they are offended by is that Ukraine imagines it has any right to exist as an independent nation at all.
As Putin has told many people, including American interviewers—including pet American interviewers, like Tucker Carlson when Tucker Carlson interviewed Vladimir Putin—what this war is about from Putin's point of view is that Ukraine is not a country. It's just part of Russia. It has no history. It has no language. It has no literature. It has no right to be any kind of separate people at all. It's little Russia, in his mind, that must be ruled forever by big Russia. The Ukrainians see it otherwise, and they have fought and struggled and died to maintain their national existence.
Under President Biden, the president who appointed Ambassador Brink, the United States assisted Ukraine, not as fully as it should. It often seems that President Biden's policy was to say, What does Ukraine need? Give them half, and give it late. Tanks and airplanes and other kinds of assistance always arrived too little amounts and too slow in time to turn the tide of war when the war was ready to be turned, especially in the summer of [20]23. It often seemed that there was a lack of urgency in the Biden administration, that they never took it seriously, that November '24 would be, among other things, a referendum on Ukraine's survival, and that if there was anything that was left undone by the United States as of November '24, there was a real chance that the next administration, which might be Donald Trump's, would turn off the flow of aid and doom Ukraine altogether. If the war was not won by November of 2024, it might never be won at all.
But that lack of urgency was a flaw from a generally positive policy. President Biden did seem to understand what was at stake and did want to help, even if it was never in time and never enough. But now, in the Trump presidency, we are in a very different world, a world of outright hostility to Ukraine, where Donald Trump's goal seems to be to pressure Ukraine, sometimes risking Ukrainian lives, sometimes dooming Ukrainian lives, pressure Ukraine to a negotiated form of submission to Russia.
I don't know that we have yet or ever will get to the bottom of the reason for Donald Trump's strange attachment to Russia. The why question—it's been speculated about, psychological blackmail, cronyism. It's been speculated about forever. And I have to admit, I sometimes have joined in some of the speculation, but I think always we need to have skepticism about it. We don't know and maybe we'll never know the why of the Trump-Russia attachment.
But we can see the what. We can see the thing. We can see that there is something going on here that is way beyond the usual about how Americans feel about foreign dictators—a kind of something that is influencing American policy in ways that are injurious to all kinds of societies, not only Ukraine, and that has biased American policy toward the support of the goals of this aggressive dictatorship in Moscow.
Now we find ourselves, really, in a moment of crisis. The United States has demonstrated in Iran that American power can be used. This administration has proven that all those op-eds and think pieces and campaign propaganda about Trump as a dove, as a noninterventionist were nonsense. Trump struck Iran. Right now, there are American Predator drones flying over Mexico. And many in the Trump administration, including the vice president, have talked about using American military force inside Mexico—again, with or without the permission of the Mexican government. They're not noninterventionists. They're not pacifists. They're not doves. What they are are people who are hostile to the Ukrainian cause.
The Ukrainian cause is a great cause. It's one that deserves respect and support from Americans, as it has gained and deserves support from America's allies. Ukraine has done so much by itself. It has fought and struggled and defended itself, but it probably cannot win by itself. To win, it needs help. That help was forthcoming—inadequately, but forthcoming—from the Biden administration, and it's been dialed back by the Trump administration. It needs to be a top-of-mind issue in our national discussion today.
What can be done to help Ukraine? Why won't Donald Trump do it? How can it be pressured to do it? In that debate, Ambassador Brink has been and will be one of the most important voices, first as a successful and effective ambassador, then as a powerful critic of the administration she served, and now as a candidate for Congress.
So in a few moments, my conversation with Ambassador Bridget Brink, but first: a quick break.
Frum: Ambassador Bridget Brink, is a career diplomat, a native of Michigan, and a graduate of Kenyon College. Her service to the United States commenced during the Clinton administration. She has represented the United States in Uzbekistan, Georgia, and the Slovak Republic. In between, she rose to higher and higher positions and ranks at the State Department and on the National Security Council staff.
In February 2022, as Russian columns raced toward Kyiv to capture that Ukrainian capital, and as Russian airborne troops descended on the Kyiv airport, President Biden asked Bridget Brink to serve as his ambassador to Ukraine, an emerging war zone, one of the most dangerous posts in all of U.S. diplomacy.
