WEBVTT - Trump’s Big 2026 Foreign Policy Tests 0:00:06.320 --> 0:00:09.639 We spend most Monday show talking about the exploding Somali 0:00:09.720 --> 0:00:13.720 fraud Scandali story that continues to utterly baffle him in 0:00:13.800 --> 0:00:18.040 bamboozle and swindle and defraud and all the works, all 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:20.079 the additives. I think our fair game when it comes 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:22.680 to this terrible story out of Minnesota, the repercussions of 0:00:22.680 --> 0:00:25.919 which we are only beginning to learn the extent of it. 0:00:25.960 --> 0:00:28.200 As Cash Hotel said over the weekend, this is very 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:30.520 much only the tip of the iceberg we have seen 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:33.800 when it comes to the independent YouTuber Nick Shirley on 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:36.480 the ground and from various other sources at this point. 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:39.400 But the world keeps on spinning, and there's plenty of 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:41.839 other events going on as well. And we're going to 0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:44.159 bring on shortly to the show, rebeccaheim Res. Rebecca is 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:46.440 a senior fellow at the Hudson Suit, one of my 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:49.120 favorite thinkers when it comes to foreign affairs more generally, 0:00:49.800 --> 0:00:52.040 and we're gonna kind of just hop scotch across the 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:55.520 globe because from my vantage points, Donald Trump is a 0:00:55.560 --> 0:00:58.760 peace making president. Donald Trump is a pro peace statement, 0:00:58.800 --> 0:01:02.760 someone who has presided over god knows how many peace deals, ceasefires, 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:05.880 military off rams, in this first year of his second term, 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:09.720 whether it's Congo and Rwanda in Sub Saharan Africa, whether 0:01:09.760 --> 0:01:12.960 it's Armenia and Azerbaijan, a conflict that I saw up 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:14.520 close and personal when I was there two and a 0:01:14.560 --> 0:01:16.000 half years ago. If you had told me that there 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:18.640 will be peace there in twenty twenty five, I literally 0:01:18.680 --> 0:01:21.319 would not have believed that. He has seen peace deals 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:25.880 between two nuclear powers Indian Pakistan, Thailand and Cambodia, all 0:01:25.920 --> 0:01:29.280 sorts of Middle East peacemaking. He's been a phenomenal pro 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:31.760 peace president. The big question and the question that we 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:33.560 will get into in a few minutes here just with 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:36.720 with Rebecca Himriz, is is this pro peace momentum going 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:40.440 to continue into the year twenty twenty six? On Sunday, 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:43.959 Vladimir Zelenski of Ukraine was at mar A Lago visiting 0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:46.959 with Donald Trump, and on Monday Benjaminincinniak Whu was their 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:50.880 mini president Trump as well. Russia Ukraine continues to be 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:54.520 the huge question that is still looming out there when 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:57.040 it comes to the lack of a peace steal. If 0:01:57.040 --> 0:02:00.240 the were still raging this February, which unfortunately there is 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:02.200 a very good chance it will be that will now 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:05.200 mark four years since the carnage first started in the 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:08.080 Dombas region of eastern Ukraine and in the Crimean Peninsula. 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:11.040 It was in February twenty twenty two that Lamar Putin 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:14.480 first sent the tanks over the border into Ukraine. And 0:02:15.000 --> 0:02:17.079 are we closer to a piece still now than we 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:21.120 were three to four years ago? Maybe it's kind of 0:02:21.120 --> 0:02:24.440 hard to tell sometimes, frankly, because both sides are not 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:27.560 quite budging on some of their terminal demands. Russia is 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:30.040 clearly the more obstinate party. They are the aggressor. They're 0:02:30.040 --> 0:02:33.600 the ones who are refusing to compromise virtually on anything, 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:35.600 as far as I can tell a Zelenski Foid's worth. 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:38.079 It's also not quite ready to compromise when it comes 0:02:38.120 --> 0:02:42.200 to territorial concessions in eastern Ukraine. What a mess, certainly 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:44.560 for me personally. As the calendar gets ready to flip 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:46.920 from twenty twenty five into twenty twenty six, that is 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:50.080 something that I will be paying very very close attention to. 