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Trump Reportedly Considering Firing Susie Wiles | Morning Shots Live

October 15, 20260 comments♥ 0
00:00 Hello, everybody. Welcome to Morning Shots Live, special Thursday edition, usually Bill Crystal and I, Andrew Regger, who write the Morning Shots newsletter for the Bullwork. Usually we're here live for you all on Tuesday mornings. We did that a couple of days ago here. With all the travel going on right now, we're all heading all over the country, scattering ahead of the midterms for all of these Bullwork live shows over the next few days. Bill and I are filling another slot. They're putting us in more and more. People are starting to, I think Bill, people are really starting to recognize our contributions around here. Wouldn't you say? Well, I think some of us is recognized for a long time, but it's good to have some increased widespread recognition. Yeah, no, I think it's nice. It's good the cover story is that everyone's traveling too much. But obviously, there's desperation to have really high-quality commentary now, just two and a half weeks out. And so here we are. I think that's what it is. Yeah, by the way, I mentioned the live shows. Bill and I will be in Atlanta next Tuesday for our Bullwark show. There's still a few tickets for that available. If you're interested in coming and seeing us, hang out in Atlanta, just a couple weeks to go.
01:03 Come bite your nails with us, you know, at the Bullwark live stream, or live show in Atlanta. We'll all have a good time. There's a couple pieces of news that we wanted to discuss today. A lot of stuff that's just broken this morning. We always love it when this happens when there's new stuff for us to chew over right before we come live. This is actually, it's not the biggest piece of news, you know, policy-wise or anything like this, but this is a pretty big swerve we got from a, on a controversial story from the Trump administration this morning. Let us throw up this tweet, this truth social post that Donald Trump just posted.
01:35 Nadal Hassan, a former U.S. Army major turned traitor, is a very bad and evil man who killed 13 people, including a pregnant soldier who died along with her unborn son and injured very seriously 32 more innocent people. Barack Hussein Obama's federal bureau of investigation, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, when reviewed by his FBI Terrorism Task Force, Investigators concluded Hassan's emails were not a threat. He goes on and on and on. He does a lot of grievance about this, but the news that he breaks, further down in this post, is that this guy's not going to be live streamed, the execution, the firing squad execution of the Fort Hood shooter,
02:08 which had been, I believe, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, who had said, yeah, you know, we're going to throw it up on the internet so everybody can watch it. That's the way it should be, you know, it's a deterrent to future criminals. We're going to have a snuff film of this Pentagon execution of this man. humongously controversial among everybody, not just on the left. You know, a lot of
02:30 conservatives were sort of appalled by the idea of this snuff film here. J.D. Vance was kind of mealy-mouthed about it when he was asked about it a few days ago and now the president saying, pulling the plug on the whole thing, quote again, many very good and well-meaning people would rather not watch him die
02:46 through streaming or through any other visual device. True. He will die as scheduled by firing squad, but this event will not be streamed. That said, the execution may be viewed in person by the immediate families of the victims, if they so choose, they deserve to witness justice. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Bill, so it's a walkback on the snuff film here. Yeah, maybe there was more opposition than they expected, or maybe Hickseth just popped off as he thinks the whole country is on board with his, you know, sort of sick view of what people need to see
03:17 live, I suppose, so they'll have correct views about life, according to Pete, you know. But the Catholic, I thought the Catholic Church was probably pretty, maybe important, and who knows what influences Trump, but certainly if you had any political antenna up and you'd still at half weeks before an election and the entire American Catholic Church, including the Archbishop, I think he is, whatever title he has, who's in charge of all the, of the military, who ministers to the military. Very, very strong statement by him. He's not, he's a conservative, and he's not anti-military, God knows, you know. So, and I think maybe he has.
03:53 it actually ministered to one of the victims of, of, of, of, of, of, of, uh, of, uh, of the murderer. So, uh, yeah, that, there was a pretty big reaction. I just saw there was an ABC poll. Was it just this morning? I think I saw it of, you know, 80 to 15% or something. The American public was against this, against the live streaming, which is reassuring. The one group, the one group that was for it, the one demographic that was for it. Did you see this?
