Trump’s Peace Plan for Ukraine, With Liana Fix and Charles A. Kupchan

LINDSAY:
Welcome to The President's Inbox. I'm Jim Lindsay, the Mary and David Boies Distinguished Senior Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy here at the Council on Foreign Relations. This week's topic is Trump's peace plan for Ukraine.
With me to discuss President Trump's efforts to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine are Liana Fix and Charles Kupchan. Liana is a fellow for Europe here at the Council. Her research focuses on European security, transatlantic relations in Russia. She's also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University's Center for German and European Studies, and the Center for Eurasian, Russian, and East European studies. She recently wrote a policy brief for CFR.org titled Partners in Peacemaking, How the United States and Europe Can End the War in Ukraine.
Charlie is a senior fellow here at the council and a professor of international affairs at Georgetown University. He has held several positions in the U.S. government, including from 2014 to 2017 when he served as special assistant to the president, and senior director for European Affairs on the staff of the National Security Council under President Barack Obama. Charlie recently co-authored a piece with CFR's President Michael Froman for Project Syndicate titled Supporting Ukraine is in Trump's Interest.
Liana and Charlie, thank you very much for joining me on the President's Inbox.

KUPCHAN:
Good to be with you, Jim.

FIX:
Thank you for the invitation.

LINDSAY:
Just as we sat down, news broke that on the third anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, that the United States had voted in the UN General Assembly against a Ukrainian and European-backed resolution condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The resolution still passed with Russia, Belarus, and North Korea joining the United States in opposition, but with China and Iran abstaining. What gives? Charlie, I'll go to you first.

KUPCHAN:
Well, Jim, I have to say, I expected a different Trump approach to Ukraine. I expected Trump to call Putin this visit that Marco Rubio made to Riyadh to meet the foreign minister of Russia, Lavrov. None of this surprised me.
What does surprise me is what you just described. The United States voted against the resolution because it specifically refers to a Russian invasion of Ukraine, President Trump calling Zelensky a dictator, blaming Ukraine for the war and the Russian invasion. This is pretty shocking material, and do I think that Trump has decided to throw Ukraine under the bus and that, you know, the end, the end is near for Ukraine? No, but I do think that what we're witnessing here is an effort to end the war without a plan, without a strategy, as well as the reaction of President Trump to the fact that Zelensky has talked back, hasn't signed the agreement to give over five-hundred billion worth of reserves, fossil fuel, mineral reserves in Ukraine. I think Trump is angry.
How this plays out in the coming days and weeks, we don't know, but right now I would say Europe and Ukraine are in panic mode trying to figure out exactly what's going on in Washington.

LINDSAY:
A lot there to unpack, Charlie, and I should just note that you have been a long time proponent of having negotiations to bring the war to an end, and you've gotten a lot of flack from some people over your calls for a negotiated settlement.
I want to bring Liana in on this. Liana, how do you react to the news that the United States voted against this resolution, as I understand it, on the grounds that it specifically blamed Russia for the invasion?

FIX:
So, this action by the United States suggests that the primary goal of the Trump Administration, of Donald Trump himself to be precise, is not necessarily to end the war in Ukraine. But the primary goal is to achieve an normalization of U.S.-Russia relations. We see this in the setup of the Riyadh talks. We see this in the statements coming from Donald Trump, who underlines the economic opportunities with Russia. This seems to be what he wants. He wants to do deals with Russia, he wants to bring Russia back in from the cold and to make sure that Russia is not anymore a pariah on the international stage. And certainly, the Russian side is very successful in giving him the impression that there are deals to be made with Russia.
Ukraine in this context and the structure of the talks suggest this, is a caveat. It's a minor condition, it's a set of questions, a problem that has to be solved on the path of normalizing relations with Russia. And if you look at this from this lens, the resolution makes sense because it is not about Ukraine's sovereignty, about calling out Russia. It is about finding back a way to a normalized relationship with Russia. What probably many other countries, from what we could still call the west, would call an appeasement policy towards an aggressor.
The reaction from Europe that we have seen is twofold. The one is panic, as Charlie described, but the other is a question of, do we still want to have leverage in negotiations and to try to sit at the table? Or is the task for Europeans now to strengthen Ukraine so that in the worst of outcomes, Ukraine can say no to a deal that is imposed on them? And there are certain red flags. A red flag is for example, a reduction of the size of the Ukrainian military, which was foreseen in the Istanbul negotiations from the beginning of the war, which apparently Trump's envoys want to revive. Another red flag is elections in Ukraine pushed by the Kremlin. All these flags, including sanctions relief, have been or are in the process of being crossed by the Trump Administration. And we see from the European side a strong effort to organize in a way which keeps Ukraine going, even if a bad deal is refused by Ukraine in the worst case scenario.

