Speaker 1: Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George
Speaker 1: Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Jetty arm Strong and
Speaker 1: Jetty enough Key, I'm strong.
Speaker 2: And it doesn't look like it's even going to work
Speaker 2: on paper. But imagine trying to force those huge movements
Speaker 2: of population or militaries in the real world in potentially
Speaker 2: a continuing battlefield zone. That's the reality of the idea
Speaker 2: of territorial swaps already flat out rejected here by Ukraine.
Speaker 2: A tough political ask, an impossible military ask, you might argue,
Speaker 2: and that really leads people so anxious here that as
Speaker 2: the bedrock of these talks, potentially it's territorial swaps, and
Speaker 2: that is impractical and unsellable here. What possibly could Trump
Speaker 2: emerge from that meeting.
Speaker 3: With that's CNN's reporting yesterday. I've heard a lot of
Speaker 3: different reporting and a lot of different angles, of course,
Speaker 3: because this came together really fast, and we have no
Speaker 3: idea how it's going to go or really even what
Speaker 3: the topic matter is going to be.
Speaker 4: Let's discuss with Justin Logan, director of Defense and Foreign
Speaker 4: Policy Studies at the Cato Institute. Justin's take might differ
Speaker 4: somewhat from ours, but he has at least an idea
Speaker 4: from judging from his recent piece of how a settlement
Speaker 4: might look at the title of the piece is the
Speaker 4: key to success at Trump puton Alaska summit on Ukraine.
Speaker 4: Low expectations, Justin Logan joins us. Now, Justin, how are you, sir?
Speaker 5: Just fine, good morning.
Speaker 4: Low expectations, I think is absolutely an appropriate stance, as
Speaker 4: we don't see much overlap at all between Putin's goals
Speaker 4: for the territory of Ukraine and and Ukraine's certainly.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, the underlying and unhappy, unfortunate act of
Speaker 5: the matter is that Russia is in a relatively stronger
Speaker 5: position on the battlefield than Ukraine is, and that makes
Speaker 5: Russia both more willing to continue the conflict and less
Speaker 5: willing to compromise diplomatically. So Trump has a very difficult
Speaker 5: task here, which is to see whether a piece can
Speaker 5: be produced that isn't disastrous from Ukraine's point of view,
Speaker 5: and that you know, as I said, the piece, we
Speaker 5: should have low expectations. Even incremental shifts would be welcome
Speaker 5: at this point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, that seems like one of the problems I've
Speaker 3: been saying for the last couple of days is a
Speaker 3: Ukraine is horrified with the status quo. Putin's okay with
Speaker 3: the status quo. He'd be fine with continuing prosecuting the
Speaker 3: war the way he is, So a nothing burger would
Speaker 3: be good from his standpoint. How do you get around that?
Speaker 5: No, that's exactly right. And you know, the Ukrainians have said,
Speaker 5: you know, look, our constitution commits us to pursue NATO membership,
Speaker 5: which isn't going to happen, and prohibits us from seating
Speaker 5: any territory, including Crimea, which has already happened. So they're
Speaker 5: sort of using this sort of legalistic argumentation to dig
Speaker 5: in on a position that just isn't going to happen.
Speaker 5: So I don't fault them for that. It makes a
Speaker 5: lot of sense to me that they should look as
Speaker 5: unwilling to compromise as possible in the hopes of getting
Speaker 5: a compromised that again is a total disaster. But on paper, yeah,
Speaker 5: this thing isn't really going to go very far, very fast,
Speaker 5: if it goes anywhere.
Speaker 4: One question we've been banding back and forth is whether
Speaker 4: Europe will, as I put it earlier, find at least
Speaker 4: one of its testicles and assert itself as a party
Speaker 4: that truly has a strong interest in stability or not.
Speaker 4: How do you see NATO slash Europe's involvement in this
Speaker 4: latest chapter.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean they are also digging in and not
Speaker 5: showing much flexibility. But I think the question is, you know,
Speaker 5: Europe needs to you know, to maybe I'll avoid your metaphor,
Speaker 5: but it needs to sort of it needs to sort
Speaker 5: of back its diplomacy with force. Right the ultimasio in
Speaker 5: international relations is military power, and Europe is short still
Speaker 5: to this day on military power, despite its declaration that
Speaker 5: it's going to spend three and a half percent of
Speaker 5: GDP on defense by twenty thirty five. It needs to
Speaker 5: spend more, and it needs to spend better if it
Speaker 5: wants more voice. And I think that that's the sort
Speaker 5: of crucial disconnect that Trump has living pair, which is
Speaker 5: that you know, if Europe wants more say, it needs
Speaker 5: more power, and that is an enduring problem for both
Speaker 5: particularly for the Europeans, but also in my view, for
Speaker 5: the Americans. If the Americans want to hand over European
Speaker 5: security to Europe, which I think would be a good
Speaker 5: thing to do, needs to attack together, and it's making
Speaker 5: noiages about doing so, but not to my not enough
Speaker 5: to my satisfaction.
