61. From Reagan to Trump: America’s slow divorce from Europe

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1:48Welcome to The Rest is Politics US and what was meant to be our Monday live stream we will explain in just a minute. I am Katty Kay. I'm Anthony Scaramucci. So what happened, Katty? So yesterday we were meant to be doing this Restless Politics US live stream for our founding members. And first of all, I got stuck at the airport in New York and my flight was delayed by two hours. But then I would have made it in time to speak to you all, for which I am still very sorry. And thank you for coming back to us today. But as we were coming into Washington, DC, we got this announcement over the loudspeaker saying that because of VIP activity at Washington Reagan Airport, they were shutting the airport down for 50 minutes.

2:34And we had to circle, which meant that I couldn't join you all. VIP activity is basically Donald Trump. And apparently he's starting to use our local airport more often. And so we can all expect that. Anyway, it was the journey from hell, but I'm so sorry that I wasn't here. And thank you for joining us today. We've got people with us from Oman, England, Suffolk, Glasgow, Romania, Sweden, London, Honolulu. Oh my God, I'm so jealous. Why can't I be in Honolulu? Florence, Italy, you've come in from all over the world and we are so thrilled to have you today. We are going to talk about Europe and Trump and Ukraine and the talks that are taking place in Saudi Arabia, the things that J.D.

3:20Vance said last weekend at the Munich Security Conference, and the pretty clear message from the Trump administration that Europe is now pretty much on its own, and is Europe up to standing up for its own security in the face of being abandoned by its longtime partner? This feels like divorce. You and I have both been through a divorce, Anthony. I never want anyone to have to go through a divorce. It's very hard to go through. and I think the Europeans at the moment feel like they are on the receiving end of their long-term spouse telling them they're not very interested. They've moved on. You're way better at divorce than me.

3:57I mean, you're a best-selling author as well. I mean, your next book could be about how you hang out with all your ex, you know, people. I mean, it's fantastic. I mean, I've never seen anything like it. There we go. I mean, can I just say this? I had your ex-husband and his wife were very close friends with you at my book party in London. I know that was blown away by that. You should be the ambassador. You should be the ambassador. Okay. The way you handle this stuff. Let's talk about this. Is that really true? Before we go to the questions and comments section, thank you so much, everybody for joining.

4:31Is that really true? Is it over? Is it a four-year interregnum? Is it a change in policy because of one man's love affair with Vladimir Putin? So 85 years of a bipartisan commitment to a stable and prosperous and peaceful Europe is over? Or what do you think it is? I think even if Europe has come to the realization, and I've spoken to several people this week who kind of study Russia and Ukraine and Europe, more closely than I do, who have said that actually, although there were audible gasps when J.D. Vance told Europeans that what they had to face up to was the threat from within and accused them basically of illiberalism, accused European courts of cancelling elections.

5:26He said that the basic liberties of religious Britons were under attack. And that came on the top of Pete Hegseth saying, listen, we are not going to defend Ukraine with American troops. And by the way, if any European troops go in to defend Ukraine, they won't be covered by Article 5 of NATO. And Europeans have to accept the very clear message that America is focused on China and not on Europe anymore. I think that message has been coming from a long time. And there are several people that I've spoken to who are either in Europe or study Europe who say that in some ways, it was a relief to some Europeans to have the bandage ripped off this.

6:07Joe Biden was the last transatlantic president America is going to have. Yes, we've had this relationship for 80 years, and we could rely on America's security umbrella. But I think what Europeans are realizing is that, okay, this could just be Donald Trump. And as I've said before on the podcast, America first really means Europe last. He has no love for Europe. He thinks Europeans are freeloaded off America's security umbrella for far too long, and they can't keep dialing 911 Washington every time they have a problem that needs fixing with American military might. But even if we go back from Donald Trump and let's say a Democrat, you know, Gavin Newsom or whoever it is, I'm throwing a name out there, gets elected in four years' time and America has a Democratic president, America is moving towards focusing on the Pacific.

