141. Trump, Putin, Zelensky: What They Want In Ukraine

13:17Anthony Scaramucci:Not in the current situation. I mean, he could only give him that after there was some kind of a peace negotiation that had been done or as part of a peace negotiation. But he can't give him that prior to Putin accepting this 20-point plan. I don't think the Republicans in the Senate would agree to that.

13:39Katty Kay:Okay. How about a reduced military footprint in Eastern Europe? U.S. military, I should say. U.S. military.

13:46Anthony Scaramucci:Yeah, I think if this was settled, then a reduced military footprint in Eastern Europe would be something that the Republicans could accept.

13:54Katty Kay:I actually think we're going in that direction. Yeah, I think we're going there anyway. And by the way, that's the Europeans paying its fair share direction. Okay. And I think we're at that point in global history now where Europe and the United States have to accept that just given the vagaries of what goes on in both these countries politically and the systemic rise of populism. I think we're going to get there. And we're probably going to get there post Donald Trump's presidency. I might add that as well. Okay, now what about status or reorientation of status recognition for Russia, i.e. Russia in the G8, Caddy K.

14:34Katty Kay:Is that doable or possible? The facial expressions are not good for those of you listening.

14:40Anthony Scaramucci:For those of you listening from the Kremlin, there is not a lot of optimism on this program right now about the reintegration.

14:49Katty Kay:Hair and makeup looking great, facial expressions not good. So cheerful.

14:54Anthony Scaramucci:I think this is a tough one. I mean, you know, there's, Europeans are still worried that, okay, he's only got Ukraine. Yes, his economy is depleted. Yes, his military has been depleted. But you listen to the Polish president at the moment, he's under no illusions that Vladimir Putin wouldn't like to have a little bite at Poland or other NATO countries in Central and Eastern Europe. And therefore, the idea for many Europeans of reintegrating Russia, this Russian president who has taken one, two bites at Ukraine, hassled Georgia, is hassling Norway, is launching cyber attacks as we speak against European Union countries and NATO countries, they're not in a mood to say okay vladimir putin is a somebody we're going to welcome back into

15:47Katty Kay:the international system so katie i'm in a war room with you yeah and and i'm you know i'm a kremlinologist if that's such a word maybe that used to be a cold war i think that's no i think

15:58Anthony Scaramucci:they still exist there are about three of them left but anyway all right so here i am with you

16:04Katty Kay:and i'm saying wow okay what does this guy really really want this vladimir putin what does he want Number one, he wants to survive politically. And you know this war has not gone well for him. And it would be impossible to believe that all of the people in the Duma, all the people in the Politburo are triple thumbs up for Vladimir Putin. It would be impossible to believe that. So what does he want? He wants his regime to survive and he wants a restoration of great power status because he's telling his people they're a great empire. They're a great status. They're still the most powerful country in the world militarily and all this other stuff.

16:48Katty Kay:Right. So he wants that caddy. Can he get that caddy? Is that possible?

16:53Anthony Scaramucci:No, I don't think. I mean, at some point, whatever he said with Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-un out at that summit in Beijing, you know, they don't yet have the organ transplant capability that's going to make these guys live to 160. So at some point he's going to go and he has no succession plan as far as I can see. So his regime is not going to survive forever. He has created a regime that revolves around himself. what happens after him looks a bit like what happened after when Tito left Yugoslavia. It's going to be appointment deluge. But I think the other thing that he wants, the restoration of great power status.

17:31Anthony Scaramucci:Tricky when you have an economy that is smaller than the size of many European countries.

17:37Katty Kay:Smaller than Italy now?

17:38Anthony Scaramucci:Smaller than Italy now since the war, right? Because you've also lost so much economically as well as militarily. But the other thing I think you haven't got on your list that I would add to it is the other thing Vladimir Putin wants is the destruction of the European Union. And he's working very hard to get that. And in this administration in the White House, he feels he has an ally. Indeed, he does have an ally. If you just look prima facie at what this administration says about the European Union and says about Europe, they're causing the disintegration of that bloc. because the more the European Union is fractured, the stronger Vladimir Putin is in that sphere of the world.

18:19Anthony Scaramucci:So I think that is one where he is, I don't know if he'll get the destruction of it, but he's with Donald Trump's assistance and the White House's assistance, he's certainly causing a lot of trouble in Europe at the moment. Okay.

18:32Katty Kay:So when I look at this, I think Putin is going to get a lot of what he wants, okay? And particularly in the short term.

18:40Anthony Scaramucci:But not in the long term, right?

