The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – NEGOTIATING WITH TRUMP: LESSONS ON POWER, INFLUENCE, AND DEALING WITH EXTREME BARGAINERS by PETER D. JOHNSTON

Episode Date: July 13, 2026

NEGOTIATING WITH TRUMP: LESSONS ON POWER, INFLUENCE, AND DEALING WITH EXTREME BARGAINERS by PETER D. JOHNSTON https://www.amazon.com/dp/0980942179 WHAT MAKES DONALD TRUMP TICK? Is the world negotiating with a madman—or a genius? Is his chaotic approach to influence instinct-driven, or is it a calculated strategy? And did the co-author of The Art of the Deal secure a second presidency because of his negotiation style, or in spite of it? To endure and flourish in the era of the 47th president, we need more than political commentary. We need a playbook—one that helps us see patterns and analyze for ourselves what’s going on, while empowering us to excel in our own negotiations. In Negotiating with Trump, Peter D. Johnston applies the objective lens of a negotiation expert to decode President Trump’s tactics. Johnston exposes the mechanics of Trump’s leverage, digging into his personality profile, his mastery of our psychological tendencies, and the coalition building that drives his agenda. From the boardroom and the international stage to your living room, this is a systematic and entertaining examination of what works, what fails, and what we can learn from Trump’s extreme approaches to negotiation. Whether you are closing a business deal, negotiating conflicts at home, or hoping to influence America’s next steps as a nation, this book will force you to rethink what you know about power, persuasion, and the art of the deal. About the author Peter D. Johnston is an international negotiation expert, a leading advisor, thinker, practitioner, and negotiation speaker. His bestselling book, “Negotiating with Giants,” relays lessons from his advisory work, research, and history’s most difficult negotiations, ranging from trade deals and hostage-takings to the achievement of Magna Carta. He is also the author of “Negotiating with Trump” (June 2026) and the award-winning novel, “Weapons of Peace” (2019). His negotiation results have been formally recognized by the US Government for their positive economic and social impact, domestically and abroad. He is the Managing Director of Negotiation Advice International (NAI).

You wanted the best... You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times.

Because you're about to go on a monster education role. rollercoaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. I'm Oaks of Oz here from The Chris Voss show. I don't know what that was about. The system there cut off the Iron Lady. What the hell's going on? That or she's a little slow on the upkeep.

We should probably improve her pay. Give her an extra 50 cents per hour, so that's a dollar now. Anyway, guys, welcome the big show. As always, we are the oldest living podcast in existence that still does daily, daily interviews and puts them up all the good time. There's a handful of us left, but we're the only one's doing daily. So please support us

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Just please, for love of God, don't make me beg. I think I'm begging. Anyway, we have an amazing young man on the show. We're going to be talking about. His insights, his experience, and his latest book that just barely came out today, July 8, 26. It's entitled, Negotiating with Trump, Lessons on Power, Influence, and Dealing with Extreme Bargainers. Peter D. Johnson joins us on the show. We're going to be talking to Mr. Johnston about his book and all the wonderful things he's doing and all the good stuff there. And you're going to find out more because that's the way we work. Peter is a

multi-book author. He's written several important books. He is a negotiator, a negotiator, and speaker whose expertise is sought worldwide. He's worked with clients ranging from Wall Street bankers, UN officials, political leaders, to battered sales teams, cheated spouses, and convicted felons. I'm sorry, I was the one who caused the cheating. That's my bad. His groundbreaking results have been formally recognized by the US government for their positive economic and social impact. He is a Harvard MBA trained journalist and former corporate investment banker. Welcome the show. Peter, how are you, sir? Pleasure to be odd with you, Chris. You've cracked me up several

times just the last couple of minutes listening to you. And that's just looking at my face. Oh! So give us dot-coms. Where can people find you on the end web, sir? They can find me at negotiating with Trump.com and find out more about the book, and they can also find out about my services through peter johnston.com. So give us a 30,000 overview. What's inside your new book? So, Chris, I had heard that the, as recently as December, actually, of last year, Trump's State Department called him the greatest American dealmaker ever. And my book puts that to the test to try to clarify for people whether that's the truth. And if it is in some respects, how, and if it's not, how it's not.