LINDSAY:
Liana, let me take you up on your invitation to sort of draw back and take a wider aperture on this question before we delve into the details about what the administration may or may not be saying to Kiev. And that's your observation that from your point of view, we should think about this in terms of Donald Trump trying to, for lack of a better term, create a reset in U.S.-Russian relations. I think that is a fair point, and I will note that Donald Trump would not be the first American president to try to put U.S.-Russia relations on a different footing. I think this has been a consistent theme for the last quarter century. Saw it from George W. Bush, from Barack Obama, it was his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that gave us the term, the reset. Joe Biden at the beginning of his administration tried to do so.
I want to ask you, Charlie, as a proponent practitioner of realism as a way to analyze foreign policy, does it make sense for Donald Trump to try to reset relations with Russia? Particularly in the context of this argument that we need a reverse Kissinger with Russia and China coming together, U.S. policy needs to find a way to separate them.

KUPCHAN:
Yeah, I would agree with Liana, that that reset with Russia is clearly motivating Trump and that's one of the reasons that I think that meeting in Riyadh was a little bit too giddy for my taste, talking about U.S. investment in China and in some ways kind of out of tone with the situation, but that's because I do think that that's where they're headed. The one caveat I would offer is that I don't think a reset with Russia is possible with Russian troops attacking Ukraine and Russian bombs falling on Kiev.

LINDSAY:
Why is that

KUPCHAN:
The two go together.

LINDSAY:
Why?

KUPCHAN:
Why?

LINDSAY:
Why do you think the two go together?

KUPCHAN:
I just don't think that any American president, including Donald Trump, would have domestic support for flying off to Moscow and having a black tie dinner with Vladimir Putin while Kiev is burning. I just, I don't think it's doable. And as a consequence, I think if Trump wants that reset, which I do think he should want, it must entail a ceasefire in Ukraine and a settlement that Ukrainians and Europeans can live with. Because if they can't live with it, we're not going to get it. This cannot be done alone by the United States in a tete-a-tete between Putin and Trump.
Why do I think it's the right thing to do? And here I would be critical of the Biden Administration. As you said, Jim, I think this conversation between Putin and the American president should have happened a long time ago, while you had in office a president that was pro-Ukraine. I think the outcome would've been much better. But I do think that we now live in a much more globalized and interdependent world than we did in the 20th century. Everything else being equal, the United States has to learn how to work across ideological and geopolitical dividing lines, and that means with Russia and with China.
And yes, as you put it, in an ideal world, we don't want to see Russia and China working shoulder to shoulder against the United States. And as a consequence, if this gambit plays out, if the war in Ukraine comes to an end, if there is a reset with Russia, if there is some kind of rapprochement between Europe and Russia, I think the world becomes a safer place.

LINDSAY:
I want to ask you the same question, if I may, Liana. Do you see a reset with Russia as something that can be achieved? Or maybe the better way to cast it is, can it be achieved on terms that would be acceptable to the United States, let alone the rest of the transatlantic alliance?

FIX:
From just an analytical standpoint, I do think it is achievable, because in the end, the two crucial elements are that there is a ceasefire in place and that Russia is forced to commit to the line at that point of time and deterred from crossing the line again. Through a European mission, through whatever security guarantees you can give to Ukraine, it would be doable. But this is not what we see Donald Trump doing. He is throwing in concessions to Russia in a way which basically make it very difficult to walk back from these concession, to impress Vladimir Putin, to have leverage over Russia. And this interpretation that this is all a four-dimensional chess play and in the end it's all about Russia-China, that applies perhaps to some of Donald Trump's advisers, but he himself doesn't necessarily see China this way.
And I would agree with an article, a great article that our colleague was Rush Doshi has published a while ago in the New York Times. Donald Trump isn't necessarily hawkish on China. He has towards China the same approach as he has towards Russia, making deals. So to argue that he's doing all that to stand up to China, prevent Chinese hegemonic ambitions and so on, is from a purely Trump-ian perspective, not what he's doing. And I think we are kidding ourselves if we are trying to sugarcoat what is happening with Russia and Ukraine right now with this argument that just not intellectually, that's just not a serious argument to make if we look at the evidence that Donald Trump is doing.
And we also see this coming back to the UN resolution, the United States could have abstained, right? I mean, they didn't need to veto this, but making this-

LINDSAY:
Well, they didn't veto it, they simply voted no.