18:42Katty Kay:Not in the long term. No, not in the long term because strategically, even though it's a very resource-rich country and strategically the country should be doing a lot better, the political system and the power structure in the country is preventing it from doing better. And this is a cautionary tale for the Americans and the Europeans listening in. Oligarchic regimes get too greedy. Greed always overcomes wisdom. They suck the resources away from the other people. And too corrupt. And the corruption causes them economic problems. 100%. So I'll add that. They get too greedy and they get too corrupt and they suck the resources out of the system.

19:20Katty Kay:And the minute the man or the woman on the street feels like they don't have a fair shake, they alter their behavior. They themselves become more corrupt. If you're living in a country where you think you can get ahead by playing by the rules, you'll play by the rules. but if the rules no longer exist and you think things are split between the us's versus them's okay and you're on the them's you're or you're going to alter your behavior caddy and that's the big problem going on in russia right now but i i'll just say this to you territorial gains i got that 70 80 very highly likely he's going to be able to keep a lot of the land to end this war ukraine out of nato i think we both have that as highly likely right Partial sanctions relief if the war ends.

20:10Katty Kay:If the war ends. If the war ends, okay. I don't think he's going to get a weakened NATO. I think NATO, I think the war has strengthened NATO. That's just my opinion. I think Europeans are looking at each other saying, okay, we need each other and we got to figure this out from a strategic and a defense perspective. These guys are never, at least in our lifetimes, never going to be our friends. I was looking, you know, because the Pearl Harbor attack, which took place on the 7th of December, 1941. And of course, I had family members that were in the war. I was looking through the archival videos of the thing over the weekend, just out of curiosity.

20:50Katty Kay:And something that popped up, which was fascinating, was Prime Minister Abe and President Obama visited the memorial. You may remember this, about 2016. And they talked about the friendship that developed after the war between the Japanese and the United States. And there's really no daylight between that alliance. And I was saying to myself, is that possible? Could the Russians and the Europeans ever get to that moment?

21:20Anthony Scaramucci:I don't think so with Putin in power.

21:23Katty Kay:I don't either. A current political structure, no, is the answer.

21:26Anthony Scaramucci:And then the question is what, and I'm not a criminologist, but what happens when Putin leaves? I mean, the chances of Russia suddenly becoming, you know, in the Western fantasy, democratic, free and fair elections, rule of law, non-oligarchical, non-corrupt. You look back at history and around the world, even in recent history, the removal of one autocrat tends to lead to at least a period of chaos before it leads to something better. And sometimes it leads to something worse. So I don't know that most people would be holding out a huge amount of hope for in the short term or even in the medium term, something very optimistic coming out of Russia.

22:05Anthony Scaramucci:Why would anyone trust this president? I mean, I mentioned Budapest, but then you've also got, you know, the Minsk Accords, which have been repeatedly violated. You only have to go back. There is video for everything. You can find video of Senator Rubio on the floor of the U.S. Senate after the invasion of Crimea, citing at length all of the reasons that America had for not trusting Russia and for protecting Ukraine. He made a very compelling case about how the defense of Ukraine was a security message that should be sent as well to South Korea and the Japanese and the Saudis to make sure that they didn't go for developing their own nuclear weapons.

22:43Anthony Scaramucci:Now, I suspect that is still what Senator Rubio, now Secretary of State Rubio, believes. And there are enough Americans, I think, who will come back from the Republican Party on this issue, like you say, and you're hearing their voices. You heard Congressman Turner over the weekend saying something similar, the reason we have to protect Ukraine, that they will be the ones that will put more pressure on Russia. But I don't think anyone's looking at peace and harmony in the Russia-Western relationship for a while. whatever the oil concessions or rare mineral earth concessions are that Trump thinks he can dangle in front of American business men.

23:17Katty Kay:Yeah, I just think the most realistic outcome is some type of territorial freeze with some level of security guarantees after that freeze. And of course, Putin is going to want there to be elections in Ukraine, and he's going to want to see if he can get a puppet figure to replace Zelensky in Ukraine. And then there'll be a big fight around that as well. But I think those are the most likely outcomes. And then before we go to our next topic, do you think those outcomes are possible, any of those outcomes in calendar year 2026? Or are we going to be sitting here heading into January of 2027 with this fight and this

24:04Anthony Scaramucci:quagmire still going well here's the players trump wants to end the war putin wants to continue fighting ukraine is unwilling to surrender and become a subject of moscow right those are the three paradigms i don't think those three positions shift between now and the end of this war a lot of his olenski went into this mar-a-lago meeting this weekend making big concessions saying that for the first time, he said that Kiev may be willing to have a demilitarized zone and cede some of the land it holds in the east. That was a big deal for him to make that concession. In the long run, the only security guarantee I think that Ukraine now believes is worth the paper it's written on is a strong Ukrainian army.