And I'm sure people have their own takes on how effective the president is as a negotiator. I originally was a Trump fan in 1984 when that book came out or six. What you might call it? I had no idea it was ghostwritten and fabricated mostly. The art of the deal. And then in 1989, I bought a second book that's now taken out published, and it was how he lost everything pretty much at the banks for the most part or saved himself from multiple bankruptcies to save the Atlantic system crap. And that's when I realized, this guy was in all that. So that's when I woke up from my Trump fever dream.

Yeah, go ahead. I was just going to say, to your point, Trump is an amazing way for us to learn about what effective negotiation looks like. because he's got decades of experience very transparent in what his approach and what he's achieved or not achieved. And so that was one goal in writing the book was to show people how they can learn from Trump in their own lives to deal with extreme bargainers like Trump. And secondly, and perhaps most importantly, the goal was to help world leaders, business people and citizens better understand Trump, what makes him tick, his personality type. his compulsion, his four core interests, and so that they can, whether they're at the table directly or away from the table, better negotiate with the president of the United States. And imagine there's a lot of other people like him in the world that you may end up negotiating

with. So give us some of the findings that you found in the book. And what were some of the things that stuck out with you? That's a broad question, obviously. I know. I would say, Give you a softball there. Just threw it all out there. Just read your book to me, Peter. Thank you for that. Look, the book has three parts to it. The first part is showing you how Trump negotiated his way to power twice

in terms of his use of psychology, his personality type, to win over the American people because Chris, we're negotiating any time we're trying to influence someone to do something. It's not all formal deals. In fact, Trump is not as effective. I argue in the book at the formal deal making as he is at the more informal stuff behind the scenes. And that would also include negotiations informally with the American elector. So that's the first part of the book.

The second part of the book shows readers how to negotiate effectively two separate models, one that's very effective, one that's not, and how they can see how Trump uses the less effective one, but somehow manages to make his way to power. And then finally, the last part of the book, looks at everything from Ukraine to how he's handled trade as part of his second presidency and applying the tools and psychology, I've explained in the first part of the book,

to better understand where he's effective or not on those fronts. Understanding who's at the other side of the table. This is why big governments, the spies, have always done dossiers on people and understanding people. I learned a long time ago in sales. You always want to understand who you're negotiating with

or who the buyer is, what they're about. This is one of the reasons you build rapport with people when you're negotiating and selling because you want to get to know them. So what do you feel, in your opinion of research, makes Donald Trump tick other than Coke and Adderall? Yeah, I'll let you make those conclusions. Sure.

From my side, I think it's important to understand And I'll check them off four quick interests that we have to keep our eyes on. When you're assessing the Iran nuclear, Iran not nuclear deal, but the Iran deal that Trump's personal negotiators have reached. Don't look at national interests. Look at Trump's core interests. There's been no other president in the history of the United States who's been more driven by his personal interests. And those are affirmation as a winner and having an impact, second interest showing power and authority and having it to achieve his ends. Third is wealth and status, which people aren't surprised at. And the fourth one is settling grievances. And essentially, you can look at the Iran deal that's been reached. Don't assess it, as I say, through national interests because that was never Trump's goal. It met his personal interests on all those fronts. And the second big takeaway is, and this is drawing on psychologists who have looked at this, Trump as part of his personality type in Myers-Briggs terms. He's a promoter is what he's called. He is driven and he says it in his book,

Art of the Deal, not as much by the deals themselves and what comes to them, but by the excitement of pursuing the deal. And that speaks to being a thrill seeker, quite possibly, and a sensation seeker. And that means when you're looking at how Trump's acting, don't discount how much he gets out of, not the terms of the deal, but just the pursuit of the deal itself and warn the wrong, for example. So it's a lot for you to digest it, but more interest. And then there's the singular compulsion that some psychologists have argued and neuroscientists are, if you don't assess his need for excitement every day and therefore what's driving our

headlines, you can't understand Trump. Yeah, yeah. You turn to him as a promoter. Does malignant narcissism delve into any of this psychological makeup of negotiating with Trump? I don't, I don't know. First of all, I don't know, there are a lot of narcissists. We have to look out for ourselves. It's just a question of degrees.

