Episode 2765 CWSA 03⧸01⧸25
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
148.64236
Summary
On today's show, Alex takes a look at the latest in the Trump administration, including the firing of Stephen K.C. Zelensky, the White House egg roll, and the Epstein scandal. Plus, a look back at the first lady's Easter egg roll.
Transcript
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Bubbles that nobody can even understand with their tiny, shiny human brains.
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And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine at the end of the day,
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Well, after the show will be a Spaces event with, hosted by Owen Gregorian,
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if you want to talk some more about whatever happened here or, I suppose,
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So right after the show, look for Owen Gregorian and a Spaces event.
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Well, First Lady Melania Trump has announced she's going to be doing an Easter egg roll.
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You know, they always do that at the White House, an Easter egg roll.
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But I remember the days when I used to do Easter egg events when I was a kid, and it was always about the money.
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You know, if you found an egg of a certain type, you'd get a certain amount of money.
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But I think if I went to the White House egg roll, I would just, like, grab the eggs and run away, maybe resell them.
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Maybe Doge found enough money so they can afford eggs now.
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Meanwhile, core inflation has dropped to a seventh-month low of 2.6.
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Core inflation is the one you don't care about because it doesn't include food or energy,
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Well, at least the rest of the stuff isn't going up too much.
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Meanwhile, let's talk about all those Epstein files we've seen.
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And I'm going to say again, I realize Cash Patel did some kind of a post the other day,
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Do you think there's anything going to happen on these Epstein files?
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I'm going to double down on my prediction and say that no matter how well-intentioned
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the administration is, no matter how much they really, really mean it,
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and they're not lying, I don't think there's any chance.
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I don't think there's any chance we'll see any, you know, good Epstein stuff.
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So, you probably have all seen by now the video of the Zelensky debacle, some say, in the White
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You know, I hate it when something happens right after my show, and then I have to wait
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all day to talk about it, and everybody's already picked it over, so there's not much to say.
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But I'll just say this, two reality TV stars who both became presidents walked into the White
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These are two experts at making a spectacle in front of a crowd.
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I mean, they're the most experienced spectacle making put on the show.
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And it's funny that when it was over, Trump, you know, looked at the media and said, you
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So, I think a lot of people are confusing the show with anything that matters in the real
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And I think the show is really fun, and probably in the end, none of it will matter in the real
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It looks a lot like an episode of The Apprentice, didn't it, where Zelensky was, you know, basically
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getting fired by Trump and kicked out of the White House.
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So, anyway, what Bannon was saying, and some others have said, I don't know the details,
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but apparently Zelensky was getting some advice from other senators.
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And I guess he had a breakfast that day with some rhinos, and there's an indication that
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maybe Susan Rice was advising him, which some would say would be a violation of the Logan
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Act, where you're not supposed to be negotiating for the United States unless you're in the
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Yes, it sort of looked like he was a little emboldened, like he could push Trump a little
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So, I guess the big problem is that Zelensky agreed to this mineral deal, which seems like
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it was, you know, part of a larger package, which we don't know about yet.
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But then he gets there, and he says he doesn't necessarily want a ceasefire.
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He wants a security deal, and that wasn't part of the deal.
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So, he made the mistake of trying to negotiate with Trump and J.D. Vance while indicating to
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them and to the world, right in front of them, that maybe they didn't understand the risk
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Well, so J.D. Vance goes first and, you know, starts dressing him down in the public for
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not being thankful enough and trying to come to the White House and being a little bit
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But once J.D. Vance lit into him, you knew that Trump would have to double it, which he
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And by the way, Trump is the best talkover debater I've ever heard.
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He can talk over somebody as long as it takes until they just give up.
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He and Zelensky tried to talk over each other, and Trump just wasn't going to lose that.
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Now, I'm going to keep talking until you shut up.
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And he just talked over him, and you didn't hear anything that Zelensky said for like two
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And finally, Zelensky just gave up because he couldn't even hear what he was saying.
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And then Trump went on, and that's what happened.
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Anyway, when Zelensky said that, you know, Trump might feel different or feel differently
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when Putin crosses the ocean someday and comes for them, and Trump says, don't tell me what
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You don't have the right to tell me what I feel.
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So, basically, it looked like Zelensky was criticizing Vance and Trump for either not doing enough
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or not understanding the real threat with Putin that you can't appease him.
