Davos Breakdown with Presidential Advisor Dr Pippa Malmgren

26:42And Delcy Rodriguez, who was the vice president, now the leader, has met with the head of the CIA and said, yes, we are no longer going to do these things that are detrimental to the United States. So is that what you describe in your question, Or is that a more sophisticated way of protecting American interests? So as one example, I think the same question will come up, of course, with the whole issue of Gaza and the Middle East. And we saw Jared Kushner give a whole presentation about a vision for the future of Gaza. And again, is that the U.S. imposing its will to get things that serve its own interests?

27:29Or what I find interesting is how few people say, well, given what has happened, should it be reconstructed for the Palestinians? Should America do a Marshall Plan, which is really what Jared Kushner laid out when we reconstructed Germany at the end of World War II, even though they had been America's opponent? Is America doing the same thing here? I would argue it's very similar. So is it that America's doing what you say in your question, or is it that America's doing the Marshall Plan again? I think so much depends on how you've already, how one has already decided to frame.

28:12Francis Foster:Yes. It's why I asked the question, because it's not one I personally agree with. But that is the narrative. The panicky European chattering classes are basically all saying Trump is Hitler and is invading everywhere and he's about to take over. and i have to say i do find it quite funny i remember there was a leader of one i don't even remember which country but probably quite small and irrelevant in the grand scheme of things who stood up and went you know we are going to defend the war the international rules-based order and we're going to stand up for now with what like to to your point about energy britain itself can't make virgin steel anymore because we've de-industrialized through this suicidal thing called net zero.

28:56Francis Foster:Do you think this is the wake up call in many ways that Europe has needed to have sanity return to our politics again, and to pursue policies that actually make us better off, stronger, more influential in the world, etc? Or do you think they'll carry on as business as usual? Neither. I think that the current leadership in Europe may now double down. And by doubling down, they may say, right, the problem, for example, the problem is that people raise objections to net zero. Or the problem is that our choices are questioned. So look at the whole discussion about should X be banned or should people be arrested for saying things on social media?

29:51that are critical of any given government, which is exactly the opposite of where we are in the States, which is, you know, anybody can say what they want and we should take into consideration multiple perspectives on things, whether we like it or not. So is it possible that the Europeans are going to double down? And I know this sounds harsh, but possibly respond to all this by introducing what I might call a digital iron curtain and saying, right, we're just not going to allow debate. Now, already we did see Chancellor Mertz say it was a mistake to turn off all the nuclear. So that is a huge turnaround.

30:35And I do think we will hear the Europeans saying more and more, actually, we maybe need to shift direction. Are they going to say we made a mistake before? No, that's when politicians don't apologize. But at the same time, will they double down on getting the peanut gallery to stop with their criticism and to stop with their liking what Trump says? Because after all, in Europe, you do have a substantial proportion of the electorate that's increasingly becoming more Trump, Trumpy, Trumper in their interests. But that's very opposed by the high priests of the rules based system. They don't want the what they call the far right to gain votes.

31:26And that's another interesting part of this whole thing is we've all descended into this tribalism and relativism. So like as someone who's been in this game of geopolitics literally since like, you know, I first did an internship for Ronald Reagan in 1983, I think it was. So what used to be center, I didn't change. And now it's some people would like call it right. Some people might even call it far right on certain issues. I'm still kind of lefty on others. But, you know, like the world has moved in such a way that I actually don't even think left and right are helpful any longer. What's more important is to ask, is your direction of travel forward or backward?

32:14If you are interested in fighting with somebody about yesterday's problem and assigning blame, you're going backward. If you're interested in how do we solve problems so that we have a whole different set of options in front of us that are easier to work with, then you're moving forward. But people are tribal. And right now, the uncertainty about the world is making people feel very aligned, like they do to a football team. And they're like either with Trump or they're against him. You're either with the EU and their agenda or you're an enemy of it. there's like no middle ground and that was actually one of the themes of trump's speech because

32:57Konstantin Kisin:he quite didn't use these words but he almost accused europeans of a complete lack of gratitude he goes america does all of this for you we do all of this what do we get from you and more to the point if something happens to us can we rely on you to come in and support us i don't think we can. Yeah, yeah, he did say that. He did say that. And I think, look, he's capturing a sentiment that does exist in the US. And that's not only from the Trump era. That's also partly from President George W. Bush, who I worked for. I was there before the events in Iraq. But there's still a lot of anger in the world about how the decision was made to go to war in Afghanistan and in Iraq.

