Musk and Trump dance to Putin's tune

0:00Therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough. It shows up in the smallest moments. You bite your tongue instead of escalating. You put your phone down instead of firing off that text. You say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most. Nobody applauds those moments, but they quietly change your life. That's what growing feels like. And that's exactly what Grow Therapy is here for. Grow is therapy that works, covered by insurance. Sessions average$21 with insurance, and some pay as little as$0, depending on their plan. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments.

0:37You just pay per session. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality, licensed therapists across the U.S., offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends. You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity, or availability. And you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days, not the national 48-day average. See if you could pay as little as$0 for therapy in seconds at growtherapy.com slash start now. That's growtherapy.com slash start now. growtherapy.com slash start now. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.

1:20You are a humanitarian also, sir. So, Gerry, there you have it. Putin the humanitarian. Yeah, he's been called many things in his life, I'm sure, Vladimir Putin, by all those people he's tortured and murdered over the years. Humanitarian is probably a new one.

1:39Hello and welcome to the State of It USA, the Times podcast that looks at Trump's America. I'm Katie Balls, Washington editor and columnist for The Times and Sunday Times. And I'm Gerry Baker, columnist for The Times and editor-at-large of The Wall Street Journal. We are now less than two weeks away from the midterm elections, and this week we're going to be looking at some of the extraordinary, some might even say desperate tactics being used by some Republican candidates in the final days of campaigning, including actually recruiting your opponent's own mother in one case. We'll be looking at that.

2:12Katie has been in Atlanta watching John Ossoff, the Democratic senator and rising star in the Democratic Party, leading critic of Donald Trump. And there have been some intriguing rumors about the woman that Donald Trump calls the ice maiden, his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and we'll be digging into those. But so, Katie, what do we make of the extraordinary events that we've been seeing, continuing extraordinary events that we've been seeing, which we should start with with regard to the United States and its relationship with Russia? So America, Russia, Ukraine continues to dominate. And the latest twist is a story in your paper, the Wall Street Journal, that Elon Musk ordered a slowdown of Starlink in Ukraine on the 14th of October, in the process compromising Ukraine's ability to defend from Russian attacks.

2:58And this has been something that's been bubbling up, hasn't it? If we think about last week, we touched on it. You had Zelensky and others saying something has gone wrong here. Yes, we're in a war of words with America, but has this now led to real actions and real consequences in terms of our ability to fight Russia. And they were saying that Starlink had been affected. But the Americans had a series of denials that they had done anything here. Elon Musk himself had come out and said, it's not something he controls. Anything will be to do with the administration. The administration said, not me, Gov.

3:33And there are some suggestions that Zelensky was perhaps making things up. Now, I think quite a comprehensive report from the Wall Street Journal, which is ultimately saying that it was the trillionaire, the ex-owner who ordered the slowdown of this version of Stalin that Ukraine relies upon. And the coming fallout, we're going to see the Democrats already going on the attack. Jerry, what do you make of it? The most important thing to say is that, you know, this extraordinary tilt that the Trump administration seems to have towards Russia, which kind of this has always been there in the background.

4:09I mean, this goes right back to 2016 and the Russia collusion hoax and the idea that Trump was a Russian agent. I've never really bought it because, you know, it would obviously be very, very hard to conceal. But, you know, in some ways, what we've seen sort of on and off over the last 10 years and has now crystallized in the last week or so, which is that Trump, not as a Russian agent, but as someone who simply seems to want to side with, believes in Russia's cause more than he believes in the cause of America's allies. We know that Russia is an American adversary. It wants to see America essentially diminished in the world.

4:45It allies itself with countries like China and Iran and North Korea. Iran actually in the middle of fighting a war with the United States. It's committed to undermining American power and American authority. And we have a president who seems to think actually that Russia is the country that he sort of wants somehow to win this war. Everything he says, he criticizes, you know, the country that was invaded, the victim of this war. And he and he praises the aggressor. So what actually happened here? I spoke to a very senior official in the administration last week who said who denied flatly that the administration had been involved in and made the decision to, you know, reduce this starling speed.

