WEBVTT - Episode 853: President Trump’s 5 Biggest Challenges 0:00:04.840 --> 0:00:07.360 On this episode of News World, I felt that there 0:00:07.360 --> 0:00:10.760 were so many different things going on that talking about 0:00:10.840 --> 0:00:15.680 President Trump's five biggest challenges would really be helpful in 0:00:15.720 --> 0:00:18.800 framing everything the White House is trying to deal with. 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:22.200 And I got there because it occurred to me. When 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:24.200 they get up in the morning and they're looking at 0:00:24.560 --> 0:00:27.560 all these different things, they have to keep all these 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:30.320 balls in the air. They have to remember what they are. 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:32.800 So the five challenges I want to talk about are, 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:36.840 first of all, the domestic crisis of who governs. Second, 0:00:37.120 --> 0:00:41.360 the Israeli Iranian War. Third, getting to the big beautiful 0:00:41.360 --> 0:00:45.200 Bill and getting it signed. Fourth, dealing with the Russia 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:48.760 Ukraine fight, which continues to go on, and five the 0:00:48.920 --> 0:00:53.040 challenge of reshaping the entire world trade system through tariffs. 0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:54.920 And I think if you look at the five and 0:00:54.960 --> 0:00:58.360 you think, you know, President Trump has to keep all 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:01.080 five of these in mind all day, it'll give you 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:03.840 some sense of how much change is underway and how 0:01:03.920 --> 0:01:16.880 really complicated it is. Let me start with what I 0:01:16.920 --> 0:01:21.120 think is going to be a growing domestic crisis. And 0:01:21.240 --> 0:01:24.280 while you might say that it comes out of the 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:27.800 Los Angeles riots, it's really much bigger than that. There 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:33.039 have been organized groups who were determined to take on 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:37.039 the President and the United States government in a direct confrontation. 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:41.800 You're going to see continued efforts at direct confrontation. And 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:47.360 you can tell how determined some Democrats are to force 0:01:47.400 --> 0:01:51.919 the confrontation when you watch Senator Padilla try to interrupt 0:01:52.000 --> 0:01:55.440 the Secretary of Homeland Securities press conference to such a 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:58.600 degree that he gets arrested, handcuffed, and taken out. This 0:01:58.640 --> 0:02:02.760 is a United States senator who deliberately is forcing a confrontation. 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:08.280 You see this in the calculated strategic decision of Governor 0:02:08.400 --> 0:02:12.160 Newsom of California, who has decided that being the anti 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:15.680 Trump is his road to get to be the Democratic 0:02:15.720 --> 0:02:21.600 presidential nominee. And there's this very odd coalition of illegal 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:27.040 immigrants who don't want to be deported, radical groups, and 0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:31.440 a bitterly anti Trump wing of the Democratic Party. And 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:34.040 if you see those three as a coalition, that's what's 0:02:34.080 --> 0:02:38.040 coming together is that constant sense that each of them 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:41.840 has a common enemy and it's the Trump administration. And 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:46.440 that because in their world the Trump administration is seen 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:50.240 is so bad, anything they do to stop it, or 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:54.600 disrupt it, or cause a confrontation is to their advantage. Now, 0:02:54.960 --> 0:02:58.760 it's an interesting strategy. It was tried in the nineteen sixties, 0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:01.200 and people tend to forget this, But the period of 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:05.120 the late nineteen sixties was the largest left wing insurgency 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:09.320 in modern American history. There were twenty five hundred bombs 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:13.200 set off. There were a million people surrounding the Pentagon 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:17.360 at one point. There were police riots in Chicago at 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:20.360 the Democratic Convention in nineteen sixty eight. There was a 0:03:20.480 --> 0:03:24.320 huge fight at Berkeley where radical students tried to take 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:27.080 over the campus and literally was an open fight with 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:30.720 the California State Police, the California National Guard, and at 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:33.120 one point Governor Reagan, who we now think of as 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:35.560 a positive, friendly person, but at one point he got 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:37.840 so angry he said in a speech, it's going to 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:40.480 take bloodshed. Let's get it over with. There was a 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:44.840 huge confrontation between all the different elements of the left, 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:48.360 the anti war left, the anti racism left, the. 