1
00:00:00,670 --> 00:00:04,600
Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly Jongfast, and this is Fast Politics, where

2
00:00:04,620 --> 00:00:07,500
Speaker 1: we discuss the top political headlines with some of today's

3
00:00:07,700 --> 00:00:11,489
Speaker 1: best minds. And Lauren Boebert says, I am not a

4
00:00:11,530 --> 00:00:15,770
Speaker 1: lesbian after an ethics complaint accuses her of having relationships

5
00:00:15,810 --> 00:00:20,140
Speaker 1: with three different staffers, two females, one man. We have

6
00:00:20,210 --> 00:00:22,160
Speaker 1: such a great show for you today. The New York Times'

7
00:00:22,360 --> 00:00:25,980
Speaker 1: Maggie Haberman stops by to talk about Trump being tempted

8
00:00:26,079 --> 00:00:29,480
Speaker 1: by the Insurrection Act. Then we'll talk to Mother Jones'

9
00:00:29,640 --> 00:00:33,100
Speaker 1: own David Korn about his new book, How Russia Won

10
00:00:33,159 --> 00:00:36,780
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and the Fight for America. But first,

11
00:00:36,820 --> 00:00:37,320
Speaker 1: the news.

12
00:00:37,940 --> 00:00:39,370
Speaker 2: Something I was thinking about the other day is a

13
00:00:39,670 --> 00:00:43,230
Speaker 2: headline that the president was throwing a little hissy fit

14
00:00:43,430 --> 00:00:46,250
Speaker 2: like a little baby is something that every president would

15
00:00:46,330 --> 00:00:48,350
Speaker 2: dread having until we got Donald Trump.

16
00:00:48,470 --> 00:00:51,620
Speaker 3: And now we see him banning news outlets from the

17
00:00:51,640 --> 00:00:52,000
Speaker 3: White House.

18
00:00:52,240 --> 00:00:54,680
Speaker 1: OK, so let's just talk about this for a second.

19
00:00:54,720 --> 00:00:58,700
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. is having a bad weekend, right? He's lost

20
00:00:58,780 --> 00:01:00,830
Speaker 1: control of the midterm cycle.

21
00:01:01,050 --> 00:01:04,130
Speaker 4: He has, we got diesel last week was the most

22
00:01:04,310 --> 00:01:09,550
Speaker 4: expensive diesel has been in modern diesel history. We have

23
00:01:09,670 --> 00:01:12,310
Speaker 4: the Fed is going to raise interest rates.

24
00:01:12,430 --> 00:01:15,309
Speaker 1: Donald Trump has lost control of the narrative. And so

25
00:01:15,569 --> 00:01:18,720
Speaker 1: a very typically Donald Trumpian way, he has decided to

26
00:01:18,900 --> 00:01:23,300
Speaker 1: reclaim control of the narrative by banning CNN, MSNOW, and

27
00:01:23,340 --> 00:01:26,119
Speaker 1: Politico from the White House. So So what he's trying

28
00:01:26,140 --> 00:01:30,460
Speaker 1: to do here, I believe pretty strongly, is reclaim this

29
00:01:30,540 --> 00:01:34,810
Speaker 1: narrative that he's losing by giving his base another enemy.

30
00:01:34,990 --> 00:01:39,929
Speaker 1: And that enemy is the fake news CNN. You'll remember

31
00:01:39,970 --> 00:01:42,390
Speaker 1: that when Donald Trump was on the trail, he used

32
00:01:42,410 --> 00:01:46,429
Speaker 1: to sort of like get everyone in his MAGA audience

33
00:01:46,510 --> 00:01:50,230
Speaker 1: excited and start screaming fake news CNN. You don't hate

34
00:01:50,280 --> 00:01:54,140
Speaker 1: journalists enough. It's very clear to me. that this is

35
00:01:54,180 --> 00:01:57,040
Speaker 1: a distraction, that this is a way that Donald Trump

36
00:01:57,100 --> 00:02:01,020
Speaker 1: is trying to get everyone thinking about a common enemy.

37
00:02:01,240 --> 00:02:04,790
Speaker 1: And for MAGA, the mainstream media is his common enemy.

38
00:02:05,190 --> 00:02:07,310
Speaker 1: So there are going to be a lot of people

39
00:02:07,390 --> 00:02:09,730
Speaker 1: who are going to be upset about this. And, you know,

40
00:02:09,850 --> 00:02:12,500
Speaker 1: even like Trump said, I don't need to have them

41
00:02:12,780 --> 00:02:15,740
Speaker 1: in my house. And then he corrected himself and said

42
00:02:15,780 --> 00:02:18,220
Speaker 1: the people's house. I If they're not going to write

43
00:02:18,280 --> 00:02:21,280
Speaker 1: nice things about me. But this is like the same narcissistic,

44
00:02:21,540 --> 00:02:25,389
Speaker 1: ego wounded, Trumpy thing forever. But I do think the

45
00:02:25,590 --> 00:02:29,290
Speaker 1: redirect is what's important. Like Trump is really in a

46
00:02:29,470 --> 00:02:33,100
Speaker 1: bad spot politically. And so he's decided to draw the

47
00:02:33,160 --> 00:02:36,639
Speaker 1: focus onto someone else and the mainstream media. He only

48
00:02:36,680 --> 00:02:39,019
Speaker 1: has a few moves and this is one of them. Yep.

49
00:02:39,139 --> 00:02:42,399
Speaker 2: One of his other moves, though, is redecorating everything. And

50
00:02:42,960 --> 00:02:45,490
Speaker 2: I never thought about a triumphal arch in my life.

51
00:02:45,620 --> 00:02:47,930
Speaker 2: But it turns out now that triumphal arch is also

52
00:02:47,970 --> 00:02:49,010
Speaker 2: a military complex.

53
00:02:49,230 --> 00:02:52,130
Speaker 1: So Trump wants to build the triumphal arch, but it's

54
00:02:52,169 --> 00:02:55,769
Speaker 1: also based on Napoleon's triumphal arch in France. And in fact,

55
00:02:55,870 --> 00:02:59,970
Speaker 1: there's really good reporting in Regime Change about how Donald

56
00:03:00,010 --> 00:03:03,470
Speaker 1: Trump actually called Macron to ask him how big the

57
00:03:03,510 --> 00:03:06,650
Speaker 1: triumphal arch was so that he could build a bigger one.

58
00:03:07,130 --> 00:03:09,850
Speaker 2: You know how history has treated Napoleon so well. I mean,

59
00:03:09,889 --> 00:03:11,520
Speaker 2: it's just going to be the same thing over again.

60
00:03:11,680 --> 00:03:14,960
Speaker 1: I would like to add that the Napoleon famous for

61
00:03:14,980 --> 00:03:16,679
Speaker 1: sort of over calculating.

62
00:03:17,720 --> 00:03:18,080
Speaker 5: Really?

63
00:03:19,550 --> 00:03:20,310
Speaker 3: That is the brand.

64
00:03:20,710 --> 00:03:21,050
Speaker 6: Right.

65
00:03:21,090 --> 00:03:22,650
Speaker 1: This all makes a lot of sense. I want to

66
00:03:22,750 --> 00:03:25,750
Speaker 1: also add that there's another triumphal art in North Korea.

67
00:03:26,190 --> 00:03:28,620
Speaker 1: The people who build this kind of stuff are not

68
00:03:28,660 --> 00:03:31,740
Speaker 1: the people you want to be. There's no like great

69
00:03:31,840 --> 00:03:34,299
Speaker 1: president building this kind of thing. It's always the sort

70
00:03:34,340 --> 00:03:37,520
Speaker 1: of petty dictators. So but anyway, the point is, Donald

71
00:03:37,540 --> 00:03:41,350
Speaker 1: Trump has decided to add military stuff to it, snipers,

72
00:03:41,490 --> 00:03:44,790
Speaker 1: drones and ammunition storage. By the way, the reason he

73
00:03:44,830 --> 00:03:46,810
Speaker 1: wants to do this is because he thinks that maybe

74
00:03:46,870 --> 00:03:50,440
Speaker 1: then he can use this national security excuse as a

75
00:03:50,470 --> 00:03:52,680
Speaker 1: way to build it. And I want to point out

76
00:03:52,860 --> 00:03:55,120
Speaker 1: that this is the same thing that they're trying to

77
00:03:55,160 --> 00:03:58,660
Speaker 1: do with the East Wing, right? So Donald Trump demolishes

78
00:03:58,700 --> 00:04:01,520
Speaker 1: the East Wing. Now he's rebuilding it with like a

79
00:04:01,560 --> 00:04:05,490
Speaker 1: little drone center and a bomb shelter and this and

80
00:04:05,510 --> 00:04:07,570
Speaker 1: that to say that we need it for national security.

81
00:04:07,690 --> 00:04:10,430
Speaker 1: So this is called bullshit, I want to point out.

82
00:04:10,550 --> 00:04:12,730
Speaker 1: By the way, the Triumphal Arch, there's never going to

83
00:04:12,770 --> 00:04:15,970
Speaker 1: be a Triumphal Arch, number one. Number two, the idea

84
00:04:15,990 --> 00:04:18,679
Speaker 1: that you would then put snipers on top of it.

85
00:04:18,890 --> 00:04:19,099
Speaker 5: What?

86
00:04:19,570 --> 00:04:20,500
Speaker 1: And drones.

87
00:04:20,770 --> 00:04:21,039
Speaker 6: What?

88
00:04:21,330 --> 00:04:25,860
Speaker 1: And store ammunition in it. What? It's just so, like,

89
00:04:25,960 --> 00:04:28,340
Speaker 1: this is what happens when you stay up late and

90
00:04:28,380 --> 00:04:32,659
Speaker 1: you tell Natalie Harp all your ideas and she, who

91
00:04:32,720 --> 00:04:36,480
Speaker 1: believes you've saved her life from bone cancer, has to

92
00:04:36,540 --> 00:04:39,279
Speaker 1: agree with everything. And this is when you get tweets

93
00:04:39,300 --> 00:04:42,339
Speaker 1: like this. This is the toxic sludge of brain worms

94
00:04:42,420 --> 00:04:47,080
Speaker 1: and narcissism that creates sludge like a triumphal arch that

95
00:04:47,140 --> 00:04:48,460
Speaker 1: houses ammunition.

96
00:04:48,600 --> 00:04:51,180
Speaker 3: You know what greets tourists to America really well and

97
00:04:51,200 --> 00:04:53,170
Speaker 3: makes them want to come? Snipers on roofs.

98
00:04:53,410 --> 00:04:54,549
Speaker 1: People love snipers.

99
00:04:54,830 --> 00:04:55,710
Speaker 3: Speaking of the.

100
00:04:55,730 --> 00:04:59,420
Speaker 2: Military industrial complex, our most overfunded part of our government,

101
00:04:59,560 --> 00:05:02,859
Speaker 2: the Pentagon says the Iran war has only cost $ 45 billion,

102
00:05:03,060 --> 00:05:04,060
Speaker 2: if you don't count everything.

103
00:05:04,220 --> 00:05:06,460
Speaker 1: I just want to make sure that the head of

104
00:05:06,520 --> 00:05:11,390
Speaker 1: the Department of War, that handsome, handsome man, Whiskey Pete,

105
00:05:11,550 --> 00:05:15,590
Speaker 1: is making sure that all of our warfighters have 28-inch waist.

106
00:05:15,710 --> 00:05:20,729
Speaker 1: Because Whiskey Pete is laser-focused on making sure that everyone

107
00:05:20,770 --> 00:05:25,100
Speaker 1: has a really small waist. He's involved in this waist-measuring thing.