5:23And now we have, as you say, the report from The Wall Street Journal that says it was Elon Musk. But to me, that's a case of Elon Musk operating like Henry II's courtiers when he said, who will rid me of this turbulent priest? And they went out and murdered Thomas Becket. I mean, this is this is Musk doing doing the bidding. Even if he wasn't directly ordered to do it, he knows that it will get him favor with Donald Trump by, you know, by again, hurting Ukraine and helping Russia. So it's yeah, it's just another example of this remarkable change in American strategic direction. Yeah, because on that, and I like your comparison, Jerry, one source has told the paper that Musk and Trump discussed it.

6:05So they talked about the slowdown before it became public. Of course, Trump, when he was asked, said he didn't know he was responsible. and so I guess I guess to put into context I mean how unprecedented is it for the US to be doing stuff like this because we're living in a world where I think lots of people are shocked by the day and what Trump is saying but the fact that no one wants to own it Elon Musk obviously um last week trying to distance himself from the idea saying it wouldn't be up to him the fact that the administration for days have been saying this isn't them does at least show that while Trump is happy to lambast Ukraine.

6:41And he's been doing that more this week. And you're saying the war was really kind of all their fault. The rhetoric is dialing up. There still seems to be a sense that, you know, it is a, it is more of a thing I don't want to be associated with to look like they are actively punishing Ukrainians and causing Ukrainian deaths as a result of action they're taking because they're annoyed. Yeah, I think that's a good point. I think they, yeah, they want some element of deniability, right? This plausible deniability in that great phrase, I think of Richard Nixon's or whatever, that you can sort of somehow put a little bit of distance from yourself because being associated with an action like this would be so outrageous that even all but the most supine of Republicans would come out and say, you can't do this.

7:22This is wrong. So they put a bit of distance themselves. So I'll tell you what other thing I find interesting in this, though, Katie, is kind of what the implications of this. Again, obviously, the larger implications, strategic implications for U.S.-European relations. But I also had an interest. I was at an event last week in California with a bunch of a lot of tech leaders in particular. And one of the we talked a little bit about this with some of them. Obviously, you know, Elon Musk is one of theirs. And there's concern here about if this is true, and it seems to be true, the journal story that Musk did this kind of with or without cooperation or the word go from the administration, it puts anybody dealing with American companies in a really vulnerable position, particularly in the defense field.

8:10I mean, if a chief executive of a tech company, which supplies very important technology to a country, can just, you know, again, either on his own bidding or doing the bidding of the government, just switch off a vital element of your technology, your national security infrastructure, whatever, why would you risk buying anything from America? Because, you know, this has been talked about before, you know, the American European countries obviously spend billions and billions on procuring American aircraft, American munitions, American interceptors. Well, you know, if some CEO of some company thinking he wants to carry favor with the president can, you know, can impose some sort of lock on the your ability as the buyer of those munitions, those arms to be able to use that, then you're not going to do it.

9:06So I think, you know, again, this is not the primary issue here. But I think, you know, if you are thinking about how, you know, Trump always goes on about how much the U.S. does for the rest of the world and how much how important U.S. arms are and how the U.S. has been supplying so much help to Europeans, in particular, obviously not to Ukraine most recently. But that's going to dry up. And most importantly, from the point of view of American business, the business is going to dry up because because other countries are going to say, I'm not going to take the risk that, you know, that on a whim, the chief executive of some company that's that which I've which is crucial to my electricity grid or to my cyber security or something like that is just going to turn it off for sort of some sort of personal political reason.

9:50So it's disturbing on so many levels. And we should add that at the time of recording, SpaceX have not commented. So that could still be to come when it comes to the latest reports. But I think for some saying, well, it's all anonymous quotes and, you know, why should we believe it? It's the Wall Street Journal. That's why we should believe it. Exactly. You know, there is something. I've seen these conversations play out on X, surprisingly. And, you know, a paper is not going to take such a chance on a story like this unless they're pretty convinced of the facts. Now, Jerry, when we look at the wider picture, which is this, perhaps the dance, these days a romantic waltz that America is embarking on with Russia, what we also have moving is Steve Witkoff, Middle East, one of our peace envoy for Trump, who has just helped get something from Putin.

10:43Trump has taken to Truth Social. They're very happy because ultimately there's been a hostage release of an American. and this is a retired teacher who was arrested in Russia. Putin is sending him back. Trump has taken to True Social to say this is unprecedented to get a hostage back and not have to give anything in return. One could argue that Trump has already given quite a lot in the past week or so, particularly with the cause in bringing into action the Lindsey Graham sanctions bill, the exemptions that he did over the weekend, which I think appalled many on his own side. So perhaps this is actually a trade after all.