6:59Barack Obama tried it with the Asia First strategy. And it's also the unreliability of America because of the seesawing. Who's to say that after four years of a Democrat, you don't get another populist in the vein of Donald Trump? And I think that's what's really disconcerted America's allies at the moment is that there's not a steadiness to American policy at the moment, economic policy or security policy. There's no bedrock of continuity. It goes up, you know, it looks like a kind of, you know, when you go and you have an EKG at the doctors for your heart rate, that's what it looks like at the moment, but your heart is not doing well.

7:37Like Donald Trump's signature, right? It looks like a bad, it looks like a bad EKG. Is that actually why he does so many executive orders rather than go to Congress? Because he just likes the look of his own signature so much. He definitely likes the look of it. He likes to look, he likes to look of everything about himself. But let me, let me, let me, let's say I opened up the, uh, the desk drawer in the Lincoln bedroom and there was a fact card in there left by Truman, right? Truman was the last person to renovate that beautiful house. And in the, in the fact card, it said, protect the West block and contain the Soviet union or now known as Russia, uh, help our neighbors to the South so that we don't have an influx of immigration.

8:17And then the last thing is keep America strong by having a prosperous economy. And so if you did those four things, you're a great president. So we don't want to protect the West anymore, Katty Kay? I think he has a different concept of protecting the West, don't you? I mean, I think his concept of protecting the West is make sure we don't have any trade deficits with anybody. And in order to do that, slap tariffs on people, even if there are friends. Russia can kind of hang out in Central Europe if it wants to. And honestly, do we care that much about Poland or the Baltics? Seems like that's Russia's backyard, feels like it's a very long way away and isn't strategically important to America.

9:07So I think I think that's the point of view in this administration. And J.D. Vance and Pete Hegseth just articulated it. And those negotiators, Marco Rubio, who probably doesn't believe any of this and is trying to soften, if you read between the lines of what he's saying down in Saudi Arabia, he is trying to soften some of the kind of rapprochement with Moscow, with the Kremlin, by saying, look, a meeting is not scheduled yet. And yes, we are going to consult with Ukrainians. Not that that's what Ukraine wants. They don't want to be consulted with. They want to be at the table. But that's my sense is that Rubio is trying to soften it because inherently Rubio does believe in American leadership and sees the value of having allies.

9:56when when we negotiated the versailles treaty at the end of the second world end of the first world war excuse me uh we asked for reparations remember they hived off the rhineland and they were producing uh goods out of the rhineland shipping them to the victor nations uh and you know it was a very harsh treaty at the end of the second world war we had a very benevolent treaty. We founded the UN. Yes, the Soviet Union took a piece of Eastern Europe, but we tried to keep the West in line. We had favorable trade terms with people. We started the Marshall Plan. What was better for peace and prosperity?

10:42Which of the two ways of going about things historically is better for peace and prosperity? Well, look, I think there is a risk that Donald Trump's slogan is going to transform to not from make America great again, but make America weak again. And that actually you only because I think you you if you hit a problem, a 9-11 event, right? Who came to America's rescue? Who came to America to contribute to America? Right. It was NATO forces. They went to Afghanistan. They lost their sons and daughters in Afghanistan to help America. Let's say there's a pandemic, a global pandemic. We're sitting here at the moment with a measles outbreak in Texas and an avian flu outbreak in the United States.

11:34something of a global nature demands some kind of global response. And you are better off if you have your friends on your side. But that's not the way clearly that this administration thinks about it. Don't you think? Yeah, listen, it's just very dangerous, though. I mean, so to me, I am mad. I got the country. It's all about me and this country. and you've treated us unfairly. So we're going to create reciprocal tariffs, which not in the interest of American CEOs, we're going to withdraw from Europe. Europeans are now expecting tens of thousands of troops, which have acted as a deterrent since the Second World War out of NATO, US troops being withdrawn.