33:46So that anger about, you know, you guys in America are always declaring wars everywhere is it's very persistent. And so Trump is having to deal with that. And ironically, he's like, wait, I'm trying to go the other way and get us to peace deals. But he's portrayed by many in Europe as a sellout. And this is now we're going to get into a very complicated matter, which is like how, for example, the war in Ukraine began. And whether we agree or we disagree, part of what Trump is doing is going back in time, declassifying a lot of emails and correspondence from within government. And he's saying, you know, the official story has been that it's very simple, that the Russians were bad guys, the Ukrainians were good guys, and the Russians just rolled in without any provocation.

34:43Now he's like, oh, well, it looks like the previous administrations actually spent a fair amount of money through USAID and other organizations fomenting the Maidan revolution and other color revolutions in Eastern Europe. So your hands are maybe not so clean. And given that that's the case, maybe we should figure out how to get to a resolution because it's no longer so like good guys, bad guys. It's like everybody played a part in making this mess happen. And who's suffering? It's a bunch of young kids who had nothing to do with creating this problem. Similar, his position on Taiwan. He's had the same position since he was president the first round, which is that the chip production is moving from Taiwan to Texas and Arizona.

35:34And therefore, it's not as strategically important to the United States. So therefore, there is room to negotiate a deal. But the implicit message is China's economy is in trouble. And China needs to learn how to be in the world economy in ways that generate better livelihoods. So you can do a deal on Taiwan if China will be more like Taiwan, but not if China is going to crush Taiwan the way they're perceived to have done it in Hong Kong. And of course, China views this as a strictly internal matter and that no other government should have an even opinion on. So rather than articulating what I'm articulating, Trump just very quietly goes about making it clear that there's a deal to be done.

36:21But again, China, what's your choice? You want to go to war with the United States? You all have had a one-child family. Do you want to lose the one child? Do you really, with your economy, do you really want to spend all those resources on war with the United States? Or do we want to go back to making money? If we all want to go back to making money and raising incomes and livelihoods, then let's have a conversation about what are the ways in which we could accomplish that. But again, then he's portrayed as a sellout. And so this happens to every president, just to be clear. Every president gets boxed into a corner.

36:59And having worked for both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, what's amazing is I remember how hated they were. Hated. And now everyone's like, could you bring George W. Bush back? and you know and honestly and reagan is a hero now i'm not saying that you're going to love trump one day but i am saying all presidents are hated while they're doing the tough work later when everybody's had a chance to like review and assess the results opinions change so he's a little bit like yeah whatever noise i need to get deals done that will get us to peace because that's where his direction of travel is and he was constantly talking about himself as

37:48Konstantin Kisin:this consummate deal maker in the speech and then I woke up today literally today and heard that there's been some kind of deal agreed with Greenland I mean what what do we know about that or is it very basic or is it still up in the air you know it happens I've just been at the press conference here in Nuuk in Greenland with the Prime Minister of Greenland. And the press were asking him all exactly this question. And he was like, listen, I wasn't in Davos. And these were not formal discussions. So I have no idea like where we are. Instead, he said, I have some red lines, right? So sovereignty is not negotiable.

38:29But Greenland is a close ally of the United States. And we absolutely want to be in dialogue to accommodate whatever the strategic security needs of the United States are, because parentheses, we're only 57 ,000 people like we we don't have the means to the independent protection of our future. And like I said, Greenland, they want to be independent to do that. They have to be aligned with the U.S. and strategic security issues. So basically what I think is, it's a whole bunch of press generated noise. We don't have anything substantive, but I think that there's now a genuine goodwill effort by NATO, by the White House, by the Greenlanders to get to a place where everybody's comfortable.

39:18And by the way, I'd like to add to that the fact that the Greenland government itself, the leadership was in Washington in the meetings, tells us already that both the Kingdom of Denmark and the United States understand that no decisions can be made without the Greenlanders. So I actually think the bigger issue now is the Greenlanders don't understand that they do have a position of power and leverage. And instead of only looking for a or being willing to accept, let's say, some kind of financial deal. And I'd characterize their position as Greenland is not for sale, but it's open for business.

39:59So, OK, what does that mean? That means, OK, what is the business? And I have said to the Greenlanders, you guys should be saying, OK, if you're going to be doing the space race from Greenland, we should be part of it. So we want to get space based solar power. We want to get access to free energy. We want to get jobs. We want to get skills upgraded. We want to have Internet available to all the Greenlanders for free. Like there are many things. Take us with you to the technological frontier. And then we can decide which technologies suit this community and which don't, but at least empower the Greenlanders.