I'll leave that to the psychiatrist to figure out. I'll also leave it to the psychiatrist to figure out whether he's crazy. My assessment is that he's not, that he's crazy like a fox, perhaps. But when I chart out through this book negotiating with Trump, Trump's dealings across 50 years, he's got a lot of failings in negotiation. But one of them isn't that he's crazy. He may look crazy to those who don't share his personality profile, Myers-Briggs profile. But I'll tell you, there are 30% of Americans who share Trump's basic Myers-Briggs personality,

profile. An artisan who is a maverick doesn't abide by the rules, doesn't care about authority, acts in the moment, doesn't plan ahead, is willing to enter into brinksmanship in his dealings. There are 30% of Americans who are called artisans who share that profile. And that, as I argue in the book, helps explain a good part of his base. They look at him acting as he does, and they go, That's me. And you can tell him he looks crazy, but then I'm crazy too. Yeah. Yeah. I've been aware of that. I just wasn't aware it was the artisan thing with the 30%. So how do we negotiate with people like him or how do you advise in the book to negotiate with the people like him?

When we're talking people like him, it's extreme bargainers. It's and some hard bargainers and we've all experienced them. they take a fixed pie approach to the world, Chris, in negotiation terms to simplify it. You've got a fixed pie or an expanding pie approach to negotiations. A fixed pie assumes it's a zero-sum gain. My gain is your loss. And I'm going to be threatening you to give me what I want. I'm going to be stinking out extreme positions. And I'm going to be denigrating you as a person so that you feel like less to give me more on the substance

of the deal. That's what hard bargainers, extreme bargainers, fixed pie bargainers do. That approach dates back to the marketplaces of the Middle East thousands of years ago. We since developed more sophisticated tools that are expanded pie approaches where you and I talk about our respective interests. We develop a whole bunch of different options. We look at standards, precedents, marketplace laws to guide what a good deal would look like. And we build trust. And we build two-way communication through the negotiation process so that when we actually sign the deal, we're in a better place to implement that deal in a meaningful way. So I lay out those two big picture approaches to negotiation because when you're dealing with a fixed pie bargainer like Trump, and I lay this out in

negotiating with Trump, you've got to be very disciplined. You can be respectful, but you can say, look, I can negotiate in a fixed pie way, but we're not going to get it. anywhere. Or we can negotiate this expanded plan approach in a way that meets your interests and mine. And I use the example of Boeing and Iran on how Boeing in particular with Air Force won, which is the reason that failed negotiation is why the president is flying around in a gift from Qatar right now because of his own failed negotiation with Boeing back in 2018. Those planes he had demanded they be ready in 2021. Oh, yeah. And they just weren't. I guess there was a delay on them or something?

Trump, by his own account, got them at a heavily discounted price, well below market. And he pressured Boeing CEO at the time, who's now gone, to say yes to a deal with a fixed price of $3.9 billion, which was about two-thirds short in value. Fix price, as you can imagine, means no matter how much Boeing went over cost because of its own suppliers, it had to eat the losses. So it's lost $2.5 billion on a $3.9 billion deal, and the planes aren't ready for takeoff until at least 2028. That's why the president is no longer in his plane. Yeah. In a formal presidential Air Force One plane, he's in his gift from Qatar.

And so I show people how Boeing, Boeing's admitted the deal was a terrible one since, and they shouldn't have said yes to it. But this is the president's charm and brilliance in some respects, is he can get you to say yes to something like this as Boeing, even though, just to meet his short-term interests, even though I argue in the book, sophisticated negotiators dealing with him more firmly on their own interests and what a good deal would look like, absolutely benefit Trump in the end because he might well be in his new Air Force One at this point if Boeing had negotiated more effectively in an expanded highway with him. Yeah.

In fact, I was just reading this morning, there's the both running around. I guess the new one left Turkey without him. And I guess they're bringing the other one back. There's some sort of shenan that's going on. I don't know. But it's funny. I guess there's two, we're going to fly both Air Force ones now to the next country that he's going to.

And I'm just like, okay, sure. Yeah, man. Tell us how we can't afford. Florida health care. So I've dealt with people that negotiate like this. Let me, let me ask you this. I was raised in the negotiation background of you try and do a win-win. You try and make a balance win for people. You try to be each side tries to be respectful of the other because a lot of the mud slinging and some of the things that Trump does in the negotiation really mucks it up. But I can see how if I beat someone over the head often enough and they're submissive to it that maybe I can get my

I can get a deal. But if I have to continue doing business with that person or something like this, so basically one thing I've learned and a lot of people who are independent contractors, consultants, coaches have learned that a bad client is always going to be a bad client. And that if you agree to outrageous terms and abuse and people that are abusive, you're just, that's just the tip of the iceberg. It gets worse, the more longer you have to do business with them. So is it worth it to, I guess a lot of companies do feels worth because they're buying influence. But certainly what about this win-win-win deal concept? I think you alluded to the little bit of that and how we do normally. Yeah, win-win. Win-win is the expanded pie approach to things. And yet people will always say, yeah, I want to win-win.