FIX:
They votes no, yeah.

LINDSAY:
In the General Assembly.

FIX:
Sorry, the other way around. They voted no, but they didn't have to vote no. Right? They could have abstained-.

LINDSAY:
As China and Iran both did.

FIX:
Exactly, would not have been a great look but this is really, there's something going on in all the statement that goes beyond just ending the war in Ukraine. And that again is a desire to make deals with Russia.

LINDSAY:
What do you see as the concessions that Trump has made? And I ask that because I know references often made to his declaration that no U.S. troops will enforce the ceasefire, that Ukraine will not become a member of NATO. It seems to me that's the position he's been running on for quite some time. So, I'm not sure how real they are as concessions, as opposed to just being acknowledgments of what his policy preferences are, which the Russians could learn simply by following him on the campaign trail.

FIX:
Yeah, absolutely. And to be fair, that has been Biden's policy, and Biden has been criticized for not admitting Ukraine into NATO, for not committing to U.S. boots on the ground. But the problem in these negotiations is just for accepting the reality, they could have gotten something in return from Vladimir Putin.

LINDSAY:
Do you think so?

FIX:
Which would've been, in terms of ideal negotiation outcome, that Vladimir Putin accepts the realities on the ground as they are right now. Instead, he has not said anything about his ambition to annex those four regions of Ukraine, which he only partly occupies. So in a negotiation, one could have said, "We are accepting the realities on the ground, but you also don't, Putin, don't talk any more about the four regions that are allegedly part of Russia. We just accept the line where it is now," and that's a missed opportunity to get this sort of acceptance of realities from both sides.
And just the fact that very prematurely, all this talk about business deals and sanctions relief, that makes the Russians very confident and it plays into their negotiation tactics, which are old Soviet negotiation tactics about not saying anything and letting the other side make mistakes. And that's what we see right now. The U.S. negotiation side is making mistakes in negotiating with the Russians.

LINDSAY:
Well, just noting that, a lot of people have long argued that Putin's view of all of this is that he can outlast the West. If he waits long enough, the apple metaphorically will fall from the tree and he will walk away the winner.
Charlie, I want you to lay out for me what you think Trump's plan is for peace in Ukraine.

KUPCHAN:
Well, that's not possible, Jim, because he doesn't have a plan. And I think that echoing what Liana just said here, the absence of that plan has become readily apparent over the course of the last ten days, because even though I'm quite supportive of the outreach to Russia and the conversation with Putin, I do think we've seen a series of unforced errors since then, which would suggest to me that right now there is no Trump plan. What are some of those errors? One, as Liana was just discussing, giving away NATO membership for Ukraine, U.S. boots on the ground, trade with Russia. Before you even begin negotiations, those are things that should be held in reserve.

LINDSAY:
So, you don't see this merely as an issue of form, you see it as an issue of substance?

KUPCHAN:
Yes, yes. And, you know, the various players have not been singing from the same sheet of music because there's no sheet of music, there's no plan. Then you have Trump getting into a tit-for-tat insult trade with Zelensky, which only undermines and weakens Zelensky. Then you have Trump trying to twist Zelensky's arms to give over mineral assets. You know, basically saying, "Hey, we're willing to throw you a life preserver, but here's the bill first." Right? Now you have this vote no against the resolution. It's just one unforced error after another.
So, I'm hoping, I'm hoping that as we speak from Macron, from Starmer, pressure from other Europeans, that Trump is now going to do his homework. And I think that homework has to entail, number one, how do we get a ceasefire? And it's likely to be along the line of contact. The territory is the easy part. Number two, I think you have to have a plan to make sure that Ukraine has what it needs to remain a going concern and to be a success story. How are we going to get Ukraine the economic and military assistance that we need to survive in the long run? And the third element here has to be some kind of peacekeeping/monitoring mission.
But my best guess, Jim, is that if this does play out in a positive way, and by that I mean we get a ceasefire, and I think there's a better than even chance that we will, I'm guessing we're headed toward a frozen conflict, not some kind of sign, sealed, delivered peace. And that's because I think the minimum that Ukraine can live with and that Europeans can accept is not going to be acceptable to Putin. He's going to ask for Ukrainian neutrality, caps on the size of Ukraine's forces, recognition of Eastern Ukraine as part of Russia, drop the sanctions. These are things that I don't think he'll get, and that's why my prediction would be yet another frozen conflict.