40:40And I think they hadn't thought of that. And the White House wasn't going to volunteer that. It's a negotiation process. And as for Denmark, you know, they also want the best outcome for the Greenlanders. And they had already been devolving the authority of political decision making to Greenland anyway. But I think the way Trump came in very blustery that everybody locked into, no, no, no, it's mine. Right. Like you can't have it like children arguing over a toy. The fact is that all of them have an interest in creating a future where all of them have more possibilities than before.

41:21Francis Foster:and Pippa coming back to your point about the fact that we are now uh in a world in which the superpowers will make deals and sort of settle things etc you're painting I would argue a fairly rosy picture of President Trump which may be accurate you probably well not probably you definitely know way better than I do but nonetheless I think a lot of people would feel it's a rosy picture but he's going to have to do deals with the equivalent of the Joseph Stalin and whoever would be the Chinese version of that. He's going to have to do deals with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. Are you confident that their attitude to all of this is similar in that they also want, you know, world peace, kumbaya, make money, etc.?

42:06Francis Foster:Or do you think someone like Vladimir Putin, a KGB colonel who's grown up in that world, is going to be thinking in a very, very different way about this and will be looking for what's In the interest not only actually of Russia, I think, but in this point of his trajectory and his career, what's in the interest of making sure that he is remembered as Vladimir the Great? So, you know, what's really interesting is who announced that they are open for business and deals with China? Not Trump. Mark Carney said that, the Prime Minister of Canada, where a year ago he had said China was the most significant strategic security threat.

42:49And then at Davos, he said, we're ready to do deals with the Chinese. The British, the French all said, and the Germans too, we are going to be partnering with the Chinese. So again, the Americans were like, wait, what? That's like right now the biggest strategic security opponent. And you guys would rather do deals with them than the United States. So who's doing the deals here is the key question. I think your question as well about Russia is absolutely fair. And that's why, again, if we go back and we look at, for example, the meeting that President Trump had with the Russians in Alaska. So the media portrayed it's Trump and Putin, but it was also 400 Russian business people.

43:38And Trump was mainly talking to the business people, saying, do you guys really want to continue on this war path? Or do we want to find a solution to Ukraine so that we can bring Russia back into the world economy, normalize relations? And he's already hinted at that structure of that, because I think the Russian position is yes. And we don't want a border with Western Europe. We want a buffer zone. And that buffer zone looks to me like a revival of the old Polish Lithuanian kingdom. It's what they call the Three Seas Initiative, which links together the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea and the Adriatic.

44:21So it's like from Lithuania straight down through Poland. And the U.S. has said we're going to let Poland take the lead on what will be the largest construction site, reconstruction site since the Second World War. If we get a peace deal, then we've got to rebuild Ukraine and Poland will be at the forefront. Plus, the Poles' relationship with Russia is pretty, let's say, covered.

44:48Francis Foster:There's a lot of history there. There's a lot of history there. There's a lot of history there. And so, you know, if you want a guard dog in the night, the Poles, if they think one little thing is out of place, they're going to start saying, oh, we got a problem here. And the U.S. has said that they would have a commercial interest in some of Ukraine's mining, which I think is the cover story for don't touch Ukraine, even though it's not in NATO, because you will be triggering a U.S. response. So it's a way of saying it's protected even if officially it's not in NATO. So Russia's business community is indicating, yeah, then we could do business inside this triangle and begin to reintegrate Russia into the world economy.

45:39And this is important because this is something my dad taught me from his experience in government. In the end, when you reach the point where you're really threatening a nuclear confrontation, and that is where we have been, that if Ukraine continues to escalate, that Russia is prepared to go to nuclear. Well, when you get to that point, the human response is no one wants to bring the end of the world about. Nobody really wants to hit that button. so the only other place you can go is the opposite end of the spectrum which is a hug and my dad watched all of these geopolitical conflicts always end in a hug and I'm like what he said yeah look at the photograph of Nixon and Brezhnev totally like embracing they practically kissed in fact because once you say we're not going to kill each other and annihilate earth then it's like hey let's go to the bar let's you know hug like figure out how to work together Same thing happened with Nixon and Brezhnev.

46:44Sorry, same thing happened with Reagan and Gorbachev. And that's when I was working for Reagan. In both cases, no one ever imagined the leader of the Soviet Union was going to meet with the leader of the United States. Like that was impossible to imagine, let alone embrace. But it's that embrace that then allowed a dialogue and ultimately allowed Russia to leave its position as the Soviet Union to become Russia. And so can we be friends with the Russians again? Yes. But there are terms and there are conditions. Same thing with China. Does the U.S. really want to be arch enemies with China forever?