Speaker 3: So you don't do a lot of testical metaphors there,
Speaker 3: Kato not nothing of radio. You know, this might end
Speaker 3: up being a lesson in real politic for a lot
Speaker 3: of us. This whole thing because Lindsey Graham saying on
Speaker 3: the Sunday Shows that look, Ukraine isn't gonna, you know,
Speaker 3: get back every bit of their land and Putin's not
Speaker 3: going to Kiev. But which I think those things are true.
Speaker 3: But why I don't know where this goes.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean Lindsay Graham grappling with reality is progress
Speaker 5: in international politics anyway. I mean, the bare fact of
Speaker 5: the matter is we're not going back to twenty fourteen. Unfortunately,
Speaker 5: it would be great if Ukraine, you know, regain all
Speaker 5: territory the international community recognizes as being part of Ukraine.
Speaker 5: But in politics is a brutal business. Ladder. Putin is
Speaker 5: you know, someone who reveals that every day he gets
Speaker 5: out of bed in the morning. And so we have
Speaker 5: to maximize what what is sort of the art of
Speaker 5: the possible, if you will, you know, what can we
Speaker 5: produce it? And I think look to you know, revealed.
Speaker 5: You know, I thought that this was going to go
Speaker 5: way worse, way quicker for Ukraine. So they have been heroic, right,
Speaker 5: they have defended their territory. Right. I think no one,
Speaker 5: you know, to talk about the realities that Vladimir Putin
Speaker 5: has to grapple with. He's not going to take all
Speaker 5: of Ukraine. He's not going to take most of Ukraine.
Speaker 5: Ukraine is going to come out of this as a
Speaker 5: sovereign autonomous country. And you know, so there's all these
Speaker 5: things that need to be haggled over. You know, Putin
Speaker 5: wants to put I think unreasonable limits on Ukraine's arm forces.
Speaker 5: It's not going to join NATO. So so we're revealing
Speaker 5: truths through the course of this thing. And and one hopes,
Speaker 5: you know, I hope I'm wrong. I hope that you know,
Speaker 5: there's more progress made today than I suspect, and we
Speaker 5: get closer to a settlement of this conflict that leaves
Speaker 5: a Ukraine that is a sovereign, functioning country on Russia's border.
Speaker 4: We're talking to Justin Logan, director of Defense and Foreign
Speaker 4: Policy Studies at the Cato Institute. Justin, if you were
Speaker 4: to advise Donald Jay or any other leader about negotiating
Speaker 4: with Putin, especially sitting down with Putin to negotiate, what
Speaker 4: would you tell him about Putin and his methods.
Speaker 5: Well, you know, if you read the newspaper, I mean,
Speaker 5: it's all sort of there in black and white, right,
Speaker 5: he doesn't need any sort of putent whisperer to say
Speaker 5: this is a brutal guy who really means business and
Speaker 5: really cares deeply about Ukraine's international orientation. Certainly, he's revealed
Speaker 5: that he's willing to pay extremely high costs to influence
Speaker 5: the sort of future orientation of Ukraine. And you know,
Speaker 5: one again sort of brutal reality is, you know, we're
Speaker 5: we're all worried about escalation. We were all worried about
Speaker 5: the potential of nuclear escalation or escalation outside Ukraine's orders.
Speaker 5: And part of the reason that that hasn't come to
Speaker 5: the fore is the fact that Putin has been gradually,
Speaker 5: slowly brutally winning the conflict. And so we need to
Speaker 5: internalize he is revealed in the breach that he's willing
Speaker 5: to pay enormous costs to influence the settlement of this conflict.
Speaker 5: And we've revealed under President Joe Biden and under President
Speaker 5: Trump that we're not willing to go to the mattresses
Speaker 5: and fight Russia in Ukraine over Ukraine. So that's going
Speaker 5: to be the sort of starting point of understanding what
Speaker 5: we should do. And you know, to be honest, we've
Speaker 5: used a lot of economic leverage, a lot of sanctions
Speaker 5: and it hasn't worked, if you define work as you know,
Speaker 5: caused to change his mind and leave Ukraine. So again,
Speaker 5: I hate to be the sort of dark cloud here,
Speaker 5: but it's you know, playing the type.
Speaker 3: I guess.
Speaker 5: You know, we need to realize that we have limited
Speaker 5: leverage to produce a maximually good outcome for Ukraine from
Speaker 5: this thing. So we're very much in the realm of
Speaker 5: third best, fourth best, or as I might put it,
Speaker 5: least worse outcomes.