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:49.560 Pro gay rights left. 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:52.200 All of them came together in the late nineteen sixties 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:56.200 early nineteen seventies, and the result was the American people, 0:03:56.280 --> 0:03:59.000 when forced to choose, gave President Nexon one of the 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:02.880 largest majorities in American history. They carried to every state 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:07.360 except Massachusetts. Again, Reagan, having been very tough with the students, 0:04:07.840 --> 0:04:10.400 ended up getting re elected by a seven point margin 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:14.480 over the Democrat. So, when forced to choose the American 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:19.040 people prefer orderly structured government, I think you're going to 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:22.280 see a continued effort here. And if you think about it, 0:04:22.279 --> 0:04:25.680 it makes perfect sense because when you're dealing with the 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:30.440 disaster of the Biden immigration policy, which essentially was an open. 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:33.680 Border, and you have millions and millions. 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:36.040 Of people here, why would you expect all of them 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:39.039 to go cheerfully and pleasantly they want to stay here. 0:04:39.279 --> 0:04:41.640 They already broke the law to get here. Why wouldn't 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:43.760 they break the law to stay here? And if you 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:47.719 combine that with the radicals, people like Antifa, who had 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:50.760 kept the city of Portland in turmoil for three years, 0:04:51.120 --> 0:04:53.880 the radicals are always looking for an excuse to be 0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:56.160 out there fighting. They were the people who in many 0:04:56.200 --> 0:05:00.000 ways were very helpful, both in Ferguson were clearly people 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:03.960 were being bussed in during the riots and Ferguson clearly 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:06.839 during the summer of twenty twenty, there was a nationwide 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:10.320 network of people eager to cause trouble, riot and burn 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:13.520 things down. We do have as an additional point here 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:18.599 that the Democratic Party, I would say probably sixty percent 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:21.960 of it, of the elected Democrats, are now so radically 0:05:22.480 --> 0:05:27.359 alienated by Trump that causing confrontation strikes them as reasonable 0:05:27.720 --> 0:05:29.680 because they can't beat him any other way. They're not 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:31.600 going to beat him in the Senate, They're not going 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:34.400 to beat him in the House. He's gradually taking over 0:05:34.720 --> 0:05:37.599 the executive branch, which they have dominated for ninety years. 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:41.560 You see this floundering around. So President Trump's first great 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:46.640 challenge is to communicate with the country, much like President 0:05:46.640 --> 0:05:49.520 Eisenhower did in the fifties when he sent troops into 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:54.200 Little Rock, Arkansas, much like President Johnson did when he 0:05:54.279 --> 0:05:57.920 sent troops into Detroit during a riot. He simply has 0:05:57.960 --> 0:06:00.359 to communicate to the country that this this is a 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:05.920 struggle between the legitimate, constitutional, elected forces of law and 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:09.440 people who in fact want to seat usurp and take 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:13.000 over governing America for totally different values and totally different reasons. 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:15.640 In the short run, it's going to be a mess, 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:18.920 and the long run, it's almost certain that the American 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:23.640 people who will believe in support some process of enforcing 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:26.360 the law in some process of having people who are 0:06:26.360 --> 0:06:29.800 here illegally leave the country. So that's the first great 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:32.200 challenge and has to spend some time every single day 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:35.120 dealing with that, because it doesn't go away. They don't say, oh, 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:37.359 we know you're busy, why don't we come back Thursday. 