The Daily Beast Podcast - I Know the Secret of Why Trump Truly Fears Putin

Episode Date: September 24, 2026

Luke Harding, author of the new book Betrayal: Trump, Putin and The New Age of Conquest, speaks with Joanna Coles about the decades-long relationship between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, and the Russian intelligence operation that Harding argues helped cultivate Trump as a potential target for influence. Harding traces Trump’s early connections to Moscow, the murky financial dealings that followed, and the compromising information that may give Putin leverage over the president, including what could have been captured during Trump’s visits to Russia. He also explains why Russia viewed Trump’s 2016 victory as a historic intelligence triumph, how Trump’s approach to Ukraine has benefited Putin, and why Russia and China see an opportunity to reshape the global order. Harding reveals what he experienced firsthand while reporting in Moscow, including the surveillance and intimidation campaign that ultimately led to his expulsion, before turning to the startling possibility that Russian state television has used Melania Trump as a warning to her husband. #ad If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can start your claim in just a click without having to leave your couch: https://ForThePeople.com/DAILYBEAST Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I think Trump is afraid of Putin. One former British intelligence guy, MI6 guy I spoke to, it's the Manchurian candidate on steroids. I think some kind of compromise is the best working explanation. The FSB KGB are adept at surveillance. They break in and watch everybody. And of course that means that we Trump's of Donald Trump, the tapes of Donald Trump during his visit, for example, in 2013

for the Miss Universe, beauty fashion. And really, you just have to ask yourself, what did Trump do there? happen there or didn't happen there, Trump knows the Putin knows. And I think it's this kind of Trump knowing that Putin knowing gives Putin leverage. I'm Joanna Coles. This is the Daily Beast podcast. Don't forget to like and smash the subscribe button because we are independent media. This is how you show your support. And it's why we can bring you conversations like the one we have this afternoon, which I found facts.

fascinating about Donald Trump's relationship with Vladimir Putin, who he's just invited to the G20 summit in December. It'll be the first time that Putin has attended the summit for seven years and certainly the first time since he invaded Ukraine. At the center of our conversation is this book, Betrayal, which has not been allowed to be published in the U.S. and we'll get into why. But the author, Luke Hardin, really gets into this mystifying relationship between Putin and Donald Trump. What does Trump get out of it? What do the Russians get out of it?

So no more ado. Let's get into it. Luke, welcome. Joanna, great to be with you. Hello, hello. So you say that the Trump-Putin relationship is the biggest mystery in Interested. international politics. Where do we begin with that? But what do you think is at the heart of that mystery? Well, I mean, I think there are several overlapping factors. And I was halfway through writing this book last year when, of course, Donald Trump invited Vladimir Putin to Alaska for a summit in Anchorage. And there's this one image I couldn't shake, which you have to kind of go over where Trump is on Air Force One.

he comes down the steps looking lethargic and uncharacteristically nervous, lacking his usual alpha swagger. And he stands at the sort of red carpet tea. And then Vladimir Putin, this sort of chilly small figure in a suit, emerges and walks towards him. And then Trump starts manically applauding. Like a seal. Like a seal. And in footage which is so kind of cringy that the White House kind of of removed it from a sort of social media feeds from the summit. And so there's the mad applause. Then, of course, they have talks about Ukraine. Then there's a press conference afterwards, with the whole world's media flying in to hear, have they got a deal on Ukraine, what's going on. And of course, it's an American president on American soil. So he goes first, right?

Except he doesn't. Trump then defers to Putin, who makes a kind of rambling speech about history for eight to nine minutes in Russian. And then that's a wrap. There are no questions and off they go. And the thing is, whether you think it's a conspiracy or whether you think there is something as I do in terms of the Trump-Putin relationship, you need to explain what's going on.

And really, I think there is definitely dictator envy, which is a phrase used by Fiona Hill, who worked for Trump in the first Trump administration. In other words, I think Trump envies Putin's ability to make money, make even more money than he has, billions, tens of billions over a quarter of a century. And Putin. Luke, Putin is reputed to be the richest man in the world, right?