12:25They're negotiating in Saudi Arabia right now without the Ukrainians there. So Donald Trump and Russia are going to decide the Ukrainian war ending without the Ukrainians. That's fairly Prussian, right? Is that in the 18th century? Is that the 17th century? What century is that? You cited Sykes Pico for us last week. This feels a little like let's carve out. By the way, of course, I didn't pronounce it right. So sorry about that, everybody. I'm doing my best, okay? You know, Cady's been to my house, okay? When you've been raised like me, you're just so grateful that you can speak some level of the English language.

13:01Okay. You'll come out of the English language far better than anybody else. Katty has met all the knuckle draggers in my family and smashed my, and smashed my Lamborghini at the same time. But, but Katty, I know we got to move on. I know we have to move on, but just one last question. Okay. Yeah. What is get in the mind of secretary of state, Marco Rubio raised in the Bush administration, mentored by Jeb Bush, a Cuban American who understands freedom and the projection and the help of freedom almost as well as any public server in America right now. Okay, go. How is he squaring the circle with Donald Trump?

13:42Look, I think in the first Trump administration and in this Trump administration and in the Republican Party in the Senate, and you know them and I have spoken to them too, you have people who say, if I am not there, then the risk is somebody more extreme gets elected. So I think Marco Rubio is thinking, as Secretary of State, here I am. I realize that there are people in the Trump administration, the Pete Hegseths, the Tulsi Gabbards, who's now Director of National Intelligence. Stephen Miller is probably in that group. People around Donald Trump who are saying, look, just let's cut them loose.

14:26We've spent far too much money in Ukraine. They've tried to do this deal that the Ukrainians have rejected to get$500 billion worth of Ukrainian rare earth minerals as payback for what America has done so far for Ukraine, which the Ukrainians apparently, and Besson I've heard, was shocked by this, said, no, thank you, that's not a deal we're going to take. But they basically want to get what they can out of Ukraine as payback, but give Ukraine nothing else. And I think Marco Rubio thinks, well, look, I can be here as the intermediary and actually try to come up with a deal that means that in three to four years time, when Russia has resupplied its military and its economy is doing better, it won't try to take the rest of Ukraine, which is probably the reporting is from American intelligence sources that what Ukraine would still like to, what Russia would still like to do.

15:21So Rubio probably sees himself as the softener. He sees himself as the person that can get the better deal, as he sees it, than would be the case if it was just the hardliners. I would say that's how he squares it. All right. I know we're going to go to something else, but our producer, Dominic, would like me to talk a little bit about Cuba. So just 30 seconds on that. We had a ton of refugees leave Cuba after the revolution. They ended up in Florida, most of them in Miami, and they became strident, strident right-wing conservatives. And they've really big Cold War warriors. And they are grounded in this sort of doctrine of containment.

16:05They're grounded in sort of the helping of Europe and to defeat communism and push back Russian aggression. Obviously, the Russians took over the island of Cuba with the help of Fidel Castro in the 1960s. They still have some influence there, although it's waning. And so Rubio comes from that. Rubio knows that if we don't fight totalitarianism abroad, he knows from his own life experience and his own heritage that it can happen to you. It can actually happen to your family. You see, the indifference here is when I watch Stephen Miller on TV or a bit, hey, it's somebody else's problem. You know, the domino is not going to hit me.

16:49Okay. But the Europeans are seeing how far is the Ukraine from Paris? It's a two-hour flight? Yeah. Probably from London, it's about a three-and-a-half-hour flight. So, yeah, probably about a two-hour flight from Paris. So we're talking about New York to Chicago, New York to maybe Minneapolis, something like that. And it's very close. And the Europeans are looking at this and saying, okay, this guy wants to stay in power. And the way he's staying in power, he's read George Orwell, we're going to have a forever war. We're going to keep pushing, keep pushing. Why is the Polish government at 5 % on the NATO spending?