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:40.640 Every single day from here until it ends, you're going 0:06:40.680 --> 0:06:43.359 to see some kind of challenge somewhere in America, and 0:06:43.400 --> 0:06:46.000 you're going to see an entire network, some of it 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:48.839 being the news media. You may remember the reporter in 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:52.039 Los Angeles who's talking about how happy and friendly people 0:06:52.080 --> 0:06:54.440 looked as cars were burning, which, if you think about 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:56.760 it's pretty weird. So you're going to have news media 0:06:56.839 --> 0:06:59.120 on the other side, you're going to have an effort 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:01.760 to paint this and to use it as a device 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:06.000 to disrupt the momentum of the Trump administration. Momentum which 0:07:06.040 --> 0:07:09.600 I have reported recently in a newsletter means that since 0:07:09.640 --> 0:07:13.160 the election, over a million people have shifted from the 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:17.000 Democratic Party to the Republican Party, and as of this week, 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:20.320 a Quinnipiac poll showed the Democrats in the House are 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:23.480 down to twenty one percent approval, so from their perspective. 0:07:23.480 --> 0:07:25.880 They're desperate to find a way to change the momentum, 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:29.000 and that has to be ultimately the number one challenge, 0:07:29.000 --> 0:07:31.920 because the president has to be able to govern the 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:35.600 country in order to have an effective presidency. The second 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:38.440 big challenge frankly blew up, although people could see it 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:42.200 coming for months now. President Trump has said to the Iranians, 0:07:42.720 --> 0:07:46.200 why don't we arrange a deal where you give up 0:07:46.200 --> 0:07:50.640 your nuclear weapons program and we'll drop the sanctions. You 0:07:50.760 --> 0:07:54.200 re enter the world of prosperity, you have a great future. 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:56.360 We don't have any particular reason to fight with you. 0:07:56.840 --> 0:07:59.520 And for months the Iranians have said no, that their 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:01.640 bottom line is they have to have an ability to 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:06.040 build nuclear weapons. Well, what that means is that you 0:08:06.160 --> 0:08:12.200 are dealing with a genuine crisis, because remember that this 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:19.200 particular Iranian dictatorship says publicly that they want to destroy 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:25.280 Israel and destroy the United States. And the Ayatola Hamenis 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:28.800 actually gone to national television and reassured the Iranian people 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:33.040 that these are not just slogans, that their policy is 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:37.760 to destroy Israel and destroy the United States. So Prime 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:41.960 Minister Netnahu is the longest serving prime minister in Israeli history. 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:47.280 He was very patient, watched this for months, and the 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:52.080 Iranians clearly refused to give up their nuclear program. And 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:54.640 so the Israelis, who had very long time had a 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:59.800 plan to do this, had a combined operation. Remember that Mussad, 0:09:00.280 --> 0:09:04.760 which is the Israeli intelligence service, focuses pretty narrowly on 0:09:04.800 --> 0:09:07.720 the survival of Israel, and at that job, it is 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:10.880 probably the best intelligence service in the world. They perform 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:14.160 astonishing things. And in the last couple of days we 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:18.640 now know they infiltrated weapons into Iran so that they 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:22.559 could take out a variety of missiles, of aircraft, defense 0:09:22.600 --> 0:09:26.760 systems and other things, and they could identify where scientists 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:31.320 and generals were, so that when some two hundred Israeli 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:35.840 fighter planes crossed into Iranian airspace, they knew exactly where 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:37.080 they're going, exactly what they. 0:09:36.960 --> 0:09:37.560 Were going to hit. 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:41.359 And Prime Minister Netniel who has said publicly and explicitly 0:09:42.000 --> 0:09:45.200 they're going to continue this air campaign until they completely 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:50.960 destroy any possible nuclear program. So that is an enormous shift. 