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, if you're dealing with Putin, you
Speaker 3: don't stand next to any open windows. Secondly, I love,
Speaker 3: I love dealing in reality. I mean, there's no advantage
Speaker 3: to ever not dealing in reality. So if the reality
Speaker 3: Putin is going to end up being rewarded for having
Speaker 3: invaded a smaller country and getting to keep the land
Speaker 3: because the rest of the world's not willing to, uh,
Speaker 3: you know, put up the fight to stop him? What
Speaker 3: how do you deal with Taiwan and China? What's how
Speaker 3: do you make that not send the message to China
Speaker 3: that here now it's your turn.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean it's you don't want to be a
Speaker 5: small country bordering a larger, more powerful country if you
Speaker 5: can avoid it, and unfortunately neither Ukraine nor Taiwan can
Speaker 5: avoid that. So the question then becomes what do you
Speaker 5: do optimally to make yourself look like? And this is
Speaker 5: a Taiwan metaphor that think tanks works use all the time.
Speaker 5: Like a porcupine, right, porcupines don't get attacked because they're
Speaker 5: bristling with quills. They're likely to get their hooks into you,
Speaker 5: and it hurts. It's not a pleasant experience. And so Taiwan,
Speaker 5: I think, you know, there are more things that Taiwan
Speaker 5: needs to do better for itself than there are things
Speaker 5: that the US military needs to do on behalf of Taiwan,
Speaker 5: which is to say, if the balloon goes up God
Speaker 5: forbid in Taiwan, it will take the US military, in
Speaker 5: optimal scenarios four or five six days to really meaningfully
Speaker 5: get into the fight. And Taiwan has been so negligent
Speaker 5: with its own defense, spending about two percent of GDP
Speaker 5: art defense not spending it well that it may all
Speaker 5: be over, but the crime by the time we were
Speaker 5: to get there. So I think that from a Taiwan
Speaker 5: point of view, Taiwan needs to engage in asymmetric sense.
Speaker 5: It needs to do another hokey before that, we think
Speaker 5: tank Doork's use a small number of things at great scale,
Speaker 5: So it needs to prevent China from getting a lodgment
Speaker 5: that it could flow troops onto and without getting too
Speaker 5: boringly into the weeds here. It hasn't been doing a
Speaker 5: great job of that. So I would love to see
Speaker 5: Taiwan focus its military less on big ticket items that
Speaker 5: China is likely to be able to pick off early
Speaker 5: in a conflict, and do things that really again turn
Speaker 5: it into a porcupine that China can't swallow.
Speaker 1: Be a better porcupine.
Speaker 4: So a final question for Justin Logan Justin back to
Speaker 4: the Russia Ukraine US thing, what are the chances that
Speaker 4: Putin comes to the table with a grand bargain in
Speaker 4: capitals that Ukraine is merely a part of to tempt
Speaker 4: Donald J. Trump into some sort of historical Arctic minerals
Speaker 4: arms control package.
Speaker 5: That's a good question. I hate to make predictions. It
Speaker 5: seems unlikely to me. Putin was sort of signaling yesterday
Speaker 5: that he might be willing to talk about arms control,
Speaker 5: which is a sort of weird non response to what
Speaker 5: the commit is supposed to be about. So I think
Speaker 5: it's possible that he brings things to the table that
Speaker 5: don't pertain to Ukraine, because as we sort of established
Speaker 5: earlier in the call, he's kind of sort of okay
Speaker 5: with the best quo in Ukraine. And I think it's
Speaker 5: a real question of whether Trump and the people Trump
Speaker 5: brings with him are willing to bite on that, or
Speaker 5: whether they bring things back around to finding some sort
Speaker 5: of diplomatic resolution to the war in Ukraine.
Speaker 4: Justin Logan of the Cato Institute, fabulous conversation. Justin, we
Speaker 4: thank you. It's been far too long since we've talked.
Speaker 4: We will verbally abuse our staff for letting that happen.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for the time.
Speaker 5: There's a great pleasure.
Speaker 1: Have a good week, ID guys, Thank you you too.
Speaker 6: Man.
Speaker 3: That was a snap back to reality. It's so easy,
Speaker 3: speaking for myself, to let your wishes be your the
Speaker 3: father of your thoughts with things?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: Trump has that land? Is anybody willing to push him
Speaker 3: off of it?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 3: Show a hands?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 3: Okay, well then let's just concede that deed gets that land.
Speaker 3: It's gonna happen, right, Yeah, yeah, it's I don't know
Speaker 3: when it was. It might have been about a decade
Speaker 3: ago that it occurred to me. The term disillusioned ought
Speaker 3: to be a positive, not a negative.
Speaker 4: What good are your illusions doing you? Especially in important stuff?
Speaker 4: I mean, if your illusion is that you're handsome and
Speaker 4: chicks digya, that's fine?
Speaker 1: Okay, me too, right anyway.
Speaker 4: So a quick word from her friends, it's simply save
Speaker 4: home security the illusion of safety, get real safety with
Speaker 4: a state of the art simply safe home security system
Speaker 4: with the active guard outdoor protection.
Speaker 1: It helps stop breakings before they happen.