24:51Anthony Scaramucci:Because why would you think anything else? You were given guarantees back in 1994. Whether it's Barack Obama after 2014 or Donald Trump today, there's not much difference. America is not going to go to war for Ukraine. So Ukraine has to end up providing its own security guarantees. Those are the only ones that it would be allowed to rely on. And the more it can be tied into NATO or tied into NATO weapon systems or weapons purchasing agreements, the better it is for it, but it's going to have to build up its own military. And I don't know, Anthony, I mean, I wish I could say this will be the year.

25:25Anthony Scaramucci:I know Donald Trump is impatient, but I didn't come out of this meeting in Mar-a-Lago from the little we've had in the readouts thinking we're making any more progress towards this.

25:36Katty Kay:I think, again, I hope I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong. But I think we're in the same spot that we're in last year.

25:44Anthony Scaramucci:Yes.

25:45Katty Kay:And same spot. I mean, we're in this year for next year.

25:49Anthony Scaramucci:Yeah.

25:49Katty Kay:And I think Putin looks at that and says, hey, I don't care. That's a win. These people I'm putting up on the front, I don't mind grinding them. I'm going to get North Koreans up there, Cubans up there. I'm going to get 12 year olds up there, 60 year olds. Let me grind them because time is on my side. I have more resources than the Ukrainians. And what I find fascinating is Zelensky has made some concessions, right? Yes. He made them yesterday. He speaks about these soft concessions, okay? He just doesn't want formal territorial recognition, and he certainly doesn't want the military declawed, as you're referencing.

26:26Katty Kay:So this is why I think this continues, and this continues for Trump's term. I don't see the war ending unless you're telling me there's a violent victory for the Russians somehow or something happens outside of the current linear structure of the war.

26:45Anthony Scaramucci:And does Trump carry on being interested when it's something we know he's impatient? We know he doesn't like getting bogged down in the details. What he wants is the headline of the win. What does Trump do when he takes this plan to Putin and Putin says no? I think that's the next big turning point that people here are watching for.

27:04Katty Kay:To me, it doesn't end easily. Now, could it go like Afghanistan? I predict it won't because the next American leader is not going to be Donald Trump and is not going to have this OZ to Vladimir Putin. So right now, I think this is going to be really hard to resolve, Caddy, despite all the rhetoric and despite Trump saying he's going to go to convince the parliament to cede its territory and to demilitarize and all this sort of nonsense is being spewed. I agree. I don't see this ending. No. And I think it's very important for people to understand that we'll probably be right where we are next year, territory moving like a little bit one way, a little bit the other way, but not a lot of movement.

27:47Anthony Scaramucci:In this season of goodwill and hope and peace, we extend our sympathies to all of those who are caught up in this war and fighting on the front line on all sides, because this is a really grim situation that they are facing as they head into a long, cold winter. We're going to take a break, come back and talk about a scandal you may not have heard about.

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30:11Anthony Scaramucci:Welcome back to The Rest is Politics US. We're going to talk about a fraud scandal in the fine state of Minnesota. It involves large-scale fraud targeting public services around Medicaid-funded programs. It was particularly around programs to do with childcare, meals for people who were disadvantaged. A lot of it came out of money that was emergency funding money during COVID. Federal prosecutors say that more than a billion in taxpayer money has been stolen in three separate plots that they are investigating. More than 90 people have been charged. At least 59 have been convicted or pleaded guilty.

30:57Anthony Scaramucci:The majority of the defendants in this case are from Minnesota's Somali diaspora, which is some 80 ,000 strong. And they are primarily American citizens by birth and naturalization, but they are part of this diaspora. The story has been around for a while. And we can get into that in a second, because I think that is an important part of this story. But it blew up over the course of this weekend, because an independent journalist, I'm not sure if I would call him a journalist, I think he's more of an operative, called Nick Shirley, put out a video that, as we are talking, recording this on Monday morning, I think is the third most viewed ever video on Twitter, or at least that's what Twitter is saying.