11:24Yeah, and I think we can listen to what Witkoff said, can't we? He was actually speaking to Vladimir Putin in an extraordinarily deferential way. You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian. You are a humanitarian also, sir. So, Gerry, there you have it. Putin the humanitarian. Yeah, he's been called many things in his life, I'm sure, Vladimir Putin, by all those people he's tortured and murdered over the years. Humanitarian is probably a new one. Maybe he needs to compete with Trump for the Peace Prize next. Well, it's interesting you say Trump. I think, look, I've spent a bit of time with Wyckoff, and I think he's actually a well-intentioned man.

12:06I think he really just genuinely believes that, you know, We can – there's some question marks about his – the way in which he's managing perhaps to get some business deals done in the course of doing this. But I think he's genuine – I think he wants to – I think he believes that his job is to try and bring an end to a war which has killed hundreds of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people. So I think that – and I think he thinks – but it's a very interesting little tableau you had there with what he said to Putin because it's very reminiscent of the way they speak to Trump. Trump's people around him know that the way to get him on their side is to flatter him in the most craven and sort of absurd way.

12:46We've all seen those terrible cabinet meetings where they all say, you know, you're the greatest man who ever lived and this kind of stuff. And it's very interesting that Wyckoff obviously is applying the same formula to Putin, thinking, look, you know, this is and we keep being told this, by the way, on background by Trump administration officials. Look, Trump isn't really, you know, tilting towards Russia. He's not really, you know, shifting American strategic orientation towards Russia. He just is trying to get Putin to make concessions. And the way to do that is to, frankly, you know, demonstrate your niceness to him or at least your even handedness so that he doesn't think you're an enemy.

13:22So what you do is you say lots and lots of lovely things. And I think Witkoff is to some extent obviously doing that here. I can't actually believe he thinks that the name of Putin is a humanitarian. So it's kind of it's an instrumental thing. It's a he's trying to curry favor so that Putin will make concessions to get this war ended. The problem with that, though, Katie, is that that's not how Putin operates. I mean, it's pretty certainly how Trump operates. Trump loves to be flattered. He loves to be told how wonderful he is. Look, you know, you know, look, look at the relationship with Xi Jinping or any of those other authoritarian leaders around the world.

13:56They know how to flatter him and to say, remember, you know, when Keir Starmer first came to Washington and, you know, smarmed all over him and offered him that invitation to the state visit. That works with Trump. There's no evidence whatsoever that this works. Putin is not susceptible to flattery or to being offered enticements. He's a brutal, hard-nosed authoritarian who gets what he wants. And anything you give him, he will just take and say, thank you very much, and I'll move on and I'll take some more. So it just seems to me to be an incredibly naive view of the way in which you negotiate with someone like Putin, to think that by kind of being nice to him and saying nice things because it works with Trump, that it'll work with someone like that.

14:43It won't. Yeah, and I think there's obviously something to be said, which is diplomacy often means, you know, biting your tongue, not saying what you think. Now, Zelensky has doubled down in terms of his criticism of, of course, Russia, but also, you know, he spoke with Rubio this week and put out a fairly diplomatic statement thanking Marco Rubio for his time. But he has been pretty critical of Trump to the point that some European figures, you know, almost wanting him to walk it back a bit. To me, it doesn't feel from conversations here in D.C. speaking to Republicans that they think Trump's actions of the past week or two are going to make it easier to get everyone to agree a deal.

15:27The feeling is it's trying to force Ukraine into taking something. But if anything, Ukraine seems to be hardening in the face of, you know, the Americans having this pile on. Yeah, look, I was told again by a senior official last week that they were moving closer towards a deal. And the elements of this deal would be, you know, perhaps more than people expect a commitment to a security guarantee from the United States. This is one of the elements of it, that whatever the borders of Ukraine are after the end of this, the U.S. would give a pretty robust NATO-like security guarantee. Now, you know, you can say, well, what does that actually mean?

16:04Because Article 5 of NATO is not even binding anyway. But I think that's what the U.S. is working towards, the U.S. and its NATO allies offering a security guarantee to protect Ukraine's borders in the wake of this war. It would involve quite significant economic redevelopment of Ukraine. BlackRock, the huge US financial institution, the fund manager has been Larry Fink, who's the CEO. Again, I've spoken with him and he's been spending a lot of time talking to Zelensky and the US would spend a lot of money investing in and rebuilding Ukraine. There's talk of sort of maybe a pan-European energy deal where maybe Russia and Ukraine together would sell their energy to Europe.