Speaker 3: I got this at my house. I got the censors
Speaker 3: on the windows and the doors and the cameras and
Speaker 3: all the stuff, and it took up to the Wi
Speaker 3: Fi and it's very very cool and makes me feel
Speaker 3: more comfortable about leaving my home. Name best home security
Speaker 3: system of twenty twenty five by seeing.
Speaker 4: It YEP and the live monitoring agents combined with all
Speaker 4: that technology, that's what really keeps you safe. No contracts,
Speaker 4: no hidden fees. Monitoring plans start around a bucket day.
Speaker 4: It's so affordable. Visit simply safe dot com slash Armstrong
Speaker 4: claim fifty percent off a new system with a pro
Speaker 4: monitoring plan. Get your first month free. That's simply safe
Speaker 4: dot com slash Armstrong. There's no safelights, simply saying we.
Speaker 3: Got to go more on the way, stay here, Armstrong.
Speaker 8: Hetty United Airlines has announced to a new partnership with
Speaker 8: Apple TV Plus for inflight entertainment, while Spirit is continuing
Speaker 8: its partnership with Cup and Ball.
Speaker 7: Spirit Airlines is warning that it may soon cease operations
Speaker 7: within the next year. Customers can expect no change in service.
Speaker 3: Cup and Ball.
Speaker 1: That's funny, wow.
Speaker 4: I have amused my myself for seconds at a time
Speaker 4: the Cup and Ball. At one point I convinced my
Speaker 4: kids that I competed in the Olympics in the.
Speaker 1: Cup and Ball competitiones.
Speaker 4: I got like three in a row, and they're like,
Speaker 4: oh my god, Dad, I said, listen, I don't like
Speaker 4: the brag, but.
Speaker 1: Good times lying to my children.
Speaker 4: Speaking of children, I will mention this very briefly, there
Speaker 4: is an alarming new study that we probably ought to
Speaker 4: go into deeply. Smartphones are ruining our brains at unprecedented speed,
Speaker 4: especially young people in you know, the levels of conscientiousness, neuroticism, agreeableness, extraversion,
Speaker 4: et cetera. The numbers are unbelievable.
Speaker 3: Is it possible, I've said this before, Is it possible
Speaker 3: that walking around staring at your phone becomes like smoking?
Speaker 3: Is now? I mean, you know, back when my dad
Speaker 3: was smoking, way back in the day, everybody did it.
Speaker 3: It was recommended by doctors.
Speaker 1: It calmed you.
Speaker 3: Down, and it helped you lose weight. It was all
Speaker 3: kinds of buzzy, and everybody did it. And now it's
Speaker 3: just you see somebody smoking anything.
Speaker 1: What are you doing?
Speaker 4: Do you think it could go that far? Or we
Speaker 4: just just too much into appealing it. It's too universally appealing.
Speaker 4: Cigarettes didn't have enough upside. There's too much upside, well
Speaker 4: upside using my finger quotes. Yeah, So anyway, everybody's staring
Speaker 4: at their phones and miserable in one hundred different measures,
Speaker 4: or at least half a dozen. And in a related story,
Speaker 4: this is crazy. Adults are going to sleep away camp
Speaker 4: to make friends, and it actually seems to work. Overnight
Speaker 4: camps for single adults. It's not a dating thing. It's
Speaker 4: generally separated by sex. But where you go to like
Speaker 4: a summer camp for adults and make friends and you
Speaker 4: do you know, a tug of war, climbing, ropes, courses,
Speaker 4: a hiking, you know, canoeing, blah blah blah. And this
Speaker 4: focus is almost entirely on women this article. But this
Speaker 4: gal says, when you're a twenties in your twenties and thirties,
Speaker 4: you don't make a ton of friends unless you're doing
Speaker 4: something that bonds you. And they've found the camps have
Speaker 4: been great. They really hit it off with people, They
Speaker 4: stay in touch and become long term friends.
Speaker 3: I feel like this has got a real extrovert bias
Speaker 3: to it, that it would really work for extroverts and
Speaker 3: they would love it and for better and good for you,
Speaker 3: that's fantastic. You're I don't know what percentage of people
Speaker 3: are extroverts, but uh, that'd be great. I just man,
Speaker 3: I heard that. My immediate reaction was that sounds freaking awful. Oh,
Speaker 3: we need to start an introverts camp. I don't expect
Speaker 3: attendance to be great, at least not at first. We're
Speaker 3: all going to read alone in our tents.
Speaker 4: Right exactly, and look, you want to wander out and
Speaker 4: talk about what you're reading, totally voluntary, totally. We're gonna
Speaker 4: have a kayak thing tomorrow, single kayaks.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 4: Let me assure you single, it'll be cool. All right,
Speaker 4: We'll gently coach you into it.
Speaker 3: Everybody's got a different time to eat, so you can
Speaker 3: eat alone if you want, right, Armstrong and Getty so
Speaker 3: didn mention this. Greg Guttfeld was on was first of all,
Speaker 3: Greg Gutfeld is a was he originally is? Did he
Speaker 3: come from a comedy background or a journalism background? Is
Speaker 3: he a comedian?