108
00:05:25,160 --> 00:05:27,960
Speaker 1: We know this because the friend of the pod is

109
00:05:28,020 --> 00:05:31,600
Speaker 1: in ROTC. And we have been hearing a lot about

110
00:05:31,779 --> 00:05:36,560
Speaker 1: waste measuring. The ROTC battalion had their wastes measured. Very,

111
00:05:36,700 --> 00:05:38,480
Speaker 1: very stupid waste of money.

112
00:05:38,500 --> 00:05:40,260
Speaker 3: We should introduce him to my tailor.

113
00:05:40,440 --> 00:05:44,400
Speaker 1: Yes, your tailor, who also is wasting away. Point is,

114
00:05:44,480 --> 00:05:48,030
Speaker 1: we are running out of ammunition. We are a country

115
00:05:48,070 --> 00:05:49,550
Speaker 1: that is in multiple forms.

116
00:05:49,670 --> 00:05:50,370
Speaker 5: And wars.

117
00:05:50,490 --> 00:05:56,070
Speaker 1: Don't call them wars. Call them scrimmages. And also today

118
00:05:56,089 --> 00:06:00,450
Speaker 1: we had Mike Walsh on CNN saying he can't really

119
00:06:00,510 --> 00:06:04,230
Speaker 1: give a timeline to the war that's going so well.

120
00:06:04,470 --> 00:06:07,130
Speaker 1: There's no timeline. You know a war is going well.

121
00:06:07,350 --> 00:06:09,850
Speaker 1: People are like, we can't really give a timeline.

122
00:06:09,970 --> 00:06:11,950
Speaker 2: You know what that reminds me of? The last time

123
00:06:11,970 --> 00:06:13,270
Speaker 2: we went to the war of the Middle East.

124
00:06:13,650 --> 00:06:15,830
Speaker 1: I feel good about this. I feel like this is

125
00:06:15,850 --> 00:06:16,860
Speaker 1: going to be over in a week.

126
00:06:16,940 --> 00:06:18,660
Speaker 3: Yeah, they'll greet us as heroes.

127
00:06:18,920 --> 00:06:21,560
Speaker 1: I think the phrase is liberators. Yes, we will be

128
00:06:21,600 --> 00:06:22,979
Speaker 1: greeted as liberators.

129
00:06:23,140 --> 00:06:25,320
Speaker 3: Sabai, you tell me if I'm wrong here. We are

130
00:06:25,380 --> 00:06:26,960
Speaker 3: in an era where one of.

131
00:06:26,960 --> 00:06:29,870
Speaker 2: The most ridiculous things to say is have you no shame,

132
00:06:29,910 --> 00:06:32,770
Speaker 2: but it actually feels like Trump is having a little

133
00:06:32,810 --> 00:06:36,270
Speaker 2: shame about an oligarch paying for his son's wedding.

134
00:06:36,310 --> 00:06:39,170
Speaker 1: So we talk a lot about this administration making problems

135
00:06:39,190 --> 00:06:42,850
Speaker 1: for itself. We do. We talk about the war it created,

136
00:06:42,870 --> 00:06:47,290
Speaker 1: the gas crisis it created, the tariff inflation it created.

137
00:06:47,470 --> 00:06:50,510
Speaker 1: But here's a problem this administration has created for itself

138
00:06:50,570 --> 00:06:54,520
Speaker 1: that is so incredibly stupid that I can't even like

139
00:06:54,600 --> 00:06:57,599
Speaker 1: it's like next level. Donald Trump Jr., who, by the way,

140
00:06:57,640 --> 00:07:02,859
Speaker 1: The administration has done so many amazingly craven and smart

141
00:07:02,900 --> 00:07:06,000
Speaker 1: things when it comes to Donald Trump Jr. Like, remember

142
00:07:06,040 --> 00:07:10,820
Speaker 1: his fiancee, Kimberly Guilfoyle, who is now living in Greece,

143
00:07:11,060 --> 00:07:14,530
Speaker 1: where she is the ambassador, making endless trouble, but none

144
00:07:14,570 --> 00:07:16,850
Speaker 1: of it getting back to us. So here's the story.

145
00:07:16,910 --> 00:07:20,690
Speaker 1: Donald Trump Jr. falls in love again. She is very beautiful,

146
00:07:20,790 --> 00:07:24,150
Speaker 1: lives in Palm Beach. They decide they're going to get married. Bettina,

147
00:07:24,510 --> 00:07:29,690
Speaker 1: they plan a very private wedding. Here is the problem.

148
00:07:29,860 --> 00:07:35,700
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's junior's wedding is paid for by Umar Kremlev,

149
00:07:35,820 --> 00:07:39,560
Speaker 1: who is a Russian oligarch. And Applebaum actually said that

150
00:07:39,800 --> 00:07:42,900
Speaker 1: he is more of a Russian gangster than a Russian oligarch. oligarch.

151
00:07:43,060 --> 00:07:46,780
Speaker 1: But that is not here nor there. ProPublica earlier reported

152
00:07:46,840 --> 00:07:50,660
Speaker 1: that he paid for the wedding. But Tina Trump, what

153
00:07:50,990 --> 00:07:55,110
Speaker 1: took to Instagram to correct the record and say that

154
00:07:55,320 --> 00:07:57,490
Speaker 1: he did not pay for the wedding. He just paid

155
00:07:57,570 --> 00:07:59,370
Speaker 1: for all of the parties.

156
00:07:59,690 --> 00:08:02,020
Speaker 3: The after parties, Molly. These are very important to you.

157
00:08:02,250 --> 00:08:06,370
Speaker 1: All of the after parties and already planned weekend with friends.

158
00:08:06,770 --> 00:08:10,690
Speaker 1: Some ethics experts have said there is no distinction between

159
00:08:10,750 --> 00:08:14,650
Speaker 1: But we all really appreciate someone who is dumb enough

160
00:08:14,730 --> 00:08:19,110
Speaker 1: to go on Instagram and say that, in fact, they

161
00:08:19,150 --> 00:08:22,800
Speaker 1: did do it. But that it's fake news somehow anyway.

162
00:08:23,000 --> 00:08:26,460
Speaker 1: But what's important about Donald Trump saying that Trump Jr.

163
00:08:26,500 --> 00:08:28,940
Speaker 1: will pay it back is two things. One, it shows

164
00:08:28,980 --> 00:08:30,560
Speaker 1: that Donald Trump knows it was wrong.

165
00:08:30,860 --> 00:08:33,880
Speaker 3: Very rare. Like, really, it should be a watermarked mark.

166
00:08:34,120 --> 00:08:34,440
Speaker 5: Right.

167
00:08:34,580 --> 00:08:39,079
Speaker 1: So that means that probably somebody has told Donald Trump

168
00:08:39,120 --> 00:08:42,590
Speaker 1: it was wrong. And also, I wonder if that's why

169
00:08:42,630 --> 00:08:44,850
Speaker 1: Donald Trump didn't go to the wedding in the first place,

170
00:08:45,050 --> 00:08:48,070
Speaker 1: because I didn't quite understand why he didn't go. And this,

171
00:08:48,130 --> 00:08:50,229
Speaker 1: of course, would make a lot of sense is if

172
00:08:50,290 --> 00:08:55,990
Speaker 1: he knew that going to an Umar- Kremlin paid sponsored wedding.

173
00:08:56,250 --> 00:08:59,770
Speaker 1: Umar is a close personal friend of Vladimir Putin's. So

174
00:08:59,820 --> 00:09:02,780
Speaker 1: close he actually went to China with him to negotiate

175
00:09:02,900 --> 00:09:05,400
Speaker 1: pretty recently. So I wonder if Donald Trump knew that

176
00:09:05,500 --> 00:09:07,199
Speaker 1: Umar was paying for the wedding and that's why he

177
00:09:07,220 --> 00:09:10,480
Speaker 1: didn't go. And also the fact that, first of all,

178
00:09:10,640 --> 00:09:12,960
Speaker 1: if you're a reporter, do not report this as in

179
00:09:13,000 --> 00:09:15,280
Speaker 1: the process of being paid back because there's no evidence

180
00:09:15,350 --> 00:09:17,390
Speaker 1: to support that it is in the process of being

181
00:09:17,410 --> 00:09:19,730
Speaker 1: paid back, nor is there evidence to support that Donald

182
00:09:19,750 --> 00:09:22,850
Speaker 1: Trump Jr. will ever pay this money back. And also,

183
00:09:23,150 --> 00:09:25,410
Speaker 1: I do think that it's important to just like pause

184
00:09:25,429 --> 00:09:28,270
Speaker 1: for a minute and realize that Trump Sr. knows this

185
00:09:28,309 --> 00:09:30,840
Speaker 1: is wrong. He knows that this is going to be

186
00:09:31,030 --> 00:09:34,820
Speaker 1: endlessly problematic for him going forward. And he's just trying

187
00:09:34,840 --> 00:09:38,580
Speaker 1: to put it out. Remember, this administration and Republican Party

188
00:09:38,780 --> 00:09:43,780
Speaker 1: writ large tends to be very much in lockstep with messaging.

189
00:09:43,900 --> 00:09:46,059
Speaker 1: So the fact that they're all over the place with

190
00:09:46,100 --> 00:09:54,520
Speaker 1: this means that they are in trouble. Maggie Haberman is

191
00:09:54,580 --> 00:09:57,180
Speaker 1: a White House correspondent for The New York Times and

192
00:09:57,300 --> 00:10:01,819
Speaker 1: the co-author of Regime Change Inside the Imperial Presidency of

193
00:10:01,860 --> 00:10:04,059
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. Welcome back, Maggie.

194
00:10:04,080 --> 00:10:05,730
Speaker 6: Thanks for having me.

195
00:10:06,300 --> 00:10:10,020
Speaker 1: I have been reading this book, Regime Changer book, because

196
00:10:10,070 --> 00:10:14,170
Speaker 1: there's so much stuff in there that I absolutely don't know.

197
00:10:14,309 --> 00:10:14,510
Speaker 5: Right.

198
00:10:14,570 --> 00:10:17,510
Speaker 1: The things that happened really behind the scenes. So, like,

199
00:10:18,010 --> 00:10:20,970
Speaker 1: I'll have read something or I'll have known something, but

200
00:10:21,010 --> 00:10:24,030
Speaker 1: then there'll be this other side of it where I'm like, oh,

201
00:10:24,150 --> 00:10:27,660
Speaker 1: this was what was happening. Oh, shit. And I think

202
00:10:27,720 --> 00:10:32,480
Speaker 1: it's really instructive for this moment with two more years

203
00:10:32,600 --> 00:10:33,940
Speaker 1: plus on Trump's term.

204
00:10:34,670 --> 00:10:38,570
Speaker 6: Well, I'm very glad to hear that because this book,

205
00:10:39,030 --> 00:10:41,390
Speaker 6: as I know I've said to you, I think publicly,

206
00:10:41,410 --> 00:10:45,120
Speaker 6: but also many, many times over text message, this book

207
00:10:45,179 --> 00:10:51,060
Speaker 6: almost broke Jonathan and me. And so like, it's, it's, we,

208
00:10:51,140 --> 00:10:53,160
Speaker 6: we both consider it the best work of our careers.

209
00:10:54,440 --> 00:10:56,420
Speaker 6: But we were, we were, you know, we were bearish

210
00:10:56,480 --> 00:10:59,510
Speaker 6: on whether people would engage with it just because, you know,

211
00:10:59,929 --> 00:11:02,390
Speaker 6: we keep reading about how nonfiction is dead and, and,

212
00:11:02,550 --> 00:11:04,400
Speaker 6: you know, that, People have been around the Trump era

213
00:11:04,450 --> 00:11:08,270
Speaker 6: a lot. So it's really gratifying to hear that people

214
00:11:08,309 --> 00:11:13,050
Speaker 6: find value in it. I think that it's funny.