I mean, I think he is. And I think everyone in the Russian political elite understands that. Obviously, Joanna, if you go to, you know, if you go to Chase Manhattan in New York and say, have you got an account in the name of Mr. Vladimir of Rich Putin? They say, no, sorry, nothing here. But everybody inside Russia understands that his assets are held for a series of proxies and friends and relatives. I found some of his money in the Panama Papers.

You remember that offshore leak and the Paradise Papers? Yeah, and he can use this for personal projects or national projects, but he's worth hundreds of billions of dollars, for sure. And of course, Putin, the other thing Putin can do that Trump can't do is murder his opponents, poison them, have them shoved out of windows. Right. And he really has comprehensively. rolled up the political opposition in Russia in a way that Trump has not yet may wish to do,

but has not been able to do in the states. And then on top of that, I think there's what you might call ideological convergence. In other words, there are quite a few people in Maga, including Tucker Carlson, for example, who look at Russia and see a well-organized Christian, socially conservative, anti-woke, kindred states where, you know what? few years ago, hitting your wife was decriminalized in Russia, and where the rhetoric of the state is directed against liberals, gay people, degenerate Europeans, and so on. And so, you know, there's a sort of affinity to the degree where some American evangelicals have actually even moved to Russia to go and live there. And I think the real key to the mystery is what the KGB

called compromise or compromising information. And, you know, what we know is facts rather than as speculation

is that Eastern European spy agencies back in the Cold War had been spying on Trump for half a century. So since the late

1970s, when he married a woman from behind the iron curtain from from red Czechoslovakia. And I've been to Prague and looked in the archives of the

STB, which is the Czechoslovak intelligence agency and there are lots of files about the Trump family, about little Donald Jr., breaking his leg about Avana and her modeling career. And of course, this product was sent back to Moscow. And then if you fast forward to the mid-1980s, the Soviet ambassador, it goes into Trump tower, invites Donald Trump to visit Moscow and Leningrad, which is what he does. And what you have to understand is, you know, at the same time, the KGB was sending memos, secret memos, which were leaked to British intelligence by Oleg Godiievsky, famous defector, basically berating

KGB offices abroad and saying, you are not recruiting enough Americans. We need more Americans as assets, as confidential contacts. And oh, and by the way, here's a checklist of what we're looking for in a potential asset. And it includes being a bad analyst, being bribable, having affairs on the side, not have any great principles, being sympathetic to Russia. And you go down this list and it basically is Trump. If a chef came out in a restaurant and said,

I've never actually cooked this before, but how hard can it be? You'd probably head to another cafe. Because when something really matters, experience isn't a bonus. It's the whole point. That's why so many people turn to Morgan and Morgan, which is America's.

largest injury law firm. Morgan and Morgan has a proven track record of fighting for the people for over 35 years, with over $35 billion recovered for their clients. Morgan and Morgan knows a thing or two about fighting to get you the compensation you deserve. So if your car gets totaled, you get hurt at work or someone else's bad decision becomes your very expensive problem, you can check out Morgan and Morgan. And their fee is free unless they win to see if you have a case, you can go to for the people.com slash daily beast. That's for the people.com slash daily beast. I have to stop you because I found this absolutely riveting and I am one of the very few people, Luke, who actually read Ivana Trump's memoir, odd but true. And in it, she talks about

one of the reasons that she was allowed in and out of the country because she was a junior Olympic team skier was the fact that she would always give them a very efficient download or debrief of her travel. So she would come back. She would sit with the Czechoslovakian intelligence services and talk quite happily to them. And I found it fascinating that they then shared those records with the Russians. The Russians then, she's still doing this when she's married to Trump. And I guess she's used to it. I mean, to an American or to a Brit, the idea that you would be being debrief when you come back from travels, that you would expect this, that you would give them certain amounts of information is obviously it's sort of anathema. But Ivana Trump was used to it. And as you say,