04:16 No, I did not. Maga men. Even they were only like 55, 45, 45, is, you know, they weren't. But what is wrong with Maga Men, if I could just say? I mean, they're like they beat up women at rallies and they cheer for it and they, the last group that's going to stick with Trump. And now they think the idea of live streamed execution is really just Jim Dandy. Yeah.
04:37 We can have that conversation another day, you know? Yeah. And, and, you know, hashtag not all Maga Men too. Like you say, it's like 55-45 thing. But there is, there is this real, I mean, this kind of Punisher ethos that kind of dresses itself up as, you know, just not having an antipathy to violence and not being kind of, you know, cringing and not being too, you know, too, you know, weak to do what needs to be done, but which really does kind of worship violence and really have that sort of, you know,
05:12 that sort of animal bloodlust for this sort of thing. And so, and that was what a lot of this was, too, is a lot of dressed up in language of deterrence as though, like, you know, whether or not they live streamed this person being shot by firing squad will actually enter into the mental calculus of other people who might plan terrorist attacks on the United States of America. I mean, I've complicated views on the death penalty to the extent that anybody deserves it. I think a person who plots an attack like this carries it out on a military base, you know, certainly does, again, as much as anybody. But I do think just unambiguously good that we're not going to get the snuff film.
05:48 The idea, like, you would see it bandied around, you know, well, if you don't want to watch the snuff film. Just don't watch the snuff film as though that was not going to like crop up in every American's social media feed at some point. You know, like these things are algorithmically distributed and kind of hard to avoid. And just the coarsening of, of our country and the coarsening of, of the way that our own government approaches these things. Very glad to see them, them walk this one back. This message is sponsored by Casper. So you know there are certain things in life that are worth investing in in a good night's sleep. Well, that's definitely one of them. You cannot be a good night's sleep.
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07:28 We can move on from the flip-flop on the LiveSheam execution. Glad to see it's happening. Another piece of news that we are getting today, and this is great because this ties into a lot of stuff we've been talking about now for a couple weeks here of this question of personnel-wise, are the wheels really starting to fall off for Donald Trump? Katie Zachariah, the new White House Press Secretary, we talked about. her a lot on Tuesday, how she is very much like a Trump One type figure, one of these people who just sort of stumbles in off the street because they have sort of hacked their way into Donald
08:02 Trump's good graces in one way or another, in her case, by strategically placing her TV hits to butter him up when she suspected he would be watching. She did this for a while. She got his eye, and now, hey, presto, she's the White House press secretary. It's the kind of thing that used to happen a lot in Trump one because he didn't have any idea who to put in in all these different offices. He did not have his group of personnel that he knew and trusted. And he also did not have his secret weapon all through his second campaign and through into his second term, which has been his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, who has been widely and correctly credited for running the tightest kind of managerial ship that Trump has ever gotten to enjoy. So even though the entire
08:48 White House still runs on this insane kind of, you know, flattery system where it's all about social currency in the eyes of this one insane man, the president, and just remaining in his good graces by bringing him good news and paying him compliments and all these sorts of things. Even though all that is still true, it is also true that just functionally the White House runs better, runs more tightly with less, you know, knocking in the engine than it ever did in his first term. And a lot of that, you know, less infighting, less leaking. A lot of that's down to Susie Wiles.
09:24 But we now get reporting out of Politico today. Trump has been soliciting allies' views of Wiles and musing about replacements for his top aid, according to four people with direct knowledge of the conversations. We are told Trump is getting plenty of encouragement from rivals to Wiles and people who have felt, quote, burned by his loyal enforcer. And this is just amazing. Among the names being floated includes Stephen Miller,
09:47 Deputy Chief of Staff, Randy Labine, the president of the New York Yankees, Steve Whitkoff, Trump's partner in Gryft and his sort of top shadow negotiator all around the world, who's been negotiating all of these deals on behalf of the United States and on behalf of the Whitkoff and Trump family fortunes all at once. Bill Pulte, one of Trump's most loyal hatchet men on the inside, and Kevin McCarthy. So that's just kind of the rogues gallery of names that are sort of being floated, has potential replacements to Susie Wiles if Trump were to move on from her. Trump denies the story.