16:44And that could be part of a longer term settlement. The hardest part of the deal, the fourth element of the deal, is the territorial aspect. Does Russia just get to keep what is taken? Does Ukraine give up the whole of the Donbass, which, of course, Russia hasn't taken all of it so far? and certainly you know is there any suggestion that ukraine should give up some of those other provinces that russia claims and that's not going to happen so that seems to me to be the sticking point so so i do believe from what i'm hearing that there is progress being made towards some you know that kind of a deal you know someone put it to me very well zelensky for all his and we all admire his courage and his determination and everything else the facts on the ground are not very favorable to him and somebody put it to me very well the choice for zelensky is does he want to be South Korea or South Vietnam?

17:35That is, does he want an armistice, a deal that leaves him in control of a part of his country, at least, as a free country, with a kind of demilitarized zone, just like South Korea at the end of the Korean War? Or does he want to be South Vietnam, where he keeps fighting and ultimately his allies pull out, stop supporting him, and the country being completely taken over, i.e. in the way that North Vietnam took over South Vietnam. And, you know, that's, you know, he's facing that choice. So I think there are elements there that are true. I just think the, you know, the way in which they think that they are going to move Putin towards a deal, it just seems to me to be deeply flawed because he interprets every sign from the United States or from its allies or anywhere else as a sign of weakness and as a sign that he's winning and is not going to make those concessions.

18:29Now, we're going to take a break. And when we're back, we'll be talking about midterm madness and both the last minute adverts that candidates are pushing out as they try and get those votes and what a bad result for the Republicans might mean for the White House personnel.

18:47Therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough. It shows up in the smallest moments. You bite your tongue instead of escalating. You put your phone down instead of firing off that text. You say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most. Nobody applauds those moments, but they quietly change your life. That's what growing feels like. And that's exactly what Grow Therapy is here for. Grow is therapy that works, covered by insurance. Sessions average$21 with insurance and some pay as little as$0 depending on their plan. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments.

19:24You just pay per session. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality, licensed therapists across the U.S., offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends. You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity, or availability. And you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days, not the national 48-day average. See if you could pay as little as$0 for therapy in seconds at growtherapy.com slash start now. That's growtherapy.com slash start now. growtherapy.com slash start now. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.

20:12Emma back. Now there's two weeks to go to the midterm elections. Donald Trump is touring, speaking to the crowds from red states to blue states. Yet back in the White House, Gerry, there's already speculation about what this all means for the rest of Trump's second term. And specifically what this all means for Trump's chief of staff, Susie Wiles. So there's been rampant speculation and various excited briefings in the past week that Donald Trump is calling around old friends, asking for their opinion when it comes to how his chief of staff is doing. And if she's not doing well, who might replace her?

20:48Of course, this times with him having a historically low approval rating and some horror predictions. And of course, we don't know how the result is going to go, that the Republicans could have a very, very bad night next month in the midterms. And, you know, the White House has been quick to say this is all fake news, that Susie Wiles is going nowhere. But I think what it at least speaks to from the conversations I've been having is the sense that various figures in Trump world think that there is going to be a power struggle after the midterms where there is a blame game about that result. And therefore, if there's going to be a blame game, surely Trump's most senior adviser is going to be one of the figures in the firing line.

21:30Yeah, I mean, I'd say a couple of things. Firstly, that would be sort of standard procedure, right? after a setback in midterm elections, presidents almost always do a reshuffle in the event of a setback like that. George W. Bush did it in 2006 when he fired Donald Rumsfeld, his defense secretary. I don't see Donald Trump, however bad the result is next week, getting up there and saying, as his predecessors have done, OK, we had a bad result. We took a hammering. I get the message. I'm changing. And the first thing I'm doing is getting rid of some of these people because I just don't think Trump's going to accept the result in that way.

22:05Whether he's formally going to accept the result, he's certainly not going to get up there and say, you know, we lost. He won't. He'll say it was, you know, fraudulent and, you know, we were cheated or whatever. So there's an interesting wrinkle there as to whether or not he follows the normal procedure. You know, getting rid of Susie Wiles would, to some extent, make some sense. I mean, she's, you know, she's an influential figure. I have to say, Katie, and, you know, I defer to you as a woman on this. I mean, why is it that only women seem to get to walk the plank in the Trump administration?