the Russian ambassador then approaches Donald Trump and encourages him to come for a visit, which he does, right? He does. So can you pick up this story from Donald Trump first You've got Gorodafsky saying we must have more Americans. A 1985 questionnaire set out what sorts of targets might be of interest to the KGB. The agency wanted to know about an individual's attitude to Soviet and American foreign policy and their career prospects. For example, how likely was it that the subject could come to power? Occupy the post of president or prime minister also of interest were personality traits that

might be exploited, are pride, arrogance, egoism, ambition, or vanity among the subject's natural characteristics. I mean, Ivana had already told them that her husband was interested in politics. It's impossible not to believe that Donald Trump was clearly a person, if not a Russian asset, as you lay out, he was very clearly a person of to be influenced. Yeah, that's right. And also, by the way, we should remember that Donald Trump's father-in-law, Ivana's father, also reported to the secret police. I mean, he's in the files as well. I mean, he would update them and briefed them. And I actually, when I was in Prague, I knocked on the door of one of the retarding secret agents who had been pursuing the Trump family. And he didn't want to talk to me. He said, you're trying to put me in my grave. And then he shut the door. Yes, I thought that was an amazing line, actually. It's a very chilling line. And I think in the book you used the word tomb, right?

He says, you're trying to put me in my tomb. And I thought, oh, the word tomb, it was so gloomy. So, so what we can say for, I think two points. You know, one is, yes, there was an extensive late Cold War cultivation exercise by the KGB to kind of, you know, to see. to see where Trump would go and to kind of push him and support him. But I think the other key point to make is not that the KGB are, they're not sort of bond villains stroking a cat who press a button and things happen.

They didn't know what would happen with Trump. Basically, their method, both then and now, is opportunistic. So they approach a wide range of potential targets. I mean, Trump, we have to, we agree, is a very promising one. And knowing that most of them would fall down, would not become prime minister or president. you know, but might be useful. And I think what they identified in Trump was his, the sort of chaos he brought, the divisiveness and the fact that he here is someone who could really, if he went all the way, you know, damage and undermine America, which the KGB always referred to

as the Glovny Protivnik, meaning the main adversary. And that was the goal. The goal was to undermine and sabotage American democracy. And in Trump, I think they found someone they thought they could do business with. Can they believe their luck that they happened among, as you say, they cast a wide net of other people and I'd love to know some of the other business people that they thought might be useful. But, but I mean, what is the feeling about Trump in Moscow? I mean, what do Putin and the Russian intelligence, the FSB? What do what do they say about Trump and I should just point out as well that you mentioned the Alaska Summit. The Alaska Summit was set up on a misconception by Steve Whitkoff that the Russians actually wanted

something when in fact because he hadn't taken his interpreter with him, he had misunderstood and the entire summit, which we remember was very hastily flung together, was in fact because Steve Whitkoff had got hold of the wrong end of the stick, right? Yeah, I mean, I mean, I compare Steve Wyckoff and Jared Kushner, present son-in-law, to two characters from famous Samuel Beckett play, Waiting for God, where I call them the Vladimir and Estrogot of international diplomacy because they make these endless trips which are kind of looping and circular and absurd where they end up in the same place from where they started and where actually nothing happened.

Of course, there is no peace in Ukraine because Vladimir Putin doesn't want to stop. the war and Trump doesn't want to exert any pressure on Putin to make him stop. So they're, you know, ridiculous characters and it would be Darlene comic, were it not so consequential for Ukrainians who are being bombed every night by Russian ballistic missiles and jet-powered drones in recent months, which is just inflicting terrible damage. But on your question about, you know, how does Russian intelligence see Trump, they really regarded his victory in 2016 as a triumph for their espionage methods, probably the greatest triumph through the whole Cold War and post-Cold War period. And, you know, let's acknowledge they were all in for Trump. I mean,

you know, the Mueller report describes their operation as sweeping and systematic. I mean, they wanted him to win. I mean, I think they thought he wouldn't win, but obviously they did everything in their power to help and win from hacking Hillary Clinton's, you know, Democratic Party emails dumping it out to media outlets. And there was classic espionage as well. So, so and, and they're thrilled that he's, he's, he's back in power. So I mean, they were popping champagne corks in the Duma when Trump won. And that they regard them basically as their guy. I mean, not, not someone that they manually control, but they can influence who is endlessly susceptible to Russian propaganda and disinformation. So Russian disinformation becomes American disinformation. So Russian disinformation becomes