17:26Because they're right there. Yeah, and they're very worried. Yeah. And I think, look, I mean, when you talk to people that cover Russia and Ukraine and are really steeped in this, they do. And there's a question here from Daniel Wood that I think is interesting. Will the sidelining of the EU and UK by Trump instead of weakening the alliance actually lead to a stronger Europe militarily, diplomatically and economically? Now, we had that meeting in Paris on Monday while I was circling over Washington, D.C. And it did feel like the Europeans weren't able to agree on very much. But I think there are people who are seeing this as an opportunity for the European Union and for Britain as well to realize that it has to do something.

18:06They do have things. They have the capability. They've matched the United States so far in terms of funding for Ukraine, even though most, I think, Americans in the Trump administration wouldn't voice that. They have done. If they said to the Ukrainians, OK, we are going to finance you to hold the defensive lines. We're not going to give you offensive weaponry, but we are going to give you what it takes to hold a defensive line that I'm told would cost about$25 billion a year. That would be something that the European Union could do. They are stepping up their military production capacity, having let it decline over the last since the end of the Cold War.

18:46They really are ramping it up fast. And they do also have one big point of leverage, which is this$300 billion in Russian reserves that the Europeans are holding. And that is not leveraged just with Russia. That's leveraged with the United States as well. And Europe's sanctions over Russia are also leveraged with the United States. A couple of people said to me, although Donald Trump's known for the art of the deal, he's not dealing here. I mean, if you were playing poker, would you sit there with your four aces on the outside? No, right? You wouldn't play your aces straight off and let everyone know what you had.

19:25I'm revealing the fact that I don't play poker here. But you wouldn't let people know your hand. He's already given away major points in the negotiation. So he's gone to Saudi Arabia with not very much more to give away to the Russians. And there's an interesting, you know, an interesting kind of lack of art of the deal going on here. But I don't understand why. Maybe they maybe they think that it's because they don't care on the outcome. And so they just want to get this done. Well, I think they've made that clear. I mean, I don't again, I think we the 4D chess argument, I think, is nonsensical.

19:59I've been in the room with these people. It's not 40 chess. It's Trump's whims. And right now he's siding with Elon Musk more than he's siding with Steve Bannon for now. And but Trump's attitude is it's very walling off America. It's an isolationist attitude. But there's a gentleman by the name of Bill Flint. It's commenting here, which I want to I want to address if you don't mind. As an ex-soldier who served alongside U.S. comrades, I have often found it difficult to understand why an American soldier should die for a continent did not take its own security seriously. So this is a great comment.

20:36I just want to respond. And then, Katty, you can respond. So, Bill, this is a great comment. And that is the narrative. And that's particularly the narrative on like places like Fox News. But to really understand the history of it, I would recommend some books by John Gaddis. the United States rightly or wrongly told the Europeans to stand down on a military buildup. The United States, particularly with Germany, they basically, Eisenhower was like, look, I do not want the West German government rearming and it would be way better for the United States to run this for Europe. And so now are we neglectful the same way we were on trade, caddy where we should have right-sized that over the years?

21:22Should we have said, okay, like your iPhone gets an upgrade from iPhone 1 to 16? Should we have gotten to the Europeans 10, 15 years ago and say, look, we're not shouldering this anymore? But no American statesman wanted to do it. Bill Clinton said he didn't want to do it for the same reasons that Eisenhower pointed out. But I get Bill's sentiment. So I don't know. What's your reaction? No, I totally understand Bill's sentiment. And my husband, who served in the British Army before the end of the Cold War, was posted in Germany where they were known as the 92nd Boys, because if there was a nuclear attack, that's how long they would have lasted.

22:00Thank God there wasn't. And they did work alongside their American counterparts. But, you know, the feeling the feeling was that America was in Europe after the end of the Second World War to protect America from the Cold War. That's why the bases were built up. Then the Cold War ends 1990. And you have a decade of kind of peace and prosperity and everybody loves the United States. And then you have 9-11. Right. And after 9-11, that was not the time that America was going to pull back from offering Europe its defense umbrella, because European countries were fighting alongside America in Afghanistan and Iraq.

