105. How Putin is Playing Trump

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There's fake news out there, ladies and gentlemen.

Let me set the record straight.

There's tremendous amounts of crime, chaos, and dysfunction in D.C.

The Smithsonian Museum is pushing divisive on-American ideas and the job numbers.

Everybody knows this, especially people on Wall Street.

They're coming out of the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, totally rigged.

Anthony, Antony, Antony, wake up.

Wake up.

What's going on?

Wait a minute.

That must have been a fever dream, Caddy.

I'm sorry.

I thought I was Trump's 2025 comms director.

Just kidding.

Today, we're going to be diving headfirst into the ever-expanding universe of Trump's fake news rhetoric.

But first, we're going to talk about what we might expect from this upcoming summit that is going to happen in Alaska with President Putin on Friday.

I'm going to give you a second to recover from that nightmare that you just lived through, Anthony.

I can't believe that.

Caddy, I'm sorry.

I see you getting anxious.

I'm sweating, Caddy.

I'm sweating.

I have my fine.

We got forehead sweat.

I'm glistening here.

I need cover-up.

Makeup.

Makeup.

But let's talk about Russia and Putin because this is interesting.

A lot has happened since you and I last spoke in terms of what's come out of the White House and the news that we're getting about what they're going to talk about.

We're recording this on Thursday morning.

They will be meeting in just over 24 hours' time in Anchorage, Alaska, at an Air Force base.

The White House has spent the last couple of days quite obviously and dramatically revising down expectations.

A week ago, there was Donald Trump saying he thought he could get a deal out of this, that he was proposing this as something that would lead him straight, I think, to that Nobel Peace Prize podium.

Now they're saying that the president is in listening mode, and the people actually that he has been listening to before going to Alaska have been the Europeans and Vladimir Zelensky.

The Europeans came out of a kind of emergency summit that was gathered by Chancellor Mertz of Germany with Zelensky there and Zelensky with more positive views of this.

They think they have got Trump and corralled him to get on board with them with these five principles that would guarantee that Ukraine is at the table when it comes to any kind of peace negotiations around territory.

But I think there is still quite a lot of concern that Donald Trump flies into Alaska, meets without people who are experts in this field and know the details of this field, and gets kind of bamboozled by Putin, who is a kind of, you know, master wizard of Oz type character at this.

He's a great strategist.

He does know the details.

He knows exactly what he wants, whereas it's not really clear what Donald Trump wants.

So Putin goes into this with a lot of clarity and a lot of force, and he will try to win Donald Trump back.

He's aware that Donald Trump has been cooling on him a little bit.

And I think the nightmare scenario, right, is that he goes into this meeting, Donald Trump, and Putin presents to him, I don't know, all of these business opportunities for the Trump family or all these business opportunities for the United States in Russia.

And that means means that Donald Trump is back in Camp Putin again.

What do you think is the best case scenario, Anthony?

This is weird for me, this topic, because there's no logic to this topic.

So this is why I'm in the lying fired loser category.

I don't know if you saw that Truth Social,

but Trump is watching Ambassador John Bolton, his former national security advisor,

explain to people how he's about to get played by Putin.

And of course, that's infuriating him.

So he's saying that we're a group of lying-fired losers.

So I, you know, I would wear that distinction as a badge of honor.

But none of this makes sense to me because if you read our briefings and you understand the threat from Putin, and I just got back from Norway, and just a reminder, you know, Finland and Sweden, 80 years of NATO, not in NATO.

Okay, or 79 years into NATO.

And in the 80th year, excuse me, we would like to be in NATO.

So people don't think there's a threat from the Russians and threat from Vladimir Putin.

It's just absolutely absurd.

And of course, the MAGA people don't think that.

So my position on this is I'm absolutely confident that Trump wants to do business with Putin.

He wants to relax the sanctions, the economic sanctions on Russia.

And he wants to build a Trump tower in Moscow.

And when Trump was with Putin in Helsinki, we're going all the way back to 2018,

one of the things he talked to Putin about was real estate and doing real estate deals in Moscow.

And I think it even took the Russians aback, like, okay, we're sitting here talking to the supposed president of the United States, but he's more interested in the commercial opportunities to do real estate deals in Moscow.

So to me, I will continue to maintain this until proven otherwise.

Something's afoot between the two of them.

We do know that

he bought a mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, and he flipped that mansion approximately 10 years ago for 150% over the market price to a Russian oligarch.

And so when I sit here and look at all this stuff, as a skeptic, I say, hey, where there's smoke, there is fire, there's a connectivity, there's a tie into this.

What does Trump want out of this?

Again, these are my opinions, but I know him, so I'm just going to tell you what he wants out of it.

He wants to come out of there with a deal that Zelensky is not going to like, but that he thinks he can shove on NATO.