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:52.919 Is there anything, Is there anything that we can possibly 0:02:52.960 --> 0:02:55.840 do to try to cajole these parties to try to 0:02:55.880 --> 0:02:59.080 make mutual concessions again, Primarily from the Russian side. They 0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:02.120 are the more opnits of the two. Certainly at this time. 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:04.519 We'll get into all that, certainly and more on the 0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:08.280 Russian crane conflict with Rebecca Heinrich speaking of Primus Nataniyahu 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:11.880 and his visit to mar A Lago on Monday, both 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:14.840 men fully smiling. They seem to be very much in 0:03:15.000 --> 0:03:18.400 lockstep on the same page. Trump's warm embrace of his 0:03:18.639 --> 0:03:22.000 longtime compatriot and ally Netsniaho's certainly doing a lot, I 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:26.320 think to simmer the boiling tensions in this particular Bilatter relationship, 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:29.080 which has really been dragged through the mud by bad 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:32.160 faith actors, mostly on the left, but increasingly with some 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:35.720 ferocity on the quote unquote right. And I use those 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:40.200 scare quotes deliberately. But whatever's worth whatever the naysayers and 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:43.400 the conspiracists may be saying, they're certainly not reaching sixteen 0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:46.720 hundred Pennsylvania Avenue. They're certainly not reaching Maro Lago. Because 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:49.520 Donald Trump doesn't give a crap what the conspiracists say. 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:54.560 He clearly believes strongly in this particular relationship. He clearly 0:03:54.600 --> 0:03:59.560 believes strongly in Benjamintiak, who, as an individual leader most recently, 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:03.040 actually on this trip, the Israeli delegation announcing that they 0:04:03.360 --> 0:04:06.920 will be giving their Israel Prize, which is what they 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:11.080 named their Great Annual National Prize. It's typically given to 0:04:11.160 --> 0:04:13.440 an Israeli citizen. This is actually the first time they're 0:04:13.440 --> 0:04:14.960 give it to Donald Trump. Apparently, this is the first 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:17.960 time they'll be giving it to a non Israeli citizen 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:20.719 in seven and a half eight decades essentially in the 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:24.280 entire existence of the contemporary Jewish date. So that just 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:27.240 shows you how he is viewed, does to say how 0:04:27.279 --> 0:04:29.440 Donald Trump is viewed in the state of Israel. And 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:31.200 that's for good reason, because Donal Trump has been an 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:34.400 amazing friend, an amazing friend to Israel where the rubber 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:36.840 could potentially meet the road come twenty twenty six, and 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:39.479 again we'll get Rebecca Himer's thoughts on this is when 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:43.440 it comes to the reascendant threat of the Iranian regime. 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:45.640 Recall that it was now six and a half months 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:47.960 ago that the Israelis first took out a lot of 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:50.960 the Iranian air defenses inside of the country of Iran, 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:52.760 and then the United States came in for the kude 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:54.920 Grath for the death blow with those B two bombers 0:04:55.320 --> 0:04:59.360 dropping those massive bombs at four Donatans and various other 0:04:59.400 --> 0:05:02.960 Iranian nuclear sites. The big question right now is what 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:05.480 is the current state of the Iranian nuclear program. We 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:07.719 know that there is some level of enriched geranium that 0:05:07.800 --> 0:05:11.200 is currently around there, and certainly we know that there 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:14.040 is still a ballistic missile program that is in place 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:16.360 there as well. So what is going to happen when 0:05:16.360 --> 0:05:18.680 it comes to the country of Iran in the year 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:19.560 twenty twenty six. 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:20.320 I don't know. 