22:35So there was, in a way, this is a delayed process. This process of cutting from Europe and forcing the Europeans to do what they are now finally doing was delayed by 9-11 and then presumably by the invasion of Ukraine. I mean, I think Joe Biden was never going to cut from Europe, But you could see that Barack Obama was already starting to shift America's attention. He wanted to shift America's attention to Asia if that was going to be possible. For those of you listening, we are going to take a quick break and then we will carry on with our conversation about this very sad divorce.

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24:31There's another question that I want to deal with here that I think is also interesting. Mark James has sent this one in. If the Russian economy is tanking, which is what my understanding is that is happening, both the economy is tanking and the military is very stretched. And if the Ukrainians can make it until the fall, actually, Ukraine starts looking like it's in a much stronger position than it does at the moment. And Russia starts looking like it's in a weaker position. So Mark is asking if the Russian economy is tanking, why does Trump need to be so conciliatory at this particular point?

25:05And I want to ask, get you to answer that, because I know that you have thoughts on Donald Trump's relationship with Vladimir Putin. Well, we, you know, I've said it many times on this podcast, Mark, we could never figure it out. H.R. McMaster, myself, General Kelly. What is this with Vladimir Putin? You know, now there were the kids said, Eric and Don Jr., that they got a lot of their money from them. There's been investigative journalists that say that money got pumped into Trump's condominiums from the oligarchs, that he had not met Vladimir Putin, but he had a lot of arrangements and loans and things like that from the Russians.

25:41And so, you know, he sees Vladimir Putin as a another person that could potentially help him make money. And he likes the Russian culture. I don't I don't know the answer. I don't know what is what they have on him. I don't think it's a pee pee tape. And by the way, at this point in Trump's life, given everything that's happened to him, I don't even I'm not even going to explain that. I'm not even going to explain the pee pee tape. You can. No, there's a theory that at his Miss Universe pageant, he was with a few hookers. That – Okay, Katty, I mean, come on. What do you want me to do? Just telling the people what they need to know, Katty, okay?

26:17I mean, so to me, I don't think it's any of that. I think that it is something that happened with the Russians where Trump is either afraid of the Russians or he's beholden to the Russians for some reason. And by the way, we know this, Caddy. The Russians have paid a lot of social conservatives and a lot of media influencers. Kevin McCarthy said that Donald Trump was on Putin's payroll. Does everybody remember that in 2016? So he's doing things that Vladimir Putin would want him to do. A real American strategist would get to Putin. and say, hey, man, this is going to end and you're going to walk back some territory.

27:06I think the Crimea is probably over at this point. And like other wars have ended, you're going to cede some territory. But this is a sovereign country. And maybe there's a 10-year guarantee they don't enter NATO, but it's not a permanent promise. That's all you had to do. He's going to give them the whole store. And Zelensky is going to say, hey, I'm sorry, We're not going to do that. Now, the question is, what will the Europeans do? How will they respond? My thing with the Europeans is that they've got too much bureaucracy and they're not really as coordinated as they need to be. You know, there's no president of Europe.

27:45OK, they're not thinking about it like Churchill once wanted the United States of Europe. And there's a president of Europe that there's a European standing army and there's a president of Europe. right and remember you know you know i not to get into this but the country that can fire the most people can hire the most people and if you can't fire anybody then you can't hire anybody so if you're in france and you want to hire somebody like holy shit i can't hire this person because i may never be able to fire them okay can i and so you you got to be really careful with this stuff you guys have really killed your economic growth of all this uh bureaucracy can i just get back Putin stuff, though, because I think there may be another reason that Donald Trump seems to be giving away the store to Vladimir Putin and generally seems to have some kind of affinity with him, as we saw from that Helsinki conference.