Generally, Trump won't, but it defies logic to not approach it as a win-win because why would you satisfy my interest, Chris, if I'm not satisfying yours? It just goes against that general. old agreement dating back to the beginning of humanity that I give and and take. Essentially, when you ask that question, why would I do business with someone like Trump, a lot of people just, that's the problem. A lot of people in his business life stop doing business with him, stop bringing him the best deals. And on the international side, we're seeing the same thing with trade partners. They are now flowing around the United States. And this is a longer term impact that I argue will cost the United States tens of trillions of dollars over time,

is that they can't trust Trump or whoever succeeds him, by the way, because of the American political situation, the volatility and the back and forth in leadership. You can't build plants on that basis. So at the core of this, I argue there's an expanded pie negotiation to be had a win-win amongst Americans to try to stabilize their political situation. in a way that meets the collective interest. So that's what I would say is that that's the downside to the fixed pie approach and why it generally doesn't work. And if it weren't for Trump's family wealth, as others have laid out,

and for The Apprentice as a TV show, which was brilliant on Trump's part, but not because of his dealmaking in a fixed pie way, in a win-lose way. He would have been personally, financially, possibly in ruins, and he would never have made it to the presidency the first time on the backs of that fixed-by approach, which just logically doesn't work over time. Yeah. It was interesting to read his first book or his second book when his whole empire was collapsing because New York City had hit a real estate recession in the late 90s. And then, of course, that would combine with the three or four casinos he'd built in Atlantic City and overextended himself with. And I remember reading his book.

He just basically went to the banks and said, look, either you bailing me out, we figure something out, or fuck you, I'll go file bankruptcy. And I just heard the guy who wrote rich man, poor man, rich father, rich dad, poor dad. He was just talking about how much he's billions of dollars in debt on all of his real estate stuff. And he's, listen, I'm not worried.

If you owe a million dollars to the bank, that's a problem. If you owe a billion dollars to the bank, that's their problem. I was like, what an attitude. I guess that's an attitude. And that's how Trump pulled it off. They sold all the Atlantic City stuff at incredibly inflated prices to get the banks to recover their money into the junk bond stocks that they had and all that good stuff. So it was an interesting negotiation, especially I remember reading it as I was young going, that's one way you're doing it. Yeah, it's not.

That's a fallback position. No one ever wants to be in. that position, but it's true in that case when it's a billion dollars the banks are going to try to take your interest into account. All that said, those casinos over the span of more than a decade, really, if I argue Trump could be worth billions, maybe tens of billions more if he had used that time more productively and drawn on what he's good at in negotiation, which is mainly being a promoter, by the way, less so the nuts and bolts of the deals themselves. Is this book maybe more of an instruction of manual about how to negotiate like Trump

or how to negotiate with people like Trump or both? Yeah, it's not how to negotiate like Trump. It is to show you. You recommend that pattern, which is. I absolutely don't recommend negotiating like Trump only because it's not effective for producing the most value, possible however you measure values. So it is absolutely, though, a manual for showing people these two styles of negotiation, the fixed pie versus expanded pie, what works, what doesn't, what Trump does effectively. But I want you to, I show you a model that works in all your

dealings regardless of whether you have a Trump on the other side of the table or Chris Foss, who's more of a win-win approach. And one way or the other, the same approaches work. You just have to be consistent. And by the way, when we're talking about examples, the Oval Office meeting with Zelensky, Vance, and Trump in early 2025, the historic negotiation that took place in front of the cameras, I lay out the case in negotiating with Trump that most people totally misunderstood the lessons from that encounter. Because at the time, people said it was a disaster for Zelensky in Ukraine. The reality, as you look at that moment and overtime since then, a huge success for Ukraine and Zelensky because of how he handled

himself so effectively, being polite and straightforward and respectful toward Trump and Vance, but being very firm on his nation's interests and firm on the fact that Putin was a war criminal, that he had to pay reparations. And the reason it all blew up was because Zelensky was being so effective, Vance felt, in my view, that he had to intervene because the meeting was going off the rails and they had to get it back on risk. Yeah. That was an interesting thing.

