106. Inside the Trump-Putin Meeting: What Went Wrong?

0:06Hello everybody, Cathy and Anthony here, 9. 9.15 Washington time. We are getting the news in that's coming in from Alaska. Thank you for joining this YouTube live, which is going to re-air as a podcast as well on all of your regular providers. We thought it was worth updating you with what's happened in Alaska, because I actually think that the conclusion of these talks is more significant than it might have been. Anthony, you and I, when we did our podcast recording on Thursday, we both thought nothing would happen. I almost think this is something from President Trump's point of view as worse than nothing because he gave a press conference in which he didn't take questions.

0:47He hates that happening. He loves to take questions to the press. He canceled the lunch. He has basically had to admit that he went there on the plane to Alaska saying that he hoped that they were going to get a deal. He expected to be able to get a deal. He's cast himself as the great negotiator. And yet he's had to admit that he hasn't been able to get a deal and that there are still big sticking points. I think from Ukraine's point of view, if I'm sitting in Kiev tonight, obviously the attacks are still continuing. But in some ways, there must be some relief that this is not a peace in our time appeasement moment where the American president came out and said, right, we've got a fantastic ceasefire deal.

1:29that perhaps the Russians will never stick to. I'm not putting any conditions on them. I think that conversation with the Europeans that he had beforehand, where they were pretty strict on those five principles that we outlined on our podcast, particularly the principle of security guarantees for Ukraine, that seems to have been listened to. We were just listening literally as you and I are recording this. President Trump is speaking on Fox News. He wouldn't go into the big differences between him and Vladimir Putin in that Fox News interview. But I think we can assume that those security guarantees are at least one of them.

2:07What did you make of what happened? Well, it certainly wasn't Munich 1938, but I feel like it was Vienna 1961. And just let me set the scene. You had a Khrushchev meeting with Kennedy. Khrushchev went into the meeting, manhandled Kennedy, bullied him. Kennedy left the meeting and said, I've never felt worse. I was ill-prepared for the meeting. And then, lo and behold, the buildup started to happen and the Berlin Wall went into place and other measures. And then, of course, Khrushchev overplayed his hand with the Cuban Missile Crisis a year later. But the reason I'm bringing up Vienna in 1961 is it by all appearances, Trump got rolled by Putin because let's just go over what needed to get accomplished for the Russian president and what needed to get accomplished for the American president.

3:02So the three things the Russian president wanted was the photo op. He wanted to be on U.S. superpower territory. He's a supposed war criminal in Europe, but he's not a war criminal to Donald Trump. And so there he was on U.S. territory as a quote-unquote free man. And then the third thing is he got to spend an hour or so berating Trump, where it was a unilateral discussion of what he wanted and what he was going to do with no resolution. And so he goes back to Moscow with a ton of canned propaganda for Moscow nationalists, Russian nationals. I mean, according to our Russian colleagues, this is already being Russian correspondent colleagues.

3:49This is being played as a win in Russia tonight already. So they think that the photo op that he got was exactly what he wanted and he didn't give anything away. So what did Trump want? The three things that Trump wanted was he really did want a impasse, a ceasefire. He wanted to be able to give the Russian president a relaxation of the sanctions. He wants to do business. Remember, he was in the meeting. He said, look at all the business people here. Wants to do business with them. And then the third thing is he wants a renewal of the nuclear treaties, right? Because, again, Trump's goal is to get a Nobel Prize.

4:26He's been very clear about that. So he was 0 for 3. Vladimir Putin, President Putin was 3 for 3. I just want to go to the flyover, get your reaction to it. But, of course, they timed F-22s, a B-1 bomber, F-35s to fly over Putin as he was walking the red carpet with Trump. Now, the MAGA people are cheering that on social media. They're banging the drums about how wonderful and the muscularity and the display of strength and the flex of that. I thought that was ridiculous. OK, that was absolutely ridiculous. Reagan wouldn't have done that. George Herbert Walker Bush, a war hero who got picked up in the Pacific by a submarine after his fighter plane was shot down, would have never have done that.

5:14I agree. I actually agree with that. But this is the type of nonsense and hyper-masculinity that these guys do. And I'm sure Putin looked at that and said, wow, this is ridiculous. Yeah, I mean, I heard Senator Murkowski, actually, who was up and spoke very briefly to Trump before the meeting started. And she was saying, oh, well, this was a great projection of American strength. But my reaction was yours. That was it was far too kind of easy and cliched. Didn't really mean anything. So you have a whole bunch of jets flying over and it looks like a show of muscle. I mean, I don't think Putin is going to be bamboozled by that.