31:39Anthony Scaramucci:And the video focuses on licensed centers like Minneapolis's Quality Learning Center, which reportedly received$2 million in 2025 from the Child Care Assistance Program, despite appearing deserted during daytime visits. They say that they uncovered$110 million in suspicious payments in one day to the learning centers. The name of the learning center was spelt luring. There was no N in it, which is making people even more furious that it's a learning center that doesn't even spell its name right. The Speaker of the House this weekend, by the way, Mike Johnson, said that he's going to have an investigation into this case.

32:16Anthony Scaramucci:Tim Walz, you'll remember, Kamala Harris's running mate for vice president, is the governor of the state of Minnesota. And he's now under an enormous amount of pressure to take responsibility for this fraud case, which has become the sort of new bet noire on the right, I think, online.

32:34Katty Kay:Thank you for bringing all this up because I wanted to address this today, particularly for viewers and listeners outside of the United States, because, Cady, this scandal is at the intersection of three cross currents that are happening in the United States right now. It has to do with progressive politics, progressive governance. It has to do with trust in government spending, which is a big issue on both sides of the aisle. We both know this. And it's literally at the intersection of the populist movement in the U.S. where people feel that they're being treated unfairly and the ideas around immigration in the United States.

33:16Katty Kay:So you've got a boogeyman here. Okay. The accusations are being made against Somali immigrants to the United States. They're being, and I'm going to give you the messaging from the right. Somali immigrants have come to the United States. They figured out a way to rig our system and they're stealing billions of dollars from us. Okay. And so caddy, that is like your rate. That's not coal going into the furnace. Okay. That's like uranium going into the nuclear reactor for the people on the right. So what do you think? Am I over-exaggerating this? Or do I think that there's lots of scale and symbolism in this that could spill over into the 2026 midterm elections?

34:02Anthony Scaramucci:I think another cross-current, I'm going to add some more in because I think that's why this story is getting so much traction, is that the narrative on the right over the course of the weekend, particularly since this video came out, you saw it from J.D. Vance, who retweeted the video saying that Nick Shirley deserves more accolades than any Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. The narrative from the right is that the mainstream media has not touched this story in order to protect a democratic governor, and that the Biden administration ignored the story to protect a democratic governor. And so that's part of the cross currents that's going in here as well is that you've got this fight in media cultures.

34:44Anthony Scaramucci:It's actually not true. I went back and looked at this. The New York Times reported this story a month ago. CBS reported this story a month ago. The Wall Street Journal reported this story a month ago. I mean, the apoplexy that you hear online on the right, and I did spend some time, which was not particularly good for my mental health on Twitter yesterday, is that this story has blown up out of nowhere and no one has spoken about it before, particularly not the mainstream media. That just isn't the case. There's been a ton of reporting on this story. And actually, here you go. This is from a Department of Justice filing.

35:22Anthony Scaramucci:The Department of Justice announced today federal criminal charges against 47 defendants for their alleged roles in a$250 million fraud screen that exploited a federally funded child nutrition program during the COVID-19 pandemic. This from Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2022. That's why I think it's important to point out that this story has been around for a while. It has been reported for a while. The Merrick Garland Department of Justice took action against some of these people who committed fraud. I don't think any of that excuses the fact that this was allowed to happen and allowed to go on for so long and that Minnesota taxpayers were ripped off by these fraudsters.

36:05Anthony Scaramucci:None of that excuses it. I'm just trying to put it in the context of over the weekend, this blew up as a left versus right, mainstream media versus real online internet media exposing something. And that just doesn't fit with the facts. And I think it's important to make sure the real history is out there. But yeah, I agree with you. The step back, the bigger picture is about welfare and fraud and government and trust in government and thrown into that immigration, particularly Muslim immigrants, because most Somali immigrants will be Muslim immigrants. And you've got a kind of toxic mix there of things that will be brought up a bit like I can imagine the Haitian immigrants and eating the dogs and the cats was brought up in the last election campaign.

36:51Anthony Scaramucci:This is going to resurface in the midterms.

36:53Katty Kay:That's the big issue for me. And I want you to address this because if I look at the midterms coming up and giving people a preview of this. It's going to be about presidential approval rating. It's going to be about jobs and inflation. It's going to be about the state of the economy. But there's another thing that we always have to factor in, and that is the varying degrees of enthusiasm. Will there be an enthusiasm gap? You and I both know that happy people don't vote. Okay. It's angry people, right the angry people vote and so the question is can trump take a story like this put it in his meat grinder and manufacture rage for the republicans related to a story like this because it has immigration unfairness progressive politics that's gone awry in a state like minnesota the wall street journal had a article over the weekend talking about indiana which is a right-leaning state.