And I think that maybe helped the Europeans understand that it was time for them to step in more and contribute more because it seems like they really embraced them after that. So you're right, how he handled that. would have flipped out and act as childish as Trump did, then it would have just been a shit show and everybody, I don't know about this whole thing. We'll let both countries go to hell. Exactly. By the way, I just want to add to that. The European support was critical, and it's what to this day, we're now seeing with the drone money and support from Europe, how Ukraine has turned that war around. They're winning. They're doing remarkably well, all things consider.

And I date that back to February 2025 in that Oval Office meeting that got the Europeans on side because Zelensky handled themselves so well. But you know, public opinion polls in the U.S., the next week, went up 50% in their support for Zelensky and Ukraine. And in Ukraine, similar support went from 58% to 68% among Ukrainians who were teetering at the time because of how Zelensky was so effective in handling that discussion with Trump. Yeah. What a tough place to be in, but he championed it. He does a great job of that. He really is the Churchill, I think, of the 21st century.

Yeah, agreed. Agreed. And so on all fronts, the reason I talk about Zelensky and it's an important point of discussion is when you ask me, how do you handle a hard bargaining like Trump? Zelensky has done it beautifully. He's been respectful and polite, but firm on his nation's interests, never forgetting them. It was as though there were 40 million Ukrainians in the Oval Office with him when he was speaking to Trump because he never spoke off script. Yeah. Turns out he did hold the cards.

That's one of Trump's tells, by the way. When he says hold the cards or he threatens to annihilate you, it's generally a tell that he knows he doesn't have the cards. That's good, because I think he's called us all communist now at this point. You're half the country communist, so I won't worry about it then. Now, what was the aha moment that made you want to write this book? What was the inspiration and the thought that went into, hey, I think we need to write the book about this in detail. Thanks for asking that. It goes back to really the tariff. that were imposed and in the spring of last year, widely around the world, which is a fixed buy approach, to sound like a broken record, versus an expanded by approach where we're meeting

each other's interests well and it can be a win-win. And I just thought there's enough confusion for people who don't do what I do for a living internationally, domestically, in understanding just because these are trade negotiations or negotiations with Ukraine. over a war with Russia doesn't mean that we're totally divorced as the average person from understanding what effective negotiation looks like and what it doesn't look like. And so I wanted people to understand that you can basically look at a negotiation with your son over his cell phone use or with your neighbor over a fence dispute. And the same lessons apply. If you bulldoze over that fence or cut down their tree or tell them you're going to hurt them

badly if they don't give you what you want. It's the same impact internationally as it is with your neighbor next door. That approach doesn't work. It's a fixed pie approach versus an expanded pie approach. Now, let's just say I wanted to use this approach in dealing with an extreme negotiator like with my girlfriend or wife or both. I'm just being funny folks. I have two girlfriends and a wife. No, I'm just kidding. Will this work for them or has this been tested? Which part? Do you want the extreme fixed pie approach? Well, I work with any woman that I need to have a communication direct flow with.

An expanded pie approach. If we're getting into your dating life at this point, absolutely will meet your needs better than... I'm going to buy 20 books fucking today, man. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Please. I encourage you to. It's, look, it's very basic that my understanding what you care about, you caring what I,

you understanding what I care about gives us more ingreens. to expand that pie, to come up with different ways of meeting our interests in creative ways, and that are better than our alternatives to not doing a deal. And through that process, being respectful, just because we disagree, doesn't mean we have to be disagreeable, because that relationships and that fabric of relationships with our neighbors, with our spouses, girlfriends, is critical for getting any deal done. with someone. Do you, I don't know if you cover this in the book, but one thing to think about, and hopefully maybe in people see the way you've laid this out, is that being abusive sometimes

in negotiation, if you're going to have continuing relations with that person, whether it's a spouse, your teenager, whatever, it's a good example of maybe this shouldn't be the best way you should do things too to look at maybe. Because you can win this deal, but, you know, it's kind of like it's kind of like your wife you may win that argument but did you really and that's the that's the whole challenge with the win-lose fixed-by approach and by the way when you're looking at the iran deal for example that was reached a couple of weeks ago the first test i applied not knowing anything about not being involved in those talks is how it was reached if it was done in an abusive threatening way i'm going to annihilate you if you don't say yes to this