10:19 Trump put out a statement expressing his great confidence and great respect for Susie Wiles. Susie Wiles is my loyal and longest serving chief of staff, he says. There's a reason for that. She's been with me since the beginning is my trusted advisor and has my complete confidence. And yet, it does seem that there are these conversations that are now happening in the White House and around the White House about how long she might be for the presidency. I mean, Bill, I'm all for it. I think it'd be fine for this, for this, for this president to, you know, acts his,
10:50 one of his most helpful, one of his most loyal, you know, internal enforcers. And, and just let's just let the wheels fall off this thing. But what do you think? I mean, is she, is it actually good to have one capable person in there? Or would you be fine with him trading her in for, for, I don't know, Bill Pulte? She's capable in some ways, as you say, she's not an insane person. and she does seem to make, you know, the travel works well and so forth. One reason, however, the thing is run smoothly, quote, unquote,
11:18 is that she hasn't actually tried to stop Trump from doing a lot of things. She certainly hasn't tried to stop Steve Miller from doing a lot of things, or Pete Exf from doing a lot of things. I mean, I guess they're conceivably things we don't know about. It could be even worse, but it's pretty bad, right? I mean, she wasn't able to have enough control to stop XF and popping off, for example, about executions, you know, just a few weeks ago. So I would just say in defense of the first term chiefs of staff,
11:39 who were, as you say, it was much more contentious and chaotic. One reason it was is they actually did stop a bunch of stuff from happening, John Kelly in particular, but I would say even Rice Prebis, probably at the beginning sort of arranged to get banned and shoved out and stuff. So that's my one caveat to her competent. I mean, I guess she's competent, but I wouldn't say it's a competence that ultimately maybe serves him that well because it's allowed him for him, her to preside to be chief of staff of a White House.
12:07 It's gone from 50% to 35% approval. 20 months. So I don't know what difference. I always assumed she would leave after the election. It is exhausting, even in a normal White House and two years is kind of the typical term. And, you know, I got to think she's sick of at all. She can't personally tolerate it. I mean, even she, after everything she's put up with, must find the idea of dealing with Hegseth and Miller and these people somewhat revolting, I guess. And so I sort of assumed she might leave. It would be kind of interesting to see the jockey and Kevin McCarthy's positioning himself as the same pick. and he'll be generating calls from various, you know, businesses, mainstream, quote,
12:42 mainstream business allies and House Republicans to promote him. Steve Miller is obviously promoting himself. Yeah, Pulte, I guess, is promoting himself. I don't know, I can't believe Trump wants anyone who's a person in his own right, you know. And so I kind of think Pulte, maybe a Pulte who doesn't quite have his high profile of, you know, being so strong a loyalist that he couldn't, having done the things that he couldn't even get confirmed previously by the Senate.
13:12 I don't know. I think that type might be more the type you would want, but who knows. Yeah, you mentioned the point you made was good about kind of the differences in the kind of impact that Susie Wiles has had versus some of those first term chiefs, where you're right, like part of what they did that was good from like an objective point of view, from the point of view of the country. is that they did see it as their role to kind of try to pull Trump back from some of his own worst impulses and try to keep, you know, some of the craziest people in Trump's orbit out of
13:45 the, you know, the decision-making process for key things. And a lot of that, you know, might have led to better outcomes, but also it contributed to that kind of internal grind. There was like, you know, you'd have, you know, Reince Prebus was there with his Reinceprebus people or John Kelly's there with his John Kelly people. and that's like a faction within the White House, and they are constantly grinding against, you know, the maga faction and the populists and these different people. And it creates, it generates a lot of leaks,
14:13 and it generates a lot of bad blood. And things just don't run as smoothly. And you are right that, that Susie Wiles has not tried to do that at all, right? I mean, she has, her kind of philosophy has, you got to let Trump be Trump. You got to let Trump surround himself with the people that he'd like to surround himself with. And then she has seen her job as, you know, given all of that,
14:31 given that that's going to be that way, how can I minimize the amount of internal chaos, minimize the internal hurt feelings, the internal leaking, and just kind of keep everybody rowing in the same direction? And in that sense, you know, she's been a very good chief to Trump and a very bad, you know, figure in terms of the effects for the country, because all that she has done, she has not curbed a single impulse of this president, of all of his own, you know, bad ideas and grievances and policy inclinations. she's left all that alone and she has just made it more effective across certain axes. But I also do think that there is some reason to believe that maybe she is getting even a little
15:13 bit less effective at that. Maybe her currency is slipping a little bit even after this sort of legendary run of sort of running the show, again, at just a managerial level, without a lot of challengers to the throne. She's just kind of been the unquestioned person in the commander's seat in that sense. I'll just read from some other reporting from the Daily Mail that came out recently that Wiles was kind of blindsided by, as we mentioned before, the Katie Zachariah Pickus Press Secretary. She had been a big Scott Jennings booster. She thought Scott Jennings, you know, our good buddy Scott should have been the pick, that he was more, you know, a known commodity, more professional, you know, like better, just better suited to get in there. and go right away.