So I guarantee he'll be in a meeting with Vladimir Putin on Friday saying, okay,

what is the maximum that you're willing to take?

I'm not going to push you, Vlad, because I'm owned by you.

So what's the maximum?

And then he's going to go to NATO and he's going to try to push them to get Zelensky degree to that.

So I don't know if it's a land swap.

I don't know if it's we're going to redistrict the borders.

And then the secondary thing will be I want to open up the economy, our economy and their economy.

That's interesting.

It's interesting that you point out the economy because I had a conversation with somebody very senior in European intelligence ahead of this podcast who said that the thing that the press is missing is that what Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin want to talk about apart from Ukraine, which they probably actually don't want to talk about very much, but what they really want to talk about are the broader issues around U.S.-Russia relationships.

And that includes a lot of economic issues.

And whether that is deals for the Trump family, like you say, a Trump Tower in Moscow, or whether it is

opening up the Russian oil and gas sector to American companies, it's a sector that needs a lot of investment in infrastructure and technological know-how, which of course American companies have, and they could then have access to those oil and gas fields.

Is that the kind of thing that actually Donald Trump really wants to talk about?

And when it comes to Ukraine and I agree with you that Donald Trump has sold properties to Russians around the world over the years and does he think that comes with no quid pro quo I mean does he think that is just a deal that you do even if you sell it at an inflated price like in Mar-a-Lago and there is no payback that comes with that I am not hearing from people in the intelligence community either here or in Europe or in the UK

that they think there is something specific that Putin has on Donald Trump.

They push back against that.

Now, maybe that's just because it's far too sensitive a subject, but they do think that these money deals have given, and that there is just genuinely an admiration for the way that Putin does business and that Putin has the kind of power that Donald Trump would like to have.

I think the ideal scenario from my conversations would be that Trump goes in and makes Vladimir Putin promise to a certain set of conditions, whether it is stopping attacks on

civilians, which we've seen Donald Trump doesn't like and Melania Trump doesn't seem to like, or whether it is stopping attacks on the whole infrastructure, the energy infrastructure that Russia has been attacking, especially ahead of the winter.

That would be a problem for the Ukrainians.

Those are the kinds of things that you could measure.

And then you could come back in six months and say, hold on a second, Putin, or in six weeks and say, but you agreed to these things and you haven't stuck to them and there will be retaliation.

But the number of times Donald Trump has said to Putin, you know, if you don't agree to a ceasefire,

if you don't sit at the table, if you don't stop the fighting, there'll be more sanctions.

And so far, apart from the threat of tariffs, secondary tariffs against India, there just hasn't been much retaliation against Russia.

I mean, it's interesting that so, you know this, okay, from the comms side, from working in the White House, Anthony, the fact that it was Kremlin that wanted this meeting, the fact that it is from the Kremlin that we hear news that there's going to be a press conference, that's significant, right?

It's not the White House saying that we really want a meeting.

It's not the White House saying there's going to be a press conference.

It feels like the Russians are setting the agenda.

And that makes me think they're feeling pretty confident going into this.

Okay, so, and again, I don't want to overly push back on these intelligence people that you talk to, but Trump does not give a shit about the intelligence people.

Trump has fired all the Russian experts.

He frankly doesn't want people to know how close he is to the Russians and what he's done with the Russians.

Again, I just want to remind everybody, in 2012, 13, 14, when they were going to Moscow with a beauty pageant, Trump's children, Donald Trump Jr., said, Yeah, we get most of our money to finance our company from Russia.

They then subsequently denied that in 2016.

They're very good at this.

We're not going to use 2025.

We don't even know who wrote it.

And now we're going down the list systematically using 2025.

So this altering world universe that you're talking about, Earth 1 and Earth 2, they get away with it.

They've created a reality distortion field around them.

And by the way, going into this summit, they are also doing something, which is that they are making a push on the ground militarily in order to go into the summit to say, actually, we are the ones in the dominant position.

Ukraine has a lot to lose.

It is in Ukraine's vested interest to negotiate a land swap now rather than in three months when they're in a weaker position.

So they're playing a smart hand going into this summit.

from their point of view.

But let's also provide some historical context of the way the Russians think.

Okay, they had a a massive battle.

We'll call it a battle.

Some would say war with the Finns in the 1940s.

They then had an armistice in 1944 where the Finns ended up giving up 12% of their land.

So the Russians did a land grab on Finland 80 years ago.

So this is consistent with the way the Russians think.

So they're not leaving that summit without wanting a land grab.

Remember, these guys are not dummies and they have legacy and they have culture in their politics.

And so, if Stalin grabbed 12% of Finland, me, Vladimir Putin, who I'm better than Stalin and Peter the Great, I would like to take the land that I've conquered from Ukraine.