LINDSAY:
I'll just say on that point, Charlie, that news reports have it that the U.S. intelligence community continues to assess that Putin is not interested in settling the war in Ukraine unless it is settled on his terms.
Liana, I want to draw you out on the reference Charlie made to this deal for critical minerals and rare-earths. Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, had an op-ed in the Financial Times over the weekend in which he made the case for this critical minerals deal. The argument is that in part, it could provide funds for Ukrainian reconstruction, but it would also signal to Russia that the United States is interested economically in Ukraine, and that would be deterrent for future bad Russian behavior. How do you assess that argument?

FIX:
Yeah, I can highly recommend to read the paper by our colleague, Heidi Crebo-Rediker, that she wrote for the Securing Ukraine's Future Initiative, a policy paper on such an economic partnership and deal with the United States. Where she argues, and I think I fully agrees, that such a deal would be useful for Ukraine. But the argument has always been that such a deal would entail future U.S. support for Ukraine, and that is often ignored in the current negotiations. The first draft that the U.S. side proposed to Ukraine talked about a payback for past support, which almost sounds like reparations from the victim in war party.

LINDSAY:
And it's exaggerated amount of past support.

FIX:
It's a hugely exaggerated amount of U.S. support, whereas the initial consideration and the initial deal was we give the U.S. a buy-in to Ukraine's future, which doesn't make a lot of sense. But in return, Ukraine also gets continued U.S. support, especially continued U.S. weapon deliveries. And as far as I see, there has been no commitment from the U.S. side to that. So the latest drafts on the agreement only talk about future financial or otherwise support for Ukraine that have to be spelled out in the future. And that is concerning because it could be as laid out in the Financial Times, a U.S. stake in Ukraine's future. But without something in return for Ukraine, it could also look like the United States and Russia just carving up Ukraine, right? From both sides. And so that's the crucial part of the piece, if Ukraine gets commitments in return for this deal, then I think it's an acceptable deal.
I think Europeans from their side could also prolong Ukraine's lifeline by finally seizing Russian frozen assets, which is something I would urge them to do very soon, given the U-turn that we've seen in us-Russia policy, it could be very likely the case that Hungary will follow that U-turn and veto sanctions on the European level, which could also include a veto on Russian frozen assets, which would mean that those huge amounts of Russian frozen assets from the central bank would directly go back to Russia, which would be a worst case scenario. So, Europeans really have a couple of months now to act from their part to strengthen Ukraine and Russian frozen assets, as well as the European mission to Ukraine should be on the top of the agenda.

LINDSAY:
Charlie, as we talk about negotiations on the war in Ukraine, obviously it is not just the United States and Russia that has an interest in the outcome, so do our European friends. My sense is that there's widespread alarm across European capitals over the way the Trump Administration is proceeding, there've been a variety of emergency meetings. What do you see the Europeans doing and what are they capable of doing?