Speaker 1: I think comedy?
Speaker 3: Is he a comedians? He might know he started as
Speaker 3: a stand up or something. Anyway, He's been on Fox
Speaker 3: for a long time comment on stuff, and then they
Speaker 3: gave him his own show. When he runs it like
Speaker 3: late night talk shows if you've never seen it, and
Speaker 3: it's on Fox in it and for quite a while
Speaker 3: now has been getting bigger ratings than The Tonight Show
Speaker 3: or Kimmel or Colbert and Jimmy Fallon wisely had Gutfeld
Speaker 3: on the other night and had the highest ratings he
Speaker 3: had I think I heard in five years because surprisingly well,
Speaker 3: because Guttfeld promoted it on his show, so all the
Speaker 3: Fox people watch. Oh, I want to see how he does,
Speaker 3: you know, on the mainstream shows. And he did well.
Speaker 3: He was funny, but so huge ratings.
Speaker 1: It's funny.
Speaker 4: And I'm not quibbling with your your verbiage because how
Speaker 4: to use the same words. But it's funny that the
Speaker 4: most popular show is not the quote unquote mainstream show.
Speaker 4: He literally has the main part of the stream.
Speaker 3: Good point. Anyway, my parents watch it every night and
Speaker 3: they love it. I don't watch any of them, so
Speaker 3: we just played the clips in the morning. But anyway,
Speaker 3: here's a joke from last night.
Speaker 7: The UFC will host the first ever White House Fight
Speaker 7: on July fourth.
Speaker 3: It's the first.
Speaker 7: Violent beatdown to take place at the White House since
Speaker 7: Hillary discovered the Blue Dress. Meanwhile, the Democrats also want
Speaker 7: to participate in so far, they've already suggested these bouts
Speaker 7: Jasmine Crockett versus a book, Jerry Nadler versus soap, Rashida
Speaker 7: Talib versus a razor, and JB. Pritzker versus a narrow hallway.
Speaker 4: Yeah, all right, are they branding Rashida t lib As Harry.
Speaker 3: I Ah, I'm not comfortable with that one. But that
Speaker 3: was not me laughing, It was someone else in here. Yes, Katie,
Speaker 3: I'm comfortable with it. She has a mustache.
Speaker 4: Oh, a mustache, I see, or as they saying, some
Speaker 4: of my favorite old timy literature mustaches. Right all right, now,
Speaker 4: she's also an American hating America hating Marxist.
Speaker 1: Yes she has a mustache. Yes, thank you care.
Speaker 3: Perfect a perfect background for the joke. But those are
Speaker 3: some biting jokes. We all know. The biggest story probably
Speaker 3: in the world today is Putin and Trump meeting together.
Speaker 3: It could be a history making meeting. I think there's
Speaker 3: a decent chance nothing comes out of it.
Speaker 1: For now.
Speaker 3: Anyway. First of all, this CNN, and I wasn't listening
Speaker 3: to it. I was just watching it. Just did a
Speaker 3: retrospective of various US leaders meeting with Putin over the years,
Speaker 3: and God, I forgot what he looked like when he
Speaker 3: was younger. He's always had that pimp walk man like
Speaker 3: I am the biggest freaking deal in this room, and
Speaker 3: that smirk on his face like I could kill you,
Speaker 3: I could have sex with you. I could do both
Speaker 3: of those with you. I mean, that's it's just his personality.
Speaker 3: And sitting with every president Bush, Clinton, Obama, Biden and
Speaker 3: all of them, he does that whole leg spread open,
Speaker 3: leaning back in his chair. What do you got. I'm
Speaker 3: kind of paying attention, but I don't really have to.
Speaker 3: I mean, he's just, he's his personality is just. I mean,
Speaker 3: he puts it on so over the top display you
Speaker 3: can almost smell his cologne through the video.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Wow, not an accident.
Speaker 3: And the embarrassing among the most embarrassing because George W.
Speaker 3: Bush saying I looked in him was eye, I saw
Speaker 3: his soul. He's a good person. I mean that is embarrassing.
Speaker 1: Yes, uh.
Speaker 3: But Hillary Clinton showing up there with the reset button,
Speaker 3: Oh my god, what is it with all these the
Speaker 3: Barack Obama administration where we're different people, we can handle
Speaker 3: the world differently, people react differently to us, and give
Speaker 3: him the Nobel Prize. I mean, it's just it's it's
Speaker 3: if I was Hillary Clinton, I'd be asking CEE and
Speaker 3: then is anyway he could not show that ever? Again,
Speaker 3: it's embarrassing.
Speaker 4: All right, never mind that the reset button was the
Speaker 4: wrong word, but it said, right, didn't even say reasons
Speaker 4: like I.