And by the way, Trump sent out Matthew Whitaker, the ambassador to NATO, who's on Fox News with talking points saying that conquered land is conquered land.

I mean, it sounded like he was talking about the Roman Empire when he was out there, as opposed to the rules-based World War II order, the post-World War II order that we set up.

One question on that, because do you think this is about territory and a land swap on what is agreed in Alaska?

Although they've now, you know, from what the Europeans are saying, they've got Trump to agree not to do a land swap without the Ukrainians being at the table.

But I'm not sure that the key here is territory.

I think the key here is those guarantees of independence that would come.

So let's do some role play.

Okay, because Trump's got his staff scrambling.

The thing is totally disorganized.

Witkoff went there and said, we've got concessions from Putin.

Putin laughed at him.

He ran back to Trump and said, we don't really have concessions.

Trump is impetuous.

He wants to do the meeting anyway.

He likes the two big

authoritarians sitting down.

Because it went so well with Kim Jong-un, of course.

Yes.

And of course, he said he was going to Russia, which we just have to remind everybody that Alaska has been part of the U.S.

since 1867, and it became a state in 1959.

But of course, Trump said from the press room that he was heading to Russia to talk to Vladimir Putin.

So I don't know.

And by the way, you know how Russian propaganda works.

Putin's going to be there in Alaska.

Who the hell knows if five or six different state newspapers or television commentators say he's there to take back Alaska?

which is a nationalistic thing for the Russians.

And maybe that's why Putin wants to be there in terms of the photo opportunity.

But just think about this for a second.

Let's role play.

I'm Donald Trump.

I can't get any concessions from Putin.

I'm a little intimidated by tiny Putin relative to me.

It just talks about Trump's insecurity, which is why he's always hyper-emasculating.

So he's going to say to Putin, okay,

what's the best deal that I can get from you?

That's what he's going to say behind closed doors.

He's going to say, and then secondarily, how do I sell this to NATO?

Okay, and then how do I get NATO to sell it to Zelensky?

This is what Trump is going to say.

And then Putin's going to say, again, these are my opinions, but I'll share them with you.

Putin's going to say, yeah, you know,

let's talk about broader peace.

Let's talk about these disarmament deals.

Let's talk about the nukes.

Let's, you know, a lot of these treaties that we've had in place with each other have expired.

Let's reignite these treaties.

Let's deflect.

Let's parry and deflect from Ukraine.

I would like Ukraine to give me territory.

I'm going to sign these peace deals.

We're not going to use the nukes anyway, but we'll sign these peace deals to make us both look good.

And that's the sell.

That's the sell.

And so the question is, is this Yalta 2.0?

Is this Yalta 2.0?

And remember, we had a very weakened, very sick man, a brilliant guy, and I think an awesome president, but he had a very weakened man, hypertensive, in a wheelchair, three months before he died, negotiating with Joe Stalin.

And, you know, a lot of self-confidence in FDR, he thought he was going to best Joe Stalin, and Joe Stalin, frankly, got the better of him.

So

that's where we are right now, Caddy.

What if Trump said, hold on a second.

What if Trump said, okay,

Vladimir, we've told the Ukrainians we're not going to talk about territory specifically.

We have also said that we're going to talk about some kind of security, which is what the Ukrainians...

are saying that they've got some kind of recognition that they have to have some kind of security guarantee.

How about if we say that the Americans will be there helping to rebuild Ukraine and investing in Ukrainian infrastructure, and it'll be American contractors and American businesses, and that will be the security guarantee.

Can you, Vladimir Putin, accept that as a security guarantee?

It's not anything to do with accession to NATO, which is probably off the table anyway.

Maybe they carry on with membership of the European Union, which seems to be more likely to happen.

But the real security guarantee would be the presence of American businesses,

which would be, while they were there, some kind of a security guarantee.

Because you're not going to suddenly bomb Ukraine if you've got a whole risk of actually bombing a whole load of American businesses.

Could that be something that's possible?

That could be in the realm of possibilities, but I've got it into three different outcomes.

So here's the best case.

And I have this as the lowest probability that there's a non-binding agreement.

on the ceasefire principles, which will include follow-up talks that include Ukraine and the Allies.

Remember, Witkoff said that this next summit would be with Zelensky.

Putin pushed back on that, and they accepted the summit anyway.

So I had that at the lowest probability.

With some kind of conditions that have to be met.

Correct.

I would have to say that.

That would be good for President Trump, Caddy, because that would boost his image as a peacemaker.

He's gone in there.

There has been a breakthrough.

We're going to have a ceasefire or stalemate until we can get everybody together and work out out how we're going to end the war.

Okay, I got that one at the lowest probability.