47:27China has, what, 1.6, 1.7 billion people. If we can't find a way for the Chinese to come back into the world economy and believe that their future will be better, then we will be back in conflict. That's the thing. If you want to get to a peace deal, then you also are going to have to embrace the peoples of those countries and bring them back into a world family and not treat them as the enemy anymore. more it's hard to do but that's what happened with germany at the end of world war ii it ceased to be the enemy we made them an ally we reintegrated them into the world they are in a very different place than they would have been otherwise and so that's think people kind of think don't think through to the end game like okay if we're at war then and you think you can win what does winning even mean in an era of nuclear weapons plus now i mean the capability of our weapon systems is so much greater than it used to be.

48:30And now we've got robotics. So what, you're going to have robots fighting robots, then who wins? The person who runs the country that runs out of 3D printed material first. And if you're going to have robots fighting robots, why don't they just build hospitals? Like why are they destroying stuff? Why don't we program robots to collectively build new housing and new hospitals? And then what are we fighting over? So, yeah, I agree. I hear you. But I think that that is where the superpowers are leaning, which is that it's just too expensive. It's too costly to humanity to continue fights that risk existential outcomes.

49:16And it's better to get to the hug, even if it feels distasteful.

49:22Konstantin Kisin:well we're talking about hugs and uh europe over the past 48 hours hasn't been feeling a lot of hugs certainly not from donald trump and certainly not from vladimir zelensky who in his speech he went in and essentially lambasted europe as well didn't he yeah because uh it's interesting he too has realized, given a choice between escalating and de-escalating, he'd rather de-escalate and save what remains of Ukraine. And I mean, because if you stay in this fight, most of the analyses are that it's not going to be pretty. So, and interestingly, Mark Ruta, the head of NATO, came out and said, President Trump is right.

50:10And we should all be on the same page. And we should be trying to get the point of ending the wars. So I think actually, and I think what's going to happen is there is going to be more and more of a conversation about what are the terms and conditions for ending the war in Ukraine and for Russia and also China to be reintegrated into the world economy. And I think almost no energy has gone into that vision of the future where everybody can play in the same sandbox because we've been in such a confrontational mode.

50:50Konstantin Kisin:and we have indeed and one of the really interesting things is as well is trump has spoken openly about starma and the uk letting down the us when it comes to the chagos islands and that's something that i really wanted to talk with you because i don't think a lot of people understand the chagos islands i certainly wouldn't pretend to their significance the deal is trump correct? Is it hyperbole or hyperbole on behalf of the president? What's going on? Why is it so important? And is Trump right? Yeah. So Diego Garcia, this tiny little island that is kind of south of India, bottom line is that's the main base the US uses whenever it's doing bombing runs into the Middle East.

51:48So in terms of our strategic security interests as a nation, Diego Garcia is considered one of the most critical control points on earth. And so when the British basically started to negotiate it away, leaving it, it is argued, in a vulnerable position to America's opponents, particularly China, to then begin having a presence. And let's understand there's been a kind of jockeying between the United States and China over many, many islands. The islands in the South China Sea, the islands of the Pacific. Understand the other main American foothold is Guam. And now this little island underneath it, Tinian, that they're upgrading to be even more important than Guam.

52:40The Chinese have been moving into places like the Solomon Islands. So these are all like physical footholds for geopolitical purposes, for strategic security purposes. So when the previous administration in the U.S. was in office, they didn't seem to express a view about Diego Garcia, which is the Chagos Islands. and therefore that process in Britain just progressed. When Trump arrived, he went, wait a minute, that's a really important national security interest in the same way that Greenland is. And you can't just give that away and have no protections for the national security interest that the United States has.

53:28And that's what's reopened this whole discussion. And I mean, it's clear the relationship between President Trump and his counterparts in Britain, in France, and in Germany, these are not conversations that have been going swimmingly, right? These are very tough conversations. The conversation that's gone very well has been with Italy. And notice that Italy has been at the forefront of saying, George Maloney has been at the forefront of saying, let's figure out how to do a peace deal. Let's figure out how we're all allies and we all have common interests. And how do we get sitting around a table to, you know, have a conversation about this?

54:13By the way, that's one thing the Greenlandic prime minister said today was we're creating a working group and the working group is gonna like figure this out. In other words, let's talk. So I think that's kind of where we are is the president's talking to the Europeans that will talk to him and the ones that won't talk to him. We can probably see more fireworks coming.