She was formally nominated in April of 2022 and has led the mission until earlier this year. She resigned in 2025 to protest President Trump's persistent refusal to acknowledge Russia's responsibility for the war Putin started.
And Ambassador Brink, thank you so much. Welcome to The David Frum Show. Let me ask you to take us back to that moment when you got the nod to serve in this historic role at this historic time. How did that happen? What was that like?
Bridget Brink: Well, thanks David. Thanks so much for having me on. Well, I remember it like it was yesterday, but now it was more than three years ago. As you know, or probably know, we have a long process to bring new ambassadors into positions.
So I knew for a while, even before the war started, that I was the president's candidate and had to go through the formal confirmation process. And when the war started, I got a call. And I was asked, Are you still interested in this post? Because we think we may have to close the embassy. We don't know where the embassy will be. We don't know what will happen with the war. What's your position?
And I remember very distinctly, I said, No, I absolutely am committed. I think this position is more important now than maybe ever, and so keep going. And I also said we need to stay and then go back, and that's what we did.
Frum: Yeah, I want to protect us both against the temptation that a lot of Americans have to think that the war started in February of 2022.
Brink: Yes.
Frum: In fact, it started in 2014. But for a long time, the fighting was localized to certain border regions between Russia—the Ukrainian territory but near Russia. In February of '22, we had an escalation of the war where the capital itself became under siege.
So when did you arrive in Kyiv?
Brink: I arrived in Kyiv at the end of May—May 29, 2022—and I came in by land. At that time, we were driving, and I came in; I had a chargé [d'affaires] that I was replacing. We hadn't had a confirmed ambassador in Ukraine for over three years. And I remember that very distinctly because it was me and nine other diplomats.
That's who returned back to help reestablish and reopen the embassy. And when I got there—of course, embassies, when they close, they're taken down in a way to protect our national security. So areas that are sensitive or things that are sensitive are removed or destroyed. And so when we got to the embassy, we literally had nothing that you could plug into the wall.
So if you think about What do you need when you're working? well, you need your computer, and you need your various things that help you do your job, and because of a closure, that did not exist. So this was the unexpected, I'd say, challenge that we had in the first few days and weeks. Because not only were we coming back into a war zone, not only did we not at the time have any air defense (because it was the early part of the war, it was very uncertain)—we also didn't have a functioning, operating embassy. And that, I have to say, was a huge and heavy lift because usually when you reopen an embassy, you reopen it in conditions of peace, not in conditions of war. But here we were, trying to do that in conditions of war.
Frum: Where did you sleep and eat?
Brink: So in the first three months, I slept in the embassy. So I actually was given a room in the Marine house. So we didn't have Marines at that time. Marines usually protect embassies overseas. Me—and it's a small seven, six or seven rooms—and so I had a room just like everybody else's room in the Marine house, whatever Marines live in. I think it's now called, like, the 'ambassador's room.'
And I slept and ate at the embassy. We have a small cafeteria, and I ate there. And, in fact, I didn't want to leave, because after three months, we moved to another location—because we were getting bigger as I pushed very hard to bring more people back. And I didn't want to move, because literally from the time I opened my eyes in the morning until the time I closed them, I was working.
And I didn't want to take the time that I needed to do any kind of commuting back and forth to the embassy. And so I think I was the last one to leave the embassy, purely because of that—not because I didn't want to go and normalize, but because I worried it would, like, take precious seconds and minutes off of what we needed to do the job.
And as I told everybody, we're working at the speed of war. But finally, I was convinced: Like, no, it's important. It's important that the ambassador move, as an example. And if we were going to help the Ukrainians fight this fight, we needed, also, to give people a little bit of ability to have a little downtime and perform. And that was absolutely correct, and that's what I tried to do.
Your first question about Why did I do this job? It's because I believe this was the most important, or at least one of the most important diplomatic jobs on the planet for the United States. And as I think that we, as the United States, should lead and lead with our values and our interests, I was so honored to be asked to do this job.