22:36I mean, we have seen this now again and again and again. Right. I mean, Tulsi Gabbard, Kristi Noem, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Katie Zakaria last week. While, you know, Pete Hegseth is clowning around, you know, the Pentagon and, you know, R.F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is kind of poisoning the country with his anti-vaccine nonsense. You know, it's these women. None of them, I would stress. I don't particularly defend any of those women. But it does seem to be the women who get the who get the chop. And it may be that Susie is Susie's next up. It's certainly a trend. I actually do think there's a chance Susie Wiles bucks this trend.

23:15Because if you think about Trump's first term, he rattled through four chiefs of staff. But even more, he rattled through, I think, four press secretaries, six directors of comms. It was the level of turnover. and you know you speak to people now and it yeah this is not to say that the second term has been smooth sailing but in terms of dysfunction in the white house the second term has been as way more functional right when you speak to people um you know and this comes from men and women they often credit that to susie wiles and the fact that she is a serious operator who i think steve bannon once put it to me as she makes the trains run on time she doesn't try and force her own political agenda on Trump.

23:57She tries to deliver Trump. She knows that I think her approach from what I understand is she knows she can't control Trump. So she'll try and control everything around Trump, bar Trump. And that's her way of doing it. Now, there is a chance that, you know, the result is so bad that other forces move in. But I think what we've seen in the past week, and Susie Wiles was also accused of forcing Katie Zakaria, the five hit was the briefing, which was the White House press secretary appearing on Fox News and speaking to Sean Hannity. And I have to say, in an administration that is filled with conspiracy theorists, J.D.

24:37Vance being one who said that he only believes the conspiracy theories that are true, most still think that they don't see a conspiracy here. They think that if a White House press secretary can't handle doing Fox News, Sean Hannity's show, that's probably on them, not on Susie Wiles for getting into that place. But there's been such a kind of response since that to try and show that she is in place that I think that if you look at the history of Susie Wiles' career as a Republican strategist, she worked for Ron DeSantis, fell out for Ron DeSantis, started working for Trump back in the wilderness years when lots of people were not with him and between those two terms.

25:16Even on the 2024 campaign, at one point, Trump brought in an outside advisor to help, and he tried to assert control, and Susie Wiles won. So my sense is people don't think she's going anywhere anytime soon, or at least, you know, she would fight to shore up her position. So perhaps she is the exception to the women problem, but we will see. And your point about the first administration, the difference between the first administration and the chaos of that and the second administration, which has been much more disciplined if, you know, done some rather strange things. I mean, I suppose rather than sort of making the trains run on time, I'd say maybe the difference between the first administration, the lunatics ran the asylum, and in the second administration, Nurse Ratched is running the asylum in the person of Susie Wiles, but it's still an asylum, and the people inside there are still doing and saying utterly crazy things.

26:03Because again, if you look at that pathetic sort of coterie of, you know, supine men around Trump who just sort of praise him all the time and think that's the only way that they can survive. She does seem to have a little bit of robustness about her and actually probably is the one person in that White House who probably does say, Mr. President, you know, this is nuts. You can't do this and you shouldn't do this. So, you know, good for her. If she does go, I think the presidency gets very interesting, to use an underphrased word, and could return to Trump-1 vibes very quickly. But, Gerry, Before we go, let's talk about speaking of crazy things.

26:43Let's look at some of the attack ads that are going out this week. And let's go to Ohio. It's not easy for a mother to say this, but Amy has a serious problem. She is a liar. She lies about her past. She says she grew up living in a tent. None of that is true. She's lied her entire life. My daughter needs help and she can't help you if she needs help herself. OK, so, Jerry, this is an ad run by Rivet Ramaswamy. He's obviously running for governor of Ohio for the Republicans. And he is going after his opponent. And to do that, he has found her mother criticizing her. Low blow. We all have family tensions, Katie.