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:23.360 We will go ahead and ask Rebecca. China, another huge 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:25.840 issue that we have to pay very close attention to 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:29.520 was actually just on Monday that Hijianping sent his military 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:33.040 to perform some of the largest live fire drills in 0:05:33.560 --> 0:05:36.039 the entire history of the Chinese military. This time it 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:39.040 was directed at you guessed it, at the island of Taiwan, 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:43.000 where they are really ramping up and ratcheting up the pressure. Clearly, 0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:47.599 Shijinping wants to reabsorb Taiwan into China, much as Varim 0:05:47.600 --> 0:05:50.880 Putin wants to reabsorb Ukraine and probably other places like 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:54.159 Georgia and Belaries as well into broader Russia. Will he 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:57.240 attempt something really crazy in the year twenty twenty six. 0:05:57.440 --> 0:05:59.400 I don't know. I think probably not. What I do 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:02.359 know is that China remains the number one threat to 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:05.039 the United States, to the American citizen, and to the 0:06:05.040 --> 0:06:08.280 American way of life throughout this presidency and frankly throughout 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:10.719 this century as well. And finally, that takes us to 0:06:10.760 --> 0:06:14.080 one of these foremost allies, one of the stalwart allies 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:16.600 of Russia and China in our own hemisphere, and that 0:06:16.680 --> 0:06:20.359 is Nicholas Maduro in Venezuela. This month's long pressure campaign 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:25.120 against Nicholas Maduro and his failed tinpot socialist communist state 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:27.719 seems to be reaching something of a boiling point and 0:06:27.720 --> 0:06:29.719 something of a fever pitch. How much longer can this 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:32.600 pressure campaign go on? I don't really know the answer 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:35.360 to that. What I do know is that it can't 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:37.520 go on forever. At some point, there's gonna have to 0:06:37.560 --> 0:06:40.680 be something that's gonna have to give. Maybe Madua will abdicate, 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:44.359 Maybe he may pull a Baucher alasade and flee to 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:48.880 the welcoming warm bosom of Lamyir Putin in Moscow. Maybe 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:51.440 he will stay in power. Maybe the US will actually 0:06:51.480 --> 0:06:53.320 engage in tactical airstrikes. 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:54.200 I don't know. 0:06:54.360 --> 0:06:55.919 There are a lot of open questions there at What 0:06:55.960 --> 0:06:59.640 I do know is that there are a lot of 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:03.000 a lot of unresolved conflicts around the world. As we 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:06.119 turn from twenty twenty five into twenty twenty six, Donald 0:07:06.160 --> 0:07:09.440 Trump's first year in office, the reputation is very much 0:07:09.640 --> 0:07:12.760 that of a peacemaker and is a very very welldess 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:15.400 of reputation. Frankly, Donald Trump should have won the Nobel 0:07:15.440 --> 0:07:17.720 Peace Prize for his efforts. If the Noble Peace Prize 0:07:18.080 --> 0:07:22.440 was not catastrophically induced and afflicted with TDS Trump arrangement syndrome. 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:26.040 That didn't happen. There will twenty twenty six bring more 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:29.840 of the blessings of fruits? Or on the contrary, will 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:33.520 there be multiple one or multiple of these geopolitical hotspots 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:36.920 around the world that could explode into a large scale, 0:07:37.000 --> 0:07:40.080 large scale tinder box or two. I don't know the answer. 0:07:40.240 --> 0:07:41.760 What I do know is that we have to be 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:45.120 prepared for the worst, hope for the best, but always always. 0:07:44.800 --> 0:07:46.120 Prepare for the worst. 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:50.560 So, as we're saying there in our introductory monologue, there 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:53.800 are no shortage of geopolitical hotspots right now, all around 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:55.960 the globe, pretty much everywhere you look, whether it is 0:07:56.040 --> 0:07:59.520 South America our own hemispheric backyard, whether it's the Middle East, 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:02.840 whether it's in Europe, whether it's China ever encroaching on 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:06.800 Taiwan in the Indo Pacific, and many other hotspots in between. 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:09.840 We wanted to bring on the consummates expert to go 0:08:09.920 --> 0:08:12.080 on and break it down for us, and that of 0:08:12.120 --> 0:08:14.920 course is Rebecca Heinritz. Becca Hinrich is a senior fellow 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:17.520 at the Hudson Institute's one of our great thinkers when 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:19.520 it comes to foreign affairs, and generally you can follow 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:23.240 her on x at r L Heinrich. Rebecca Witching you 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:26.760 a very merry belated and Christmas an early happy New Year. 0:08:26.800 --> 0:08:28.840 We really appreciate you joined the Josh Ammers Show. 