16:00 Wiles, I'll read here, Wiles, who worked closely with Leavitt running Trump's spin operation, wanted Jennings. She also thought that the decision was going to wait until after the midterms. You know, like, let's figure out how much of a blow we're going to take here.
16:16 Let's see how things settle. And then let's make some decisions based on that. That might have been smart. But Trump had grown enamored with Zacharias's performance on his favorite channel, Fox News. Even when Trump would bring Zachariah's, up. Wiles would try to steer the conversation toward Jennings. And here is an interesting quote from, again, just an administration source to the Daily Mail, so we don't know who this is.
16:35 But Susie wanted someone who would be loyal to her, and instead Trump chose someone loyal to him, as it should be. This is seen as one of many recent microaggressions of Donald to Susie. He is taking back control, and it is starting to feel more like the first term. Again, that's the administration official saying what we've been saying, that this sense of kind of this sense of efficiency and just sort of discipline that Susie Wiles had managed to keep the White House personnel, if not the president, at least the personnel group, you know, basically under control of it. It just seems like it's fraying some. And we are seeing more of that first term type chaos starting to creep in as her power wanes. Yeah, it'll be interesting
17:21 to see. I assume nothing will happen until after the election, though I don't know with Trump, you never know, right? And maybe he even thinks having a kind of sacrificial land before the election is a good idea. But no one will second change anyone's vote, obviously. And so it would be kind of stupid to do that, I think. But yeah, it is an interesting question. You know, when I was in Minneapolis, when we were in Minneapolis in February for the two bulwark events we did after the shootings there, very moving and interesting events. I mean, you know, and we've talked about it quite a lot since then. But now, I think, I don't think I'm betraying any confidence here. I think Governor Walts has said this publicly, but he, anyways, he said privately to Tim and me and Sarah, I think we're in the room with him or he said, I believe he said it publicly,
18:06 so I'm just going to go ahead and say it. He talked about talking to Susie Walsh quite a lot right after the shootings happened, both the first and the second one, Renee Good, and then Alex Freddie. and she was sort of, this is bad, I'm going to try to rain in things a little. And she did a little, right? I think she probably was involved in getting rid of. Bovino's. Yeah, right.
