British ambassador hopes US stays on same page about Ukraine

The British ambassador to the United States said Sunday she hopes President-elect Donald Trump won't abandon Ukraine when he becomes president again, but acknowledged there is no way of knowing what will happen.

"I don't think it's for any single European leader to say what President Trump might do," Dame Karen Pierce said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "I think we need to hear from President Trump after inauguration on what the new administration's plans are."

Speaking to host Margaret Brennan, Pierce was responding to comments made by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a Trump ally who has made it clear he'd prefer Europe not support Ukraine in its war with Russia.

“The situation on the front is obvious, there’s been a military defeat. The Americans are going to pull out of this war,” Orbán said Friday in Budapest.

Trump has repeatedly said he expects to be able to end the Russia-Ukraine war as soon as he takes office, which has led to speculation he's inclined to side with Russian President Vladimir Putin when it comes to occupied Ukrainian territory.

But the ambassador said she believes Trump has not yet committed to a specific course of action.

"In my experience," she said, "President Trump is his own person. He'll listen to a lot of advice, some of it solicited, some of it unsolicited, and he'll weigh the pros and cons, and he'll come to his own decision. But I have always found him and his team very willing to listen to our point of view."

Pierce said that when the United States and Europe see eye to eye on foreign policy, the results are positive.

"When America and Europe work together, that's when you get success. That's when you get coherence in policy," she said.

Pierce also said she doesn't think it is a problem that David Lammy, who is now Britain's foreign secretary, has called Trump “a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathizing sociopath.” Among other things, Lammy has also called Trump "deluded, dishonest, xenophobic, narcissistic" and "a fragile, bigoted and cowardly disgrace."

"In my experience," Pierce said to Brennan, "politicians kind of absorb those sorts of comments as part of the wear and tear of political life. What's important is the relationship now."