Speaker 3: Said vacuum cleaner in Russian or somebody.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 3: But this from the Washington Post today, and they've got
Speaker 3: the picture which i'll describe later, with the young Putin
Speaker 3: meeting with Angela Merkel, who's leader of Germany at the time.
Speaker 3: And Putin's got the legs spread open, leaning back, Aren't
Speaker 3: I cool thing going? German Chancellor Angela Merkel experienced the
Speaker 3: darker side of Putin's tactics in two thousand and seven
Speaker 3: when she met him in Sochi for a big one
Speaker 3: on one meeting that's the Black Sea resort city, and
Speaker 3: he brought his giant black Labrador retriever to the meeting.
Speaker 3: Merkel later said in her memoirs that she believed it
Speaker 3: was a deliberate tactic to intimidate her because he knew
Speaker 3: she was so afraid of dogs. And they've got the
Speaker 3: picture here and he's got this enormous black lab just
Speaker 3: walking around. They're sitting by the fireplace while she's sitting
Speaker 3: there looking frightened.
Speaker 1: Wow. How about wow? Wow?
Speaker 3: And she didn't have the courage, leverage whatever she thought
Speaker 3: to say, Hey, I don't really like dogs. Let's get
Speaker 3: this out of here before we talk.
Speaker 1: That's some mobs toss Yes it is.
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, that's like sending you a fish in
Speaker 3: the mail. I mean, that's right.
Speaker 4: It's as close to a threat as you can get
Speaker 4: without issuing a threat.
Speaker 3: But they go on to write in the Washington Post
Speaker 3: the fact that summit is taking place as a potential
Speaker 3: sign of Putin's own vulnerabilities. The only good news is
Speaker 3: that Putin does feel like he needs to respond in
Speaker 3: some way to the US President to avoid worse things happening,
Speaker 3: in terms of a return to full military assistance or
Speaker 3: partial assistance, or potential sanctions. Another sign of Putin's potential
Speaker 3: weakness are the Kremlins hurried preparations for the Alaska summit.
Speaker 3: Putin usually prepares himself immaculately. He reads a lot, gathers
Speaker 3: recommendations from experts. This time, the windows extremely short, and
Speaker 3: they do not have a plan. A Kremlin insider told
Speaker 3: the Washington Post. Right now there is a huge frantic
Speaker 3: effort going on inside the Kremlin. So at least that
Speaker 3: opinion piece the Washington Post, they're reading the fact that
Speaker 3: he's meeting at all, and in such a short timeframe
Speaker 3: as a sign of he needs this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, how interesting. And from Putin's perspective, he's thinking, No,
Speaker 4: we don't have a plan, we don't know what to expect,
Speaker 4: but I want to go there personally. I will engage
Speaker 4: in the judo and see what comes out of it,
Speaker 4: will develop our plan from there. It's got to be
Speaker 4: kind of exciting for the pooter. I mean, it's like
Speaker 4: he's back at his KGB days. He is the agent,
Speaker 4: He's not the bureaucrat. He's the agent again. I don't know,
Speaker 4: as I said yesterday, and I have not changed my
Speaker 4: mind about this. If you gave me five different scenarios
Speaker 4: for how this plays out, or the five or so
Speaker 4: I've imagined, I will put him at twenty percent eighth.
Speaker 1: Just don't know.
Speaker 3: It's got to be something to sit down with somebody
Speaker 3: who has ordered the murders of his own people, Like
Speaker 3: I'm thinking of the way he bombed that Chechen apartment
Speaker 3: building to make it look like a terrorI stacked by
Speaker 3: so he could invade Chechnya. He killed his own people,
Speaker 3: and he's done that lots of times. Yeah, it's just
Speaker 3: got to be something to sit there with somebody like that.
Speaker 4: Well, something his closest cronies end up plunging out of
Speaker 4: windows if it's time for house cleaning.
Speaker 3: But most of us, when we're dealing with somebody, we
Speaker 3: believe they've got even if you don't trust them, you
Speaker 3: believe they've got some sort of moral limit, as opposed
Speaker 3: to sitting down with somebody who has zero moral limits.
Speaker 1: Zero right, right?
Speaker 5: God?
Speaker 3: That hold the picture of him with the dog in
Speaker 3: Angela Merkle is like the way he's it looks exactly
Speaker 3: like if you're gonna portray that in the Sopranos, the
Speaker 3: way he's sitting there.
Speaker 1: How about this?
Speaker 5: What do you think?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well, And as we've said, I hope Trump is
Speaker 4: ready to deal with somebody who's a master manipulator, utterly immoral.
Speaker 4: I just why does Trump keep saying I think he
Speaker 4: wants peace? I don't know, I mean he doesn't. He
Speaker 4: only wants peace if it's peace because he's accomplished his goals.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's.
Speaker 4: Mildly inconvenient to his you know, the fiscal health of
Speaker 4: his government. And Russia does not have an limitless time
Speaker 4: horizon to accomplish what they want to accomplish.
Speaker 1: They do have problems, but it's.