Okay, the more the more likely case is symbolic progress.

They'll make a joint statement on nukes, or as Trump says, nuclear, right?

But there'll be no Ukraine deal, and Trump will be claiming victory via the optics of that.

And he'll be saying that they're going to bolster each other's economies and so on and so forth.

And Putin is going to stall Trump and continue to massacre people in Ukraine in an effort to strengthen his hand.

I think that's the most likely scenario.

And then the worst case is that they walk out of there and it's a total stalemate and there are no concessions.

And then Ukraine and NATO, and when I say NATO, that's sort of greater Western Europe, says, wow, Trump really got played by this guy.

And he's a KGB operative and he's Mr.

Mental Mind Tricks.

He's got all these nefarious Jedi mind tricks and he really played Trump.

So to me, those are the three outcomes that could happen.

If you're telling me, and let me just push this to you for a second,

the very best case,

Putin withdraws his troops and he says we're done with this and we've reached an agreement with Donald Trump in exchange for releasing of the economic sanctions.

We're pushing ourselves back.

We're going to take the Russian territory from Ukraine that Ukraine has conquered, and we're going to give back our conquered territory.

I had that one at a zero.

Do you have any probability?

No, I have that at a zero too.

So why are we doing this then?

So why are we doing this?

We're doing this for optics and we're doing this for attention.

We're doing this also because Putin feels that this is a moment where everybody understands Ukraine is on the back foot militarily.

Russia is in a stronger position, which is why they're making a real push at the moment at cities in the east so that they can say, okay, if we're going to have some kind of negotiation, look who actually is in the dominant position.

We have the strongest cards to play in this position.

And Europe has to realize that Ukraine is going to have to give up something because they are in the weaker position.

So he wants that now.

He also doesn't like what he's been hearing, the changed language that he's been hearing from Donald Trump over the last few weeks.

Donald Trump can say one thing one week and something else the next week.

And I'm pretty convinced he'll come out of this and sound more like the Helsinki Donald Trump than he has done over the last couple of weeks.

I just don't see him standing there in a press conference berating Vladimir Putin and giving him firm conditions and saying that he has to carry on the negotiations and that Ukraine is going to be part of the process and that he's got to meet with Zelensky.

I just don't see him doing that.

But I think Putin has pushed for this because he feels he's in a strong position.

He doesn't like seeing Trump back away.

I think there is also some concern in Moscow about what Trump has done with India.

My understanding is that that has, you know, is worrying to Moscow, that India thought it was, was delighted when Donald Trump was re-elected.

They thought Modi had a good relationship with Donald Trump.

They sent Modi to Washington, thinking that this was the best thing for Donald Trump.

They didn't want Kamala Harris actually to be elected.

They wanted a populist leader.

So they were celebrating.

And then what does Donald Trump do?

He turns on India and suddenly America is cozying up to Pakistan.

I think this could be a little disquieting to Moscow.

Hold on a second.

This is not as predictable as we thought it was, this relationship that we thought we had.

So, I think there are various reasons why Putin wants this.

This is already a win for Putin.

As we said last week, I was wrong, Maya Kulpa, last week.

I said I thought this meeting wasn't going to happen.

It is happening.

But I think we were right in saying that this is a win for Vladimir Putin to get this meeting at all.

So, he's already won.

He has nothing really to lose here.

Let's channel a hawkish but peace-loving president of the United States.

Ready?

So, Vlad, come over here.

Let's you and I sit down and talk.

Okay, now listen, motherfucker, this is what's going to happen, okay?

We're going to launch some ICBMs into your territory from Ukraine.

That's what we're going to do.

Second thing we're going to do is I'm going to cripple you even harder on these sanctions.

Or the third thing we could do is I'm going to go to Ukraine and say the Finns gave up land in the 40s.

You're going to give them some land in exchange for a security guarantee.

Okay.

And you're not going to join NATO for 10 years because you'll probably be dead by then, Vlad.

And we could call it 15.

So you're not embarrassed by them joining NATO during your reign.

But they're going to potentially join NATO at some point, but they're going to have a security guarantee.

And then I'm going to install American businesses in the area.

And you're going to accept this.

And if you agree not to accept, and by the way, if you accept all this, we're going to relax the sanctions on you.

We're going to open up the pipelines again, and we're going to help your economy.

And I may even come up with an aid package for you, even though I'm cutting aid to Africa and all these other places.

But if you don't do this,

I'm going to get really tough on you in a way that you're really not going to like.

Okay, and we're going to buzz soft through your military.

Now, if you want to drop a few nukes, which I doubt you really want to do, because that'll really end your civilization,

that's what's going to happen.

But he's not going to do that.

Okay, because we know he's a pussy.

Okay, so let's just stipulate that.