American disinformation, this is a perfect validation loop for them. Spotify advertising connects you with an audience that's engaged and ready to discover your brand. Launch a campaign with Spotify Ads Manager. So what are the biggest wins for the Russians in terms of Trump's own policies? I mean, the biggest win, I mean, my book is called Betrayal. The biggest win is the fact that direct U.S. military assistance to Ukraine has stopped. And the thing that Vladimir Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, really wants at the moment, are these high-end patriot interceptor missiles which can shoot down these hypersonic, you know, fast-moving Russian missiles before they land and kill people. And a lot of them got squandered in Trump's war in Iran, so they're in short supply.

And, you know, Zelensky has said, okay, well, give us some and give us the blueprint so we can make our own. I mean, it'll take a while, but the Ukraine is pretty ingenious and creative. And Trump has refused that as well. And the consequence is that the civilian death hole this year has gone way up. And of course, you know, the other thing he's done really is humiliate Zelensky. I mean, last year, they're bust up in the Oval Office, which I describe as one of the most darkly electrifying moments in political history. was an ambush.

It was premeditated. And I think the idea was to kind of nudge American popular opinion away from Ukraine towards Russia in a more Russia-friendly direction. And the other thing I just think is the sort of disinformation. I mean, Trump will say things like, you should never have started it to Zelensky. I mean, I was in Kiev in February 2022 when Russian tanks were coming towards me and the capital having crossed the border from Belarus. I mean, Ukraine did not start this war.

But Trump's kind of, Trump basically gives the impression that the problem personality is Zelensky and keeps boasting of his very, very good relationship with Vladimir Putin, the man he applauds constantly. And really, Joanna, America has swapped sides either, by which I mean the Trump administration, either supports Russia and wants Putin to win. or is entirely indifferent to Ukraine's fate and the suffering of its people or both. OK, so can we then extend that into what Mark Carney referred to earlier this year at Davos as the end of the global world order, that the world order that it essentially stood

post-second world war has basically been entirely upended by Donald Trump. And you now have Mark Carney reaching out to the EU and saying, you know, we want to to we want to essentially become an associate member of the EU. And European countries no longer relying on America as their chief ally. I mean, you know, even the essence of NATO now feels very vulnerable. That also is, I am assuming, a huge win for Vladimir Putin. It's a huge win for Vladimir Putin. It's almost as if a kind of retired KGB general sitting in his dacha outside Moscow has

has penned a novel or a thriller, an updated version of the Manchurian candidate where a pro-Russian American president comes to power, basically trashes the transatlantic alliance, which really was a kind of fundamental aspect of international security architecture for 80 years. You know, trash talks Kea Stama, former British prime minister describing him as no Churchill, dismisses the Italian leader, Georgia Maloney as a fan girl, and basically kind of estranges or alienates traditional Western allies while embracing the autocrats in the shape of Putin, but also to some degree, Kim Jong-owned in North Korea,

and Xi Jinping, who's about to meet in China. This is not normal. This is not, this is unprecedented. It does enormous damage to America's standing in the world. And really to the idea of America as a shining city on a hill or a place which aspires to global leadership. And look, I'm not in the US, but from my vantage point, it looks like a kind of grubby, predatory, shabby country, just like any other.

I mean, the leadership thing has gone in the age of Trump. And of course, the Russians are, you know, putting their hands up and, you know, applauding. And just what, you know, one final point, which is that what Trump has done with his rhetoric to his threats to an ex-Greenland and to menace Canada, kidnapped the Venezuelan president, proclaim the Americas as exclusively kind of American zone, is to actually legitimize what Putin is doing in Europe. In other words, conquering Ukraine.