215
00:11:13,170 --> 00:11:13,470
Speaker 1: So a.

216
00:11:15,070 --> 00:11:17,250
Speaker 6: Book, you know this, a book lets you go much

217
00:11:17,309 --> 00:11:21,109
Speaker 6: deeper than you can go both writing-wise and in terms

218
00:11:21,150 --> 00:11:28,650
Speaker 6: of reporting. But the reason that I think that it's

219
00:11:28,870 --> 00:11:31,770
Speaker 6: appealing to people, and in particular, at least people responding

220
00:11:31,790 --> 00:11:32,109
Speaker 6: to it, is.

221
00:11:33,750 --> 00:11:37,490
Speaker 6: This administration is so different than term one. And I

222
00:11:37,510 --> 00:11:43,650
Speaker 6: think people are still only realizing that sort of in pieces.

223
00:11:43,790 --> 00:11:44,089
Speaker 5: Right.

224
00:11:44,170 --> 00:11:46,850
Speaker 6: And so one of the ways that they're very good,

225
00:11:47,290 --> 00:11:50,880
Speaker 6: it's a it is a very small group of people

226
00:11:50,910 --> 00:11:54,080
Speaker 6: making the decisions in the White House with him. And

227
00:11:54,100 --> 00:11:56,079
Speaker 6: if you're not in those rooms, you do not know.

228
00:11:56,960 --> 00:11:59,360
Speaker 6: What's happening often, including in your own government, like you

229
00:11:59,400 --> 00:12:01,859
Speaker 6: can be a senior advisor at the State Department and

230
00:12:01,900 --> 00:12:04,819
Speaker 6: not know because Marco Rubio is off in the Oval

231
00:12:04,860 --> 00:12:08,200
Speaker 6: Office or on and on and on. And these are

232
00:12:08,240 --> 00:12:12,020
Speaker 6: consequential decisions. You know, an example was the planning, the

233
00:12:12,059 --> 00:12:14,599
Speaker 6: lead up to the Iran war, where, you know, the

234
00:12:14,640 --> 00:12:17,220
Speaker 6: Treasury Secretary and Energy Secretary, who are now tasked with

235
00:12:17,260 --> 00:12:23,880
Speaker 6: managing this historic global energy crisis, weren't in the planning

236
00:12:23,900 --> 00:12:26,500
Speaker 6: meetings initially because this White House is so worried about leaks.

237
00:12:27,720 --> 00:12:31,360
Speaker 6: they do want to see him succeed, the people around him.

238
00:12:31,400 --> 00:12:37,330
Speaker 6: This is not sort of term one of people who

239
00:12:37,390 --> 00:12:43,990
Speaker 6: thought that he was dangerous or ignorant or saw their

240
00:12:44,010 --> 00:12:47,530
Speaker 6: job as restraining him. And so that creates its own

241
00:12:47,750 --> 00:12:51,500
Speaker 6: other way of being. But I think that the other

242
00:12:52,360 --> 00:12:57,470
Speaker 6: reason that it is resonating with people is It does

243
00:12:57,690 --> 00:13:00,949
Speaker 6: show you how little– one of the ways in which

244
00:13:00,970 --> 00:13:03,860
Speaker 6: there is a difference between term one and another way,

245
00:13:04,770 --> 00:13:08,020
Speaker 6: there's no room for dissent. Like, none. So you had

246
00:13:08,080 --> 00:13:10,079
Speaker 6: repeatedly for the first three years– and there were a

247
00:13:10,080 --> 00:13:12,920
Speaker 6: variety of reasons for why. Trump didn't know his government.

248
00:13:14,020 --> 00:13:14,720
Speaker 1: Right.

249
00:13:15,179 --> 00:13:18,380
Speaker 6: He was distracted by the investigations. But you would have

250
00:13:18,460 --> 00:13:23,050
Speaker 6: lots of Gary Cohn fighting with the president about Charlottesville or–

251
00:13:23,610 --> 00:13:26,620
Speaker 6: John Kelly being frustrated, Mattis being frustrated. I can go

252
00:13:26,679 --> 00:13:30,280
Speaker 6: on and on and on. No one is allowed to

253
00:13:31,100 --> 00:13:34,140
Speaker 6: step away an inch publicly. And we show that in

254
00:13:34,179 --> 00:13:36,770
Speaker 6: the book, particularly around the 12-day war in 2025 and

255
00:13:36,790 --> 00:13:37,290
Speaker 6: more recent events.

256
00:13:42,370 --> 00:13:46,770
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that gets me to the midterms, which is

257
00:13:47,380 --> 00:13:52,120
Speaker 1: a little more than 40 days away. Very instructive to

258
00:13:52,200 --> 00:13:56,579
Speaker 1: look at Trump's behavior, where this admin is. And so

259
00:13:56,640 --> 00:13:58,880
Speaker 1: the question I have is, and I think it's the

260
00:13:58,920 --> 00:14:03,100
Speaker 1: anxiety that a lot of us have, is Trump is obviously—

261
00:14:03,929 --> 00:14:07,559
Speaker 1: does not like to lose. What do you think from

262
00:14:07,620 --> 00:14:11,579
Speaker 1: what you've seen historically from Trump and reporting and covering

263
00:14:11,600 --> 00:14:15,800
Speaker 1: this administration, what do you think is coming? And are

264
00:14:15,860 --> 00:14:18,760
Speaker 1: there scenarios as bad as the Insurrection Act?

265
00:14:19,440 --> 00:14:23,930
Speaker 6: So I'm glad you asked that. I guess you mean

266
00:14:23,970 --> 00:14:26,390
Speaker 6: Insurrection Act in terms of related to voting in terms

267
00:14:26,450 --> 00:14:27,970
Speaker 6: of or do you mean after?

268
00:14:28,530 --> 00:14:31,470
Speaker 1: I just mean that there is there a scenario where

269
00:14:31,530 --> 00:14:33,810
Speaker 1: he's like, I'm losing control of this thing.

270
00:14:33,870 --> 00:14:34,550
Speaker 6: I see what you're saying.

271
00:14:34,590 --> 00:14:34,930
Speaker 1: Yeah.

272
00:14:35,170 --> 00:14:38,450
Speaker 6: Yeah. I mean, so I don't I don't think so.

273
00:14:38,790 --> 00:14:40,550
Speaker 6: Just based on we have no reporting to suggest that

274
00:14:40,570 --> 00:14:45,290
Speaker 6: that's being discussed around Election Day this year. It doesn't

275
00:14:45,480 --> 00:14:46,340
Speaker 6: you know, we don't know.

276
00:14:46,380 --> 00:14:46,720
Speaker 5: We don't know.

277
00:14:46,750 --> 00:14:48,960
Speaker 6: I just I don't have any reporting to that effect.

278
00:14:49,000 --> 00:14:50,520
Speaker 6: But what we do show in the book is that,

279
00:14:51,700 --> 00:14:53,300
Speaker 6: you know, the Insurrection Act is something that they were

280
00:14:53,340 --> 00:14:56,520
Speaker 6: looking for a reason to justify doing over and over.

281
00:14:56,540 --> 00:14:59,350
Speaker 6: And it remains this loaded argument. weapon on the shelf.

282
00:14:59,710 --> 00:15:03,410
Speaker 6: You know, this other version of extreme discussion that went

283
00:15:03,430 --> 00:15:07,790
Speaker 6: on was this desire that Trump had, and this was

284
00:15:07,830 --> 00:15:11,380
Speaker 6: in discussion with Stephen Miller, to suspend habeas corpus rights

285
00:15:11,640 --> 00:15:14,560
Speaker 6: for undocumented migrants. I mean, it's just, it's something that

286
00:15:14,580 --> 00:15:16,180
Speaker 6: the Supreme Court was just never going to be okay

287
00:15:16,220 --> 00:15:21,590
Speaker 6: with and would have created mass, mass, mass confusion. And

288
00:15:21,620 --> 00:15:24,690
Speaker 6: there were opponents of it. The main one at the

289
00:15:24,730 --> 00:15:27,190
Speaker 6: time really was Will Scharf, then the staff secretary, now

290
00:15:27,210 --> 00:15:31,150
Speaker 6: the White House counsel. You know, that was one of

291
00:15:31,230 --> 00:15:35,729
Speaker 6: his red lines in our reporting, as was invoking the

292
00:15:35,770 --> 00:15:38,060
Speaker 6: Insurrection Act when the facts on the ground didn't justify it.

293
00:15:38,790 --> 00:15:41,960
Speaker 6: But nothing is ever totally over with in this administration.

294
00:15:42,010 --> 00:15:44,080
Speaker 6: It just becomes a loaded weapon on the shelf. So

295
00:15:45,100 --> 00:15:47,940
Speaker 6: I don't know, you know, what scenarios they might be

296
00:15:48,000 --> 00:15:51,580
Speaker 6: talking about with it. We do know that they came

297
00:15:51,620 --> 00:15:54,840
Speaker 6: very close a bunch of times. And again, we lay

298
00:15:54,880 --> 00:15:55,280
Speaker 6: that out.

299
00:15:56,590 --> 00:15:57,150
Speaker 5: What I.

300
00:15:57,730 --> 00:16:00,130
Speaker 6: I do think about in terms of the midterms is

301
00:16:00,270 --> 00:16:03,180
Speaker 6: so the Supreme Court has not sided with him about,

302
00:16:03,660 --> 00:16:05,680
Speaker 6: you know, about about ending by mail voting.

303
00:16:06,060 --> 00:16:08,640
Speaker 1: Yeah. Can I keep can I interrupt you for a minute?

304
00:16:08,660 --> 00:16:09,020
Speaker 4: Let's go.

305
00:16:09,300 --> 00:16:09,980
Speaker 5: It's your show.

306
00:16:11,630 --> 00:16:14,450
Speaker 1: That Supreme Court, but because we're both women, we're asking

307
00:16:14,510 --> 00:16:19,210
Speaker 1: if we can interrupt each other. But that Supreme Court

308
00:16:19,250 --> 00:16:22,570
Speaker 1: decision to me, I mean, look, that was bonkers, right?

309
00:16:22,610 --> 00:16:25,410
Speaker 1: He basically just wanted to end voting by mail. I mean,

310
00:16:25,450 --> 00:16:27,390
Speaker 1: that's really what it was. He was going to use

311
00:16:27,450 --> 00:16:30,350
Speaker 1: a system that wasn't tested, that was, you know, it

312
00:16:30,370 --> 00:16:32,729
Speaker 1: was federalizing elections. I mean, there were all sorts of

313
00:16:32,770 --> 00:16:35,590
Speaker 1: reasons why it was not something that the court could

314
00:16:35,610 --> 00:16:38,810
Speaker 1: have said yes to. But two and a half justices did,

315
00:16:38,850 --> 00:16:42,420
Speaker 1: in fact, say yes. I mean... Kavanaugh is more complicated.

316
00:16:42,440 --> 00:16:46,660
Speaker 1: But like, so my question is, did he really think

317
00:16:47,060 --> 00:16:50,440
Speaker 1: that he was going to get this? And if he did,

318
00:16:50,620 --> 00:16:56,720
Speaker 1: does that show a certain level of a certain lack

319
00:16:56,940 --> 00:17:00,680
Speaker 1: of understanding of what this moment is for him? And

320
00:17:01,060 --> 00:17:05,359
Speaker 1: if he doesn't, you know, was he surprised, etc.? Like, no,

321
00:17:05,400 --> 00:17:05,980
Speaker 1: it's a good question.

322
00:17:06,020 --> 00:17:09,960
Speaker 6: I mean, so look, they had been looking for Stephen

323
00:17:09,980 --> 00:17:14,330
Speaker 6: Miller had been circulating in our reporting a draft, a

324
00:17:14,380 --> 00:17:19,810
Speaker 6: version of that executive order going back a year, more than.