So he's definitely not going to do that.

We know he's a beta male.

And again, I submit to you that he's afraid of Putin.

Putin's got something on him.

So he's not going to do that.

But you see, if he had the balls that he tries to project that he has,

he would go to his people and say, okay, listen, we got these guys over a barrel.

I'm going to give them something not to embarrass the Russian Empire.

I'm going to give them them something and I'm going to help their economy, but they're going to cool out with Ukraine.

He's not going to do that, Caddy, because he's Donald Trump.

He's the orange make-up beta male.

He's not going to do the things that you need to do to really secure the peace and do it with the toughness that's required when dealing with the Russians.

The best sign of something good coming out of this would be if Marco Rubio was really the dominant figure in all of these negotiations, because he's the ones that actually understands Russia and and Ukraine and cares about this and has tried when he was in the Senate to get the best possible deal for Ukraine, understood the implications of capitulating to Russia for other countries and for the United States.

But he's going on this trip, but he's really not been in the forefront of this.

Okay, we're going to take a break and come back and talk about Earth-1 and Earth-2.

Hello, I'm William Durimple.

And I'm Anita Arnand, and we're the host of another goal hanger show, Empire.

And we are here to tell you about a recent series we've done on partition.

On the 14th and 15th of August 1947, Pakistan and India announced their independence from the British Empire.

But as these nations gained their freedom, their rushed and violent division resulted in the deaths of well over a million people and the forced migration of over 14 million more.

It's a piece of South Asian history that many people are familiar with, but in this series, we want to explore it alongside four less well-known partitions, which continued to affect the region in monumental ways.

Yeah, you're quite right.

In one episode, we dissect how Dubai almost became part of modern India.

And in another, we're going to unpack the history behind the headlines about the conflict in Kashmir.

We also explore how the separation of Burma from India is linked to the origin of the Rohingya genocide and how East and West Pakistan separated in 1971 to create Bangladesh.

So if you'd like to hear more about the five partitions that completely transformed modern Asia and how the weight of the memory of partition has been passed down through the generations, we've left a clip of the series at the end of this episode for you to listen to.

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Charlie Sheen is an icon of decadence.

I lit the fuse and my life turns into everything it wasn't supposed to be.

He's going the distance.

He was the highest-paid TV star of all time.

When it started to change, it was quick.

He kept saying, No, no, no, I'm in the hospital now, but next week I'll be ready for the show.

Now, Charlie's sober.

He's gonna tell you the truth.

How do I present this with any class?

I think we're past that, Charlie.

We're past that, yeah.

Somebody call action, aka Charlie Sheen, only on Netflix, September 10th.

Welcome back to the Rest is Politics US

from the nation's sunny, peaceful,

well-armed, well-patrolled, and well-protected capital.

I feel so much better.

I don't believe you.

And I know you told Fiona to block out and dub out the gunshots and the explosions that are going on.

I'm hiding.

I'm hiding.

You know, I don't believe you, Campbell.

Stephen Miller is my spiritual guru, and he's my oracle of truth.

Yes.

Okay.

And he's telling me that there's chaos and dysfunction, but it's going to be okay because President Trump is going to save it.

And the Democrats, the Democrats are trying, and I quote Stephen Miller, my Oracle of Truth, they're trying to unravel the civilization.

But Donald Trump, who is the vicar of all things civilized, because he's a very civilized person, he's going to put an end to this by bringing the National Guard.

So he's going to militarize.

And this is something the founders, the reason why they gave people the the right to bear arms is they didn't want any federal oversight to these local towns.

And they wanted these local towns, if necessary, to be able to defend themselves against the British militia or other types of militia, but not Donald Trump.

He has no understanding of American history, no understanding of the American Constitution, but he is the oracle of all things civilized, Caddy.

And I don't believe you, by the way.

Okay.

Yeah, I'm looking out my window with trepidation because I am worried about that huge, big surface to air missile that's launched outside my window.

So a couple of nights ago, we were out walking the dog and suddenly this kind of phalanx of balaclavered, flack jacketed federal agents walks down the street.

Everybody's out there sitting having ice cream.

It's a nice evening in Washington, D.C.

And they're all literally sitting there licking their ice creams thinking, what the fuck is going on?

Who are these guys?

And I actually felt kind of sorry for the drug enforcement agency.

agents and I kind of felt sorry for them.

They felt looked so awkward.

They didn't want to be there.

I mean, some of these, they've set up checkpoints in the evenings in some areas of Washington and they're stopping cars and you've got locals Washingtonians standing there yelling at these federal agents you know shame on you you know you don't want to be part of a fascist state you should watch the videos it's kind of fun there aren't tons of protesters but there are quite a few protesters yelling at these agents and I feel kind of bad I don't think this is I mean the National Guard agents who went to LA, what was the biggest risk to them?