27:30I think it's fair to say over the years we've all maybe had issues on and off with our own parents. They're yet to do an advert against me, my parents. Those of us with children, I'm sure my children probably have some fairly harsh things to say about me as a father. But this is obviously on some new level of utter lunacy. This is just one of the most extraordinary things I've ever seen for a campaign to deploy the mother of your opponent to say what a terrible person she is. I mean, we should give a little bit of background. This woman, Amy Axon, the Democratic candidate for governor in Ohio, running against Vivek Ramaswamy, who made a bit of a name for himself running for president a few years ago on the Republican side.

28:09She's quite left wing. She's quite sort of progressive. She does. She's talked in the past about her very troubled childhood, an abusive stepfather, I think it was, and a mother who basically sort of stood by the stepfather as he was abusive and all of this stuff. And so she's talked a little bit about that in rather moving and powerful terms. And now along comes the mother. Speaking of Nurse Ratched, as we were earlier, this really sort of, I'm sorry to say, slightly terrifying figure who is deployed by Vivek Ramaswamy to criticize her own child. I mean, it's an interesting, there's a lot of curious, curiosities about this case.

28:47That's an ad, as you said, it's a Republican ad, but apparently it's never run on television. It hasn't even really been run on social media untold. It was like it's one of those things that campaigns do to get talked about. It doesn't actually do the thing that these things are supposed to normally supposed to do. Like, you know, as I said, television advertising or social media advertising. It seems to be something that they just wanted to get out there. This this this this mother attacking her daughter. I have to say, you know, the polling is not looking good for Ramaswamy. This does look like a bit of an act of desperation.

29:18And I've got to say she doesn't come across as a sympathetic, you know, little old woman baking cookies and being horribly treated by her cruel daughter. She comes across as a bit of a, you know, a figure from a Stephen King novel. And I don't think that's going to help. Anyway, we should wrap up. But just quickly, you've been in Georgia, you've been in Atlanta following the sort of the rising star of the Democratic Party, John Ossoff, Senator John Ossoff. Yes, I was in Atlanta this weekend to go to a John Ossoff rally. I think John Ossoff, Senator for Georgia and looking for re-election again.

29:55This is one of the races that people thought might be more competitive. The general sense is that he's going to rump home pretty comfortably. Obviously, we don't know until that happens. But John Ossoff looks in a really strong position here. and I think that it's fair to say I think he has become perhaps the breakout star on the Democrat side for the midterms his rallies have been getting a lot of interest online the most famous being when he talked about Trump being busy travelling with Natalie a reference to Natalie Harp one of Trump's advisors whose nickname is the human printer she's the one who prints all the press coverage for Trump to look at often printing him the more positive stuff and also helps the true social account.

30:37And this sent the Republicans crazy because it led to a media storm about who is Natalie Harp. They felt it insinuated there was something going on when there isn't. And it was, you know, everyone said this is a low blow. But at the same time, lots of Democrats went, well, actually sometimes for all the, you know, when they go low, we go high. Maybe we need to go low to take the fight to the Republicans. And therefore, I think if, if as is expected, John Ossoff is reelected, there's going to be a lot of talk about him for 2028. He has ruled it out. Yeah, he's ruled it out. I mean, do you think that's a stalling mechanism or is it genuine?

31:16He's ruled it out a couple of times, I think. He's ruled it out because he keeps being asked it in the debates and he'll say, are you going to do your full six years if you're elected? I don't think he could say anything else. You can't say, oh, well, I'll do three, then I'll see how we're going. Oh, sorry, I'll do two. So I think that I think speaking to Democrats, I've been calling around a bit this week and everyone is taking those comments with a pinch of salt, I would say. He was impressive in person, I would I would add and commanded the room. I have to say he's very impressive. I think one of the things he's done most impressively, better than anyone actually, is.

31:49And I think Democrats, other Democrats have tried to copy him. But he's been very effective in linking Americans' discontent with their own economic situation and the cost of living and all of that with the corruption in the Trump White House and saying basically making that connection to people feel really real. That is, you know, while you're struggling to pay your grocery bill every month and to pay your mortgage every month, these guys are making billions and billions from crooked deals with crypto firms and foreign powers and all this kind of stuff. And I think that, you know, I think that's I think that's cut through, actually.

32:26I think that has really resonated with people. And he has been he's been he's been very impressive. I agree. Right. That's all we have time for this week. I'm surely getting on a train and I'm going to see you in person later, Jerry. yeah looking forward to seeing you welcome to New York thank you it's been waiting for you in the words of Taylor Swift but we'll be back next week so thank you for listening