is. Guess what? That feels less likely to be sustainable and it's less likely that you got creative and meeting each other's interests along the way. And then there's the what that leads out of the how and usually it's going to be flawed as I say if the how was abusive, as you say. But the what in the Iranian deal, there is no, that was never going to be a starter on a long-term deal with Iran because of the straight of Hormuz. They're controlling it now. They can just come back to that anytime they want. And secondly, if you were Iran and you felt the U.S. had been abusive to you twice, bombing you in an unprovoked way from their perspective, heinous regime, but I'm just looking at it from their perspective, would you say yes to giving up your nukes tomorrow? No.

It's a little hard to trust at that point because one day you're bombing me and next day you're slandering me or beating me over the head all over the internet. It's almost like this. I imagine that was the one question I had for you because a lot of our authors like yourself with the big publishing company, sometimes your guys' books in editing and prep for published for six months to a year. So were you able to get the Iran whole experience of war and negotiations? Yes. Yes.

Oh, wow. Right up until, yeah, it's interesting for those of us like Haberman with her book, regime change. It's been with during the Strum. administration, getting a book out has meant publishers and others being as flexible as possible to allow us to go right up to the deadline. And so mine would go up to April, May. So Iran is covered off and you'll have all my views on what makes sense and what doesn't. But by the way, the Iran deal, I'm apolitical. The whole assessment I do in this book is apolitical. I've

advised both parties over time. The approach that Obama and the Iran news, nuclear deal from 2015 took was an expanded by approach, right? We'll meet Iran's economic interests incrementally by lifting sanctions if Iran gives us safety and security in return by giving up its nuclear program in a monitored way. And it wasn't a perfect deal, but it was far more effective. And this is a perfect example of that expanded by approach where we're meeting each other's interest versus a fixed by approach where I'm threatening the hell out of you. Yeah. And you mentioned that a lot of times this doesn't work being abusive. And we just saw yesterday Reef Surgeons of the War

and volleys at each other and all that stuff. And it's interesting how they've, would you say that I ran? I don't know if you saw the, I imagine you had to, the flood of Lego Iranian, AI generated Lego videos that they made. Did you see them? No, I actually didn't see those. No.

So it's interesting. You might want to look at them. I'm not telling you what to do, but I think it might be good for, to analyze because they may have taken a page out of your book, though it wasn't published till today. And what they were doing was using the same AI technology that

Trump has been using to look like he's great. But they were making these Lego videos that, and with music and songs to them, that were laterly making fun of Trump and how weak he was and stuff. And they were getting circulated by Americans

like crazy on social media. And there were people that were like, I love this is great. And I'm like, this is really weird. Don't we all Americans? I don't agree with what we're doing here, but we're celebrating the Iranians. They're doing a great negotiation battle.

But yeah, if you watch their videos and stuff, it's almost like they tried playing his verbal abuseage and baiting and trolling back. Trolling, that's the word I'm looking for, right back at him. Yeah.

I certainly seen that out of North Korea, for example. Yeah. And by the way, we see how ineffective taking a fix-by approach and threatening North Korea was. Yeah, that worked great. nuclear weapons. Yeah. And Trump actually is on the record as saying he, the reason, one of the reasons he tore up the Iran nuclear deal was he wanted to send a strong signal to Kim Jong-un on,

you're going to give up yours too. Kim Jong-un saw that differently. Let's just put it back. Yeah. Well, he sure seemed scared and terrified. Yeah. Now we're here. But to your point on those, on those Lego videos, that is, this is, this highlights the point in my book that we're negotiating any we try to influence someone to do something, that's that's Iran negotiating in a sophisticated way, whether it's coordinated or not. That kind of propaganda is helpful in making Americans apparently doubt what they're doing in Iran. And so Trump does the same thing through his, and by the way, in a revolutionary way, no president has obviously used social media to negotiate with foreign leaders like Trump has. Yeah. That's interesting. That's all negotiation.

even though it's not at the table, doesn't involve lawyers and no formal deal. It's all trying to influence people's minds using the psychology of how we all think and how we're influenced. And part of that psychology, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is leading to your research, is he's learned that that that sort of abuse signals to everybody that they're on, they have the potential to be on the spit, right? And so that kind of creates a boundary maybe or a signal. that, hey, if you come out with some bullshit, I'm going to respond this way.