54:39Konstantin Kisin:Because it seems to me that if you're not going to be talking to the president of the United States, that is, to put it bluntly, a quite moronic play, isn't it? The US is the world's greatest superpower. Like him or not, Donald Trump is the leader of the world's greatest superpower. That's ridiculous not to talk with him. I mean, that's self-harm bordering on suicidal, isn't it? Well, we're back to that's why the United States issued the national security statement saying Europe seems to be on a path of civilizational decline. as you say they view it as a kind of self-harming position whether this is right or not is beside the point i'm trying to describe what is the view from washington um and look the u.s is always it is extremely powerful it's more powerful now partly because its economy is going so well Yeah, partly because the president used the events in Venezuela not only to accomplish a specific task, which was to signal that the cartel operations across Latin America are no longer going to be like allowed.

55:54Like basically the U.S. saying we're going to have order. We're not going to have this kind of stuff going on in America's backyard. And by the way, it was clear message also to Russia and China that if you need Venezuelan oil, it will be available. But if you want to go to war with the United States, then the U.S. can turn the tap off. So, you know, it's not a saying it's America's only we get to sell it. No. And he actually specifically said the Venezuelans need the revenue because they haven't had anything. Their own leadership has creamed off the top. So, boom, there you have a different way of thinking about it.

56:35But one of the things that happened in Venezuela was a demonstration of capability. And the word is that something like 20 special ops guys were able to physically walk into a highly guarded presidential palace and knock down hundreds of opposition and walk away with the leader intact. Right. Like that is like unheard of. And it sent a message to the world that the U.S. isn't necessarily going to come with old fashioned armaments. We're not going to show up in the same way as the old days. The U.S. has all sorts of new methodologies for enforcing order. And we've seen this in many different ways in the last year.

57:29There's also been this whole issue of, controversial as it is, precision targeting of opponents of the United States with regard to the Iranian leadership. Right. Like it's so precise. It's meant to send a signal that if you really want to be America's opponent, America can take out an individual at a time, no matter how high you are, no matter how highly protected you are. Now, is the world comfortable with that? I don't know. But the reality is that's where America is. So to not negotiate with America or to treat America as an unimportant partner in the alliance or to dismiss it just because you don't like the current president doesn't really serve your national interest.

58:25And finally, I would say another one sort of key point here is, especially for the Europeans, and I lived in Europe pretty much my whole adult life, other than my roles in the White House, which is strange and weird, but it worked out that way. So I'm very sympathetic and simpatico with Europe and its views, its culture. But the bottom line is most Europeans know the East Coast of the United States and the West. So they know New York and Boston and Washington, D.C., and they know L.A. and San Francisco. These are not representative of where America is. And I really learned that when I worked for George W.

59:08Bush because I come from that background. My mom is from L.A. and I grew up in D.C. And I remember referring to the middle of the United States, an incredibly arrogant, you know, East Coast technocrat way of saying it's the flyover district, like who will go there. And then I learned because I went there and I went there during the time I worked for George W. Bush. And I realized the real power in the United States comes from the middle. And you have to understand that that is the real America. So when you say I don't like Donald Trump because he's not like my friends on the East Coast or the West Coast, you're like, then you don't know America.

59:50The real America is this middle part that has a very different sensibility. It's much more conservative than you think it is. It's also a part of the country. that part of the country believes that America shouldn't be involved in wars around the world and they support the president's efforts to do limited actions in order to get longer term results so this is a different America than Europe thought they were dealing with

1:00:23Konstantin Kisin:absolutely and and what would you go for it Constantine I was just going to say we've come

1:00:28Francis Foster:to the end of our hour actually so I think we best wrap up and let people crack on with the busy schedule that she has. Thank you so much for joining us. It's been an absolute pleasure. Anything you want to say before we wrap up here? Yeah, I'll just say one thing for everybody listening. I think every one of us has a digital sheepdog by our side at 24-7 these days, meaning algorithms that are designed to give you more of what you like and to fence off what you don't like. And it's narrowing the aperture of the view through which you get to see what's going on. So if you haven't, for example, clicked on anything on the space race or the geopolitics of the Arctic, just start clicking on a few of those because it will widen the aperture of the view.

1:01:16And I think that would help if the public were more informed about some of these things, even though as you opened, it's like day to day, I'm just going fishing and buying groceries, which is exactly how the Inuit people here, they're like, I'm busy. I don't know what all these superpowers are doing. I need to go catch some fish and get my kids to school on time. But when you tell them about this wider set of phenomena, technology, the space race, the reasons, they are like, oh, this is super important. This is interesting. So that's my recommendation is punch out that view by training your digital sheepdog to widen the array of stories that are brought to you.

1:01:57Francis Foster:Dr. Pippa Mangrum, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate your time. Thank you.