18:31 That first was him and then actually, Christine Home. Right. And, you know, and kind of reducing the temperature a little bit. But Wall said that she said, he said, this is crazy. And she was, look, I can control things around. the White House from, I will quite remember the hours, but from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. I think I did a decent job. After that, all bets are off. He's out of my control. He talks to who he talks to. And it's sort of a, I mean, it's both ridiculous in a way and disingenuous
19:05 in a way. And kind of, can you keep yourself respect when you're the chief of staff who's treated that way? But she obviously liked having the job and was willing to take it and to have it on those terms. Yeah, yeah. Well, we'll see how it goes. Trump should fire her because that would hurt him. And I think we would like that. We will see whether it happens. We will see whether this is one of these things where he bows to to his own sort of baser instincts and just thinks, ah, you know, like, let's shake it up. Let's get the personnel chaos going again. And at the very least, if that were to happen, we'd have a lot more to write about because there'd be a lot more leaking, a lot more turnover in the personnel department. And I guess, you know, that's not nothing. It's hard to, it's hard. to keep everything going in the wrong direction when you have to just constantly have that internal fighting. So we'll see. We'll see. Can I just say one thing? One idea about who we might. He has shown a real, with the exception, actually, Zacharii, he's shown a real inclination in the
20:04 second term to replace people with people who are already in the administration. I think that's not an accident. I mean, it makes sense in a way if you're running a big criminal enterprise. You sort of want to keep, prerode it from within is fine. You don't really want new people. people coming in and saying, keep it in the family. Yeah, what's going on here, you know? Which makes you wonder, I don't know, Clayton, the guy who became head of ODNI and who, you know,
20:25 is a sort of semi-respectable lawyer. I wonder if someone like that is actually a moral, you know, would be a plausible pick. Sort of Blanche isn't going to move over from being AG, but maybe a deputy, one of the deputies over there. I can't remember the deputy AG's name. You know, someone who's sort of a true loyalist and basically is more willing to do anything Trump wants, but on the other hand, isn't going to
20:46 quite look insane or totally, you know, out of the blue. And also isn't going to come with the other thing Trump has seen is he did not, he has not wanted people anywhere who have their own power bases or power is even too strong, their own network of just people they can talk to influence. One thing you learned from the first term is it does matter and why. I mean, Millie, when he was chief of staff, it certainly was true of Mattis and Kelly and military guys especially, but also non-military people, right? Gary Cohn, they all had their own network which they could privately, with whom they could talk privately, could then, some of them could then call Trump and influence Trump.
21:22 They could also tell things to the press. I mean, I think Trump did learn that he wants real ciphers in the people who really are, it's not just that they're loyal to him. Their only qualification basically is being loyal to him, you know? Yeah. Todd Blanche was not like one of 10 potential Republican AGs, you know, five years ago. And therefore, you know, Sessions was a former senator that was an I. Even Bill Barr was a,
21:46 was one of, had been AG, it was one of five potential, as it were, Republican AGs, right? So Trump's been pretty systematic and getting people in who are both, don't have any standing, I guess is maybe the best way to put it. But in this case, maybe he'll want someone who's a little not too unrespectable. So you could, I guess, how he threads that needle might be interesting to watch. Yeah, the problem is that there's just not that many people who meet both criteria, right? I mean, it doesn't have that many people who are capable and also have that, like, sort of weird, unique relationship with him, where they're all in on him because they wouldn't really have a job anywhere else, right? And as we've seen, he has to, when he runs through that
22:25 very short list of people for whom that applies, then he has to start choosing one or the other, and it gets a little more difficult, it gets a little bit more chaotic, the process, and, and there are more surprises. So we'll keep an eye on that. Okay, things are not good in Russia and Ukraine right now. We had the president on Friday, get on the phone with Vladimir Putin, get off the phone with Vladimir Putin, well fortified with sort of Putin-esque talking points and grievances and perspectives. And we have seen this periodically throughout the war, kind of any time they rub elbows, and Trump has Putin in his ear, he comes away like this. it has seemed in the past like people around him kind of bring him back into the fold and bring him back into, I guess, what is more like an annoying, but I guess basically find stasis where he's like, yeah, you know, they both need to shape up.
23:25 And obviously that's crazy too because, because, you know, Russia is the aggressor in this war. Ukraine is our ally who we are defending in this war, who we want to win this war. But at the very least, you know, when he gets into that sort of stasis position, it's not. like judgment day for Ukraine. Ever since Friday, it has looked very different. It's been back to sort of like the Oval Office last year, sandbagging of Zelensky, where, you know, he gets in there. And Trump and Bance are basically lying in wait to, you know, say,
23:58 did you even say thank you once? And to basically castigate him as the aggressor in this conflict. There have been a lot of crazy stories ever since that last weekend. First, Trump, you know, insisting that this ceasefire, this energy ceasefire had been agreed to by both sides, both Russia and Ukraine basically saying, wait a minute, no, we didn't agree any such thing. And Trump's saying, I said you agreed. So you agreed. Then Ukraine and Zelensky trying to actually comply by the terms of that ceasefire for a number of days while Russia just sort of happily attacked Ukrainian energy infrastructure. Russia never stops bombing.