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:54.600 You know, Israel has now I think really spurred on 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:59.719 by the massacres in October two years ago, where they 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:02.720 were so stunned to realize how vulnerable they were, and 0:10:02.760 --> 0:10:06.040 they were so horrified by the number of people, including 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:10.120 children and babies, who were killed, and the grotesque hostility 0:10:10.559 --> 0:10:13.720 of women being drag naked through the streets, people behaving, 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:17.560 rockstrown at them. They methodically set out to destroy Amas, 0:10:17.600 --> 0:10:20.240 which they're still in the process of doing. They broke 0:10:20.320 --> 0:10:24.679 the back of Hezbollah with a series of brilliant intelligence operations. 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:28.560 So AMAS is on their south, Hesblas in the north 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:31.240 in Lebanon, and by the way, now that has Bela 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:34.720 has been shattered, the Lebanese government announced publicly that they 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:37.600 would not in any way participate in an effort to 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:41.559 attack Israel. Over this assault in Iran, then the Syrian 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:45.400 government collapsed. The replacement government, although it's led by somebody 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:48.240 who we've defined as a terrorist for years, has said 0:10:48.320 --> 0:10:50.720 very clearly they don't want to fight anybody. They just 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:53.200 want to find a way to rebuild Syria, which has 0:10:53.240 --> 0:10:56.840 been damaged now for almost twenty years by an internal 0:10:56.880 --> 0:11:00.360 civil war. So that front now has been solved, and 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:04.280 so the great opponent is Iran. Iran is a very 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:07.199 big country, about twice the size of Texas. Israel's a 0:11:07.200 --> 0:11:10.360 relatively small country, I think about the size of New Jersey. 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:14.160 So you have a David and Goliath moment. But the 0:11:14.200 --> 0:11:18.480 fact is that the Israelis have extraordinarily competent military in 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:22.240 an even more competent intelligence service, and my guess is 0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:25.880 that they'll keep pounding on the Iranians, certainly until they've 0:11:25.880 --> 0:11:29.520 destroyed the nuclear program and potentially until they've destroyed the 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:33.679 regime and allowed the Iranian people to reclaim their own country. 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:36.679 Every poll I've seen says over eighty percent of the 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:40.199 Iranian people dislike the regime. But it's a police state, 0:11:40.559 --> 0:11:43.000 and it's ruthless and it will kill you, and so 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:45.160 they're not able to get rid of it. But I 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:48.320 suspect if it's weakened enough that in fact it may 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:51.400 fall and you may see sort of a post Byatola 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:54.800 Iran in the not distant future. But that's again, that 0:11:54.920 --> 0:11:58.079 means every single day President Trump has to get up 0:11:58.360 --> 0:12:00.960 and get a briefing on his exactly what's going on 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:03.920 and who's getting involved? Are the Russians going to try 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:06.480 to get involved? On many ways, Iran has been a 0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:08.920 client state of Russian and the Iranians have sold the 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:12.280 Russians a huge number of weapons to fight in the 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:15.200 Ukraine War. Are the Chinese going to try to get involved? 0:12:15.520 --> 0:12:17.200 And pretty hard for them to do. It's a long 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:19.400 way off and they don't have the kind of deep 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:22.000 sea naval power we do. Over the next few days, 0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:24.800 we'll see how things evolve. What's impressive is that all 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:28.640 of the Arab states, there's nobody defending Iran. The Saudis 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:31.240 are terrified of the Iranians, the UAE is terrified of 0:12:31.240 --> 0:12:34.520 the Iranians. They probably deep down are pretty happy and 0:12:34.559 --> 0:12:37.080 hope these willies will finish the job. But that's the 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:39.880 second challenge. So on the one sound front, President Trump 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:42.600 has to look at home and deal with real opposition 0:12:42.640 --> 0:12:45.520 and real hostility. On a second front, he has to 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:47.520 try to manage what's going on in the Middle East, 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:50.080 and one try to keep the Americans out of it, 0:12:50.360 --> 0:12:53.160 which they've done a good job so far. Secretary Marco 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:56.040 Rubio has a Secretary of State, has been very clear 0:12:56.080 --> 0:12:57.720 that we're not going to pick a fight with Iran 0:12:58.120 --> 0:12:59.959 unless the Iranians pick a fight with us. 