5:47I agree with you. And it's interesting looking at the chats that are coming into us as we're doing this live, that Putin really got what he wanted out of this, which is what the Russian press is saying. a couple of things that I have heard during the course of today before the meeting that I'm now looking back at my notes one was from Senator Chris Murphy who I interviewed this morning who Democratic Senator from Connecticut who said that the the key is that this is a win for Putin either way and I think he called it right that that it was a show of strength for Putin to get the meeting and it was a show of weakness for the United States and his prediction was that the United States would come out of this looking weaker.

6:30I think that's true. I also spoke to Evelyn Farkas, who was the head of the Russia desk under the DOD during the Biden administration. And the thing that she kept saying is that, listen, be wary of a ceasefire arrangement and any kind of agreement because President Putin won't stick to it anyway. And Donald Trump is not prepared enough in this meeting to go into the real nitty gritty and the details. And I think we've seen that in the way this meeting panned out. Vladimir Putin went into this meeting prepared. The American team, because they had thrown this together so fast, okay, so they got the visuals of the B-2 bombers.

7:06That's visuals. What they didn't have was enough of the detail and the preparation beforehand to be able to say, okay, we got to an agreement that is satisfactory for all the parties that gets us to the next meeting, which is what President Trump said he wanted with Zelensky, and we've done the hard work beforehand. And I look at what happened up in Alaska and I think this is what happens when you don't do the hard work beforehand. This is what happens when you don't have the experts in the room, when you don't have your Sherpas beforehand ironing out the details. You can't, it's unrealistic to think that you can go into a meeting with Putin, look him in the eyes.

7:45And what did Trump say beforehand? I'll know within the first minute. I'll know within the first two minutes. I'll know within the first five minutes. So that drive that they had in the beast, the two of them by themselves, again, highly unusual. I guess that's when he realized there wasn't a deal to be had. Anyway, I think he went to it thinking that his incredible skills as a negotiator were going to make this the art of the deal. And I agree with Senator Murphy in this case. America comes out of this with a weakened position, not a stronger position. So I want to address with you a few things.

8:19The first one I want to talk about is right-wing media. So right-wing media, Fox News, others praising Trump. He's solved all these wars. He's going to solve this war. They're in an interview right now not even talking about what happened, but they're talking about closing the border. And talking about tariffs. I mean, really interesting. And Trump is bagging about that. So they can't talk about this because Trump doesn't have anything there. Second thing I want to talk about is Trump's staff. They looked very ashen after the meeting. Reporters that I'm close to that were there said that they looked like they were in disarray.

8:58That was confirmed by more than one source. And then the third thing I want to address is the now conversation. Zelensky's on the phone with Schultz. He's on the phone with Macron. He's on the phone with Starmer. What are those conversations like? and what are they thinking as it relates to Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. Now, I said this on the podcast, and I'm not patting us on the back, Patty, but we did predict this outcome. We just obviously released it last night. I'm not patting us on the back, but I'm going to explain to you why the outcome was so— I don't know. Let's get a little pat on the back.

9:36Go on, Anthony. Okay, but I just want to explain why it was easy to predict. You're saying the disorganization. I'm saying something different. There's a hold. There's a hold on Donald Trump. That meeting could have been a reassurance meeting. This is speculation. I'm not saying this is fact, but this is an opinion podcast. I'm going to share my opinion. He could have gotten him alone for a few minutes and said, hey, pal, don't worry. Whatever tapes I have related to you and Jeff Epstein are in the vault, but you got to play nice with me because I'm having a huge problem here in terms of this war.

10:15Oh, by the way, I need some territory from Ukraine. I've got to take Zelensky out of power. I guarantee, as sure as I'm sitting here talking to you, that he's telling Trump he wants Zelensky out of power. So those are the things that you can't talk about on Fox News. You're not going to be on an interview. Hey, I was with Vladimir Putin. we can't get to a deal. He wants Zelensky out of power. He wants to take Ukraine land from the Ukrainians. And he wants a relaxation of our economic sanctions. And oh, by the way, he's not budging on any of these things. But I did get something for myself that he's not going to leak any bad information that him or his intelligence services have on me.

11:02Now, again, That's speculation, speculation by me, but it's pretty obvious that there's a hold here. And one would say, well, then why would Trump, if he knows he's not going to get anything done, why would Trump actually go to this meeting? And the answer is, hey, man, got to look this guy in the eye. I'm afraid of him. Are we cool? Because I got a lot of bad stuff on my background. Are we cool? We're cool, but you better play nice with me right now because I'm under the gun here in Russia. I really think that's what happened. Yeah, and that, I mean, there's going to be a ton of speculation about what happened when they were alone in the beast and who said what to who.