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:31.280 Thanks so much, Josh, and Happy Hanaka to you. 0:08:31.560 --> 0:08:34.199 Thank you so Recca. It's hard to know where to 0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:34.480 start to. 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:35.760 Honestly, I thought that we would kind of just do 0:08:35.800 --> 0:08:38.000 a bit a of a foreign policy Poe Pride is 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:40.480 kind of hopscotch your way around all of the all 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:43.480 all of the geopolitical hotspots. I want to get to 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:46.000 rush to the Ukraine. When I get to to Israel 0:08:46.040 --> 0:08:48.440 with Zelenski and Netsiahu with their recent visits to Trump 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:50.240 and mar A Lago. I thought I would start, though, 0:08:50.320 --> 0:08:54.640 with with Venezuela, which a situation that is rapidly escalating. 0:08:54.960 --> 0:08:58.280 It's been escalating seemingly for months now, but it seems 0:08:58.280 --> 0:09:01.840 like it's reaching something of a fever pitch, with Trump 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:06.920 recently acknowledging that the US did indeed strike this implementation area. 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:09.400 He's calling it this dock where some of these drug 0:09:09.440 --> 0:09:12.839 voats were being loaded for possible shipment into the United 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:16.520 States In North America, there is some sort of blockade 0:09:17.000 --> 0:09:20.040 around Venezuela right now. What is your read on the 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:22.800 current situation? Frankly, Rebecca, I didn't have this one on 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:24.439 my bingo card. If if you had ask me what 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:26.480 was gonna happen or in our own hemisphere back on 0:09:26.520 --> 0:09:29.120 January twentieth, I wouldn't have thought that there'd be this 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:32.240 month's long pressure campaign against Nicholas Maduro. He's a very 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:34.800 bad actor, obviously, I just didn't necessarily see this level 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:37.320 of intense administration pressure coming. 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:40.520 What is your guests as to what happens. 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:42.640 Here in let's call the next two to three months 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:45.400 and in the foreseeable future and what should happen from 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:46.040 your perspective. 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:50.120 Great, So I don't think it was on anybody's BINGO card, 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:54.840 so it wasn't just your bad Bingo card. So one 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:58.200 thing I think is always notable as somebody who just 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:01.959 like you do comments very regularly on events, is you know, 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:05.640 Donald Trump actually has a very very high. 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:07.000 Tolerance to keep people waiting. 0:10:07.520 --> 0:10:11.000 So he allows these pressure campaigns to just continue to 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:12.840 build and we're all kind of waiting for the next 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:15.320 thing or trying to understand it better, or something to break. 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:19.319 But he's pretty impervious to this sort of just pressure 0:10:19.360 --> 0:10:21.720 to do something. So I think we might we might 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:24.400 still be in this phase of just cranking up pressure 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:27.400 for some time, even though it feels like we're reaching 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:30.439 kind of a culminating point. I don't know if we're 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:34.160 there yet. It seems to me that that what President 0:10:34.200 --> 0:10:38.439 Trump wants. He obviously he wants the drugs to stop flowing. 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:42.439 And he keeps talking about the seaborne drugs or down eliminated, 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:45.800 you know, ninety eight percent or whatever the percentages. But 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:52.320 I think more than that, Maduro represents a regime that 0:10:52.600 --> 0:10:57.040 is a drug regime. Has a symbiotic relationship. There's really 0:10:57.040 --> 0:10:59.320 not a difference between the drug cartels and what they're 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:03.160 doing and Venezuelan government with Maduro in power, not only 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:06.680 that he has permitted these other adversaries into our own 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:12.080 hemisphere by backing him, the Chinese, the Russians. You know, 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:14.840 Trump tried to push out Maduro during his first administration, 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:18.000 was unsuccessful in part because they backed off day of 0:11:18.160 --> 0:11:20.960 United We the United States backed off because the Russians 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:24.920 sent in troops to back Maduro, and so we didn't 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:28.160 want to have a conflict obviously with the Russians in Venezuela. 