325
00:17:19,950 --> 00:17:23,030
Speaker 6: And it had been stopped a few times. But then

326
00:17:23,109 --> 00:17:25,970
Speaker 6: when it was very clear that the SAVE Act, which

327
00:17:25,990 --> 00:17:27,770
Speaker 6: Trump calls the SAVE America Act, was not going to

328
00:17:27,830 --> 00:17:30,910
Speaker 6: get signed off on, this was what they pushed through.

329
00:17:31,040 --> 00:17:35,250
Speaker 6: And so I think it's less about specifically what Trump

330
00:17:35,310 --> 00:17:39,950
Speaker 6: actually understood was realistic versus his basic approach to everything.

331
00:17:40,010 --> 00:17:42,169
Speaker 6: And we've seen this over many, many decades prior to

332
00:17:42,190 --> 00:17:45,280
Speaker 6: the presidency, in the presidency, during campaigns. Just keep pushing,

333
00:17:45,320 --> 00:17:47,360
Speaker 6: just keep pushing and see how far it can go.

334
00:17:48,080 --> 00:17:50,359
Speaker 6: And they actually have had some success on that in

335
00:17:50,380 --> 00:17:53,679
Speaker 6: a number of fronts with the Supreme Court. This was

336
00:17:53,720 --> 00:17:56,480
Speaker 6: not one of them. It would have been shocking if

337
00:17:56,540 --> 00:18:00,670
Speaker 6: this order had gone ahead. And putting aside what people

338
00:18:00,710 --> 00:18:02,990
Speaker 6: think about vote by mail, let's just pretend it was that,

339
00:18:03,070 --> 00:18:07,660
Speaker 6: you know, hugely publicly you know not controversial no one

340
00:18:07,760 --> 00:18:11,600
Speaker 6: has any negative opinion um it's two and a half

341
00:18:11,640 --> 00:18:13,820
Speaker 6: months before an election two months before an election so

342
00:18:13,940 --> 00:18:17,570
Speaker 6: it's going to create just mass mass mass chaos i

343
00:18:17,590 --> 00:18:20,950
Speaker 6: can argue there are pockets where there's already confusion around

344
00:18:20,970 --> 00:18:23,689
Speaker 6: the country now right after all of this and and

345
00:18:23,710 --> 00:18:26,390
Speaker 6: that you know that would take its own episode uh

346
00:18:26,710 --> 00:18:28,610
Speaker 6: but his mo is just to keep pushing as far

347
00:18:28,650 --> 00:18:31,730
Speaker 6: as he can um In terms of what the midterms

348
00:18:31,770 --> 00:18:34,750
Speaker 6: will mean for him, which was your initial question, one

349
00:18:34,770 --> 00:18:36,800
Speaker 6: of the things that we describe in the book is how,

350
00:18:36,950 --> 00:18:42,290
Speaker 6: you know, Trump describes himself as honored or proud that

351
00:18:42,310 --> 00:18:44,030
Speaker 6: the Republican Party doesn't do as well when he's not

352
00:18:44,359 --> 00:18:47,220
Speaker 6: on the ticket. He gave this interview to Laura Ingraham

353
00:18:47,460 --> 00:18:51,139
Speaker 6: during the mini convention in Dallas the other day, and

354
00:18:51,180 --> 00:18:53,419
Speaker 6: it didn't get that much attention because of everything else

355
00:18:53,440 --> 00:18:57,550
Speaker 6: that was happening. It was pretty shocking. She says, You know, because,

356
00:18:57,770 --> 00:18:59,250
Speaker 6: you know, we've been hearing that he's just he's about

357
00:18:59,290 --> 00:19:02,450
Speaker 6: to go barnstorm the country for a really long time.

358
00:19:02,850 --> 00:19:06,070
Speaker 6: And he she said to him, you know, are you

359
00:19:06,090 --> 00:19:08,590
Speaker 6: going to go campaign like you've never before? He said no.

360
00:19:09,630 --> 00:19:12,929
Speaker 6: And she seemed pretty confused. And she said, but, you know,

361
00:19:12,970 --> 00:19:14,850
Speaker 6: isn't this something I'm paraphrasing? But it was like, is

362
00:19:14,869 --> 00:19:16,790
Speaker 6: this all on the line? And he was like, no,

363
00:19:16,810 --> 00:19:20,830
Speaker 6: I mean, I've had my elections. You know, this is

364
00:19:20,910 --> 00:19:25,100
Speaker 6: this is different, et cetera, et cetera. Right. He, in

365
00:19:25,140 --> 00:19:29,260
Speaker 6: all of our reporting, he sees his legacy as these

366
00:19:29,300 --> 00:19:35,929
Speaker 6: building projects, as his own place in the American system

367
00:19:35,950 --> 00:19:40,649
Speaker 6: of power over its 250-year history. And he's actually been

368
00:19:40,670 --> 00:19:41,990
Speaker 6: pretty open about that. At least he was in an

369
00:19:42,030 --> 00:19:46,689
Speaker 6: interview with us. Then he does about retaining the party

370
00:19:46,770 --> 00:19:48,889
Speaker 6: because the reality is that he's always been sort of

371
00:19:48,930 --> 00:19:52,880
Speaker 6: separated from the Republican Party. And yet the Republican Party

372
00:19:52,900 --> 00:19:56,700
Speaker 6: has refused to let itself be separated from him because

373
00:19:56,760 --> 00:20:00,840
Speaker 6: most of them can't. Because he has eaten up and

374
00:20:00,900 --> 00:20:03,720
Speaker 6: chewed out the old Republican Party. It is a rump.

375
00:20:03,940 --> 00:20:06,010
Speaker 6: I keep talking to people this year, Molly, at various

376
00:20:06,050 --> 00:20:08,500
Speaker 6: book events who will say, You know, is it ever

377
00:20:08,520 --> 00:20:10,199
Speaker 6: going to go back to the days of, you know,

378
00:20:10,280 --> 00:20:15,060
Speaker 6: Reagan or, you know, Pence conservatism? And, you know, some

379
00:20:15,100 --> 00:20:18,370
Speaker 6: strains of that, you know, traditional conservatism might show. But

380
00:20:19,570 --> 00:20:23,609
Speaker 6: what they're describing is, you know, sort of a velvet

381
00:20:23,650 --> 00:20:28,669
Speaker 6: or glove version of politics. That's not coming back. You know,

382
00:20:28,710 --> 00:20:32,750
Speaker 6: this is here to stay. What it looks like post-Trump,

383
00:20:32,770 --> 00:20:33,210
Speaker 6: I don't know.

384
00:20:33,270 --> 00:20:35,869
Speaker 5: But so he has.

385
00:20:36,470 --> 00:20:40,070
Speaker 6: welded this party so closely to him and again, tolerated

386
00:20:40,090 --> 00:20:42,389
Speaker 6: no dissent. So the only Republicans who are really poised

387
00:20:42,430 --> 00:20:46,550
Speaker 6: to do, I shouldn't say only, but the Republicans who

388
00:20:46,650 --> 00:20:50,020
Speaker 6: are primarily poised to do well this cycle are the

389
00:20:50,119 --> 00:20:54,899
Speaker 6: ones with distinct identities separate from Trump prior to Trump.

390
00:20:55,480 --> 00:20:56,840
Speaker 6: Susan Collins could still win.

391
00:20:56,900 --> 00:20:58,919
Speaker 1: It's not a slam dunk, but she could.

392
00:20:58,940 --> 00:21:03,180
Speaker 6: You know, there's a couple of other examples like that.

393
00:21:03,300 --> 00:21:07,900
Speaker 6: Ashley Hinson has some in Iowa, has some support geographically

394
00:21:07,940 --> 00:21:10,080
Speaker 6: and iowa's a bit of a of an unusual state

395
00:21:10,160 --> 00:21:13,060
Speaker 6: yeah yeah it's complicated but she could still win um

396
00:21:14,500 --> 00:21:17,820
Speaker 6: candidates who he who he just manufactured out of clay

397
00:21:18,840 --> 00:21:22,200
Speaker 6: or who were so different from him from the old

398
00:21:22,270 --> 00:21:24,909
Speaker 6: party like mike rogers and they've been in michigan and

399
00:21:24,990 --> 00:21:28,590
Speaker 6: remade themselves they have a problem um and so the

400
00:21:28,609 --> 00:21:30,030
Speaker 6: only thing they can do is hope to get some

401
00:21:30,090 --> 00:21:33,030
Speaker 6: benefit from him but You know, that's a very, very

402
00:21:33,070 --> 00:21:35,619
Speaker 6: long way of saying I don't think that he fully

403
00:21:35,740 --> 00:21:39,100
Speaker 6: processes what's coming in the next two years. But I

404
00:21:39,160 --> 00:21:42,020
Speaker 6: also don't think the Democrats have fully processed that, like,

405
00:21:42,460 --> 00:21:44,159
Speaker 6: this is not going to look like oversight and the

406
00:21:44,200 --> 00:21:46,369
Speaker 6: way they're used to. Like, it's not going to be

407
00:21:46,380 --> 00:21:48,930
Speaker 6: a government where they're like, OK, we're going to hand

408
00:21:48,950 --> 00:21:50,210
Speaker 6: you over this document set.

409
00:21:50,230 --> 00:21:51,030
Speaker 3: Right.

410
00:21:51,190 --> 00:21:53,790
Speaker 1: No, we've seen this before. They don't.

411
00:21:53,990 --> 00:21:54,250
Speaker 5: Yeah.

412
00:21:54,530 --> 00:21:55,609
Speaker 1: And especially not.

413
00:21:56,080 --> 00:21:58,760
Speaker 6: This brought, we've never seen an entire government just not respond.

414
00:21:58,800 --> 00:22:01,840
Speaker 6: We've seen slow walk, we've seen agencies, we've seen discrete

415
00:22:01,880 --> 00:22:04,899
Speaker 6: issue sets. You know, he has promised, and again, we

416
00:22:04,920 --> 00:22:07,340
Speaker 6: get into this in the book, to pardon, you know,

417
00:22:07,720 --> 00:22:10,109
Speaker 6: anyone who's come within a radius and he changes the

418
00:22:10,140 --> 00:22:13,330
Speaker 6: number of the Oval Office. We talked to people reporting

419
00:22:13,350 --> 00:22:16,070
Speaker 6: the book who are counting on those pardons. So I

420
00:22:16,109 --> 00:22:18,150
Speaker 6: don't know what this looks like is the bottom line.

421
00:22:19,770 --> 00:22:23,570
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's, I think those are all really important points.

422
00:22:23,750 --> 00:22:27,680
Speaker 1: And I just want to like, push on this Trump

423
00:22:27,900 --> 00:22:32,609
Speaker 1: exhausted because I did watch that Laura Ingraham interview and

424
00:22:32,670 --> 00:22:35,110
Speaker 1: I was struck by and it's this thing we've heard

425
00:22:35,150 --> 00:22:37,490
Speaker 1: him say before in Fox interviews too which is like

426
00:22:37,869 --> 00:22:40,290
Speaker 1: the party's not doing well people are mad at the

427
00:22:40,330 --> 00:22:43,680
Speaker 1: party but they're not mad at me right right Right.

428
00:22:43,900 --> 00:22:48,520
Speaker 1: So he's able to separate the... And I saw you

429
00:22:48,560 --> 00:22:51,320
Speaker 1: did an interview where you said, in fact, you don't

430
00:22:51,359 --> 00:22:54,460
Speaker 1: think Trump actually wants a third term, that he's starting

431
00:22:54,540 --> 00:22:56,440
Speaker 1: to cycle out.