KUPCHAN:
Well, I think that there is discussion here about Europe coming together, Europe taking over from the United States, Europe pushing back against Trump, and I don't think that that's really possible, given this Europe. And what we're witnessing on the other side of the Atlantic is a set of political circumstances not dissimilar to our own. And by that I mean the hollowing out of the political center and the growing strength of the political extremes, both left and right, but more right than left. And those parties are generally not supportive of aid to Ukraine, they are more pro-Russian. And they weaken European unity, in part because they are not very pro-E.U. And so under different circumstances I might say, "Hey, this is Europe's hour, Europe is going to come together and it is going to fill the gap left behind by Trump's neo-isolationist pro-Russian stance. But I don't think that that is going to happen because as I said, I think there's political weakness in Europe, that I think Trump will do more to divide Europe than to unite it.
And you will see right and particularly far-right politicians, Meloni, Orbán, Le Pen in France, reaching out to Trump and playing the Trump card, and it ends up weakening European unity. So, I think what we're seeing now, and what I'm guessing we'll continue to see is a European effort to keep in the game to meet on that side of the Atlantic, but at the same time to curry favor with Trump, to stay engaged, to keep a seat at the table. And now that Trump I think has launched this effort, has reached out to the Russians, right now, the focus does need to be on creating a unitary front, a unified front between the United States, its European allies, and Ukraine. And I'm hoping that that's where we see the bulk of the efforts in the weeks ahead.

LINDSAY:
Liana, I want to come to you with the same question, but add a little bit of context. Over the weekend we had elections in Germany. Germany remains the single largest economic power in the European Union. Olaf Sholtz has been turfed out, looks like we're going to get a government headed by Friedrich Merz and the Christian Democrats that will be a coalition government. It's not clear when that coalition will come together. My understanding is that Mr. Merz is shooting for having a government ready by Easter, which would be April twenty or about two months from now, with a lot of things going on. What is your assessment of the European reaction and will we see a different Germany?

FIX:
Yeah, I could try to offer a little bit more optimistic view than Charlie has, although I can't guarantee that this more optimistic view will come into place. But one could also argue that given the rise of the right wing in Europe, there is at least in some corners, a little bit more of a complex approach towards Ukraine. We've seen this with Italy and with Giorgia Meloni, who has just recently obviously spoken out in favor of Donald Trump, spoken at the CPAC conference in the United States. But at the same time, she has tried to sell defending Ukraine to Donald Trump as an issue that the MAGA campaign should see as a priority.

LINDSAY:
And Italy voted for the resolution that the United States opposed in the General Assembly?

FIX:
Yeah, absolutely, and I think that's interesting as an example of the far right.
The other topic is there is this saying in Europe that, you know, Germany and other European countries are just one election away from a Trump scenario, from being overtaken by the right wing. But there can also be an argument to say that the example of Donald Trump in the United States actually weakens the European far right. That's a counterintuitive argument, but we've seen that with Brexit too. Brexit in the U.K. has led to European far right and populist parties being less of an attractive option. An exit from the European Union being something that is seen widely across Europe as not acceptable, which is why most right-wing parties have shifted towards saying they want a Europe of the forefathers. Right? And we could possibly see this also in Germany, where the center holds for the moment, where the firewall still holds.
And the second more optimistic argument why Europeans can get together is that at this moment, it really is a double shock for Europeans from the Russian side and from the U.S. side. So, there's an argument that by now, sooner or later, all Europeans will become Gaulle-ists, which is the French term we referring to de Gaulle, the French leader, that Europe's defense needs to be organized by Europeans. And we see this tendency even with the Poles, who have always placed all their bets on the United States as a security guarantor, but are now much more open to thinking together with France, with the U.K., and with Germany about European defense.
So I don't think it'll be a sudden, from tomorrow on Europe will stand on its own feet. They're just physically impossible with Europe's military, but there will certainly be a dual-track approach, at the same time trying to stay in Donald Trump's favors because the gap until, the time lag until Europe can stand of its own feet is too long. It's a five to ten year time gap, and advancing European security and defense. The next big steps on that will be taken in the next months. Friedrich Merz is fully aware of that. He wants a place in the history books and he lives in historic time, so he's moving fast. The only caveat I would offer is that in domestic politics, he has too often adopted an approach of my way or the highway, and that's not something that's going to fly with European partners. No European wants solely German leadership of Europe, it's going to have to be a cooperative effort.

LINDSAY:
The French certainly don't want sole German leadership.

FIX:
Well, French certainly don't. I mean, they only accept French leadership of Europe. It will be slow, but it will not be futile.

LINDSAY:
Charlie, I want to go back to the forty-thousand-foot level again and draw a bit on your expertise looking at the long history of international relations. There's been a lot of talk recently that what Donald Trump seems to be doing with his foreign policy overall is really moving toward a sphere of influences approach. That there are the big powers in everybody else and that the world can more or less be carved up, and the United States will in essence dominate the Western Hemisphere. Do you think there's any merit to that? Are we moving toward a spheres of influence world, or is that an exaggeration?