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But, so he kicks Zelensky out, and, you know, I thought there was some chance he might come
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He's already going off to Great Britain, Zelensky has.
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Now, I'm going to judge this whole event on at least two dimensions.
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I felt proud to be an American and have my president not take shit in the Oval, well,
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I just liked that Vance and Trump weren't putting up with it.
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In big deals like this, whether it's a merger or any kind of really big deal, it's pretty
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And it's pretty common if they both want the deal, and there's a deal to be had, and it's
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The one thing that people say about Trump that's meant to be an insult is that he's transactional,
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meaning that he would immediately get over his feelings if there was a deal, because he'd
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So, the funny part, oh, even Lindsey Graham sided with Trump.
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Now, Lindsey Graham is sort of a famous Ukraine war hawk, has been supporting cranes, getting
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But even Lindsey Graham said that he was a strong advocate for Zelensky in Ukraine, but
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he said he was devastated by Zelensky's behavior and that undoes all the hard work of recent
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years, and he suggests that Ukrainian people find a new leader, and he praised Trump for
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But remember I told you that, well, James Garville told you, and then I told you what James Garville
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said, that the Democrat's strategy now is to wait for Trump to make a mistake, because
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So, literally, they're going to wait for Trump to make mistakes, and then they can attack
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So, that means that they're going to define everything that Trump does as a mistake.
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But they're not going to put up with anything he does at all.
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Well, look at how he walked across the lawn with that chaos legs.
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But the funny part is watching the theater kids on the Democrats, because they have to
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pretend that they don't understand the situation, and that they feel really bad.
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You need to look at the, there's some copilations of people on MSNBC pretending to be very sad about
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this event, and they all have the, hmm, oh, oh, oh, face, oh, oh, I'm so sad, oh, my country
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got embarrassed, oh, oh, and they're competing to see who could do the most theater kid thing.
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He goes, and opposed to the next, he says, I love my country with all my heart, and I've
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never been more embarrassed for America than the spectacle I just witnessed in the Oval
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This is one of the guys who supported Joe Biden through four years of obvious dementia.
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And then we all found out that they all knew it, and they were all covering it up.
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What is it that makes you embarrassed, David Axelrod?
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It makes you embarrassed when the president of the United States stands up to some pissant
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But keeping a mentally deficient president in the office while nobody knew who was in charge,
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lying to the world, and then getting caught because he does the debate, and it became obvious
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that he wasn't there, none of that was embarrassing, nothing, but this.
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No, none of this is real, meaning that the Democrats are pretending to be terribly upset.
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Anyway, in my opinion, Putin probably should not increase his military attacks.
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He probably doesn't want to do a ceasefire unilaterally, but if Putin is smart, he's already got a little
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bit of a win, so he should just play it really cool and still look for some way to end the war.
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But as long as this deal ever made sense, and I'm not sure it did because I don't know the deal,
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but if the deal ever made sense and Zelensky ever liked it, just the mineral part, then it'll get done.
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I mean, it might take a while or whatever, but if they both want it, the fact that they had a little dust up
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Now, let me put this back in the context of the reality TV stars.
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If this were a reality TV show, how would it end?
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It would almost certainly end with the two combatants, three if you count J.D. Vance,
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doing another public event because you would have to tune in.
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You'd be like, oh, my God, it's going to happen again.
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But this time, maybe they just signed the deal.
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So I don't think you can discount that you have two individuals who operate at the highest level
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And the fact that they put on a tremendous show, everybody was entertained,
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If I had to predict, I would say if it was ever a good deal, and that's a big if,
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But if they both liked it at one point, it'll get done.
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And it'll be another reality TV biggest ratings for a political event of all time.
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If I had to guess, there's no lasting impact on the real world.
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One of the things Trump said was that Trump and Putin
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went through a lot together with the Russia collusion hoax.
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So people said, my God, do you love Putin or what?
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Why are you saying that you went through a lot together?
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Putin is trying to flatter and, let's say, pace Trump,
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Trump is trying to flatter and pace and tell him he's a friend to Putin,
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Both of them are operating at the highest level of persuasion.
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Trump is the best when it comes to this, but Putin's in the same weight class, right?
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So what we're watching is that there might be some larger deal that Trump wants to do with Russia.