So you have one imperialist in the shape of Putin, and you have Trump as a kind of co-imperialist or a sort of meta-co-imperialist because, you know, sometimes, you know, or empty threats. And a real sense that together with she, they're trying to divide the world up between them. So you've also, however, got, and there's so much one back here, Luke, but you've also got two men stuck in a forever war.

I mean, Trump has been now at Iran for six months. The Ukraine-Russian war, which Trump, of course, claimed he was going to solve within the first day of him taking office, has now lasted four and a half years longer than the First World War. Is Putin as invulnerable as he seems? I mean, we've done a lot of reporting at The Daily Beast with our reporter Alison Quinn about sort of internal efforts to prop Putin up because he's more vulnerable than he seems,

certainly, to us in the West. What's your sense of his vulnerability? Yeah. I mean, just to say, you have to acknowledge that both Putin and Trump are not very good imperialists. Actually. Right. They've got stuck by this. They both got stuck.

I mean, Putin thought he would take care from three days. I mean, that's what his intelligence chiefs told him. They said the Ukrainians would not resist. And he thinks they're Russians anyway. And would greet invading Russian soldiers with flowers. And of course, they didn't. They blew them up. and continue to blow them up.

Right. And Trump likewise, you know, really, from what I hear via sort of Pentagon people also thought that this shock or nor operation in Iran would lead to kind of quick victory in the overthrow of the regime. And he's in a quagmire there as well. But in terms of Putin's position, I mean, I think what you have to understand is that, well, I was in Russia for four years reporting for my newspaper The Guardian. I was kicked out in 2011.

And back then Russia was, it was an autocracy, essentially with a few kind of democratic aspects left over from the 90s. But now it's a totalitarian or near totalitarian state where dissent is impossible. So it doesn't really matter how badly the war goes. I mean, we're talking about 1.4 million Russian soldiers killed or injured. 1.4 million. There is no avenue for kind of public process or dissent. the cleverest, most creative Russians, younger Russians, many of them fled in 2022. And the remaining population is passive, either supports the war or tolerates the war,

fatalistic in quite a sort of Soviet-Russian way, and is not going to be storming the Kremlin anytime soon. And so, you know, Putin will outlast Trump, that I can guarantee. I mean, there are lots of rumors about his health, which I'm told by my sources, not true. He has very good doctors. There are other rumours that he has body doubles. I think those rumors are true. I mean, because you see, you see a chilly Putin five meters away from his conversation partner on a very kind of long Kremlin table. That's the real one. And then sometimes you see another Putin film from behind plunging into crowds and hugging babies. And I think probably

that's the double. That's the fake Putin. And certainly Ukrainian intelligence think there several Putin's and probably the double has a double for when the double has a day off. You know, we don't know. Right. And actually, you know, only a true wizard, you know, would be able to replicate themselves as many times. So there's some kind of leaning into this idea from the Kremlin as well. But really, the conclusion is the war goes on, unfortunately.

Europe's biggest war, most terrible war since 1945, so long as Putin lives and breathes and is in the Kremlin. And I think it will only stop or pause. when he's carried out horizontally in a coffin. And you remember, you know, whenever Soviet leaders died back in the 1980s, there was Swan Lake, ballerinas dancing to Swan Lake. So I think it won't stop until we get Russia has its one leg moment. Wow.

Well, that's bad news for all those young men in Russia and other countries that are being recruited to fight on Russia's behalf. So, Luke, I realize also, I, I, well, We shot off in another direction in terms of Trump's having been bailed out by the Russians. Can you just talk us a little bit through that too? So they get to know him in the 80s. He goes for a visit. He goes back a couple more times because he's talking to them about real estate deals.