So be on your best behavior, maybe? I don't know. Sure. Sure. He's trying to do that. And in the short term, to your point earlier, that abuse can work or threatened abuse. But ultimately, when you're dealing with other countries, who I would argue are actually in a better place than many Americans to be firm with.

Just as Zelensky has been just as a... Iran has been very effective in negotiating with Trump, right, by being firm on their interests. The problem with that approach is people just who don't have to be subjected to that abuse or threats of abuse, just leave the party. And they start doing deals, which we've seen on the trade front. China, for example, it's trading with the U.S. after being hit with 145 percent tariffs, down by quite a bit. But guess what? Their overall exports are up since Trump came into office because they're just doing business with other willing parties around the world who wouldn't have looked at China as an ideal partner before.

But now China's looking pretty good for something. Yeah. And part of that is Trump pushing everyone away. I don't know what he thought. They all ran to even our enemies, basically. Watching the Canadian new prime minister, whoever the head of Canadian is, watching Mark Carney. And he seems like a very intelligent dude. You guys see more of him than I do, so I just go off the videos. But he seems like he's educated and he speaks well and thinks through his thoughts and doesn't shit his pants regularly. Jokes to see him in China doing a deal with them after, I think it was like a decade ago. You guys had imprisoned a Chinese spy, a woman, I believe.

And boy, China was about ready to go to war with you guys over it. They were quite unhappy. And so it was interesting to see the flipping of that whole model. But, you know, I mean, is how business works. If you're going to tell somebody to go blow chunks, then they're going to go find somebody who'll work with them. Carney has picked up on Zelensky's playbook, which is he's affable and polite,

but he's firm on the substance of not saying yes to any deal that wouldn't meet the interests of Canadians. And Canadians expect that. are, they recently elected Carney just last year, and it was explicitly on a platform of standing up to Trump. So Carney benefits from having that backbone of the country behind him. And Canadians have joined that coalition more broadly that helps Carney at the table as they enter into new trade talks because Carney and his negotiators can say at the table to Trump's team, hey, we, even if we wanted to say yes to what you're trying to shut down our throats, we can't because we'll be

thrown out of office tomorrow by Canadians who have, who don't appreciate the approach that their longtime friend and partner is taking right now towards the country. Yeah. Maybe that should be your next book, negotiating like Zelensky and how other world leaders have, have learned from that. I spend, I do spend a whole chapter on Russia and Ukraine and Zelensky and Trump's failings on that front and how the U.S. going back to Biden has not being firm enough, obviously, with Putin. Putin has had nothing to lose. It's been a one-way claiming of territory with no risk to his own territory until Ukraine has ramped up its drones in the last 18 months to two years. Yeah.

Watching the change of warfare and how it does is just incredible. And then they're losing 30,000 Russian soldiers a day or a month. Or is it a day? Yeah. It's not a day. A month. And I was just like, it's just staggering what's going on over there. And here you, I know, you've probably seen the videos of the Russians now are running out of gas.

They just hit another big, I think they hit the biggest fuel depot they had or refinery they had yesterday or the day before. And now the Russians are lining up and fuel lines like I saw in the 70s growing up. And there's people out fighting each. they're in the lines. They're so desperate and angry and they're not happy. Let's put it that way. No, and you look at the impact of what Putin's done to Ukraine. There's some equivalency in a totally different context of what Trump has done to Canada by galvanizing Canadians to be patriotic in ways they hadn't been in decades because they were under attack. And we tend to come in closer amongst those who we support in times of attack.

And Ukrainians have really forged their nation to unprecedented levels of nationalism because they were under attack by Putin. Yeah. It's interesting how that whole negotiation worked out, it works out. Maybe that, do you think that Zelensky meeting in the old office that went sideways, but he held it together on his ends, maybe stoically? Do you think that was maybe a linch, the turning point for everything? And maybe we would be. I believe it was. I believe it was the turning point. That's going to be a moment in history.

