Brinkley on ‘Heroic’ Biden Meeting with Zelenskyy: ‘When John F. Kennedy Went to Berlin in 1961’

SCIUTTO: “Here now to discuss CNN presidential historian Doug Brinkley, retired Army Brigadier General Peter Zwack, and CNN Law Enforcement Analyst Jonathan Wackrow. He used to be in Secret Service himself. Thanks to all of you. Doug Brinkley, I want to speak to you, as our resident historian here, place this in the context in the pantheon of presidential visits to warzones. President’s visited Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years, but those were U.S. wars. This is a Ukrainian war. No U.S. military presence on the ground. How significant?”

BRINKELY: “it’s extremely significant. The United States is wedded more to the Ukraine than ever before. I go back to history and think of Roosevelt and Churchill, when FDR had to sneak off in the dead of night, even had a body double at one point to first meet Winston Churchill off the coast of Newfoundland. And then of course, you had all those World War II meetings between Churchill. It’s worth, I mean, mentioning Churchill because Zelenskyy has been called the Churchill of our generation, and Biden going there today I think it’s going to be a moment for the history books. It’s like when John F. Kennedy went to Berlin in 1961 and gave a speech at the height of the Cold War. Ukraine is the new Berlin. It’s the rallying point for NATO and the Western allies, and I think Biden did something really heroic.”