11:44I mean, it was interesting that going into this, we had understood from the White House that this was going to be a one-on-one meeting, President Putin and President Trump. And in the end, it wasn't, of course. There was the foreign secretaries from both side were in there and the special envoys from both side were in there. So it was a three on three meeting. So there were people, but they did have this short amount of time in the car beforehand. I don't know, Anthony. I don't know if there's some what I hear from European officials and intelligence officials. And again, I spoke to people today who are in the intelligence space who said they don't know if there is specific hold, but that they do point to the amount of business that Donald Trump has done with the Russians over the years, the properties that he has sold, whether he sees that as some kind of quid pro quo.

12:33So if I am Ukraine tonight, if I'm sitting in Kiev tonight, however, I think that I am looking at this. And there's a couple of people who are kind of writing questions in about this. I think I'm looking at this and thinking, OK, at least he did not. The worst case scenario from Ukraine's point of view would have been that Donald Trump would have come out and announced that there was a ceasefire with no measurable conditions to it. no measurable conditions about you have to stop bombing civilian targets, you have to stop bombing infrastructure, energy infrastructure, for example. And I think that didn't happen.

13:14So from Ukraine's point of view, this is probably a better outcome. I think the question now is, what does America do going forward in terms of shoring up the Europeans to shore up Ukraine? I extent by Vladimir Putin. Remember, it's worth remembering today was the day that the secondary sanctions were meant to take place. Remember, this was the famous deadline. If you don't stop attacking civilians, we are going to hit you hard with sanctions. That hasn't happened. I mean, Putin has already delayed that process. Is it ever going to happen? I don't think we know that. But President Putin went into this hoping that he could say to Donald Trump, this is inexorably moving in Russia's direction.

14:00Look at the facts on the ground. We are in the the stronger position. Ukraine should do a deal now because a deal in three months' time is going to be worse for them. And I do think the Americans haven't bought that line. So the Europeans will be relieved that the Americans didn't come out and say, OK, Ukraine has to negotiate away X amount of territory. This is the conditions. Whether America comes out of this saying we're going to carry on supporting the Ukrainians or we're going to carry on allowing the Europeans and helping the Europeans support Ukrainians, I think that's a different question.

14:35There's still a lot we don't know. And it was, I just thought the fact they didn't take questions was so interesting. Donald Trump loves taking questions and he doesn't like having an opportunity in which he doesn't take questions, right? But if you had asked me before the thing started, are they going to take questions? It would have been very hard to take questions because how is Putin going to take questions from the free press related to his war crimes, the atrocities, the stolen children. We could go on and on and on. There was just no possible way they could take questions. Trump couldn't dispatch him.

15:09He couldn't say, hey, you leave because you can't take questions. You're a war criminal, but I love you, brother. But now I'm going to take questions. He couldn't do that. So they were forced into not taking questions. What was interesting is that he let Putin go first. If you watch other summit meetings, the host speaks first. The guest goes second. And, of course, Vladimir Putin dominated the conversation. There was a 12-minute press lecture. It wasn't really a conference. And Putin talked for almost two-thirds of it. But, Katty, a couple of things, okay? The special, the lunch special, the lunch was canceled, but the lunch special was Putin's backside.

15:52and Trump said, you know, I had enough of that. I had enough of that in the meeting. So he didn't need to eat any more of that. So they passed on lunch. And then the second thing, and this is the optimistic thing. People should really listen to me when I say this. And by the way, there are people, Rainbow Trout here were saying Trump looked awful. I watched it with a couple of my young kids and my wife, and all three of them had the same reaction. Trump looked very tired. His hair dye looked off. His hair was out of place. It was weird. It was weird on Trump. We're going to take a break and just and then talk a little bit more about this, because I do think this is important, because I think I felt there was a real difference between Trump before the meetings and Trump after.

16:32And I wanted to get your reaction to that. We'll take a quick break and be right back.

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17:47You said you were watching it with your family. Did they think he looked off before the meeting? Because I actually think he looked okay before the meeting. He was in control. He was the one that reached out and took his hand. He patted the hand. It was a little too friendly, perhaps certainly for Ukraine and Europe's liking, for somebody who's been accused of war crimes. but he was he seemed he didn't seem as put out and thrown off as he did when he came out of that is that how you read it he looked off he looked tired he looked distracted he looked like yeah he's like okay how am i going to take this horrible meeting and take this you know you know what kind of sandwich and turned it into a gourmet meal but i want to say something optimistic everybody.

18:39The Republicans in the Congress, it's not over yet. You know, the media perception is that the Congress is completely rolled over and everyone in the Congress is going to allow Donald Trump to do anything that he wants at any time. I don't think that's the case, because if that were the case, he would have came on much stronger there. He would have said, I'm here with the Vladster. Everything's good. I'm going to relax the sanctions. We're going to get a economic deal with the guy. Oh, by the way, Zelensky's going to have to give up some land here. And if he doesn't do that, they'll be held to play for Ukraine.