24:35 Despite this, despite the fact that Ukraine is compliant. and Russia is not compliant with this ceasefire that Trump wants to see. Trump continues all throughout these last few days to make disparaging comments towards Zelensky to describe him as the prime aggressor in this war, to say that he ought to be replaced by the Ukrainian people, to say that Putin wants peace more than he does. And then yesterday, we got a couple of very concerning pieces of just data out of the war in terms of what we are still doing, the small amount that we are still doing to help the Ukrainians. There are missile strikes hitting Kiev without the ordinary advance warning from U.S.
25:15 intelligence for whatever reason, these missile attacks were not picked up. And we also got reports that Ukraine's access to Starlink, you know, the satellite internet that's connected to Elon Musk's company, was interestingly down for. for Ukraine's military for a number of hours. Its speeds were throttled, and we still don't know why that happened. It's the Pentagon that controls those forward-deployed infrastructure systems, communications infrastructure that Ukraine relies on so much. And the last thing is that overnight, we essentially had Zelensky throwing up his hands
25:57 and saying, okay, well, Russia has not been complying with this energy ceasefire. We're not just going to keep sitting on our hands forever, while energy keeps pummel. our infrastructure, and Ukraine resumed its attacks on Russian energy infrastructure as well. But of course, that threatens to put yet more fuel on the fire of Donald Trump's grievance against Ukraine. And he could do a lot of damage. He could pull U.S. intelligence for support for Ukraine. He could shut down these Starlink satellite infrastructure that Ukraine relies on so much. So it's just a mess. It's really ugly right now. That's the state of play. And as far as I know it. I mean, Bill, where are we? I mean, like, is there kind of a path forward here?
26:41 It just looks so grim right now, kind of across the board. Well, I mean, this is, Trump's always had this inclination, obviously, and as you say, some people were able to pull them back a little. I mean, the Europeans also stepped up, which is one reason why cut off of our aid actually did less damage probably than a lot than some people, some of us expected. I mean, the Europeans done pretty well in that. They can't step up quite on the intelligent stuff or the or the Starlink stuff. So that's a big, big problem. No, it's going to be, are Ukrainians dying because of what Trump is doing? And he's doing it entirely. It seems to please Putin and this stupid, and he wants, he's always wanted the sanctions off. The diesel stuff is a trivial contributor, honestly, to getting prices
27:23 down here or anywhere. It's just such a small amount, except it allows Trump, I've always thought it's more about blaming Zelensky, right? And that this, well, blaming this war, not the real war, that's caused energy prices to skyrocket the war in Iran, blaming the Russia-Ukraine war, and then blaming Zelensky for having a go on. So it's very much part of his domestic political agenda, as the Ukraine stuff in 2019 was, of course, and part of his generally pro-Pooten agenda. And maybe some people, Keith Kellogg I saw who was in the administration in the first few months, maybe the first year even for retired general, who's been pretty consistently pro-Ukraine
28:00 and is giving credit by the inside types who are pro-Ukraine for, stopping some of slowing down some of the Trump, Kushner, Witkoff, Vance, attempt to just totally kneecap Ukraine. Kellogg is now publicly criticizing Trump and is out. The sainted Marco Rubio, the responsible guy there, he seems to be doing his usual ducking of any responsibility for anything important. And I'm sure he'll be doing a major trip to Panama soon to, you know, talk about how we're really focused on the Western Hemisphere.
28:28 That's really going to make the world safer, you know. So it's bad. No, it's bad. I mean, it's just objectively very bad for Ukraine and bad, I think, therefore, for us and for the world and for Europe. And the Europeans are really freaked out. I was struck by this. I think I made me mention this conference. I was at a week ago with mostly Germans, but a lot of younger Europeans.