It was like an honor of a lifetime—really, sincerely an honor of a lifetime to do it, even though it was so challenging and hard every single minute of every single day.
Brink: I mean, here's the challenge we faced: In the first year that we were there—this is prior to receiving any Patriot systems or other types of advanced American air-defense systems—there literally was not air defense. And so for the first year-plus, I think, that I was there, we were—everyone in the country was, but we were, as the American representation—in a situation where we didn't have the ability to protect people.
So when the air alerts went off, we had to make sure that we had everybody in a place that was the most safe possible, and that was underground. So many times we had situations where missiles—or at that time in the first year, it was missiles mostly—missiles would hit really close to wherever we were, and we had shrapnel hit a building, for example, that we were in.
I went, actually, with the USAID administrator—this was a bit later, actually, in the war, but—to Odessa. We had a meeting in a building one day, and then it was attacked and bombed the next day and destroyed. And then that was 12 hours or less later. And then, of course, I eventually was able to move into my residence, and we found some shrapnel missile fragments in the yard of the residence. And yeah, so the missiles and then the drones come down everywhere. And then, of course, when air defense is going up to counter that, there's a lot of activity. It's very dynamic in the air, and you gotta be somewhere where you can be protected.
Frum: And things fall back to earth. Friendly fire also falls back to Earth.
Brink: Eventually everything falls back to earth. Yeah, gravity works.
Frum: So you mentioned going to Odessa. Now, I think most people watching this will be aware that Ukraine is a large country. They may not understand how large it is in terms of hours and that there is no air travel. Anytime you went anywhere, you had to go by land, and with all the risks.
So tell: How did you move about the country, and what kind of protection did you have as you did?
Brink: Well, of course, going in and out of the country—and I did travel in and out of the country a lot to go back to Washington to make the case on the hill or with the administration—to do everything I could to get around the country,
I was the biggest proponent to push for ability and permission, because some of this was controlled initially by Washington, to move around the country so that we could do really important jobs to implement the president's policy and the administration's policy. That includes outreach to people, including people that are suffering from the war, but to also oversee and check on weapons and other assistance that we are giving to Ukraine. And third, to provide advice and support in various ways that we do diplomatically or militarily. So we did all of that—most of that—by train, and the reason was it was the most efficient. The Ukrainian train system is amazing.
I think they've kept their trains on time throughout the war; the trains were used to evacuate people at the beginning of the war. They're used to transport people. Now they're used to transport many different things, probably. I wouldn't want to go into detail, but they're a very effective part of the war effort.
And so I relied on that same thing on the Odessa trip we had, maybe, early on. I think this was in July. Again, this is a very early part of the war, so it was quite—you know, these early moments are really critical to kind of what we do. And I'm a big believer in using American power wisely and using it to shape the environment and shape events and that diplomats are not people who sit back and watch what's going on, but actually shape toward a goal that matches our interests and our values.
So in July, we were trying hard to help get—or keep the economy alive, because Ukraine's economy is really dependent on exports. And the world is also dependent on grain to feed people, especially in food-scarce countries.
And so Ukrainian grain, we were trying to figure out ways to help get it out. And one of them was through the Black Sea ports. But they had been shut down, effectively, by Russian attacks. And so I worked with the Ukrainians and the UN and the G7 partners, and we came up with an idea to go to Odessa and have a G7—that's the Group of 7; that's the main group that supports Ukraine diplomatically—have a G7 meeting down in Odessa to get this Black Sea Grain Initiative going. It was an agreement that would be with the UN and Russia, so I traveled down there. But it was a very hard decision to make.
But we were on our way down, and the train stopped in the middle of the night.
And I probably had a group of—I don't know how many—maybe 20 people, including the security people who were traveling with me. And the train stopped, and I could hear my security guy get a call in the next train cabin. I hear him just say, Yes, yes. He comes back to me, and he says, There's a missile directed. It's going to land somewhere near us, somewhere nearby.
And we're stopped. And I thought, Okay. And at that point, I hoped and I prayed that my team would be okay, and that that decision had been the right one. And then we waited, and that's all you can do is wait. Fifteen minutes, 20 minutes went by, and the train started again. And then we went down.