KUPCHAN:
No, Jim, I don't think it's an exaggeration. I think that we are inevitably headed toward that kind of world, in part because we are experiencing a de-centering of global politics in which power, broadly speaking, is shifting from west to east and north to south. And the long run of material and ideological dominance of the West, really going back a couple of hundred years, that over the next several decades will come to an end. It won't be a world dominated by China or the United States or anybody else. It will simply be a world of multiple centers of power, a more polycentric world. And inevitably, I think that means more spheres of influence, great powers taking care of their neighborhoods in ways that are more consistent with the broader course of history.
The question is, you know, can we get there peacefully? How can we manage the transition from here to there? And in some ways, I have the sense that Trump seems to be trying to rush history. You know, over the last couple of weeks when I've been listening to Trump and what he's saying about Ukraine, one almost feels like he agrees with Putin, that Ukraine in fact belongs to Russia and they should stop being so uppity and keep quiet. And if Zelensky had just done that and genuflected, then this war would've never happened. And so, you know, I'm hoping that that's not his view, because if it is, I think Ukraine is in trouble.
But we do, I think, see in America that isn't willing to be the policeman of the world in the same way that it's been. How that plays out, how that takes effect and shape in Asia, I think is going to be a critical question, simply because that's very much where the rubber meets the road when it comes to growing Chinese ambition and the forward presence of the United States in the Asia Pacific.

LINDSAY:
On that score, I'll just note that as Liana pointed out, there may be differences between what Donald Trump's advisors think he should do, vis-a-vis China, and what Donald Trump wants to do, vis-a-vis China. But I want to give you the last word, Liana. As you think about this issue of spheres of influence, where does Europe fit and can it navigate a world of spheres of influence?

FIX:
Yeah, so Europeans have always loved the talk about multi-polarity, right? Because it gave them the impression that they are one pole and China is just another pole, and the United States is another pole. But I think they're quickly realizing that a retreat from U.S. hegemony is not necessarily followed by something that is better or at least equally as good. I mean, this has been the golden age for Europe post 1945, under U.S. hegemony. And so we have this weird situation where these old categories of thinking about world order and U.S. hegemony in Europe do not work anymore. Before we had the anti-Americanists who thought, well, the U.S. is a cool hegemonic power, imperial power, and on the other side we have the Transatlanticists who had this romanticized view of the United States. These categories are now not valid anymore. And so the whole coordinates of how Europeans look at the world are shifting.
And Europeans are trying to be the last island that upholds the old values, they commit to it. Multilateralism, rule of law. And that is a very noble effort, but instead of just talking about those values, they need to realize that those values can only be defended by military power. That's how the United States has built up and defended the world order. Europeans love-

LINDSAY:
Peace through strength.

FIX:
Yeah, Europeans love to think that the European Union has brought peace to the continent. In reality, it was the United States and the hegemonic U.S. role in NATO that has brought peace to the continent, and the European Union has been built upon that and brought prosperity to Europe. And this is something that Europeans are rediscovering, that defending values and norms needs credible military power to do so. It's a tough return to twentieth, to old power politics for Europeans, but it's a second wake-up call, another one for them.

LINDSAY:
But obviously, relearning lessons is not the same as implementing those lessons.

FIX:
Absolutely.

LINDSAY:
On that note, I'll close up this episode of The President's Inbox. My guest have been Liana Fix, CFR Fellow for Europe, and Charles Kupchan, CFR Senior Fellow, Liana and Charlie, thank you as always for joining me.

KUPCHAN:
Good to be with you, Jim.

FIX:
Thank you, Jim.

LINDSAY:
Please subscribe to The President's Inbox on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, wherever you listen and leave us a review, we love the feedback. The publications mentioned in this episode and a transcript of our conversation are available on the podcast page for The President's Inbox on CFR.org. As always, opinions expressed on The President's Inbox are solely those of the host or our guests, not of CFR, which takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. Today's episode was produced by Justin Schuster, with recording engineer Elijah Gonzalez, and Director of Podcasting, Gabrielle Sierra. This is Jim Lindsay, thanks for listening.