28:49 And, you know, I didn't, it was more about the election. I was supposed to tell them what's particular what was going to happen in three weeks and that kind of thing. But we ended up talking about a lot of this in the breaks and a couple of coffee breaks. And they are, I mean, they're right near there, right? And they know what Putin's doing. Putin also seems to be testing NATO allies quite aggressively now with various things he's been doing with Bulgaria and Romania and, you know, all sort of not quite flat-out Russian aggression, but, you know, finding excuses to have drones land places and ships to get harassed or even blown up. So, yeah, no, I think it's bad. It's the real.
29:24 And this, again, comes back something you and I have discussed a lot. It's one, this will happen for the next two weeks, I guess, three weeks maybe as part of his election. campaign to blame Zelensky for everything. But then two more years, I mean, I don't know. It's really going to be rough on Ukraine. The Europeans can't step up on everything. And the Democratic Congress can step up some, but, you know, you can't force him probably to provide, well, I don't know, I'm an interesting question, whether you could try to force him to do certain things in terms of intelligence and the like. So I know it's depressing. Yeah. Yeah. And it is just shocking, sort of after all of this, how much it, like everything
29:57 else comes back to Donald Trump's own perception of his own relationship with the two leaders involved, where he sees Putin as essentially an equal, right? He sees Putin as a man after his own heart, a man who runs his government the way Trump would like to run his own government, a kind of world striding figure, who's one of these great men of history. And then he sees Zelensky as basically a second-tier world leader who just comes shaking a cup to the United States and should be willing to bow and cringe and do whatever we ask them to do in exchange for the largesse, you know, that that we deliver as basically charity to him and his country and his people. And you definitely got that dynamic in a lot of the early negotiations about this.
30:44 I'll just read real quick from this New York Times story about the way this all went down on Friday because there were Ukrainian officials at Steve Whitkoff's golf club in Miami me, you know, talking about all of this stuff, which is how insane is that, by the way, that that's sort of the setting for all of this stuff and the people involved. But Wittkoff and Jared Kushner are there. They're talking to Ukrainians about, you know, all this pressure that Trump is trying to put on them and on Russia to end the energy ceasefire or, sorry, to put in place in energy ceasefire to, you know, get a little bit of pressure off of diesel prices.
31:23 At this meeting, it suddenly goes out to the world. that the United States is going to be willing to suspend a bunch of sanctions on Russian diesel. And in fact, later, it would become clear that the U.S. is also willing to unfreeze a bunch of frozen Russian assets if they will agree to this energy ceasefire. And the Ukrainians are saying, well, you guys are given all these goodies to Russia in exchange for them just to be willing to stop bombing our refineries. Meanwhile, you're just kind of bullying us about it. Like, what do we get?
31:52 Like, what's our sweetener? And I'll quote here from the New York Times. The Americans responded that the United States was doing a lot for Ukraine already, according to three people familiar with the meeting and should not have to make a trade for Ukraine to stop its refinery attacks. The Americans then mentioned U.S. intelligence assistants considered vital to the Ukrainian war effort. Some in the room heard that as a veiled threat, according to two of the people. Obviously, those fears have only grown with the news that I was just talking about a minute ago here. So it's all carrots for the Russians and it's all sticks for the Ukrainians. and it also just seems like Zelensky's out of patience for the whole thing.
32:27 I mean, his interview that he gave to the Financial Times overnight, he just kind of seems like he's done playing this game of bowing and scraping to get Trump not to turn on him, right? I mean, he says, he talks about the Trump-Putin relationship. This is Zelensky. Trump speaks about it openly and loudly that he loves such people and respects such people like Vladimir Putin. because for him, people who can be leaders 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, it means they can be very strong. And that's true, right? I mean, that's just an accurate description of Trump's admiration for autocratic leaders like Putin. But again, you got to worry that this sort of thing, you know, when Trump sees world leaders who stop being willing to do that kind of song and dance, it does not really lead him to repentance, right?
