MORNING GLORY: Can President Trump deliver a ceasefire or even a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine?
Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld added his own famous riff on the question of knowing. This came when "Rummy" was addressing the press on February 12, 2002:
"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tends to be the difficult ones."
Reminding everyone about the old wisdom and Secretary Rumsfeld's reframing of that learning is useful in the aftermath of President Donald Trump's meeting with Russian dictator Putin last week and his meeting yesterday with Ukraine's President Zelensky and other European leaders.
Unless you were present in both meetings, you don't know the state of any negotiations over the effort to end the combat inside both countries. Many reporters have purported to "know" what they cannot possibly know: What Trump, Putin and Zelensky are thinking and what may follow these meetings.
There is certainly a sincere desire to know. There are also "sources" willing to claim "knowledge" of what happened and to feed it to their preferred reporters.
But even the best sourced reporters cannot know what the state of play is because the public's "not knowing" is the essence of high-stakes diplomacy, and such diplomacy is built on secrecy and misdirection.
Contrast this situation of not knowing with our ability to know that Armenia and Azerbaijan have signed a peace deal brokered by President Trump which aims to resolve the decades-long conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. We can also "know" that the conflicts between India and Pakistan, between Cambodia and Thailand and between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda have been brought under at least temporary control because bombs are not dropping, missiles flying or bullets being fired. The appearance of peace is verifiable. So is its absence. We don't see it in Ukraine and we simply cannot know whether President Trump's initiative will bear fruit.
This is a reminder to check your media sources. If any of them are telling you what happened in Alaska last week or in Washington on Monday, you should reassess your use of that platform or at least the bylines purporting to know what is unknown.
Reporters claiming inside knowledge are either being played or being paid for clicks. This is a perfect opportunity to weed your feeds and your subscription list. Lose the folks pretending to have telepathy or knowledge that could not responsibly be shared. Such "reporting" is worse than no reporting at all.
Hugh Hewitt is host of "The Hugh Hewitt Show," heard weekday mornings 6am to 9am ET on the Salem Radio Network, and simulcast on Salem News Channel. Hugh wakes up America on over 400 affiliates nationwide, and on all the streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel's news roundtable hosted by Bret Baier weekdays at 6pm ET. A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a Professor of Law at Chapman University's Fowler School of Law since 1996 where he teaches Constitutional Law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990. Hewitt has frequently appeared on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American paper, has authored a dozen books and moderated a score of Republican candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and his column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over his 40 years in broadcast, and this column previews the lead story that will drive his radio/ TV show today.
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