Frum: Let me ask you about your assessment of the war, as it stands today. We're speaking in the middle of June. At the beginning of June, Ukraine scored one of its most remarkable successes in this war, disabling some number of Russian strategic bombers. I don't know the exact count. You probably do.
It's maybe as high as 40. But it's a big war with many factors. Life for the people of Ukraine—the 40 million people who remain in the country—is very difficult. They're trying to operate schools and old-age pensions and hospitals. Give us a sense of both the military and the economic state as of mid-June 2025.
Brink: Well, I mean, I think one thing's very clear, is that Putin has figured out that he can show—or pretend, I would say—that he's ready to negotiate while he continues to fight on the ground and to try to gain more territory and change facts and conditions on the ground. I think that's a mistake for us to allow that.
I think the situation for the Ukrainians is: The Ukrainians continue to fight. And I think they will continue to fight until they can't in any way, shape, or form. And so I think that in this situation, we face an ongoing, continuing war, and one that risks a greater war by not putting more force and pressure on Putin to come to the table. The Ukrainians did have a very, I'd say, successful attack on Russian military assets last weekend. And I think that that was something that they had—I was not aware of this plan—but that is something they had, I heard, in the planning for a long time.
But I just want everyone to remember that this is in defense [that] the Ukrainians hit military assets. The Russians also, in the last week or so, have launched hundreds of drones and missiles across the country of Ukraine that have killed many civilians, including children. And this is happening and has been happening throughout the war.
Frum: As I listen to you speak, I hope this comes out the right way, because I don't mean this in any way a disrespectful or querulous point. But I notice you're arguing with a lot of things that you would think no rational person would propose in the first place.
You're arguing that Russia is the aggressor, not Ukraine. You are arguing that the defense of this embattled, invaded democracy is something that Americans should care about. You sound a little bit like someone who's been on the receiving end of arguments with the most anti-democratic, anti-social, anti-American people you can possibly imagine over the past number of months. And that is the judo pose in which you are ready to spring into action.
Am I hearing the reverberation of six months of discussions against people who would say things like, Well, maybe Ukraine's at fault. Maybe this isn't important?
Brink: Well, I mean, of course, you've heard what the administration and what the president's position has been, you know, to be some kind of independent—or, yeah, like, independent mediator.
I strongly disagree that that is a position that is good for U.S. interest. In the small sense, and this is really important for Ukraine, it's really vital that we don't allow Putin as an aggressor to just change borders by force, because this sets a terrible precedent here. It sets a terrible precedent in other places around the world.
But I think what I want to say is that, more strategically, I think Putin's goals are much bigger. I don't think it's just Ukraine. I think people who think that, Oh, Putin will stop at Ukraine, that's not my experience in 28 years working in this part of the world. Putin doesn't stop unless stopped, unless given clear positioning that we and partners will oppose a specific direction. I believe he's going to keep going. I think it's clear to me that he wants to reverse Ukraine's path toward not just the EU, which is where this all started, but also to NATO, to weaken NATO, to divide Europe, and to weaken the United States.
And to me, we need a policy that is strategic in the sense of framing what our actions are to achieve the goal, which I think should be to stop Putin from being successful in this attempt.
Frum: But you've spent a lot of time arguing things that one would've thought were settled, like this war is Russia's fault, not Ukraine's fault.
Brink: Yes. I mean, the challenge in the current moment—well, maybe two things I would say. One, I think what's at risk now is so much bigger than just Ukraine. I think Ukraine is—I care very deeply. I spent three years of my life in a war zone trying to protect my team but also advance our goals of keeping Ukraine free.
But I think even more broadly than that, what's at risk is the peace and prosperity that we have enjoyed for 80 years since World War II—because we have relied on some fundamental principles, including, especially: We, the United States, support democracy and freedom at home and abroad. We, the United States, believe that it's important to work with our friends and allies. We, the United States, think that we need to stop aggressors from achieving their goals and compete with China.
I think people don't maybe think about it in this sense, but I think about how undermining some of these principles is risky. It's risky for us. It's risky for our children and future generations because we're taking away some of the foundation of what has built our own prosperity, what has built our own success as a nation.