432
00:22:56,730 --> 00:23:02,550
Speaker 6: Well, so what I said was that the question was,

433
00:23:02,609 --> 00:23:04,090
Speaker 6: is he going to try for it? And I should

434
00:23:04,109 --> 00:23:09,570
Speaker 6: also note that constitutionally, he cannot. That would require a

435
00:23:09,630 --> 00:23:12,189
Speaker 6: change that is not going to happen. But just to

436
00:23:12,230 --> 00:23:12,610
Speaker 6: put in the.

437
00:23:12,580 --> 00:23:14,960
Speaker 1: World of like, That you say that just like with

438
00:23:14,980 --> 00:23:18,650
Speaker 1: the mail-in voting. Like these are not normal things that

439
00:23:18,730 --> 00:23:24,389
Speaker 1: normal presidents want to do. They are norm-crushing, Constitution-killing.

440
00:23:24,630 --> 00:23:26,770
Speaker 6: Well, and you could– look, you can get a change

441
00:23:26,810 --> 00:23:29,050
Speaker 6: to the Constitution. I mean there's plenty of histories of

442
00:23:29,150 --> 00:23:32,080
Speaker 6: constitutional amendments being changed as there was one added after

443
00:23:32,160 --> 00:23:34,980
Speaker 6: FDR so that now there's term limits. But that's not

444
00:23:35,000 --> 00:23:38,140
Speaker 6: going to happen right now. So what we're talking about

445
00:23:38,200 --> 00:23:40,300
Speaker 6: is this world that looks more like if it were

446
00:23:40,480 --> 00:23:44,240
Speaker 6: in the hypothetical– this world that would look more like,

447
00:23:45,100 --> 00:23:47,780
Speaker 6: you know, January 6th, 2021. And I don't mean the,

448
00:23:48,420 --> 00:23:50,740
Speaker 6: I don't mean the capital attack per se, but just

449
00:23:50,780 --> 00:23:52,400
Speaker 6: the idea of like, we're going to keep pushing these

450
00:23:52,420 --> 00:23:55,540
Speaker 6: various angles of how this might work. And so, and

451
00:23:55,560 --> 00:23:57,139
Speaker 6: you know, you hear Steve Bannon talk about that on

452
00:23:57,180 --> 00:24:00,020
Speaker 6: his show a lot. Often these things start out as

453
00:24:00,060 --> 00:24:03,149
Speaker 6: a troll by Trump and then his supporters take it

454
00:24:03,180 --> 00:24:06,850
Speaker 6: seriously and it runs forward. But my cast, so putting

455
00:24:06,880 --> 00:24:10,609
Speaker 6: that aside, I don't personally believe beyond trolling people and

456
00:24:10,630 --> 00:24:13,420
Speaker 6: knowing he's annoying them, and enjoying the hats and whatever,

457
00:24:13,440 --> 00:24:17,080
Speaker 6: and the merch. I don't believe that the president, and again,

458
00:24:17,400 --> 00:24:20,840
Speaker 6: I could be wrong. There's no X-Gym stone here. There's

459
00:24:20,880 --> 00:24:25,440
Speaker 6: just nothing based in my reporting to suggest that this

460
00:24:25,500 --> 00:24:28,780
Speaker 6: is actually something that Trump is actively thinking about, engaged in, whatever.

461
00:24:29,480 --> 00:24:35,520
Speaker 6: Because A, he's a lot older. B, he's got the

462
00:24:35,580 --> 00:24:43,990
Speaker 6: criminal protection that he didn't have before. He's made... $ 2. 2

463
00:24:41,130 --> 00:24:44,830
Speaker 6: billion in crypto alone. We don't know what else at

464
00:24:44,850 --> 00:24:50,439
Speaker 6: the moment. And he's wealthier by orders of magnitude than

465
00:24:50,460 --> 00:24:52,940
Speaker 6: he has been. And he is going to be the

466
00:24:52,980 --> 00:24:54,919
Speaker 6: dominant figure in his party until he is not on

467
00:24:54,960 --> 00:24:57,260
Speaker 6: this earth anymore. So that is what I meant when

468
00:24:57,280 --> 00:24:59,460
Speaker 6: I said he doesn't need it. If you think about

469
00:24:59,510 --> 00:25:03,210
Speaker 6: the two things that he really cares, three, power, money,

470
00:25:04,030 --> 00:25:06,629
Speaker 6: and attention, he's going to have the latter two no

471
00:25:06,650 --> 00:25:09,929
Speaker 6: matter what. And in terms of attention... He's shown he's

472
00:25:09,970 --> 00:25:12,210
Speaker 6: pretty good at maintaining it, even if he's not inside

473
00:25:12,230 --> 00:25:12,780
Speaker 6: the White House.

474
00:25:13,960 --> 00:25:19,360
Speaker 1: That Don Jr. wedding thing, where Don Jr., it's not

475
00:25:19,400 --> 00:25:23,560
Speaker 1: the wedding, it was the parties after the wedding. It

476
00:25:23,580 --> 00:25:27,450
Speaker 1: was the weekend after party after the wedding. Paid for

477
00:25:27,530 --> 00:25:31,950
Speaker 1: by a Russian oligarch. Ann Applebaum corrected me when I

478
00:25:31,990 --> 00:25:34,730
Speaker 1: was texting with her. She said, not an oligarch, but

479
00:25:34,970 --> 00:25:39,640
Speaker 1: actually a gangster. I'm not going to go that far.

480
00:25:39,700 --> 00:25:44,600
Speaker 1: But what do you think sort of like and then

481
00:25:44,700 --> 00:25:49,400
Speaker 1: Trump doesn't go, which feels like an intentional, you know,

482
00:25:49,540 --> 00:25:52,939
Speaker 1: like just talk me through what you think happened there. Yeah.

483
00:25:52,960 --> 00:25:54,369
Speaker 6: So, I mean, I don't I don't know what I

484
00:25:54,410 --> 00:25:56,730
Speaker 6: don't know. But what we do know is that the

485
00:25:56,750 --> 00:25:59,469
Speaker 6: president didn't go. We've never been entirely sure why. There

486
00:25:59,490 --> 00:26:01,330
Speaker 6: could have been a bunch of reasons. Here's what I

487
00:26:01,350 --> 00:26:04,550
Speaker 6: kept hearing from people in Trump world talking about this.

488
00:26:05,150 --> 00:26:07,609
Speaker 6: They couldn't get over it. They could not believe this happened.

489
00:26:07,630 --> 00:26:08,190
Speaker 5: Yeah.

490
00:26:08,890 --> 00:26:11,300
Speaker 6: They could not believe. And again, this isn't just Trump world.

491
00:26:11,320 --> 00:26:12,520
Speaker 6: This is also in the government.

492
00:26:12,940 --> 00:26:13,140
Speaker 4: Right.

493
00:26:13,220 --> 00:26:17,100
Speaker 1: It seems like like, you know, this administration has been

494
00:26:17,160 --> 00:26:20,179
Speaker 1: able to make money. The people, the principals have been

495
00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:23,080
Speaker 1: able to make money on astonishing levels. So why you

496
00:26:23,119 --> 00:26:25,680
Speaker 1: would do some a freebie from someone who is so

497
00:26:26,180 --> 00:26:27,240
Speaker 1: seems so nefarious?

498
00:26:27,320 --> 00:26:29,280
Speaker 6: Well, I'll get to that. But so and I don't

499
00:26:29,300 --> 00:26:32,400
Speaker 6: even know that they again, I'm not making excuses here.

500
00:26:32,500 --> 00:26:33,979
Speaker 6: I just think that's not always in the in the

501
00:26:34,740 --> 00:26:37,909
Speaker 6: there's a sort of a history issue. with people in

502
00:26:37,950 --> 00:26:41,830
Speaker 6: that family of not exactly vetting people the most deeply.

503
00:26:43,690 --> 00:26:50,950
Speaker 6: And there's plenty of documentation of that. But his wife

504
00:26:51,710 --> 00:26:54,450
Speaker 6: confirming it in this very long Instagram post was pretty

505
00:26:54,470 --> 00:26:55,910
Speaker 6: shocking to a lot of people in the White House.

506
00:26:57,760 --> 00:26:59,800
Speaker 6: And his wife, meaning Don Jr.

507
00:26:59,800 --> 00:27:00,190
Speaker 4: 's new wife.

508
00:27:00,460 --> 00:27:03,380
Speaker 6: But a lot of what we heard was what you

509
00:27:03,420 --> 00:27:09,090
Speaker 6: just said, which is, you know, You are worth X, Y, Z,

510
00:27:09,090 --> 00:27:12,730
Speaker 6: $ 100 million at this point. You've made a lot of

511
00:27:12,770 --> 00:27:15,709
Speaker 6: money in the last two years. Why can't you just

512
00:27:15,770 --> 00:27:20,810
Speaker 6: pay for it yourself? And the answer to that, at

513
00:27:20,850 --> 00:27:25,330
Speaker 6: least historically with the Trumps and certainly with President Trump

514
00:27:25,490 --> 00:27:30,090
Speaker 6: is he, let me put it this way. In 2015,

515
00:27:30,090 --> 00:27:33,619
Speaker 6: when he was looking at running and he hadn't yet

516
00:27:33,650 --> 00:27:36,570
Speaker 6: declared fully, I was talking to a longtime source in

517
00:27:36,609 --> 00:27:40,010
Speaker 6: New York, and the person said to me, you have

518
00:27:40,030 --> 00:27:43,830
Speaker 6: to remember that Donald, as this person knew him as,

519
00:27:45,330 --> 00:27:47,780
Speaker 6: often uses other people's money to pay for things. And

520
00:27:47,820 --> 00:27:49,340
Speaker 6: I said, what do you mean? And they started talking

521
00:27:49,380 --> 00:27:53,140
Speaker 6: about this guy, Stuart Rahr, who was known on page

522
00:27:53,200 --> 00:27:56,899
Speaker 6: six as Stewie Rahr, the king of fun. And he

523
00:27:57,020 --> 00:28:00,860
Speaker 6: helped fund, I think it was some of Trump's Iowa

524
00:28:01,240 --> 00:28:04,560
Speaker 6: trips in 2011. when there was this sort of like

525
00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:09,179
Speaker 6: competition between Michael Cohen and Roger Stone over who was

526
00:28:09,240 --> 00:28:12,480
Speaker 6: actually doing this, this campaign, there is a history of just,

527
00:28:12,700 --> 00:28:16,620
Speaker 6: you know, other people will pay for things when they can. And, um,

528
00:28:17,100 --> 00:28:19,699
Speaker 6: you know, and, and there are anyways, so I don't

529
00:28:19,740 --> 00:28:22,119
Speaker 6: want to say what I don't know, but like, but it's,

530
00:28:22,270 --> 00:28:27,190
Speaker 6: but regardless, like it was pretty shocking. And, um, There was,

531
00:28:28,560 --> 00:28:30,359
Speaker 6: as you say, financially hard to see why there was

532
00:28:30,380 --> 00:28:30,640
Speaker 6: a need.

533
00:28:30,740 --> 00:28:35,800
Speaker 1: It's interesting, though. Michael Cohen is now back in the fold.

534
00:28:36,580 --> 00:28:41,630
Speaker 1: Can you resistance hero back in the fold? What do

535
00:28:41,670 --> 00:28:44,630
Speaker 1: you just can you give me like what you think

536
00:28:44,690 --> 00:28:45,350
Speaker 1: is happening there?

537
00:28:46,800 --> 00:28:49,960
Speaker 6: What I think is happening is that... And then we're.

538
00:28:49,660 --> 00:28:52,030
Speaker 1: Almost out of time, I know. I have so many

539
00:28:52,070 --> 00:28:54,090
Speaker 1: things I want to ask you because you know a

540
00:28:54,110 --> 00:28:55,110
Speaker 1: lot of stuff.