37:55Katty Kay:It's a red state where they've had these Medicare reforms in Indiana, and the governor has done a great job of overseeing these block grants that come in from Medicare, and they're reporting that they're saving hundreds of millions of dollars in a state like Indiana, where a neighboring state like Minnesota, you're seeing this rife with fraud.

38:16Anthony Scaramucci:Another state that's being looked at by journalists is Ohio, where apparently there may be there are reports of similar child care fraud. I don't know the details of that one because we haven't had all of the reporting out of it. But again, that's a right-leaning state. So I don't know if this will become a blue state, red state, but I think it will definitely become a immigration, big government. I think Governor Walz, if he ever was thinking of running for president again, his chances of running for president again are now down to zero. They may have been one beforehand. They've slipped down to zero or minus one.

38:54Katty Kay:They're not down 600 % like the drug prices get?

38:58Anthony Scaramucci:Yeah, they can be down that too. But this is the kind of thing where the name of the charity Feeding Our Future, which is a child nutrition program, is going to start being on people's lips a lot. And you're right. If you need energy, and there isn't much energy on the right at the moment, and there's a lot of division on the right, we saw that last week too. wow, the division's playing out and the kind of MAGA right at the moment, they're all kind of seem to be attacking each other. You need to energize people, particularly in a midterm elections. People don't turn out in midterm elections in America.

39:29Anthony Scaramucci:They're much more excited about presidential elections. There's a person to vote for. You can rally around a person. Midterm elections are pretty much blah. People kind of turn out if they haven't got really anything else to do that day. And if it's raining, they're not even going to turn out then. So So you need something, you need some fire in people's belly and a big fraud case involving Muslim immigrants. I could see this taking off. You're right. As a way to gem up enthusiasm.

39:56Katty Kay:Listen, Trump got some good numbers in the last 10 days, Kat. Okay. You had a third quarter revisement.

40:03Anthony Scaramucci:Some good economic numbers, you mean?

40:04Katty Kay:Yeah, 4.3 % GDP growth, 2.7 % inflation down from the 3.1 % expected, right? And so he's sitting there. He's got to make this calculation, right? He definitely doesn't want to lose the house. He may lose it, but he doesn't want to lose it because he doesn't want any investigations. He's, you know, he's got his own timetable. He wants to make$20 billion.

40:27Anthony Scaramucci:I thought, you know, he's been impeached a couple of times, an investigator. He might just be enjoying it by now, Anthony. Maybe it's kind of fun for him. He's an old pro at this.

40:35Katty Kay:He doesn't want it because he's on the move to make$20 billion. He's made about$5 billion so far this year. and he doesn't want this to overly impact that process right so so to me this is going to be unless the democrats figure out a way and i'm going to make a they're not going to ask me for advice but i would say then get on this go go make this bipartisan this is not your fault don't don't try to do a he said she said sort of thing get on this thing which by the way merrick garland was

41:11Anthony Scaramucci:doing right the department of justice under biden was actually getting these people have already been prosecuted and charged many of them it's not like they're all sitting there and nobody's paid attention to this they need to get out there and counteract i think some of the stuff that is going around on the right with some of the actual facts of what happened in this case and how many people have already been prosecuted and expressed the same kind of outrage i think tim waltz could do with a little bit more outrage about this.

41:40Katty Kay:100%. That's my point. Don't let Trump take advantage of this. He's the great culture warrior. He's the great general in the culture war. This is just fraud, okay? And this is fraud, no matter how you explain it, and let's put an end to it. There should be a bipartisan commitment to stopping fraud. And don't put fuel, don't put Duraflame logs on Trump's fire by getting overly defensive here.

42:08Anthony Scaramucci:It's worth reading about this story. It is interesting. And let's see, we'll keep an eye on it because it could be something, I think you're right, Anthony, which over the next few weeks blows up a lot more. And if it does, we should come back to it and see who says what about it and see what the Democrats say about it because that's going to be interesting too. That is all for us today. If you have not had enough of the program already to fill your boots with festive cheer, Sign up and listen to our latest members-only bonus episode Where Anthony and I get a little personal With Aunt Agony questions And answer your non-political questions That's kind of fun That episode will come out on Wednesday And this time we're getting into UFO conspiracies How to build your own confidence And some relationship deal breakers Sign up at TheRestIsPoliticsUS.com To become a member We'd love to have you with us And we will be back on Friday with our regular episode.

43:04Anthony Scaramucci:Take care.

43:05Katty Kay:Bye, guys.