Frum: I suppose where I'm going with this is: Every major conflict, there are many, many choices. They're all very difficult. If the questions weren't difficult, they wouldn't be at your level in the first place. And the way we think the United States government operates is: people of good faith and unquestioned patriotism and commitment to shared values, dealing with hard issues of what's the right way to go, dealing with un terrible uncertainty and lack of information and trying to come to some kind of balance.
And certainly, in the first years you were in Ukraine, there were many of those discussions, and my opinion: And a lot of them went the wrong way. The United States was late to give Ukraine the things it needed and the chance to score more-decisive gains in the summer of 2023.
Maybe it wasn't ever there, but if it was there, it wasn't seized. But as I listen to you, I hear the reverberations of something that sounds like some kind of cheesy, paranoid Cold War novel—where back home, in Washington, there are important voices that aren't people of good faith, aren't imbued with shared patriotic values, don't stand up for democracy and actually want to see our friends lose, not our friends win.
Brink: Well, I think the challenge we have now with—well, what happened with me is pretty simple, is that for 28 years, I felt very strongly that I could and I was able to offer my opinion and my advice about what's the best course for foreign policy. In our business, you sometimes prevail in that effort, and sometimes you don't. And sometimes because I did it for so long and worked in an area that was in a similar area, I had the ability to come back to issues sometimes and then prevail in a different administration.
For example, when I worked before in Washington, I was part of the group that helped to give Ukraine—or make a recommendation that the then-President Trump, in the first administration, gave weapons to Ukraine, defensive weapons. Those weapons helped to save Kyiv. But now, coming back in the second administration, here's what happened. Every day I woke up, and I was told I might be fired, so I should be careful what I say and what I do. That's fine in terms of: We all serve at the pleasure of the president. That's the way the system works for ambassadors.
But what has happened under an administration with President Trump with such dramatic changes, for example, destroying and changing institutions, like USAID or Department of Education or other institutions, is that what happens with the bureaucracy is: The bureaucracy becomes not a strong advocate of whatever is the recommended approach. What we do as career people is that we make recommendations and then ultimately, of course, it's the leadership—it's the elected leadership and the president—who decides.
In my experience in this Trump administration, there was no space to make recommendations if they conflicted with whatever was the, I think, perceived view of the president. That's highly problematic. I can tell you many times during the Biden administration, I am sure I annoyed or aggravated people because I was so persistent, but I felt it was my duty and my job in my views, and I never—of course, I would implement, once a decision was made, whatever was required or decided—but I never felt that I was at risk of being fired or that I would, by annoying people, was going to be problematic for me personally.
And I believe sincerely that—even though, again, I'm sure in many times, I thought we should be doing something else; you don't get to win every argument—but what you need is a structured policy approach so that you can make the case, and so you can come to a decision, and so you can know the facts.
I need that as ambassador. The president needs that as president, and that's what doesn't exist. Moreover, this fear makes people not want to give their opinion, and so in that period, I said my view was that this is the most important diplomatic job on the planet. I've gotta do it in a way where I'm not fearful. I have to do it in the best way that I can. And then when I couldn't, that's why I left.
Frum: Can I press you to be more specific? Who had the job of advising you that you might be fired?
Brink: Well, I would say this is more the career folks that are literally, I think, pulling their punches and scared.
Frum: To whom do you report as ambassador to Ukraine? I mean, ultimately, the secretary of state, but who's your immediate report? To whom do you address your cables when you send them home?
Brink: Well, you report to the secretary of state, and you report to your chain of command, which goes through the secretary of state and then to the White House. But your day-to-day interactions are, in many cases, with career officials who are in very senior positions in the department.
Frum: Undersecretaries and so on. And so is that the person who would say, You might be fired if you say this thing in your cable?
Brink: Oh, it was many people. It was people in Washington. It was people on my team. It was many people.
Frum: Did you talk to—I mean, Secretary Rubio, who was once a friend of Ukraine, once an advocate of traditional American leadership, and who seems to be making his own calculations, did he ever communicate to you, You're going too far. You're in danger?
Brink: No, he did not.
Frum: Wasn't that his job?