Speaker 4: Counting on him to just want peace because oh my god,
Speaker 4: there's been enough killing.
Speaker 1: That's that's ridiculous.
Speaker 3: So we got a breaking clip here. So Trump is
Speaker 3: on the plane flying from Washington, d C. To Anchorage.
Speaker 3: It's thirty four hundred miles and he just came out
Speaker 3: and said something to reporters on Air Force one. Here
Speaker 3: it is, thank you for coming.
Speaker 1: Back to take questions.
Speaker 9: We saw that Russia continued as violence into Ukraine last night,
Speaker 9: launching even more drones.
Speaker 1: What did you make of that?
Speaker 6: I think they're trying to negotiate. He's trying to set
Speaker 6: a stage. I mean, in his mind that helps him
Speaker 6: make a better deal. It actually hurts him, But in
Speaker 6: his mind that helps him make a better deal if
Speaker 6: they can continue the killing. Maybe it's a part of
Speaker 6: the world. Maybe it's just his fabricus, gens, his genetics,
Speaker 6: but he thinks that makes him gives him strength and negotiating.
Speaker 6: I think it hurts him, but I'll be talking to
Speaker 6: him about it discussion.
Speaker 3: This is so interesting. Has Trump finally reached the I
Speaker 3: understand who this guy is? Point? And like, you know,
Speaker 3: and and and and even if that's true, it's like,
Speaker 3: how did it take you so long. But I mean
Speaker 3: Trump is despite what they say on MSNBC in braces places,
Speaker 3: he's no dummy. He's not he's on a punk. I mean,
Speaker 3: he's a smart, ruthless businessman and he's certainly surely he
Speaker 3: can handle that sort of situation.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: My only quibble with that is that I think any
Speaker 4: of us who've known a lot of different people, achievers
Speaker 4: and go getters and wheelers and dealers, is there some
Speaker 4: people who are very, very capable in certain areas, but
Speaker 4: they have blind spots. And there are times that I
Speaker 4: think Trump has blind spots.
Speaker 3: But you think he has a blind spot with negotiations
Speaker 3: he's been doing in his whole.
Speaker 4: Life with megalomaniac Russian would be is ours.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, God, he's probably had to deal with lots
Speaker 3: of megalomaniacs building casino, but they're.
Speaker 4: Motivated by completely different things. I think Trump has an
Speaker 4: oversimplified view of leverage.
Speaker 3: It's funny, I was thinking that yesterday. I thought this
Speaker 3: for a long time. A lot of business people I
Speaker 3: know are like this. There's only one thing that matters,
Speaker 3: profit or making more money. That's the only thing they
Speaker 3: can think about, and feelings or morality or all kinds
Speaker 3: of things go out the window. It's just what's going
Speaker 3: to make me the most money. And he can't imagine.
Speaker 1: Nationalism or philosophy.
Speaker 3: Or he can't imagine anything mattering more than making more money,
Speaker 3: and like wanting to institute Peter the Great's land mass,
Speaker 3: doesn't make sense exactly or even just rational goals from
Speaker 3: Trump's point of view, re establishing the Soviet Empire, why
Speaker 3: the hell would you want that?
Speaker 4: A lot of it is crappy. Yeah, you know you're
Speaker 4: already too far flung. Your treasury is bare. Why don't
Speaker 4: you just concentrate and make good deals and make more money.
Speaker 4: You're overexpanding. That's dumb.
Speaker 1: He just doesn't understand irrational motivations.
Speaker 4: Getting back to the clip about Putin continuing the attacks
Speaker 4: and stuff like that, again, I don't know. Sometimes Trump
Speaker 4: postures just to posture, and he knows what he's doing.
Speaker 4: But yes, Putin thinks that continuing the attacks makes him
Speaker 4: gives him a stronger position than in negotiating. Because you've
Speaker 4: made it clear over and over again, you want peace,
Speaker 4: you want the killing to stop.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 4: If you were to say, yeah, me too, how much
Speaker 4: would you have to give him to get the killing
Speaker 4: to stop very little, because you've both expressed the desire
Speaker 4: to and the killing. You've come to the table saying
Speaker 4: I want the killing to stop, and he's come to
Speaker 4: the table saying, you know what, I just killed more
Speaker 4: people today, And if you'll excuse me, yeah, right now,
Speaker 4: I just killed five hundred more people. You're gonna have
Speaker 4: to give up a hell of.
Speaker 1: A lot more at the table. I think he's going again.
Speaker 1: I don't Trump surely understands.
Speaker 3: I think he's gonna have to say to Putin's face
Speaker 3: at some point that's bulls, You're full of crap, because
Speaker 3: Putin's gonna say something like these are military targets. They
Speaker 3: attacked us first, you know, all that sort of stuff,
Speaker 3: And Trump's come on, where's there Trump, where's our bleeped
Speaker 3: Trump clip?
Speaker 4: Michael, what's Trump gonna say to Putin? Two syllables? I
Speaker 4: wasn't kidding when I said this yesterday.