The biggest risk to them was dying of boredom.

There was nothing for them to do.

DC, yes, two years ago, there was a spike in crime in the city post-COVID, post-Black Lives Matter.

Honestly, right now, I mean, it's one of the safest places I can think of being.

There is crime.

Lots.

And this is the dilemma,

to put this in a political context.

Saying that is the kind of thing that Democrats don't want to be heard saying.

Even though the statistics, the lying statistics suggest that that is the case, because Democrats, as on immigration, are terrified of sounding like they're soft on crime at the moment.

I think this is a trap for Democrats.

I think this is a pretty successful trap.

Yeah, he doesn't know history, but he knows politics.

Yeah, well, I mean, listen, when you look out on a beautiful summer night in D.C.

and you look out the window in a clear sky, you can see the moon.

But you know what Trump sees?

He sees the Epstein-like bat signal.

So he's looking out the South Portico and up in the sky is a picture of Jeff Epstein looming down on him.

And so he's looking at that saying, okay, what do I got to do today?

Well, let's have a summit with Vladimir Putin.

Huh.

Let's deploy the National Guard in D.C.

And you know what?

The press talks about that non-stop for three days.

That's what's led the press.

He's right.

He wins.

Exactly.

I've got to do everything I can to deflect away from the dispute over the economic data, because obviously my tariffs are actually hurting the economy, and so we're going to have to start to lie about that.

I've got the Jeff Epstein bat signal, the anti-bat signal in the air, and so I've got to bring the National Guard into play.

You know, I tried to change the name of the Washington Commanders back to the Redskins.

No one

didn't work, but this is a big deal.

My MAGA base, this is red meat for my MAGA base.

And civil liberties, Caddy, let's throw those out the window.

We don't need civil liberties.

Also, you know this from the power of communications.

If you say something, if the President of the United States stands up and says Washington, D.C.

is like overrun by hordes of youth who are robbing every store and holding up every tourist and hijacking every car, then if you're sitting, this is not a message to people in Washington, it's a message to people in Kansas, and it's a message to people in Ohio, and it's a message to people in Wisconsin that actually blue states, liberal areas, are

violent hellholes, which is how he's describing it.

You know, you don't have to actually look at the fact that Memphis, Tennessee, and St.

Louis, Missouri, and Tulsa, Oklahoma, all cities in red states have higher violent crime rates than Washington, D.C.

does.

But hey, let's ignore that because that doesn't fit with the narrative.

But it's very powerful.

The president stands up there at the podium and says that, you know, this, right?

People, you and I are sitting here joking about how it's fake news and there is Earth 1 and Earth 2 and on Earth 1, actually, D.C.

has falling crime rates and the lowest crime rates in 30 years, but it's pretty easy to make people believe Earth 2.

And I think that's what he's doing this week.

That's why I'm interested in talking about the other things he's doing.

Especially in this base that watches Fox News all day and they say, oh, wow, there's crime everywhere.

Blue states have crime.

Bill states have everything.

Every city has crime.

And big cities in America tend to be run by Democrats.

That's just, that's the way it is.

And they have higher crime rates.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Let me say something to you because while he's looking at the Epstein spotlight in the air, and he's sitting there, he doesn't drink any alcohol, so maybe he's having a Diet Coke at 11.59 p.m.

And he's sitting there, he's saying, wow, you know, Gavin Newsom has bigger Killons

than I thought

because I can't really deploy the National Guard in these blue state cities anymore.

Because remember, Caddy, procedurally, I got to go to the governor to do this.

And Gavin embarrassed me in California.

Now, I'm trying to sweep that under the rug, and I'm doing a good job of that.

But Gavin actually embarrassed me in California.

And now Gavin is pushing back on me and Governor Abbott on the gerrymandering.

Aha, where am I going to deploy these troops?

Well, I could deploy them in D.C.

There's no governor.

Yeah.

It's a weird setup here because a lot of it is in federal land anyway.

He has the power to do this here.

Exactly.

See what he's doing?

And so he's sitting there and he's like, hmm, the guy Newsom, he's pushing back.

And Newsom is also what I love because he's finally getting it.

He's praising California.

He's explaining it's the fourth largest economy.

He's explaining all the good things that are going on in California.

And now he's trolling Trump using Trump's rhetoric on places like X or Instagram.

So Newsom has finally got the goods going and he's got a little bit of mojo.

I think it's important to understand that for 10 years, Caddy K, the Democrats have not been able to crack the Trump code.

I think that's true.

He's kicking their asses in the culture war.

And this is such an easy way to do it.

Exactly.

I was a little disappointed that when you heard from the president that I am living in a war zone, you did not come down and come to my defense.