It is a moment in history and yet it's a misunderstood moment right now. But it's important we understand because otherwise we're missing the lessons along the way that could change history. Zelensky didn't count how he didn't get set up by Trump in Vance. He, from the beginning of that meeting, and you have to watch it again, Chris, I'd really encourage it to because it's so historic. If you watch it on C-SPAN, you'll see you'll see. see what Zelensky does at the six-minute mark of that meeting, where he turns the tide of the meeting that will turn the tide of this war ultimately to your point today. And the way he does that is he says to President Trump, do you mind if I show you something? And Trump, of course,

says, yes, what do you have to show me? Selensky reaches out of frame and is handed a file that's waiting for him with 12 photographs of Ukrainians in Russian prisons who have been abused and amaciated by Putin, which then is the context that Zelensky uses to set the whole meeting towards the conclusion that is the war criminal, needs to pay reparations, innocent fault here in the U.S. needs to come on. I'll go watch that again. I'll go watch that again. So as we start to round out the show, what do you hope people learn from and come away

with the book? I know we talked about this, but give us a summation, if you would, a little bit. Yeah. The number one goal was for other world leaders, business people, and citizens of the United States and citizens of the world to understand that power these days is not just pure military might. In fact, we've seen that that kind of might and economic might has its limitations. You can be as powerful as the United States is and Trump is sitting in his perch in the over. office, but that economy can also be your vulnerability if people are smart and dealing with you, which we've seen it be with the Iranians. And the military might only go so far as we've seen with Russia and Ukraine where drone technology can be used versus traditional means. The power can be coalitions that come together to counter the president if you're not happy with what he's doing, as well as many other levers of influence that you can use

to negotiate with the most extreme bargenders, whether it's the President of the United States or someone, your boss, or somebody in your personal life who is being challenging to you. I explore all of those levers. And even though some people might say negotiate with Trump, that's not possible. I'd show you dozens of instances where people have negotiated more effectively with Trump using the approaches I discuss so that they get what they want. And the irony is Trump also ends up doing better by getting sustainable deals where the relationship's intact and he doesn't act in an unconstrained manner that actually doesn't meet

his long-term interest. So, you know, the overall lessons from the book are there's the fixed pie way of negotiating the expanded pie approach. And no matter what approach is being taken with you, you can consistently get what you want by. taking the approaches that I've discussed in an expanded pipeline. Thank you very much for coming the show. We really appreciate it, Peter, and very insightful. And hey, negotiating is negotiating. I've dealt with people in my sales career and consulting coaching,

where I've dealt with some extreme people that sometimes are abusive and sometimes are a little bit over the top. But if you want to, what was it that we always used to say in the car business? I learned a lot about sales in the car business. And you want to talk about extreme bargainers sometimes on both sides. but we used to always see in the car business after kind of an abusive client came through and called everybody names in the book and we still got the deal closed and we just kind of held our tongues we just always say at the end we got we got the money we got paid so we

we win yeah yeah and just because somebody's acting abusive towards you doesn't mean you have to act abusively towards them right you can walk away for sure yeah and that is the ultimate backup plan for anyone negotiating with somebody who's an extreme barter. You can always walk away. That's why I'm still single. Ah, so Peter, thank you very much. Give us your dot com so people can find you on the interview. Yeah. Thank you. We'd love people to pick up a copy this summer. By the way, it's an entertaining read. It's written for a mess audience in terms of negotiating with Trump, lessons on power, influence, and dealing with extreme barganers. And you can go to

negotiating with Trump.com to find out more, and you can find out more about me and my work around the world at peter johnston.com. Peter, you're a boots. Give away all your Canadianism, but we love Canadians. Are you in Canada? You're an American citizen now down here hanging out. Are you dealing out? I'm in Canada right now, but I work between the two countries, and I've lived in the United States for more than the decade. I tell our Canadian guests, We, many people, most of this country loves Canada and the people of Canada, so please share that message with them. We love them. And they're the nicest, during people in the world, them in Australians, in my experience, are the nicest people in the world.

Thank you. By the way, I would just say, despite all the challenges Canada and the U.S. are having on the trade front right now, Canadians are very good at distinguishing between an administration and the people of the country. Because I love me some trailer park boys. I love me some rush. I love everything about Canadian. Canadians are nice of people. I just want to come up there and give everyone a hug now

after all this bullshit. Hopefully we'll all be on the other side of this someday. And we can all be friends again, I guess, whatever. Well, thank you very much, Peter. Thanks for tuning in. Order up his book, Wherever Fine Books are sold. Negotiating with Trump. Lessons on Power, Influence, and Dealing

with Extreme Bargainers out today, July 8th, 2026. My God, it's almost August. Thanks for tuning in. Be good at each other. Stay safe. We'll see you guys next. time.