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:15.920 So that's a second challenge. 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:19.480 The third challenge, in some ways, the definition of the 0:13:19.559 --> 0:13:23.720 success of this administration is the big beautiful bill that's 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:26.599 currently in the Senate that passed the House, and you 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:29.760 probably notice that as a second step, they passed in 0:13:29.760 --> 0:13:32.320 the House the Recision Bill to cut nine billion dollars 0:13:32.320 --> 0:13:35.640 in spending, which was a very direct, very specific cut 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:39.840 they are now negotiating. There are a number of people 0:13:39.880 --> 0:13:43.120 who want really deep cuts. The fact is they can't 0:13:43.120 --> 0:13:45.560 get really deep cuts beyond what's in the current build 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:48.120 that came out of the House because the House majority 0:13:48.160 --> 0:13:51.960 is so narrow that they'll lose the Moderates and the 0:13:52.000 --> 0:13:54.440 Water simply won't vote for really really deep cuts. On 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:56.720 the other hand, if you think of this as the 0:13:56.760 --> 0:13:58.800 first in a series of bills, and I try to 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:01.719 remind everyone that when we balance the budget, will I 0:14:01.720 --> 0:14:04.000 have a speaker. We didn't do it in one bill. 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:06.640 Took us four years of constant work to get to 0:14:06.640 --> 0:14:09.240 a balanced budget. So I think there's going to be 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:12.200 a very big effort made, particularly by Speaker Mike Johnson, 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:15.280 to figure out a formula so that the people who 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:18.400 want real deep cuts are going to have a chance 0:14:18.440 --> 0:14:21.360 to get them, but not in this bill. This bill 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:24.360 has to remain pretty close I would say ninety five 0:14:24.440 --> 0:14:26.320 ninety six percent of what came out of the House, 0:14:26.600 --> 0:14:28.320 because it has to go back through the House again, 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:31.680 and they simply don't have the margin. Something as simple 0:14:32.160 --> 0:14:36.160 as passing the recision cuts about nine point two billion dollars. 0:14:36.480 --> 0:14:39.480 They only passed it by a two vote margin. So 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:42.840 I think it's really important to recognize that this is 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:46.080 going to be a continuing challenge. If I were betting 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:48.760 the bill will pass, it will be signed into law, 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:52.280 it'll be a huge tax cut, a huge deregulation bill, 0:14:52.600 --> 0:14:56.000 and a modest cut in spending. But it will only 0:14:56.040 --> 0:15:00.840 happen because the President personally gets involved, listen to everybody, 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:04.800 and gradually helps hammer out an agreement that everybody can 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:08.040 vote for. So here you have the president who already 0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:11.320 has to pay attention to the domestic challenge of people 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:14.560 who want to take on the American government. He has 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:17.280 to deal with what's happening between Israel and Iran, and 0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:19.680 then he has to find the energy and the time 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:22.920 to negotiate with Senators and then to negotiate with the House, 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:25.560 and to find a way creatively to get to a 0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:28.000 bill everybody can vote for. I think they'll get it done, 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:31.000 but imagine the amount of time and the level of effort. 0:15:31.000 --> 0:15:34.600 When we got to the balanced budget agreement with Bill Clinton, 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:38.800 we spent thirty five days face to face. Now imagine 0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:40.840 what a drain of time and energy that is for 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:43.320 a president who already has all these other things on 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:48.600 his plate. The fourth great challenge is the Russian Ukrainian War, 0:15:49.280 --> 0:15:53.280 and here I think President Trump has been deeply disappointed. 0:15:54.000 --> 0:15:56.240 I think he looked back on his first term when 0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:59.040 he had a good relationship with Putin and he thought, 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:02.280 somehow they could work something out easily, and I think 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:03.880 he honestly believed he could get to. 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:05.680 A peace agreement in a few days. 