I'm just noticing that there was a distinct lack of support from my partner.

I mean, I would have thought that somebody as bold as you would have realized that, wow, Kat is down there.

I didn't realize how bad Washington is.

I'm hopping on my plane to go and make sure she's okay.

I know you're tough, Katie.

I know you're training.

I know you've got

your muscle-to-fat ratio way better than mine.

And I know you're tough, and I know you can parry and

any of these people that you need to take on.

But I do think you're in a danger zone.

I think you're in a war zone.

And you're warm.

I think we should invite Stephen Miller on.

Of course, he wouldn't accept my invitation to tell us about how horrific everything is.

But, Caddy, again,

where are the Democrats?

Your buddy Elon Musk said he's on the list.

You may have read this over the weekend.

I love this story.

MAGA wants Elon Musk back.

MAGA wants Elon Musk back.

He's a very powerful guy.

Where are the Democrats?

Me, I'd have a big cowbo on.

Me, if I was the head of the DNC, which of course I'm not, I would have been in Austin, Texas, meeting with Elon Musk.

I would have sent Newsom.

I would have sent Whitmer, somebody, go down and see Elon, see if we can get him back in the tent.

You may not like him.

You may think he's weird, but he's a very powerful guy.

And so you're in a situation now where there's another political battle coming.

That's the midterms.

Democrats are polling very well, by the way.

It's sort of like a 55-45 mix generally, which is why Trump wants to gerrymander the state of Texas.

But they've got an opportunity.

There's an opening here for the Democratic Party to create some momentum for themselves.

There's an opening here.

You know, listen, we have falling crime rates.

Commissioner Tisch, the New York City police commissioner that Mayor Adams has put in place, has done a magnificent job.

It's back to the Bloomberg-Giuliani era.

We've got to clean up the city.

There are issues in the city, but we have falling crime rates here as well.

Push.

Fight.

Fight.

Stop the nonsense of capitulation with Donald Trump.

I mean, the problem for Washington is we don't have a figure to fight, right?

Because we don't have a senator.

We don't have a governor.

So there is no national, you know, and there is this weird setup where half of the city is owned by the federal government, half of it is owned by the D.C.

government.

Okay, the reason I also want to talk about D.C.

and what is owned by the federal government and the D.C.

government is the other thing that Donald Trump has tried to do that people might not have noticed in all of the National Guard stuff this week, which I do think is significant.

He sent a letter to the Smithsonian Museums.

Any of you who have visited Washington have hopefully visited our amazing museums here.

They are free.

Not that I'm sounding like an ad for Washington, D.C., but they are free and they're well worth visiting.

And the President has sent a letter saying that in this, coming up on the 250th anniversary of the country's founding, he wants to have a review of all of the materials and upcoming exhibitions of the Smithsonian museums, the largest museums in the country, in the world, actually the largest museum complex in the world, to make sure that they have uplifting, here's a quote, uplifting and inclusive portrayals of American history and that they are in alignment with the President's directive to celebrate American exceptionalism and remove divisive narratives.

So I think this is doing something similar to what he's doing with the troops in Washington.

It's doing something similar to what he's doing with the labor statistics.

It is recreating American history in Donald Trump's worldview.

So I don't like the labor.

I don't like the unemployment statistics.

Let's say that they were fake and get somebody in who can give me the right unemployment statistics.

I don't like the fact that we have the African American History Museum, which looks at the history of slavery.

So we're going to remove certain items and sanitize that to have a perspective of history that it says with the president's view of how he wants this to look.

It's the same kind of thing that he's doing with the crime stats in the city.

And I think the thing about the museums, I read through that letter, it is quite chilling.

The idea that you would go into museums, which are research centers, and say, we're going to take the culture and mold what the culture does and what the directives of culture does to fit a propaganda message.

It's a very populist nationalist playbook.

You look at every populist leader, nationalist leader through history, authoritarian leader.

What do they do?

They try to use culture.

Culture with a kind of big C, and that is what is happening here.

How do you rewrite the history of slavery not to be divisive?

It was a divisive issue by definition.

Well, of course, but I'll say something broader.

You know,

strong leaders accept

and actually like dissent.

Strong leaders.

Strong leaders look at the situation and say that I'm one person trying to do good for the rest of man and womankind and I'm going to have opposing people, which would make sense because not everybody's on the same footprint or fingerprint ideologically.

But as a strong, secure leader, I am willing to accept dissent because that is the plurality of how things work.

Weak leaders, on the other hand, are not willing to accept dissent.

They're not willing to accept dissent in their own court.

They're not willing to accept dissent in their culture.

They're not willing to accept dissent as it relates to economic statistics or other things.

And I'm reading a book right now by Scott Anderson.

I think you may know Scott.