541
00:28:55,190 --> 00:28:55,870
Speaker 5: I'll come back.

542
00:28:55,890 --> 00:28:59,550
Speaker 6: What I think is happening is that Michael Cohen and

543
00:28:59,810 --> 00:29:03,070
Speaker 6: Ben Protest, and I wrote about this during the trial, Omarosa,

544
00:29:03,150 --> 00:29:05,210
Speaker 6: who was close with Michael, I don't know if she

545
00:29:05,230 --> 00:29:08,080
Speaker 6: still is, but said, you know, Michael, if it was

546
00:29:08,130 --> 00:29:10,200
Speaker 6: up to Michael, he would never have left Trump World.

547
00:29:10,420 --> 00:29:12,080
Speaker 6: And that really was fundamentally true.

548
00:29:12,100 --> 00:29:12,640
Speaker 3: Right.

549
00:29:13,190 --> 00:29:15,050
Speaker 6: You know, he also did go to prison. He also

550
00:29:15,070 --> 00:29:17,340
Speaker 6: was one of the only people who went to prison. Now, granted,

551
00:29:17,940 --> 00:29:20,560
Speaker 6: it was the Trump government that put him back in

552
00:29:20,600 --> 00:29:24,780
Speaker 6: prison when he wanted to write his book. But, you know,

553
00:29:24,860 --> 00:29:27,760
Speaker 6: he he's he hoped he would get a pardon from

554
00:29:28,060 --> 00:29:28,900
Speaker 6: the Biden administration.

555
00:29:28,920 --> 00:29:29,300
Speaker 5: He didn't.

556
00:29:29,460 --> 00:29:32,030
Speaker 6: He's he appears to have put in a pardon now.

557
00:29:33,610 --> 00:29:36,170
Speaker 6: I think he just wants to be back. And I

558
00:29:36,250 --> 00:29:40,460
Speaker 6: think that the chance and I think for the Trump world, um, they,

559
00:29:40,760 --> 00:29:42,320
Speaker 6: and this isn't, I think, I mean, you can see

560
00:29:42,340 --> 00:29:46,760
Speaker 6: this in their court filings. They see his statements claiming

561
00:29:46,780 --> 00:29:50,080
Speaker 6: that he felt again, emphasis on felt, not that he

562
00:29:50,120 --> 00:29:53,840
Speaker 6: was coerced by prosecutors as a potential way to muddy

563
00:29:53,920 --> 00:29:57,450
Speaker 6: up what happened as they are trying to appeal the conviction. So, um,

564
00:29:59,490 --> 00:30:00,090
Speaker 6: So there you go.

565
00:30:00,850 --> 00:30:03,450
Speaker 1: Maggie Haberman, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

566
00:30:03,470 --> 00:30:04,150
Speaker 5: Don't smile.

567
00:30:04,630 --> 00:30:09,390
Speaker 1: Thanks. David Korn is the D.C. Bureau Chief of Mother

568
00:30:09,430 --> 00:30:12,500
Speaker 1: Jones and the author of How Russia Won, Donald Trump,

569
00:30:12,520 --> 00:30:17,760
Speaker 1: Vladimir Putin and the Fight for America. Welcome. Welcome, David Korn.

570
00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:19,480
Speaker 5: Glad to be here with you, Molly.

571
00:30:19,640 --> 00:30:22,720
Speaker 1: So the book is called How Russia Won. How did

572
00:30:22,740 --> 00:30:23,380
Speaker 1: Russia win?

573
00:30:23,540 --> 00:30:26,479
Speaker 5: Well, I couldn't call the book How Russia Won so far,

574
00:30:26,700 --> 00:30:29,000
Speaker 5: but it has won a lot over the last 10 years.

575
00:30:29,320 --> 00:30:32,050
Speaker 5: And what the book does, it looks at what has

576
00:30:32,090 --> 00:30:35,630
Speaker 5: happened after the 2016 election. We all know what happened

577
00:30:35,770 --> 00:30:38,330
Speaker 5: in 2016. Trump denies it, calls it Russia, Russia, Russia,

578
00:30:38,650 --> 00:30:41,070
Speaker 5: a hoax, a witch hunt. But there's plenty of evidence

579
00:30:41,110 --> 00:30:44,310
Speaker 5: that Russia attacked that election to help Trump win, also

580
00:30:44,370 --> 00:30:47,490
Speaker 5: to impede Hillary Clinton and to sow or exacerbate political

581
00:30:47,550 --> 00:30:51,030
Speaker 5: discord here in the United States. But it didn't stop there.

582
00:30:51,210 --> 00:30:54,710
Speaker 5: In 2020 and in 2024, as well as in the

583
00:30:55,060 --> 00:30:59,800
Speaker 5: midterm elections, Russia ran disinformation and influence operations to create

584
00:30:59,840 --> 00:31:03,760
Speaker 5: discord and again to help Trump to impede of Joe

585
00:31:03,780 --> 00:31:07,080
Speaker 5: Biden in 2020 and Kamala Harris in 2024. And so

586
00:31:07,100 --> 00:31:10,880
Speaker 5: what we have here is we've had a decade long war.

587
00:31:11,160 --> 00:31:15,410
Speaker 5: An information war, subterranean, clandestine, under the surface that Putin

588
00:31:15,430 --> 00:31:17,730
Speaker 5: has been waging against the United States, but also the

589
00:31:17,770 --> 00:31:22,010
Speaker 5: West at large. His geostrategic plan is to weaken liberal

590
00:31:22,090 --> 00:31:25,890
Speaker 5: democracies of the West and cause chaos and conflict within

591
00:31:26,210 --> 00:31:29,490
Speaker 5: the NATO alliance because he doesn't have the military superiority.

592
00:31:29,790 --> 00:31:33,090
Speaker 5: And he's done this with operations against England, against France,

593
00:31:33,130 --> 00:31:36,670
Speaker 5: against Moldova. against Poland, against Hungary. We're not alone, but

594
00:31:36,820 --> 00:31:39,940
Speaker 5: it's part of a grand plan. And Trump, by denying

595
00:31:39,960 --> 00:31:44,530
Speaker 5: what happened in 2016 and continuing his Russian denialism about

596
00:31:44,700 --> 00:31:49,530
Speaker 5: the subsequent operations against American politics, is basically surrendering in

597
00:31:49,570 --> 00:31:52,990
Speaker 5: this war. And aiding and abetting. He's aiding and abetting

598
00:31:53,230 --> 00:31:55,010
Speaker 5: what Putin is doing. And, you know, there was a

599
00:31:55,010 --> 00:31:57,210
Speaker 5: lot of talk about collusion in 2016. And if you

600
00:31:57,260 --> 00:32:00,340
Speaker 5: can't prove collusion, there's no scandal. But the scandal wasn't

601
00:32:00,380 --> 00:32:02,880
Speaker 5: that Trump was in the room with Russian operatives as

602
00:32:02,920 --> 00:32:07,580
Speaker 5: they pilfered documents from Democratic Party computers. The scandal was

603
00:32:07,640 --> 00:32:10,660
Speaker 5: that while Russia, a foreign adversary, was attacking this election,

604
00:32:10,880 --> 00:32:14,020
Speaker 5: he aided and abetted that attack. by denying it was happening,

605
00:32:14,100 --> 00:32:17,709
Speaker 5: by echoing Putin's denials, which he's done ever since. And

606
00:32:17,830 --> 00:32:21,290
Speaker 5: so that's, you know, giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

607
00:32:21,530 --> 00:32:24,370
Speaker 5: And that has continued as Russia has continued to attack.

608
00:32:24,550 --> 00:32:26,230
Speaker 5: So my book tells the story of what's happened over

609
00:32:26,250 --> 00:32:29,310
Speaker 5: the last 10 years and how Trump and all the

610
00:32:29,390 --> 00:32:33,440
Speaker 5: MAGA allies and House Republicans and Senate Republicans have all

611
00:32:33,480 --> 00:32:37,000
Speaker 5: become useful idiots for Putin joining with Trump and denying

612
00:32:37,280 --> 00:32:41,180
Speaker 5: this covert warfare is even happening and allowing Russia to

613
00:32:41,240 --> 00:32:45,160
Speaker 5: influence our police attempt to influence our elections. I break

614
00:32:45,220 --> 00:32:48,160
Speaker 5: news in the story in the book about relationships between

615
00:32:48,200 --> 00:32:52,860
Speaker 5: Paul Manafort, Trump's old campaign chairman, and a Russian intelligence officer,

616
00:32:53,280 --> 00:32:57,260
Speaker 5: Kash Patel, getting paid by a Russian propagandist before he

617
00:32:57,280 --> 00:33:00,400
Speaker 5: became FBI director, Rudy Giuliani working with a Russian agent

618
00:33:00,560 --> 00:33:02,440
Speaker 5: to smear Joe Biden in 2020. There's a lot of

619
00:33:02,460 --> 00:33:04,620
Speaker 5: skullduggery here. I mean, a lot of just good spy

620
00:33:04,660 --> 00:33:07,730
Speaker 5: stories that have gotten some attention in the press, but

621
00:33:07,930 --> 00:33:10,750
Speaker 5: not enough. And the big picture is has not been

622
00:33:10,790 --> 00:33:12,630
Speaker 5: knit together. We live in a world where we get

623
00:33:12,650 --> 00:33:16,270
Speaker 5: these little bite-sized impressions of a news story here, there, whatever,

624
00:33:16,510 --> 00:33:19,030
Speaker 5: and we often don't get to see the full breadth

625
00:33:19,090 --> 00:33:20,780
Speaker 5: of it. And that's what I've tried to do in

626
00:33:20,820 --> 00:33:23,719
Speaker 5: this book about this ongoing war of Putin's and waging

627
00:33:23,740 --> 00:33:26,820
Speaker 5: against Russia. And he's not responsible for Donald Trump becoming

628
00:33:27,020 --> 00:33:30,200
Speaker 5: president two times, but he helped each time. And what

629
00:33:30,240 --> 00:33:32,040
Speaker 5: happened is he got a guy in the White House who,

630
00:33:32,280 --> 00:33:36,100
Speaker 5: an agent of chaos, authoritarianism, who is almost blowing up NATO,

631
00:33:36,240 --> 00:33:40,510
Speaker 5: one of Putin's key goals, but also exacerbating political discord,

632
00:33:40,590 --> 00:33:44,110
Speaker 5: pre-existing political discord here in our country, and dumping on

633
00:33:44,150 --> 00:33:46,930
Speaker 5: our own elections, dumping on our own democracy. Putin's whole

634
00:33:46,970 --> 00:33:50,510
Speaker 5: thing is that democracy doesn't work. Being a strongman totalitarian

635
00:33:50,630 --> 00:33:52,290
Speaker 5: is the best you're going to get here, and that's

636
00:33:52,330 --> 00:33:54,890
Speaker 5: a good thing. So he's been trying to delegitimize and

637
00:33:54,930 --> 00:33:58,170
Speaker 5: discredit democracy, at least to a Russian audience and around

638
00:33:58,190 --> 00:34:00,670
Speaker 5: the world. And Trump is helping him do that. And

639
00:34:00,710 --> 00:34:03,580
Speaker 5: he's weakening the U.S. at large. I mean, you know,

640
00:34:03,800 --> 00:34:06,380
Speaker 5: with our alliance, the dollars may not end up being

641
00:34:06,420 --> 00:34:09,860
Speaker 5: the main currency. We have countries like Norway and Holland

642
00:34:09,980 --> 00:34:12,569
Speaker 5: pulling out their investments of the United States. I mean,

643
00:34:12,660 --> 00:34:16,790
Speaker 5: we're weakening our education system, our scientific research system. He's

644
00:34:16,830 --> 00:34:20,010
Speaker 5: doing a lot of things that's making life easier for Putin,

645
00:34:20,330 --> 00:34:22,910
Speaker 5: as well as what he's done with the Ukraine war.