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:29.280 We're not seeing that. 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:32.680 This time because Russia is busy creating other problems in 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:36.559 Eastern Europe. But I clearly I think that Trump administrations 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:39.600 wants Maduro to go with the least cost to the 0:11:39.640 --> 0:11:43.000 American people, so preferably we do not want to have 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:46.000 troops in Venezuela. But I do think that the president 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:49.360 seems to have very willing to do conduct air strikes 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:52.160 on the ground in Venezuela. That's going to make members 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:55.640 of Congress very uncomfortable, clearly, if they're not consulted and 0:11:55.679 --> 0:11:58.280 have some kind of way in here, which I know 0:11:58.360 --> 0:12:01.040 that there are many Republicans talking to the Trump administration 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:04.800 pushing for that before any other, you know, increased escalation 0:12:04.880 --> 0:12:08.040 in terms of the United States directly launching strikes into Venezuela. 0:12:08.120 --> 0:12:10.240 So a related question that follows directly off of that 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:14.080 about this question of strikes, the proverbial or literal use 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:14.840 of boots. 0:12:14.559 --> 0:12:15.040 On the ground. 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:17.000 I mean, frankly, this term kind of gets bandoned about 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:19.040 as a talking point more often than the reality. But 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:23.960 this broad discussion also the recent intervention to strike some 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:26.920 ISIS militants in the Sokota State of Nigeria to save 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:29.719 the persecuted Belieguer Christians there. I think a lot of 0:12:29.720 --> 0:12:33.000 folks Rebecka are looking at the Maduro pressure campaign and 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:37.880 this humanitarian intervention in Nigeria. And to be clear, it's 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:39.920 a completely righteous intervention, for sure, But I think a 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:41.280 lot of folks are looking at this and they're trying 0:12:41.320 --> 0:12:43.920 to say, how does this fit into the Trump doctrine. 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:45.959 You know, it wasn't that long ago that I think 0:12:46.000 --> 0:12:48.160 a lot of us were thinking about the Trump foreign 0:12:48.200 --> 0:12:52.560 policy doctrine as being very sober and narrow minded, concrete 0:12:52.720 --> 0:12:55.640 national interests, the notion of regime change for a lot 0:12:55.679 --> 0:12:57.520 of people was tanta amount to kind of throw back 0:12:57.559 --> 0:12:59.720 to the Bush era. Now, distinction that I've made many 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:02.640 times on this show is that it's very different. So 0:13:02.640 --> 0:13:05.720 you have us militarily imposed regime changed in the one 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:08.400 tan versus just doing other sorts of tools to try 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:10.680 to try to implement a change regime. On the other hand, 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:13.600 but nonetheless, I kind of want to kick over to you, 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:16.240 what is your attempt to kind of make sense from 0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:19.720 a Trump doctrine perspective of the Maduro situation in this 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:23.520 more over the humanitarian situation in Nigeria as well. 0:13:23.559 --> 0:13:25.439 You know, I think what the way, and I think 0:13:25.440 --> 0:13:28.240 that Trump two is very different than Trump one and 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:34.520 Trump one. I think had you had more Republicans in 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:39.280 the administration, longtime Republicans, people like Mike Pompeo, a Urma Master, 0:13:39.640 --> 0:13:43.520 or you know, others who lean more sort of conservative 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:48.120 conservative internationalist types were in power and try to put 0:13:48.160 --> 0:13:50.800 some coherency in a grand strategy on the way President 0:13:50.880 --> 0:13:51.760 Trump operates. 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:54.839 This time, we have much less of that, and. 0:13:54.800 --> 0:13:58.640 So we have much more sort of raw Trumpian impulse 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:01.400 and the way President Trump oper rates. And I think 0:14:01.600 --> 0:14:05.600 It can be best understood as President Trump wants to 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:09.360 do what is in the best interests of the United States, 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:12.040 that is doable, that is doable and doesn't drag the 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:12.560 United States. 