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But it's funny that we talk about Russia as our enemy
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when China, Mexico, and Canada are poisoning us with fentanyl and Russia isn't.
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He wants to conquer some of those countries and maybe all of Europe
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for the greater good of, I don't know, who knows what he really wants.
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Who's been a bigger pain in the ass to us lately, Ukraine or Russia?
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Well, our money is going to Ukraine and it's dividing the country.
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So it's hard to talk about it without being called a Putin lover
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You know, Democrats, if you say anything they don't like,
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Oh, oh, I see you want to have oral sex with Putin is what you're saying.
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So it's just the latest stupid Democrat thing to say.
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Wait till Democrats are other people too, I guess.
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Wait till they find out who we partnered with in World War II.
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So the dumb people, the people who, I don't know,
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Their argument is that the only people we should be nice to
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we shouldn't be nice to them or work with them or do deals with them.
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If they didn't exist, well, that would be great advice.
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And they have access to huge amounts of energy, which matters.
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And sometimes we have, you know, things we disagree with and sometimes we agree.
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So if you can't work with dictators and democracies, you're just a crippled government.
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You would be a government that just can't do anything because there are so many dictators.
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And by the way, the democracies we're talking about are the ones trying to censor Americans
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I don't know that Trump has ever, I don't know that Putin has ever tried to censor me.
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But Europe has caused some really damn problems.
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I still blame the UK for whatever happened with that Russia collusion thing,
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because there were just too many British people involved in that whole deal.
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I would say maybe our friends are kind of a problem too.
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You know, not as big a problem as, you know, maybe Russia, if you want to rank it.
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If the only way that Ukraine were going to be protected from any further onslaught by Russia,
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if the only thing that would be protecting them is America's contribution and weapons and stuff,
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does Trump's idea of just doing a mineral deal with no security guarantees,
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does that mean that you basically were giving away Ukraine and it's not ours to give away?
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Although you could argue that we did overthrow Ukraine and install a puppet,
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and maybe it was ours at one point, and maybe we do kind of own it.
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So, anyway, how does it work that Putin would not attack Ukraine
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If we didn't have military assets there, is it just the risk that we would turn on the flow of money
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See, Trump has made the claim that there wouldn't have been a war if he had been president.
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But he also makes the claim that if he makes a peace, it will hold, again,
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because of the force of his personality and whatever relations he's created with Putin.
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Do you believe that if Trump is president, he could do an adequate risk assessment and threat
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This is really not the time to get adventurous.
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Because we're sort of getting along, and I don't really need to own Poland.
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And, all right, what happens when Trump leaves?
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Is Putin going to be held in check because he either respects the new president
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So, I do think that Trump needs to do a better job
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and why anything that we're involved in would keep Putin from taking the rest of Ukraine
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Now, you might say, Scott, it'll never be underfunded because Europe can just step up.
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They can put a massive amount of money in there to replace whatever money we were given.
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If Europe wants to be paying nearly all of it, and we're just out from the funding perspective,
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but, you know, maybe we sell weapons to Europe to give to them or something, that would be fine.
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Well, a million dead Russians, that is a domestic problem for Putin,
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but it's not like he's going to, you know, be kicked out of office.
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of describing what the future of Ukraine looks like
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if the only security guarantees are no security guarantees.
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And so, Russia wouldn't dare attack your country
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Now, I told you before that the real secret of this negotiation
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you know, on all levels, militarily, energy-wise, economically?
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We don't know what any kind of a deal would look like.
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Isn't Putin better off consolidating his gains?
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So, a good agreement would be good for everybody
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Here's what Fareed Zakaria said on Real Time last night.
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He basically jokingly said that Zelensky's mistake
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To which I say, what kind of an analysis is that?
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So, I would say that maybe he didn't have to offer anything
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Claudia was leaving for her pickleball tournament.
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and she was on her way in a rental car in no time.
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So, their headline for their editorial on this is,
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Putin wins the Trump-Zelensky Oval Office spectacle.
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and the Russians thought it was great entertainment,
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I don't think it'll really affect the real world.
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I don't think it'll change what would have been their funding,
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because Trump wanted to get out of that anyway.
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That's just the worst way to look at a three-way negotiation,
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without any reference to the things that happened
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Do you think J.D. Vance should have just sat there
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do you think they should have let him lecture them