646
00:34:23,190 --> 00:34:25,950
Speaker 5: Like he said, Putin has a free hand after saying

647
00:34:26,010 --> 00:34:28,399
Speaker 5: he could end it in 24 hours. You know, they

648
00:34:28,480 --> 00:34:30,400
Speaker 5: just had a meeting the other day with Putin and

649
00:34:30,420 --> 00:34:33,080
Speaker 5: they got absolutely no concessions out of him. And by

650
00:34:33,140 --> 00:34:36,299
Speaker 5: doing this, Putin is getting the upper hand. Trump is

651
00:34:36,520 --> 00:34:39,050
Speaker 5: basically on the side of Russia after it attacked a

652
00:34:39,110 --> 00:34:40,509
Speaker 5: Democratic ally of the United States.

653
00:34:40,530 --> 00:34:44,850
Speaker 1: Do you still think that Trump is still serving Putin's

654
00:34:44,930 --> 00:34:49,140
Speaker 1: interests or you think that it's more diffuse than that?

655
00:34:49,420 --> 00:34:51,600
Speaker 5: I think by and large, the answer is yes. And,

656
00:34:51,620 --> 00:34:53,880
Speaker 5: you know, in the book, I explore the relationship between

657
00:34:53,940 --> 00:34:56,319
Speaker 5: Trump and Putin over the years, which is no other

658
00:34:56,360 --> 00:34:58,840
Speaker 5: word for it other than bizarre. In 2013, when he

659
00:34:58,860 --> 00:35:02,430
Speaker 5: held the Miss Universe contest in Moscow, he asked, you know,

660
00:35:02,450 --> 00:35:04,770
Speaker 5: he tweeted, will Putin become my new best friend? And

661
00:35:04,810 --> 00:35:07,150
Speaker 5: while he was there, all he cared about, all he

662
00:35:07,210 --> 00:35:09,390
Speaker 5: obsessed about was whether he would meet with Putin or not,

663
00:35:09,610 --> 00:35:12,009
Speaker 5: a meeting that did not happen. But since then, he

664
00:35:12,050 --> 00:35:13,850
Speaker 5: has praised Putin again and again and again.

665
00:35:14,150 --> 00:35:17,080
Speaker 1: Do you think that's his strongman obsession? Like, he loves

666
00:35:17,160 --> 00:35:22,310
Speaker 1: Kim Jong-un, he loves Xi. Like, is that really about

667
00:35:22,350 --> 00:35:23,810
Speaker 1: Putin or is that about him?

668
00:35:23,989 --> 00:35:26,219
Speaker 5: For the book, I interviewed people who worked with Trump

669
00:35:26,260 --> 00:35:29,950
Speaker 5: in the first administration. And they were always puzzled by this.

670
00:35:30,140 --> 00:35:32,860
Speaker 5: Whenever they tried to talk to Trump about Putin sponsoring

671
00:35:32,900 --> 00:35:35,520
Speaker 5: murders in England and other things about what he was

672
00:35:35,540 --> 00:35:38,500
Speaker 5: doing in Ukraine at that point in time, Trump wouldn't listen,

673
00:35:38,640 --> 00:35:41,900
Speaker 5: wouldn't hear it. He always thought Putin was his pal

674
00:35:42,120 --> 00:35:44,560
Speaker 5: and would do what he wanted him to do, even

675
00:35:44,739 --> 00:35:47,080
Speaker 5: though he got played again and again. He's had this

676
00:35:47,280 --> 00:35:51,779
Speaker 5: deep-seated affinity or affection for Putin for years. And the

677
00:35:51,800 --> 00:35:54,450
Speaker 5: best explanation some of these folks came up with was

678
00:35:54,489 --> 00:35:57,650
Speaker 5: that he admired Putin because he's a strong man who

679
00:35:57,670 --> 00:36:00,270
Speaker 5: can do whatever he wants, which is obviously what Trump wants,

680
00:36:00,510 --> 00:36:03,450
Speaker 5: and also because he had billions and billions of dollars.

681
00:36:03,950 --> 00:36:06,180
Speaker 5: And it seems clear to me that when you look

682
00:36:06,200 --> 00:36:09,180
Speaker 5: at the Ukrainian war, the war in Ukraine, what concerns

683
00:36:09,260 --> 00:36:12,299
Speaker 5: Trump is not that Putin invaded an ally, and is

684
00:36:12,360 --> 00:36:16,120
Speaker 5: bombing civilian targets and kidnapping thousands of children. It's that

685
00:36:16,300 --> 00:36:19,010
Speaker 5: the war is getting in the way of Trump making

686
00:36:19,110 --> 00:36:22,470
Speaker 5: deals and working with Putin and striding the world together

687
00:36:22,510 --> 00:36:27,000
Speaker 5: as these powerful, rich, strong men, dictators, tyrants, whatever you

688
00:36:27,020 --> 00:36:29,340
Speaker 5: want to call it. And so the war in Ukraine

689
00:36:29,360 --> 00:36:33,830
Speaker 5: for Trump is a nuisance because it's blocking his BFF,

690
00:36:33,890 --> 00:36:37,450
Speaker 5: his man crush on Putin, which has been there for

691
00:36:37,530 --> 00:36:40,620
Speaker 5: a long time. And even in the past week, we

692
00:36:40,640 --> 00:36:45,120
Speaker 5: just had the G20 finance ministers come to Asheville, North Carolina,

693
00:36:45,480 --> 00:36:49,290
Speaker 5: and the G20 had basically kicked out Russia. because of

694
00:36:49,350 --> 00:36:52,130
Speaker 5: the war in Ukraine. And Trump, without telling anyone, invited

695
00:36:52,150 --> 00:36:56,030
Speaker 5: the finance minister from Russia. He just shows up. He

696
00:36:56,360 --> 00:36:58,640
Speaker 5: is doing this even as Putin is meeting with the

697
00:36:58,680 --> 00:37:01,060
Speaker 5: president of Iran and the news comes out that he's

698
00:37:01,320 --> 00:37:06,529
Speaker 5: sharing supersonic missile technology with Iran while we're supposedly in

699
00:37:06,550 --> 00:37:09,270
Speaker 5: a war with them. And then, you know, Witkoff, And

700
00:37:09,390 --> 00:37:12,810
Speaker 5: Kushner go to Moscow and they praise Putin and say

701
00:37:12,830 --> 00:37:15,989
Speaker 5: the dumbest things like, we understand your aspirations and we

702
00:37:16,010 --> 00:37:18,670
Speaker 5: want to help you reach your aspirations. This guy is

703
00:37:18,710 --> 00:37:20,630
Speaker 5: a war criminal to the rest of the world, the

704
00:37:20,670 --> 00:37:21,649
Speaker 5: rest of the Western world.

705
00:37:21,690 --> 00:37:22,009
Speaker 3: At least.

706
00:37:22,270 --> 00:37:25,069
Speaker 5: And they're praising him. And it's one thing if you

707
00:37:25,110 --> 00:37:28,090
Speaker 5: did that as a diplomatic tool to get some real

708
00:37:28,370 --> 00:37:31,650
Speaker 5: resolution to the horrific violence in Ukraine. But they walked

709
00:37:31,730 --> 00:37:34,470
Speaker 5: out of it. They got nothing again and again. Every

710
00:37:34,510 --> 00:37:36,420
Speaker 5: time they have a meeting with Putin, when Trump met

711
00:37:36,440 --> 00:37:39,860
Speaker 5: with Putin in Alaska about a year ago, he greeted

712
00:37:39,880 --> 00:37:42,040
Speaker 5: him like he was a comrade, an old friend. He

713
00:37:42,060 --> 00:37:44,520
Speaker 5: was so happy to see him. He was almost giggling.

714
00:37:44,920 --> 00:37:47,720
Speaker 5: And he said how how Putin wanted to end the war.

715
00:37:47,739 --> 00:37:49,400
Speaker 5: A simple way for him to end the war. He

716
00:37:49,420 --> 00:37:52,150
Speaker 5: could end the war. and how Putin wanted peace, and

717
00:37:52,310 --> 00:37:55,009
Speaker 5: they had a great relationship. And what Putin got was

718
00:37:55,270 --> 00:37:57,830
Speaker 5: all these pictures of him sharing the stage with the

719
00:37:57,850 --> 00:38:01,029
Speaker 5: American president when he's ostracized around the world. And at

720
00:38:01,050 --> 00:38:03,370
Speaker 5: the end of that meeting, what did Trump get out

721
00:38:03,410 --> 00:38:06,089
Speaker 5: of it? Bubkis. That's a technical diplomatic term.

722
00:38:06,350 --> 00:38:09,500
Speaker 1: You know, the question of collusion, the question of how

723
00:38:09,620 --> 00:38:13,240
Speaker 1: much Putin put his finger on the scale for Trump. Certainly,

724
00:38:13,280 --> 00:38:17,960
Speaker 1: there was a lot of Internet mishigas and probably the

725
00:38:17,980 --> 00:38:21,299
Speaker 1: DNC hack and WikiLeaks. But a lot of what you're

726
00:38:21,320 --> 00:38:26,180
Speaker 1: talking about, it seems like, is Trump just being incompetent, right?

727
00:38:26,219 --> 00:38:30,310
Speaker 1: Like sending the worst people to negotiate and then having

728
00:38:30,350 --> 00:38:31,210
Speaker 1: them get rolled.

729
00:38:31,450 --> 00:38:34,810
Speaker 5: Oh, I don't think it's incompetence as much as intention, because.

730
00:38:35,070 --> 00:38:37,690
Speaker 1: Do you really think that? I mean, I am as

731
00:38:38,010 --> 00:38:40,410
Speaker 1: anti-Trump as anyone, but it strikes me that.

732
00:38:40,430 --> 00:38:42,350
Speaker 5: I don't think they're trying to end the war. I

733
00:38:42,370 --> 00:38:45,420
Speaker 5: don't think they really care about that. They look, you know,

734
00:38:45,440 --> 00:38:46,940
Speaker 5: they care about in the sense that if the war

735
00:38:46,980 --> 00:38:50,500
Speaker 5: was over, then Woodcuff and Gerhard Kircher could do deals

736
00:38:50,580 --> 00:38:53,580
Speaker 5: about rare earth minerals with Russia and all that sort

737
00:38:53,600 --> 00:38:56,969
Speaker 5: of stuff. And they go on these missions with, it seems,

738
00:38:57,010 --> 00:39:00,029
Speaker 5: no clear strategic aim. And they're not using really the

739
00:39:00,110 --> 00:39:03,450
Speaker 5: power of the presidency to put any pressure on. I

740
00:39:03,469 --> 00:39:05,990
Speaker 5: think it's mainly for show at this point in time.

741
00:39:06,370 --> 00:39:09,140
Speaker 1: What I'm saying is in Trump 1.0, it struck me

742
00:39:09,180 --> 00:39:11,520
Speaker 1: that Trump was very weird with Putin in a way

743
00:39:11,560 --> 00:39:14,480
Speaker 1: he wasn't with others. And Trump 2.0, it strikes me

744
00:39:14,540 --> 00:39:17,900
Speaker 1: that Trump is not so, you know, like the incompetence

745
00:39:17,960 --> 00:39:22,710
Speaker 1: of the the Wyckoff, Jared combo going to countries and

746
00:39:22,790 --> 00:39:26,150
Speaker 1: not getting anything done doesn't strike me as necessarily being

747
00:39:26,489 --> 00:39:29,130
Speaker 1: on purpose as much as just incompetent.