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:11.280 He's gradually learning that, in fact, Putin has decided that 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:14.920 this is the capstone of his life, that he is 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:17.840 the man who is going to reunify the Russian Empire, 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:20.720 and that the key step for that is to crush 0:16:20.840 --> 0:16:23.680 Ukraine so that it in fact cannot survive as a 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:27.520 independent country, and so much a definition of his life 0:16:28.240 --> 0:16:31.040 that he's not backing down. And I think my sense 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:35.520 is that President Trump has been very disappointed that the 0:16:35.600 --> 0:16:40.520 inability to get Putin to take seriously finding a way 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:43.640 to get to a peaceful solution, and what Putin basically 0:16:43.760 --> 0:16:46.360 is gambling on is that while they talk that the 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:49.960 Russian military, which is about four or five times bigger 0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:53.360 than the Ukrainian military, that it will gradually wear out 0:16:53.400 --> 0:16:56.760 the Ukrainian military and win a crushing military victory. Now 0:16:57.160 --> 0:16:59.320 there's not much evidence yet that that's going to happen. 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:03.120 Ukrainians have turned out to be very inventive. They've always 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:06.479 been a center of manufacturing in the Soviet Union. They 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:09.439 have lots of engineers and lots of capable people, and 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:12.600 they've been very inventive. They drove the Russian Black Sea 0:17:12.640 --> 0:17:14.720 fleet out of the Black Sea into the Cia of 0:17:14.720 --> 0:17:18.480 Azov because they've developed a series of drones that could 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:22.200 sink ships. See, you have a five thousand dollars drone 0:17:22.800 --> 0:17:25.800 and a sixty million dollar cruiser, and the drone would 0:17:25.800 --> 0:17:29.040 beat the cruiser. The Russians just gave up. They pulled 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:31.960 back to get out of range. The recent effort by 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:36.119 the Ukrainians to hit the Russian strategic bombers, some of 0:17:36.119 --> 0:17:40.240 them thirty four hundred miles away from Kiev has amazing achievements, 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:43.000 an achievement comparable to some of the things the Israelis 0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:44.720 have done. So that's going to. 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:46.600 Continue to go on. The question. 0:17:46.840 --> 0:17:50.080 In my mind, the Europeans are going to stand firm 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:53.959 because the Europeans genuinely do believe that Ukraine is the 0:17:54.000 --> 0:17:57.359 barrier that protects them from Putin and protects them from Russia. 0:17:57.840 --> 0:18:01.199 It's not clear to meident Trump comes down in this. 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:05.760 He wants peace. He's also very worried about nuclear war. 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:10.320 Somehow people convinced him in this first term just how 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:13.640 truly horrible a nuclear war would be. Putin does have 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:16.800 six thousand nuclear weapons, and so I think the president, 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:20.639 while he's more aggressive than Joe Biden was, he's still 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:23.960 careful because he doesn't want to push Putin into a 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:27.560 corner where he decides that tactical nuclear weapons are better 0:18:27.640 --> 0:18:30.359 than being defeated. I think that this will go on 0:18:30.440 --> 0:18:32.919 for a while. I think it's a great disappointment to 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:36.320 President Trump. I think he really did, sincerely believe he 0:18:36.359 --> 0:18:38.640 could get to a truce and it just didn't quite 0:18:38.720 --> 0:18:42.080 work out. So that's the fourth problem. Again. Put yourself 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:44.720 in President Trump's position. You wake up in the morning, 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:47.280 you look at home to see what's happening in terms 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:49.920 of unrest. Then you look to Israel Iran to see 0:18:49.920 --> 0:18:52.320 how that campaign's going. Then you come back and look 0:18:52.359 --> 0:18:54.160 at the Congress to see what has to get done 0:18:54.440 --> 0:18:57.879 to move towards passing this huge important legislation. Then you 0:18:57.960 --> 0:19:01.480 pivot and you're looking at Russia and Ukraine. And then finally, 0:19:01.960 --> 0:19:06.560 the fifth grade challenge is fundamental effort by President Trump 0:19:07.040 --> 0:19:11.240 to reorder the entire world trading system. The trading system 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:14.600 had grown up as a global system in which the 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:18.199 United States sacrificed a great deal economically in order to 0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:22.239 sustain an open trading system around the whole planet, and 