Robert Wilkie to Newsmax: 'Jaw Jaw Is Better Than War War'

Former Trump Cabinet member Robert Wilkie said former President Donald Trump's decision to sit down with Russian President Vladimir Putin this week might not have delivered immediate results, but it signaled a vital shift back to diplomacy — a move Wilkie framed in Churchillian terms: "Jaw jaw is better than war war."

Wilkie, who served as secretary of Veterans Affairs and under secretary of defense, joined host Tom Basile on Newsmax's "America Agenda" on Saturday morning to analyze Trump's Friday summit with Putin and preview Monday’s scheduled White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Wilkie, who sat in Trump's Cabinet for three years, said he recognized immediately that Trump was dissatisfied with what came out of the meeting.

"After three years in the Cabinet, when I saw that look, I knew that he wasn't happy," Wilkie said.

Trump, in his own remarks after the summit, called it "extremely productive," saying that many points of agreement had been reached, though one major obstacle remained.

"No deal yet," he said, while expressing optimism that negotiations were headed in the right direction.

Wilkie told Basile that the very fact the meeting happened was a diplomatic success.

"The fact that this meeting happened in the first place is a win. It's significant," Wilkie said, adding that President Joe Biden could never have orchestrated such talks after cutting off all direct contact with Putin — a move Wilkie called "a strategic error among many."

Putin, he said, refused to retreat from "maximalist demands" — including his denial of Ukraine's sovereignty and insistence that it is part of a greater Russian empire.

"In that sense, the summit did not achieve anything," Wilkie said.

Why Talking Still Matters

But Wilkie said dismissing the talks as a failure misses the point.

"I'm one of those ... who believes what Mr. [Winston] Churchill said: 'Jaw jaw is better than war war,'" he said.

For Wilkie, dialogue serves a dual purpose: taking the measure of an adversary while also signaling seriousness to allies.

"It's important for the president to sit down with Putin and take his temperature, take his measure. And he'll do the same with Zelenskyy," Wilkie said.

European leaders, however, remain skeptical, with many concluding that Putin will not agree to a ceasefire and is indifferent to sanctions. Wilkie said the best hope may be some form of armistice — akin to the frozen conflict dividing North and South Korea.

When Basile pressed on whether full peace negotiations were realistic, Wilkie responded, "It's only realistic if the United States and Europe put on the table security guarantees."

During the Soviet collapse, he said, the U.S. and Europe offered assurances but failed to deliver, leaving vulnerable nations exposed.

This time, he said, guarantees must be real — potentially including Ukraine's inclusion into the European Union, though not NATO.

Without such commitments, Wilkie argued, Putin will have no incentive to alter his course.

Basile also mentioned the optics of Trump's meeting, saying Putin was given a statesmanlike photo op instead of being treated like a war criminal, while Zelenskyy has faced sharper pressure from Washington.

Wilkie said Trump should treat Zelenskyy with the same respect he showed Putin, because engagement is the price of leadership.

"The left forgets that its heroes, like Franklin Roosevelt, broke bread with the greatest mass murderer in history, next to Mao [Zedong]: Josef Stalin," Wilkie said. "Putin is just a gangster. He's not a homicidal maniac like Stalin was. But that's the price you pay when you're a world leader."

It's easy, he added, for smaller European capitals with "no skin in the game" to criticize U.S. diplomacy. But the responsibility of guiding global events falls on Washington.

On Monday, Trump will host Zelenskyy at the White House in what could prove a pivotal test of whether diplomacy can begin forging a path toward peace.

Wilkie said the stakes are high — not just for Ukraine's survival, but for the balance of power in Europe.

"If you're going to get some sort of stability on that line of demarcation between Ukraine and Russia, you're going to have to pull out the economic as well as the military sword that the United States and our European allies are starting to build," Wilkie said.

For Wilkie, the lesson of history is clear: Talking is never a guarantee of peace, but refusing to talk guarantees the opposite.

"No deal yet," he said, "but we have a very good chance of getting there."

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