He wrote about Lawrence of Arabia.

His new book is called King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution.

And the subtitle is the one I love the most, Caddy.

It's called A Story of Hubris, Delusion, and Catastrophic Miscalculation.

And so what do we got going on?

We got a strong leader perceptionally, but actually a very weak leader, the Shah, not accepting dissent, has a court of yes people around him.

He's doing things in the country which are no compromise, because again, consensus and compromise is how good governments work.

And of course, this is a great quote from the book, and I'm going to read it to you.

For his part, the king of kings, which the Shah was known as, had created such a culture of sycophancy within his palace that even upsetting economic statistics like climbing unemployment or inflation rates were routinely doctored to more pleasing results.

So we have good leadership, accepting dissent, wanting to talk about the truth of the culture.

What did Lincoln say?

I want to remove the original sin, the original stain on the Constitution.

Four score and seven years ago, we dedicated to the principles that all men are created equal.

We didn't quite get there, but I'm standing standing here now in 1863, and we're going to amend this beautiful document, this Constitution, to make it a more perfect union.

Of course, it's imperfect, but we're going to make it more perfect.

Did he accept dissent?

Of course, he did.

Did he go up for re-election in 1864?

Of course, he didn't.

Of course, the Confederates were waiting.

They were hoping that he was going to lose that election.

But, you know, George McLennan was running against him.

I don't know if you remember all this part of our history, but I'm bringing this up because good leadership accepts dissent.

Bad leadership, let's close the African American Museum, which is on the mall as it relates to our culture.

And let's sanitize what happened because it doesn't make me feel well.

It doesn't fit my narrative.

But Caddy, explain this to me, though, because I read, I was seven years old.

I read The Emperor Has No Clothes.

I was in the first grade.

And when we got done reading it, I was like, wow, that's really stupid.

Guy's walking around naked.

Why are these people telling him he's got the clothes on?

And I never understood it.

I'm now 61 years old, 54 years later.

I got it.

It's fear.

He's got willing sycophants.

It's power.

I want to be close to power.

Caroline Levitt, she's going to say and do whatever the president wants her to say and do.

And she's going to do it with a level of shamelessness.

I have to say, Anthony, she is a better comms director.

If I was hiring a comms director, I would be hiring Caroline Levitt over Anthony Scaramucci because Mr.

Scaramucci would be too much dissent from the party line.

Well, next time I go work for Donald Trump, I am getting out the peroxide.

I'm dying my hair blonde.

Okay,

I'm going to get some eyelash extensions, and I'm going to give it a go, Caddy.

You're right on fear.

I had a conversation yesterday with a former Republican congressman and former

Secretary of Defense who said he has never heard so many members of Congress tell him that they were afraid, not just for themselves, but for their families.

That is a new thing and the fear is real.

Okay, we're going to leave it there.

Signing out from Earth 1.

I'm on Earth 2, Caddy.

I'm on Earth 2.

I'm signing out from Earth 2,

where DC is dangerous and Vladimir Putin is my spiritual overlord.

And do join us because for this bonus episode this week for our founding members only, we're going to look, talking of Caroline Levitt, inside President Trump's female power block.

We'll look at the women in his inner circle who are changing his mind behind the scenes.

You can sign up, of course, at therestispoliticsus.com if you're not already a member.

You know, you want the gossip, guys.

You know you want the gossip.

So go to therestispoliticsus.com, tap the link in the episode description to hear the full story.

Thank you guys, and we'll see you next week.

Hi, it's William DeRimple here again from Empire, another goal hanger podcast.

Here's the clip from our recent series on the five partitions that created modern Asia.

And it was deeply emotional.

Sparsh picked up some pebbles from the village, which he made into jewelry, family heirlooms for his family going down the generations, because he was always saying that, you know, my family doesn't have archives, et cetera.

We lost everything in partition.

And there's nothing that we have from Baylor to show where we came from.

But so he wanted to pick up something from Baylor and make it into heirlooms for the next generations.

You know, three, four generations from now, they'll still have a piece of Bela with them, even if

the relationship between India and Pakistan worsens again.

And, you know, even if his kids can never visit Bela, they'll always have a piece of Bela with them.

This connection with Earth, Dhurti, you know, they call it Dhurti in India.

And zameeen is the Uddu word for exactly the same thing.

But it is much more than just the Earth.

It is who you are, where you have grown from, where your forebears have grown from.

And the number number of people I know who have been lucky enough to travel across the border, and I count myself as one, who find it impossible to leave without a scoop of earth.

And I have one too.

You know, in Lahore, picked up a handful of earth and brought it back with me because I thought, you know,

this is the stuff my grandfather used to walk on.

To hear the full series, just search Empire wherever you get your podcasts.

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