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:25.479 other countries learned to take enormous advantage of this, and 0:19:25.560 --> 0:19:28.719 so over a period of about thirty years, the system 0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:31.439 became more and more destructive for the United States and 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:35.439 more and more positive for Europe and particularly China. And 0:19:35.520 --> 0:19:37.560 Trump came along, and he had talked about this a 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:39.439 lot back when he was a businessman, so this was 0:19:39.480 --> 0:19:42.600 not some new theme to him. But he came along 0:19:42.600 --> 0:19:45.080 and said, look, we're going to simply have to change 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:47.760 the agreement. We're the largest market in the world. We 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:50.479 ought to have the most leverage. People ought to in 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:54.000 fact be paying us for access to our market, and 0:19:54.040 --> 0:19:56.760 we should not be allowing ourselves to be taken advantage of. 0:19:57.280 --> 0:20:01.359 So he has begun to build a tariff Bay East system, 0:20:01.720 --> 0:20:04.919 which ultimately leads to bilateral that is, one country to 0:20:04.960 --> 0:20:08.520 one country agreements across the whole planet. It is an 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:12.479 enormous undertaking. The truth is virtually every country wants to 0:20:12.520 --> 0:20:15.880 get into the American market. You're seeing a huge increase 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:19.679 in manufacturing in the US by countries where their companies 0:20:19.720 --> 0:20:21.840 have just decided in order to be able to be productive, 0:20:21.840 --> 0:20:24.120 they've got to be in the United States. And you're 0:20:24.119 --> 0:20:27.640 going to see every country negotiate a unique, separate deal. 0:20:27.640 --> 0:20:31.840 It's a very large change from the multinational system that 0:20:31.920 --> 0:20:33.840 had grown up and that had been kind of a 0:20:33.880 --> 0:20:37.200 global trading system, but one in which everybody else took 0:20:37.200 --> 0:20:40.080 advantage the United States. Working all that out is going 0:20:40.119 --> 0:20:42.520 to take several years. So again you have President has 0:20:42.560 --> 0:20:45.520 to meet with Secretary Treasury Vessent and others, sit down 0:20:45.560 --> 0:20:47.919 and look at each of these agreements, decide, you know, 0:20:47.920 --> 0:20:51.200 what happens with the European Union, what happens with Japan, 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:53.840 what happens with China, on and on for about one 0:20:53.920 --> 0:20:55.160 hundred and ninety countries. 0:20:55.840 --> 0:20:57.600 So to wrap all of this up. 0:20:57.760 --> 0:21:00.720 I think the five biggest challenges present and Trump faces 0:21:00.800 --> 0:21:02.960 right now, and the way he has to balance his 0:21:03.119 --> 0:21:08.240 energy and his focus are first, re establishing domestic order 0:21:08.680 --> 0:21:12.560 while we in fact do solve the problem of illegal immigration. Second, 0:21:12.880 --> 0:21:16.040 ensuring that Israel wins the war with Iran and ideally 0:21:16.080 --> 0:21:18.520 that we help the Iranian people take control of their 0:21:18.520 --> 0:21:22.240 government again. Third, getting the big beautiful bill through the 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:25.360 House and Senate and signed into law this summer so 0:21:25.400 --> 0:21:27.640 that the American people have money in their pocket so 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:32.080 the economy starts booming by early next year. Fourth, sustaining 0:21:32.080 --> 0:21:37.040 the Ukrainians, pressuring putin potentially going towards something like Senator 0:21:37.080 --> 0:21:40.000 Lindsey Graham's sanctions bill, which has eighty five sponsors in 0:21:40.040 --> 0:21:42.720 the Senate and which would be imposed very very harsh 0:21:42.800 --> 0:21:45.920 sanctions on Russia, and try to basically bankrupt the government. 0:21:46.240 --> 0:21:49.800 And then finally continue day by day negotiate the tariff 0:21:49.800 --> 0:21:53.760 agreements with Fortunately somebody is smart and as capable as 0:21:53.800 --> 0:21:57.200 Secretary Bessen taking the lead. It is a big agenda, 0:21:57.400 --> 0:22:00.919 It is an exhausting agenda, and I think, frankly, I 0:22:00.920 --> 0:22:03.720 don't know of any other president who could carry simultaneously 0:22:04.119 --> 0:22:07.360 as many different challenges as President Trump, and I think 0:22:07.400 --> 0:22:09.600 it will be fascinating to see how it evolves, and 0:22:09.680 --> 0:22:12.200 in future weeks I'll report again on how I see 0:22:12.240 --> 0:22:13.440 this whole process evolving. 0:22:16.800 --> 0:22:17.720 Thank you for listening. 0:22:17.960 --> 0:22:21.480 Newtsworld is produced by Gangris Street sixty and iHeartMedia. Our 0:22:21.520 --> 0:22:25.360 executive producers guard Zie Sloan. Our researcher is Rachel Peterson. 0:22:25.720 --> 0:22:28.560 The artwork for the show was created by Steve Penley. 0:22:28.960 --> 0:22:31.639 Special thanks to the team at Gingrishtree sixty. If you've 0:22:31.680 --> 0:22:34.480 been enjoying Newtsworld, I hope you'll go to Apple Podcast 0:22:34.800 --> 0:22:37.119 and both rate us with five stars and give us 0:22:37.160 --> 0:22:39.639 a review so others can learn what it's all about. 0:22:40.040 --> 0:22:42.840 Right now, listeners of Newtsworld can sign up for my 0:22:42.960 --> 0:22:47.400 three free weekly columns at gangrishtreet sixty dot com slash newsletter. 0:22:47.960 --> 0:23:00.560 I'm newt Gingrich. This is Newtsworld.