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:14.079 Sounds so if you give me a problem. 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:15.440 You know, if you come in to President Trump and 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:19.720 you say, there's Christians being slaughtered in Nigeria by ISIS 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:23.760 or a variant of ISIS, and the Nigerian government is 0:14:23.800 --> 0:14:26.800 going to let us wipe them out. We should do that, sir, 0:14:26.920 --> 0:14:29.840 He'll say, great, let's do it, and then and so 0:14:29.960 --> 0:14:34.160 and we'll do it. And the American people support it generally, 0:14:35.120 --> 0:14:39.200 and it's not a long, dragged out campaign, military campaign. 0:14:39.680 --> 0:14:42.440 It makes that area a bit safer for Christians, at 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:45.840 least in the case of Venezuela. You know, it's like, look, 0:14:46.040 --> 0:14:48.360 we want to take out drugs that are just pouring 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:52.040 into the American you know, into the United States. Fentanyl, 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:54.960 of course, is the number one killer of Americans between 0:14:55.000 --> 0:14:56.720 the ages of I think it's eighteen and thirty five 0:14:56.760 --> 0:14:57.560 in the United States. 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:00.920 Fentanyl's not coming out of Venezuela. That's coc other things. 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:05.800 But there is this there is this sort of communist 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:09.640 operation with the drug cartels in our own hemisphere that 0:15:09.680 --> 0:15:11.760 are sending in all kinds of drugs throughout the region. 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:14.560 And so I do think that there is now beginning 0:15:14.560 --> 0:15:17.200 to be a bit of a theory here. Maybe it's 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:20.480 Marco Rubio who's developing, and I'm not quite sure who 0:15:20.560 --> 0:15:21.400 the mind behind it does. 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:22.880 I think it's Rubio, but that. 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:26.560 If you can, maybe you can pressure these regimes to 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:31.479 stop this, this this car the cartel regime kind of relationship, 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:34.200 that you might be able to affect all of them, 0:15:34.280 --> 0:15:36.280 because now you've seen these other these other countries are 0:15:36.320 --> 0:15:38.240 starting to get nervous, and President Trump has said, look, 0:15:38.320 --> 0:15:39.080 Venezuela might. 0:15:38.960 --> 0:15:40.840 Not be the only country. We do this too. 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:43.760 And and so I think again, it's sort of it's 0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:47.240 like whenever the Iran strikes whenever. When President Trump initiated 0:15:47.280 --> 0:15:51.240 Operation Midnight Hammer, that was something that was incredibly doable, 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:53.600 but he still waited until it was as little risk 0:15:53.680 --> 0:15:55.840 as possible to the Americans who are going to conduct 0:15:55.880 --> 0:15:58.960 those strikes. He waited until Israel, of course did most 0:15:58.960 --> 0:16:01.920 of the work and taking out air defenses, et cetera 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:04.440 in Iran. So I think that that's what he's doing. 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:08.440 It's much less it's much less of a grand strategy 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:11.760 starting with which would be my preference. China is the 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:13.880 biggest threat to the American way of life, and so 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:16.160 you have to start there and then kind of see 0:16:16.200 --> 0:16:19.480 all of the parts, you know, how Iran fits into that, 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:22.080 how Russia fits into that, and develop a coherent strategy 0:16:22.080 --> 0:16:22.600 work from there. 0:16:22.680 --> 0:16:24.440 He's much more what. 0:16:24.280 --> 0:16:26.600 Can I do with the least amount of harm to 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:29.000 the United States that's possibly doable, so I can achieve 0:16:29.000 --> 0:16:30.520 an outcome, and I think we're. 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:32.560 Going to see some mixed results. Some of it's been. 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:36.200 Exceptionally good, and then you know, but we'll see what 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:38.520 the effect is at the end of the second term. 0:16:38.600 --> 0:16:41.200 Rebecca Heimrich, because a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:44.160 follow her on x at url Heimris, you mentioned China. 