19:16That's what Trump wants. Trump doesn't want to be on the wrong side of Vladimir Putin. And so I'm just saying I have optimism here that the Republican Party is actually not dead and they've represented themselves with some level of muscularity. One thing that was said by Putin, which I thought was KGB to the ninth power, is that the war would not have started if Donald Trump were president. And Trump is out there puffing up his chest and saying, see, Vladimir Putin said it, you know, the war would have never started. You think the war, Katty Kay, would have never started if Donald Trump were the president?

20:00I think Vladimir Putin has wanted Ukraine for a long time. He thinks Ukraine should be in his sphere of influence. In a way, it's very simple. He went into this whole war. He went into this whole summit with a very clear, quite straightforward set of demands. And that is that Ukraine should come under Russia's sphere of influence. And I think whoever had been the president, he tested it out with Barack Obama. He did it under Joe Biden, but I think he would have actually done it under Donald Trump. I don't think it's impossible that it would have started. I mean, I thought it was so interesting that he he almost protested too much he fell over himself to say oh this wouldn't have started and there is donald trump in the interview with sean hannity on fox news straight afterwards saying look look even you know my friend vladimir putin has said that the war wouldn't have started if i had been president um you know i i can't swear to you that it would have done would he would he have not have gone into crimea if donald trump was president he would have gone into Crimea.

20:59The war started well before Trump got on the political playing field. He was pushing the war aggressively. Putin has been weakened. He's lost his place in the Middle East. His economy is shrinking. His military has been decimated. And I said this on the podcast, I'll just repeat it. Trump, a real American president, steeped in American foreign policy, working alongside of his team in a bipartisan way would have shoved Putin very politely, but very hard in a meeting like that. But instead, we've got a B-1 flyover. Look at us. We've got a B-1. In lieu of somebody actually saying. It's a 34-year-old piece of technology.

21:44Yeah. And I think it was also, I mean, the kind of optics is classic Trump visuals. You know, is the apprentice TV producer who has thrown together this summit. And let's have the optics of that without actually the real substance of standing up to Vladimir Putin and saying, okay, these are the conditions. Time is not on your side, President Putin. We are going to carry on supporting the Ukrainians. Do not think that you can go back into Ukraine. We are going to set this up in such a way that you can never go back into Ukraine. And he didn't say any of that. I do agree with you that he visually afterwards, he certainly looked more diminished.

22:22And I guess Vladimir Putin stood up to him. Okay, we're going to get more details. I've reached out to a few people tonight. I'm sure you have too, Anthony. We'll hear more over the weekend. If there is more to bring you guys on this, we will do so either over the weekend or early next week. But I think it was very significant for Ukraine that this, I mean, weirdly tonight, Tonight, Antony, this is both a victory for Vladimir Putin and in a very odd way, it's a victory for the Ukrainians, too, because they could have seen their country given away, you know, over their heads. The Ukrainians were worried that peace was going to be negotiated in Europe over the heads of Europeans.

23:02And Donald Trump realized or was made to realize he couldn't do that. So he had to come away with accepting that he couldn't. I'm going to add that the Republicans in the Congress that believe in NATO and believe in the 1994 Security Act, that have now been emboldened and see Trump weakening as a political asset as we head into the midterms. Fifteen months, Gaddy, until the midterms. So Trump is a weakening political asset. He had a wobbly gate today, too, by the way. If you guys get a chance, take a look at the video. Trump coming off the plane. If Joe Biden had come off the plane the way Donald Trump came off the plane, Fox News would be running it every 30 seconds saying something seriously wrong with Joe Biden.

23:48So just take a look at that wobbly gate. Well, Putin positively bounced down the steps. Did you notice that? Putin bounces down the steps. Sergey Lavrov, the foreign minister for Russia, turns up on American soil with a USSR sweatshirt on. I mean, what was the message there? straight in to America with the Soviet Union is alive and well, effectively. And now, lots of messaging on both sides. The Republican senators have the strongest ever sanctions package sitting on the table against Russia. Let's see if they now enact that and get president to sign along with it. It's going to be an interesting couple of days.

24:27Thank you all for joining us in the middle of the night. Anthony, thank you for joining us from wherever you are in the middle of the ocean. I'm glad you were there. I know. Look at that. Ah, see that? Disney Cruise. I'm on the Disney Cruise. One of Caddy's favorite things. I'm so happy for you and your kids. Caddy would rather be in Hades. Thank you. Caddy would rather be in Hades than the Disney Cruise. That's okay, Caddy. Listen, I'm even staying in Washington, D.C. over the Disney Cruise. I'm glad you're there. I'll do the children's work for both of us. Don't worry. We just want to get videos of you on that kind of slide that goes into the ocean.

25:00Just make sure you send us those pictures. I don't have enough life insurance for that one. But anyway, I'll see you later in the week. Thanks, guys, for joining us.