Brink: Well, I don't know if that was true or not. I think a lot of it, I mean, I heard and respected. I always want to hear divergent views. And I heard that, but it didn't change what I did. I still believed that I had to do it a certain way. And I want to hear when people think—I need my advisers or I need people in Washington to give me a steer on which way to go. And I want to keep—as a person of the career service, you can't step out and have your own policy. You have to keep within the policy lines.
But at the same time, it was very hard to have a policy that had been very clear about who's to blame—who's responsible, what's happening on the ground that children are being killed, that people are losing their lives and their homes, and this is happening today, right now—and not be able to speak about that publicly. But it was my job to continue to try.
So that didn't deter me from trying to do the job, but it made it—it really underscores to me what worries me. Because having institutions that are strong, they need to execute policy as decided by the president. But you need institutions that can offer advice and guidance so that the president can make the best decision. And that is a structure that exists and has existed in every administration. And some are not so great and some are better, but there's always been the structure.
Frum: That's assuming that the president wants to make decisions in the best interest of the country, meaning this country. Sometimes you may have a president who wants to make the decisions in the best interest of some other country, and then you have a real problem.
But let me ask you: If there were someone in your shoes but one stage, one train car, back in her career and was considering the next step on the train car, how would you advise that person one train car back to think about service to this president and this administration? You're a person of normal American patriotism. You're being invited to do something for this administration. We've seen how it has sucked the soul out of some of the people who had those, like the secretary of state, once a normal American. How would you advise them to think about whether it's wise or not to serve, or whether they should wait for another moment?
Brink: Well, what I've always told people, now and before—because I've had to mentor and lead a lot of younger officers, and I've had myself fantastic mentors and leaders above me who have really shaped me and helped me—is that our job is to give the best advice and to fight very hard to relay that advice in the best way possible to our elected leadership as career people, and that if, at the end of the day, you feel you can't execute the policy that has been decided, you have some options.
The first option is: There's lots of places in the world that you can serve, and you can go, probably, find someplace or something that aligns with your own values. You can do that. Second option: You can go into our training cadre, which is really important to train the diplomats of the future. And I think and hope those diplomats will be very active, because I think this is very important. We are the frontline of freedom, as diplomats, in the area of Europe in which I worked.
And then the third is you can decide that your conscience doesn't allow you to execute, and you can resign. And I always said it's important to work and do everything possible to serve our country and do the best that you can. But if you come to that point, you have to make that decision. And I believed, and I've always said, you should work as if it's your last day in government and think about everything you do, especially in places that are such high stakes as Ukraine, as if you're not going to have a job tomorrow.
It's really hard to do that, but that's my advice.
Frum: Let me interrupt you there just to say: What you're describing is a thinking process that one might have had in January of 2025, when it was uncertain what the second Trump administration would look like. In June of 2025, we know exactly what the second Trump administration is going to look like.
So if you are someone who's offered to be ambassador to one of the countries that Trump doesn't like or one of the countries that Trump likes a lot, you know what it's going to be. You don't have to do that three-part assessment you just described. You know the answer already. So knowing the answer of what this administration is like, how do you advise then? Because obviously, the business of government has to be carried on. If someone is offered a job as ambassador to Ukraine, how should they think about that?
Brink: I think that has to be an individual decision. I think being ambassador is one thing. You're the public face of the policy, and so you really have to make that decision individually. I think for the staff and the younger officers, it's extraordinarily important that we have this career service, and it's extraordinarily important that they serve and provide the knowledge and recommendations and active diplomacy that makes us like the tip of the spear of our government overseas. So I just think that has to be a decision of individuals, and they have to make it with their own conscience.
Frum: Well, let me ask you this way: When and if President Trump appoints new people to run Ukraine policy, he's got a special representative who's in charge of negotiating, who seems very in thrall to the Russian point of view, whose son is operating a crypto business that is getting money from God knows who and God knows where. How do we as citizens evaluate the people who are making these policies supposedly in the interest, in name of the United States?
Brink: I think it's a mistake not to rely on people with expertise in the area. I think it's a big mistake, especially in Russia. Putin has a larger strategic plan, which is very dangerous to the United States, and we ignore that plan at our peril.