Speaker 3: I want him to treat Putin like he treated Rand
Speaker 3: Paul or Chris Christy or any of those people. You know,
Speaker 3: Carly Fiorina. Treat him like that.
Speaker 1: Hey, you got it.
Speaker 4: You you had the perfect coaching every time you look
Speaker 4: at Putin picture rosy O'donald's head on his neck. Mister president,
Speaker 4: that'll get you in the right fighting spirit.
Speaker 3: The exact he needs to say that to Putin's face.
Speaker 3: We got what's f what? What are your thoughts on it?
Speaker 3: Here's the text line four one five two nine five
Speaker 3: KFTC last weekend before school starts from my kids, they're
Speaker 3: in a panic.
Speaker 1: They're in a panic.
Speaker 4: Oh boy, oh boy, taking deep breaths like jumping in
Speaker 4: a cold pool. He'll get used to it pretty soon,
Speaker 4: but I remember that feeling. So I was tempted to
Speaker 4: end the hour with the discussion of Russia's finances. Read
Speaker 4: a really good detailed analysis. They are in financial trouble.
Speaker 4: I hope this war is enormously expensive and it can't
Speaker 4: last forever. But you know, we've talked about that a
Speaker 4: fair amountain it'll still be true on Monday, so maybe
Speaker 4: we'll get to it again then. So a couple of
Speaker 4: stories to bring to you very quickly. I found this
Speaker 4: very funny. Andrew Styles of the Free Beacon the Emerging
Speaker 4: Democratic Consensus for twenty twenty six, curse Moore, obey less,
Speaker 4: protect criminals and illegal immigrants at all, costs and evidently, yes,
Speaker 4: swearing is a big part of the strategy.
Speaker 1: We actually do we have that to Beto or rourk.
Speaker 1: Yeah that we had the Yeah we do.
Speaker 3: We had it yesterday.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I think we did today again. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: We should have got eleven play eleven.
Speaker 9: We are in a basketball game right now, if you'll
Speaker 9: excuse the metaphor, where the refs have left the arena
Speaker 9: and the other side is he clobbering us. He's plunging
Speaker 9: us in the face, kicking us in the nuts.
Speaker 4: And he mentioned that the Dems need to fight harder
Speaker 4: in defense of the illegal immigrant community. That quote makes
Speaker 4: this country so g D great.
Speaker 3: It's interesting. I wonder whose decision that was that we
Speaker 3: need to curse more to show that we're fighting.
Speaker 4: Representative Jasmine Crockett, the potty mouthed diva who's a rising
Speaker 4: star thanks for republic Transom tantrums and phony accent, being
Speaker 4: a boarding school grad, but sounds ghetto when it's convenient.
Speaker 4: She's argued that illegal immigrant is not a crime, called
Speaker 4: Donald Trump a piece of ass, etc.
Speaker 3: Good luck with that.
Speaker 4: The Hill urged Democratic leaders to follow her lead. Crockett
Speaker 4: is the base. She is the movement. Whether you like
Speaker 4: her delivery or not, She's speaking a language people understand,
Speaker 4: and that's what exactly what this party needs.
Speaker 3: If she is the base of the Democratic Party, they
Speaker 3: ain't gonna win an national elections for a long time.
Speaker 1: All right, how about this strategy instead.
Speaker 4: The Loudun County virgin It's a DC suburb, Loudun County,
Speaker 4: Fairfax County, woke America. They voted tuesday to keep their
Speaker 4: transgender policies, even after the Education Department warned the district
Speaker 4: that and four others they could face legal punishment lose
Speaker 4: federal funding for violating Title nine, the federal law that
Speaker 4: bands sex discrimination. Boys can keep going into the girls'
Speaker 4: locker rooms and watch them change.
Speaker 1: Boys can keep.
Speaker 4: Whipping up on girls on the sports fields as long
Speaker 4: as they say I'm a girl today in Loudun County.
Speaker 4: I wish you well, see you in court. I'm actually
Speaker 4: glad they're doing this. Why not let's have it out
Speaker 4: yep And final story, complete change of topic. This is
Speaker 4: about AI in entertainment, specifically animation. There are systems already
Speaker 4: being used by the studios that are improving like week
Speaker 4: by week that will reduce the time taken to render
Speaker 4: a sophisticated animation picture toy story to animate a scene
Speaker 4: will go from weeks two minutes, wow, two seconds. We
Speaker 4: can provide tools for animators to animate a character in
Speaker 4: ten seconds instead of a week. There's no turning back,
Speaker 4: says the founder.
Speaker 3: Well, that's interesting. I have things to say, but we're
Speaker 3: out of time. We're out of time for the week.
Speaker 3: For a lot of you, we do four hours every day.
Speaker 3: If you miss a segment of an hour, get the podcast
Speaker 3: Armstrong and Getty on demand.
Speaker 5: Subscribe Armstrong and Getty