33:15 It doesn't make him think, oh, you know, how badly I've treated Mr. Zelensky that he would say such things about me. no, it's the opposite. He says, well, you know, fuck you, I'm, I'm going to be, you know, you're an enemy. You're an enemy of mine now. So it's just, it's all really dispiriting and, and it's hard to know how things go well from here, I guess. And I think one reason Zelonsky is doing this, though, is saying this, I mean, he's obviously believed this all along, but he was bending over backwards as so many other leaders have to try to keep on Trump's good side. And maybe it worked for a while and it was worth it for a while. It was a little unclear what was constraining Trump, if anything much. But he now has,
33:50 has to appeal to the Europeans and to others in the U.S. I mean, that's his hope, right? And so he's right to think at this point, it would be counterproductive to keep on pretending Trump's being responsible, because you've got to tell the Europeans, okay, there are some alternatives to start, like maybe there are alternatives in some of the,
34:06 even in the intelligence sharing field. It's not like the British don't have intelligence and stuff. And maybe, so I think Zelensky is being clear-eyed about the need to shift now. But I agree, it's an ominous sign for the next few weeks and months, and maybe a couple of years. And this war could still tip over in Russia's favor.
34:26 But Putin, like Trump, seems increasingly unconstrained in terms of, and I think he wants to teach NATO a lesson, and it's not just Ukraine. So I think the odds of things spinning out of control, and maybe we can close on this, we've got to go, but both here and in the Middle East, obviously, where there's been a lot of activity recently with Saudis and Houthis and Iran
34:46 and self-blown ships blowing up in the strait. Iran doesn't seem at all constrain. and there'll be responses to that personally. I just, I've never felt more strongly than now that we could have all kinds of world on fire situations, you know, in the next near future, not five years from now when the alliance structure is collapsing, not even two years from now, but, you know, a few weeks or certainly a few months from now. So 27, 28 is going to be really something.
35:15 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I guess that's a pretty good note to end on. You are absolutely right. 2027, 2028 will be something. I guess odds are we'll be here to talk everybody through it all, and we can all hang out together and chew on it and digest it and figure out what's going on in the world. I guess there are edge scenarios under the circumstances you describe where we won't be here, but we don't need to think about those until they happen,
35:40 and we won't be able to think at all after they do. So that's fine for now. That was a genuinely impressively grim ending. I give you a lot of credit for that, Andrew. Well, that was all you, man. It's, you know, we, morning shots. Morning shots live. Grimmer than the sum of its parts, I think, from time to time. But, but yeah, no, I, you know, we'll keep an eye on it.
36:00 We'll be talking about it. We'll be watching it. We can end it there. Thanks, Bill, for coming on and John about some of this stuff with us, even though we did end in a kind of impressively dark place. You know, maybe it'll be fine. Odds are. Odds are.
36:12 Odds are. We'll be fine. Nothing ever happens. And, and we'll see. And we'll see. Let me do one piece of bookkeeping. Why not? Let's just lurch right back into the sort of salesmanship mode because we got to do this sort of thing.
36:25 Atlanta, Atlanta, we're a few days away. Next Tuesday, we'll all be there. Jim, not Jim, JVL, maybe Jim will be there. JVL, Sarah, Tim is what I meant to say. Bill, Mark Hurtling, myself, we're all going to be down on the stage and Atlanta. Come see us. Go to the bulwark.com slash events. Get a ticket to the show.
36:44 It will be probably more grim, honestly. in some ways. It's such a weird time because the news is so bad and yet the political climate is so good for like recriminations or like like, you know, comeuppance for a lot of this stuff. And yet, as you say, you know, we're even after that come up and happens, we still have two years to go. He's still in the Oval Office. He still has, you know, a party that has absolutely no interest in constraining him. So, so yeah, there's going to be a lot to talk about, a lot to chew over. We'll do some of that in Atlanta. We'll do some of that on the show next week. Even if you're not in Atlanta, I hope you will do this. I hope you'll subscribe to the bulwark. Hope you'll go and
37:17 click that little red button that helps our content get to you, helps our content get to other people. It's very helpful for us. Very constructive for you too because we show up more on your YouTube homepage after you do that. But thanks, Bill, and thanks to all of you for watching. We'll see you all next time.