And although he operates tactically, so he can be defeated. But I think it requires a very thoughtful, strategic, coordinated approach, and that's something that in the second Trump administration, my challenge had been getting advice to the right person, because there are a number of different people who are working on Ukraine and on Russia policy. And in that bifurcated way, it was very difficult to get advice.
And when I asked, How I best relay advice and information? I was told I had to go to a multiple number of people across our government in order to affect the policy because there wasn't, as I said, a policy process, a decision-making process. And my problem was: I was in a war zone.
I was really busy. I did not have time to call individual people to try to make the case for a specific policy recommendation. And I think that's something that can still be put in place. But that was and is a big part of the problem. It's the chaos of the policy process, which: I don't know why that's the operating style, but it is not conducive to our ability to execute and implement a strategic foreign policy that deters Russia, sends the right signal to China, and advances American interest for Americans here at home.
Frum: So you're saying that it's kind of a secret hierarchy, where, theoretically, the secretary of state is in charge, but, actually, the president of the Kennedy Center is a lot more important than the secretary of state to American foreign policy.
And that's not a hypothetical example. That may be a very real one.
Brink: I think the challenge I had was that I didn't know who was—I could, of course, talk to some people within the administration who I thought genuinely understood the challenge of Ukraine and how to approach it. I did not sense that there was an ability to inform the president in a way that would help us advance our policy.
And that's an untenable position for an ambassador, an ambassador in a war zone, an ambassador has a thousand people to protect and make sure are safe, and that is trying to accomplish one of our top foreign-policy goals.
Frum: Let me ask one final question: As you departed from Ukraine, when the Ukrainians in the summer of 2025 look back toward the United States, the country that gave them some if maybe not enough aid at the beginning of the war, what do they see now? And what do they think of Americans?
Brink: Well, maybe I'll tell you a story of my last few days, when I was in Ukraine and met with a very senior official. It was one of my last calls. Basically, he showed me what he said had been presented to the Ukrainians as a possible way forward in terms of a peace negotiation.
That paper, which I won't go into detail of, included what I would say Putin's wish list of everything that he wants. And he looked at me and he said, You are our closest strategic partner. That's all he said. And I had nothing I could say, because I myself, as someone who dedicated a big part of my life to supporting freedom and democracy in Ukraine and in the wider European space for the benefit of Americans, I had nothing to say either.
Frum: They feel that the United States is lost to them.
Brink: I don't think they understand. I don't think I understand, or many of us who are experts and long patriots and public servants understand.
Frum: Is it that we don't understand, or that we do understand and our hearts can't accept the answer?
Brink: I think it's a different administration, and it's a threat to our future, and that's why I've come out. That's why I left. That's why I'm speaking publicly. I think it's bad for America to be where we are. It's not who we are. And I just—we have to be on the right side of history. There are very few pivotal moments in history. And as someone who has now done this for 28 years, I think it's vital that we stand on the right side.
Frum: Ambassador Brink, thank you so much for your time today. Good luck with the book. I look forward so much to reading it as you work on it. And good luck to—I know you have some important personal decisions to make and career decisions to make about what comes next for you. And we're all watching those with keen interest, and we all hope that your service to the United States has not ended and that the United States that you believed in has not ended either.
Brink: I don't think it has. I'm sure it hasn't. Thank you. Thank you, David.
[ Music ]
Frum: Thank you so much to Ambassador Bridget Brink for talking to me for this edition of The David Frum Show. Thanks to the editors and publishers of The Picton Gazette for their generous hospitality on this Canada Day week, when so much in Picton is closed.
If you are enjoying this podcast, I hope you'll share it with friends, especially this episode, which is so urgent about Ukraine's survival. And I hope you'll like and subscribe, both the video form of the podcast and any audio form that you like and prefer.
I look forward to speaking to you next week for another episode of The David Frum Show.
Frum: This episode of The David Frum Show was produced by Nathaniel Frum and edited by Andrea Valdez. It was engineered by Dave Grein. Our theme is by Andrew M. Edwards. Claudine Ebeid is the executive producer of Atlantic audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor.
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