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:46.600 We're gonna get the China momentarily. I very much am. 0:16:48.120 --> 0:16:49.040 I think I was talking about that. 0:16:49.040 --> 0:16:50.680 You know a lot of folks say they're China first, 0:16:50.760 --> 0:16:52.600 and they kind of use that as a pejorative to say, 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:54.440 I don't really care about about other issues. Now I'm 0:16:54.480 --> 0:16:56.960 China first, while still caring about other issues. I really 0:16:56.960 --> 0:16:59.760 do think that China's most important foreign policy issue. I 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:01.880 also care about all the other issues as well. We'll 0:17:01.880 --> 0:17:04.480 get the China just momentarily, but before then I thought 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:05.879 we would kind of just touch on a couple of 0:17:05.920 --> 0:17:08.680 these very recent visits and mar Lago. You had Vladimir 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:12.440 Zelenski coming in on Sunday and then Natanyahu coming in 0:17:12.920 --> 0:17:15.080 just yesterday on Monday. Let's let's take the one at 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:18.000 a time. Let's start with the Zelenski visit. Trump followed 0:17:18.040 --> 0:17:21.399 his Zelenski powwow with a phone call to Laimir Putin. 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:24.360 And you know, you know, Trump says some shall we say, 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:25.960 funny things I guess black of better word at some 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:28.280 of these prescal conferences. I mean, he said, he said 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:31.159 in front of Zelenski that Pudin wants Ukraine to be 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:33.960 made great. It's not entirely obvious what he means by that, 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:36.480 other than maybe Putin just wants to gobble up Ukraine. 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:38.840 I guess that's really Putin's vision of making Ukraine great. 0:17:39.800 --> 0:17:42.600 This situation, to me, right, Rebecca, is so frustrating because 0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:45.080 I feel like the rough contours of what a peace 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:48.040 deal looks like have been so screamingly obvious for the 0:17:48.080 --> 0:17:50.840 past two to three years, and the parties just just 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:54.400 just for for xyz reasons just just can't get there. 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:56.399 I think the administration frankly deserves a lot of credit 0:17:56.400 --> 0:17:57.480 for working as hard as they. 0:17:57.359 --> 0:17:59.920 Have trying to get this peace deal in place. CLA. 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:03.520 It's not quite working though, So what has to happen 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:05.800 what is not currently happening that you think has to 0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:09.520 happen primarily but perhaps not exclusively from an American perspective 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:12.000 in terms of trying to get these two parties to 0:18:12.080 --> 0:18:12.960 actually reach a deal. 0:18:13.320 --> 0:18:13.639 Yeah. 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:16.120 So on the first thing, in terms of the comments 0:18:16.119 --> 0:18:18.199 that President Trump says whenever he's in the middle of 0:18:18.240 --> 0:18:21.040 negotiating things, and I try to remind people, you know, 0:18:21.119 --> 0:18:22.840 go back and think about the first term too. He 0:18:23.119 --> 0:18:25.959 said flattering things about Kim Jung un whenever he was 0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:30.240 trying to respond to North Korea's you know, illicit missile 0:18:30.280 --> 0:18:32.800 testing and was preparing for a nuclear test, et cetera. 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:35.680 And so we had this big push to have peace with. 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:37.719 North Korea, and President Trump said all kinds of flattering 0:18:37.760 --> 0:18:41.359 things about Kim jungun. It's almost like President Trump is 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:43.640 taking sort of how he operates in the business world, 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:46.480 and he almost tries to will things into being. 0:18:46.320 --> 0:18:49.439 Reality when they're clearly not reality, and. 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:51.520 So it is odd, it can be off putting, But 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:53.119 once you realize that this is kind of how he 0:18:53.160 --> 0:18:56.000 does it and doesn't necessarily mean anything materially about the 0:18:56.000 --> 0:18:58.440 substance of the negotiations, then you know you can kind 0:18:58.440 --> 0:18:58.680 of be. 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:00.000 Put at ease at least a little bit. 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:03.400 No, clearly, Russia is still if vladivra Putin had his way, 0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:05.960 he wants to subjugate all of you, all of Ukraine. 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:09.480 He believes that Ukraine belongs to this greater Russia, and 0:19:10.840 --> 0:19:13.800 so Putin is going to take whatever he can, whatever 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:14.720 he can get away with. 0:19:15.280 --> 0:19:19.560 And I think that Zelensky I don't like. 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:22.200 I mean, Zolensky has really he had a lot more 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:25.119 willingness to push back on President Trump to he was 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:26.800 was a little cock here in the beginning of this 0:19:26.920 --> 0:19:29.879