748
00:39:29,290 --> 00:39:31,340
Speaker 5: I don't think it's me. exclusive. Let me put it

749
00:39:31,380 --> 00:39:34,020
Speaker 5: that way. You can have incompetence and intention at the

750
00:39:34,060 --> 00:39:37,219
Speaker 5: same time. The overall picture is that Trump really does

751
00:39:37,260 --> 00:39:39,719
Speaker 5: want to put pressure on Putin to end the war.

752
00:39:39,920 --> 00:39:42,140
Speaker 5: He just doesn't want to do that. He's shown that

753
00:39:42,260 --> 00:39:44,180
Speaker 5: time and time again. But he wants to make it

754
00:39:44,400 --> 00:39:48,260
Speaker 5: seem like he's doing something occasionally, although months go by

755
00:39:48,300 --> 00:39:50,650
Speaker 5: when he does nothing about the war in Ukraine. And

756
00:39:50,690 --> 00:39:54,030
Speaker 5: so when that comes about, he sends off Witkoff and Kushner.

757
00:39:54,270 --> 00:39:56,450
Speaker 5: I think Witkoff has been there eight or nine times

758
00:39:56,489 --> 00:40:01,240
Speaker 5: already and has actually achieved nothing. Not a single thing.

759
00:40:01,340 --> 00:40:03,560
Speaker 5: So I think it's because these guys are bad at

760
00:40:03,600 --> 00:40:07,299
Speaker 5: their job. But one reason he's sending people who are

761
00:40:07,340 --> 00:40:10,040
Speaker 5: bad at their job is because he doesn't really want

762
00:40:10,100 --> 00:40:11,700
Speaker 5: them to do anything that might matter.

763
00:40:11,940 --> 00:40:16,569
Speaker 1: Pause. Because he sends those two same people to Iran

764
00:40:16,690 --> 00:40:20,129
Speaker 1: and he desperately wants peace in Iran because then gas

765
00:40:20,170 --> 00:40:21,150
Speaker 1: prices will go down.

766
00:40:21,270 --> 00:40:24,790
Speaker 5: Well, yes, but he has different motivation with Iran, which

767
00:40:24,810 --> 00:40:26,890
Speaker 5: was the war he started. as opposed to the war

768
00:40:26,930 --> 00:40:28,980
Speaker 5: in Ukraine, which is a war he inherited. He has

769
00:40:29,020 --> 00:40:31,480
Speaker 5: different intentions with these guys when they go into the

770
00:40:31,500 --> 00:40:34,240
Speaker 5: Middle East and try to negotiate what should happen in Gaza.

771
00:40:34,420 --> 00:40:37,540
Speaker 1: I'm just saying they're not necessarily... Like, if you were

772
00:40:37,580 --> 00:40:40,660
Speaker 1: picking them for their incompetence and you wanted to end

773
00:40:40,680 --> 00:40:43,460
Speaker 1: the war in Iran, you wouldn't send them.

774
00:40:43,800 --> 00:40:46,590
Speaker 5: No, no, but if you don't care about really putting

775
00:40:46,680 --> 00:40:49,589
Speaker 5: pressure on Putin, and you don't really care about ending

776
00:40:49,630 --> 00:40:53,850
Speaker 5: the war there to save your democratic ally, Ukraine, you

777
00:40:53,870 --> 00:40:56,170
Speaker 5: send them too, because they don't know how to deal

778
00:40:56,190 --> 00:40:59,090
Speaker 5: with Putin, and he doesn't care about expertise in general

779
00:40:59,380 --> 00:41:01,620
Speaker 5: in any regard. Whatever he's trying to do, whether it's

780
00:41:01,739 --> 00:41:05,299
Speaker 5: success with Iranian negotiations or anything with Putin, he doesn't

781
00:41:05,320 --> 00:41:08,279
Speaker 5: believe in expertise, so he sends these clowns that don't

782
00:41:08,340 --> 00:41:10,899
Speaker 5: get anything done. But, you know, I think the big

783
00:41:11,020 --> 00:41:14,670
Speaker 5: picture here... is that for 10 years, you know, for

784
00:41:14,730 --> 00:41:17,230
Speaker 5: those years he was not in office, I do think

785
00:41:17,390 --> 00:41:21,330
Speaker 5: this relationship with Putin and what Putin has done to

786
00:41:21,630 --> 00:41:25,370
Speaker 5: influence American politics has, you know, it's not the whole story,

787
00:41:25,430 --> 00:41:27,720
Speaker 5: but it's a big story of the Trump era. What

788
00:41:27,760 --> 00:41:31,380
Speaker 5: he did in 2016 was a factor. Not the factor,

789
00:41:31,420 --> 00:41:34,379
Speaker 5: but an A factor in helping Trump win. And they

790
00:41:34,440 --> 00:41:36,910
Speaker 5: try to do the same thing with disinformation and influence

791
00:41:36,969 --> 00:41:40,029
Speaker 5: operations in 2020 and 2024. And they're very hard to

792
00:41:40,070 --> 00:41:43,050
Speaker 5: measure what has an impact. But in 2024, one of

793
00:41:43,090 --> 00:41:46,339
Speaker 5: the disinformation campaigns that they ran... that was seen by

794
00:41:46,540 --> 00:41:49,680
Speaker 5: tens of millions, tens of millions of Americans, claimed that

795
00:41:49,780 --> 00:41:53,040
Speaker 5: Tim Walz, the Democratic running mate to Kamala Harris, had

796
00:41:53,060 --> 00:41:55,580
Speaker 5: inappropriately touched a high school student when he was a

797
00:41:55,620 --> 00:41:57,920
Speaker 5: teacher back in the day. And this was totally false.

798
00:41:57,960 --> 00:42:00,700
Speaker 5: It was all Russian-generated. And it got into social media

799
00:42:00,760 --> 00:42:04,250
Speaker 5: feeds across America. Tens of millions of people saw that.

800
00:42:04,390 --> 00:42:06,790
Speaker 5: Didn't make a difference. Would she have won, lost? Either way,

801
00:42:06,810 --> 00:42:08,950
Speaker 5: it was a close election. But they did other things

802
00:42:09,010 --> 00:42:11,850
Speaker 5: like that, that, you know, hundreds of millions of impressions

803
00:42:11,890 --> 00:42:14,770
Speaker 5: being created. And the bottom line isn't whether, you know,

804
00:42:14,790 --> 00:42:17,029
Speaker 5: you can't measure whether this made a difference. But what

805
00:42:17,070 --> 00:42:20,469
Speaker 5: it does tell you, without doubt, is that Putin wanted

806
00:42:20,570 --> 00:42:23,860
Speaker 5: Trump to win in 2020 and 2024, as he did

807
00:42:23,980 --> 00:42:26,200
Speaker 5: in 2016. So he's been out there all this time

808
00:42:26,400 --> 00:42:29,719
Speaker 5: trying to affect our elections. And he wants Trump in

809
00:42:29,760 --> 00:42:32,660
Speaker 5: the presidency. And other people have said, you know, whether

810
00:42:32,700 --> 00:42:34,580
Speaker 5: or not Trump is or isn't an asset, I don't

811
00:42:34,760 --> 00:42:37,080
Speaker 5: claim that he is. would he be doing anything different

812
00:42:37,200 --> 00:42:40,700
Speaker 5: than if he were not? He's still taking stands that

813
00:42:40,739 --> 00:42:43,770
Speaker 5: are much to Russia's benefit. And as you note, he's

814
00:42:43,850 --> 00:42:47,430
Speaker 5: treating Putin unlike any other person out there. He has

815
00:42:47,610 --> 00:42:51,810
Speaker 5: terrible nicknames even for his friends. He even will chide

816
00:42:51,989 --> 00:42:55,259
Speaker 5: Kim Jong-un as Little Rocket Man and then make nice

817
00:42:55,280 --> 00:42:58,180
Speaker 5: with him. He's never done that, anything of the sort

818
00:42:58,239 --> 00:43:01,380
Speaker 5: like that with Putin. So the book, Russia, sort of

819
00:43:01,460 --> 00:43:04,239
Speaker 5: knits us all together and shows that we're already part

820
00:43:04,260 --> 00:43:07,670
Speaker 5: of this. It's a 10-year-long story that still remains a

821
00:43:07,830 --> 00:43:11,250
Speaker 5: little bit of a puzzlement about what's up between Trump

822
00:43:11,290 --> 00:43:13,930
Speaker 5: and Putin. I think it does explain a lot of

823
00:43:13,969 --> 00:43:15,290
Speaker 5: what's happened with American politics.

824
00:43:15,310 --> 00:43:17,570
Speaker 1: David Korn, thank you. Thank you.

825
00:43:17,710 --> 00:43:18,669
Speaker 5: Great to be with you, Molly.

826
00:43:21,010 --> 00:43:23,650
Speaker 3: And now your moment of suffering.

827
00:43:23,830 --> 00:43:24,910
Speaker 1: Jesse Cannon.

828
00:43:25,170 --> 00:43:29,630
Speaker 2: My junk fast. So AI and data centers are really,

829
00:43:29,750 --> 00:43:33,839
Speaker 2: really becoming the big, big issue of the midterms. And

830
00:43:34,080 --> 00:43:37,780
Speaker 2: since Trump's investments, along with his sons, are in AI,

831
00:43:37,980 --> 00:43:41,080
Speaker 2: they are totally resisting the calls for a slowdown of

832
00:43:41,239 --> 00:43:42,120
Speaker 2: AI productivity.

833
00:43:42,320 --> 00:43:46,759
Speaker 1: Yeah. So conflict of interest. Thy name is Trump. Basically,

834
00:43:46,780 --> 00:43:49,109
Speaker 1: this is what you thought would happen, right, is that

835
00:43:49,250 --> 00:43:51,750
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is invested in a sector. He wants to

836
00:43:51,790 --> 00:43:55,489
Speaker 1: make money. Ergo, there have been other theories that I

837
00:43:55,550 --> 00:43:57,810
Speaker 1: read this week from The Washington Post and The Wall

838
00:43:57,830 --> 00:44:00,529
Speaker 1: Street Journal that Donald Trump was worried that an AI

839
00:44:00,570 --> 00:44:03,299
Speaker 1: slowdown might cause a recession and that would be bad

840
00:44:03,340 --> 00:44:06,319
Speaker 1: for his presidency. But this actually makes more sense if

841
00:44:06,340 --> 00:44:08,839
Speaker 1: you think of the way Trump has been behaving, which

842
00:44:08,900 --> 00:44:11,779
Speaker 1: is that he doesn't really take what the financial environment

843
00:44:12,020 --> 00:44:14,840
Speaker 1: is as long as it benefits him and his kids

844
00:44:15,050 --> 00:44:18,630
Speaker 1: and really just him. So this actually makes more sense.

845
00:44:19,170 --> 00:44:22,070
Speaker 1: And this is why we should not allow our electeds

846
00:44:22,170 --> 00:44:24,969
Speaker 1: to invest in anything. They should not have stocks. They

847
00:44:24,989 --> 00:44:27,870
Speaker 1: should not have bonds. They should not have kids who

848
00:44:27,910 --> 00:44:32,180
Speaker 1: work as lobbyists. Like, period, paragraph. Like, that is it.

849
00:44:32,480 --> 00:44:35,580
Speaker 1: We should have people who work in our government who

850
00:44:35,640 --> 00:44:39,600
Speaker 1: serve us. And that is it. That's it for this

851
00:44:39,760 --> 00:44:46,140
Speaker 1: episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday,

852
00:44:46,340 --> 00:44:50,219
Speaker 1: and Saturday to hear the best minds in politics make

853
00:44:50,320 --> 00:44:54,339
Speaker 1: sense of all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast,

854
00:44:54,760 --> 00:44:58,190
Speaker 1: please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.

855
00:44:58,590 --> 00:44:59,730
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.