Did Zelensky just sabotage his own war effort?

**Jamie** (0:02)
This is a Global Production.

**Christiane Amanpour** (0:05)
Trump is doing things to try to make it more difficult for people to vote in the next time around. And he kind of intimated that this is the desperate claims of a party which sees its polls lagging ahead of these midterms, i.e. the Republican Party.

**Jamie** (0:20)
Subpoena power will be put in the hands of Democrats. And all of these questions about the degree to which President Trump and his family have mixed business of their family and business of government are going to be investigated.

**Christiane Amanpour** (0:32)
The Defence Minister is this sort of young wunderkind who had been credited with really changing the face of what warfare looked like.

**Jamie** (0:40)
We all love Vladimir Zelensky for obvious reasons.

**Christiane Amanpour** (0:43)
No, Volodomir, say it again.

**Jamie** (0:44)
Volodomir Zelensky, thank you. That doesn't mean he's perfect. It just means that he's been a great wartime leader. But everybody makes mistakes. I think this is a mistake.

**Christiane Amanpour** (0:59)
Hello, everyone. The latest episode of The Ex Files this week with me, Christiane in France. Jamie, where are you?

**Jamie** (1:06)
I'm still in New York.

**Christiane Amanpour** (1:08)
Okay. Jamie's in New York and these are the main questions we're going to try to address today.
Why is President Trump doubling down on what appears to be a discredited claim of Chinese interference in the US elections? Is this all about the midterms? What is it all about? And then secondly, there is an internal division now brewing and basically coming to head in Ukraine. How is that going to affect, if it does, the status on the battlefield and the political status of Ukraine trying to get help? So Jamie, let's get right going, but we do have to start just a couple of minutes on that old chestnut Iran. I would say I was a little bit over flippant last week because I said, oh, it's a hot war light. But now, Jamie, it does look like after this weekend, it's going to be potentially a wide scale war again. Three Americans troops have been killed, the US have retaliated. There's this escalation of retaliation. I don't know what you think is going to happen, but I don't think I can call it light anymore.

**Jamie** (2:11)
No, I think you're right that things have changed over the last week. I think the killing of US servicemen in Jordan. Let's remember what happened here is the United States really has used Jordan as a crucial base for everything in the region because the Jordanians are the most willing to allow the United States to do what it needs to do in the region, and the Iranians struck a base and killed soldiers. My guess is that this will cause a strong reaction by the United States that whatever plans they had for possibly stepping up the war are going to be doubled down, and that we're going to be some time before we can get back to ceasefire, even though the fundamentals haven't changed, that there's no obvious way for the United States to get the Strait of Hormuz open without diplomacy, and getting the Strait of Hormuz open is crucial to getting the world economy smooth, which is crucial to the midterm elections that we're going to talk about in a minute.

**Christiane Amanpour** (3:12)
Yeah, I mean, it is also linked. The only issue there is, it would be if there was a plan. My fear is that it is as ad hoc as it was at the beginning of this war without proper, proper war planning, or at least the president not listening to those within his own inner circle who told him of the potential pitfalls. I'm afraid the same exists right now, that it is a situation of escalate and retaliate, etc.
That could really potentially draw in the whole region. You know, Jamie, Max Blumenthal, you know him, I know him. He's the son of friends and he's actually been to Iran. He was there for Khamenei's funeral and he's been talking to people there who are, you know, some of the top political analysts, according to some reports I was just sent, tell him that it could really escalate and that Iran is playing for keeps, that this is all about setting down the markers for who will be, not just in charge, but how that region will be shaped. So, it's a little bit frightening because, as I say, I'm afraid certainly that the US side doesn't really have a strategy or a plan and that the Iranian side may just think it's, you know, on a ticket to heaven where it's not necessarily the case.