He launches Trump vodka, which as you point out, quickly, flops. No surprise there, Trump water flop. needs I go on, Trump University, and people still think he's a good business man. It's a mystery. But the Russians do end up bailing him out, don't they? And they do end up paying for a house that he has in Florida that he buys actually in a competitive situation with Jeffrey Epstein, which is why he and Jeffrey Epstein fall out. Yeah, I mean, this story is filled with bizarre and.

and troubling moments, and that was certainly one of them. He bought a house in Florida in 2004 and then sold it to a Russian oligarch called Ribbalovlev a couple of years later for... For twice, he bought it for twice. The oligarch never lived there and eventually demolished it. And by the way, in case there are any lawyers watching, I taught his representatives who insist that it was a good deal.

And also it was unclear where Trump got. the first 40, whatever it was, 42 million to buy the property in the first place, correct? Yeah. I mean, these are sort of aspects of Trump's backstory. I explored in collusion, my previous book, which came out in his first presidential term, but there was a very strange pattern of lending from Deutsche Bank, which lent money to all of the Trumps, in fact. He lost all his money at various points in the 1990s. And normally, with a, you know, conventional bank, that would be it. He wouldn't then lend. But even though Trump's liquidity was kind of very dubious, Deutsche Bank continued to lend him large

sons. There are similar questions about his finances now, about how much money he's made during his second term and investment flooding into Jared Kushner's fund from Gulf states, which the New Yorker rated back very well last week. So it's murky. And you know, you wonder if the Democrats do in Congress in November, whether they'll be able to shine some light on that. So, Luke, when you look at this picture, what, is Trump afraid of Putin? I think Trump is afraid of Putin. I mean, the nervosity. I mean, there's a real sort of plain sightness to all this. I mean, people kind of try and dance around the subject because it seems so, you know, she's a pretty good bonkers. It seems crazy.

Outlandish, outlandish. And extraordinary. And like I said, like a spy novel, like the Manchurian candidate. I mean, actually one former British intelligence guy, MI6 guy I spoke to who said it's the Manchurian candidate on steroids. But I think some kind of compromise is the best working explanation. I mean, if I can tell you about what happened to me in Moscow, when I arrived as a correspondent in 2007,

within about three months, the FSB, Putin's spy agency, which he used to run before. before he took over as president, broke into my family apartment and put various bugs in. I was told by the British embassy and I went to go and see them and they said, yes, it's the FSB breaking into your apartment. They left all of these stupid clues that they'd been inside. And I said to, I said to the embassy, well, can you remove the bugs? They said, no, we can't. There's no point. They'll just put them back in again. And then I said, well, do they have video?

And they said, yeah, possibly. And I said, in the bedroom. and they sort of shrugged and said, well, let, you know, have a cup of tea. Which is what, you know, British embassies do if you come in in a situation of parallel, they offer you tea. They can't do much because we're sort of, we're not really a world power anymore, but they'll give you tea in a biscuit. Right. So the fact was that, you know, the FSB bothered,

they also kind of interrogated me at one point in their little prison called Leforta, but they bothered to sort of spy on me and my wife in the marital bedroom for about three and a half years until my visa was cancelled and I was deported. And they made it clear that they were watching us because on one occasion we came back from a family holiday in Berlin

and they left a sex manual in Russian by the side of the marital bed. And I had to say to my wife, you know, darling, this really isn't mine. You know, the KGB have introduced this. And I think they're basically saying, we're watching it, everything.

But are they giving you this is going to sound odd. But is that actually a sort of friendly thing to do where they're actually saying, listen, we've bugged your apartment. We have to do this. We're the FSB. You know you're being bugged.

We have left friendly clues. No, there was nothing friendly about it at all. The girl was basically to make, you know, make my wife say, look, I can't take this any longer let's go. And meanwhile, the foreign minister was hinting it would be better if I left. You know, and saying things like, are you not worried that if you stay, something will happen to your children? On one occasion, we came back and found that we're living on the 10th floor of a Moscow kind of high rise.

We found the window next to our six-year-old son's little IKEA bed, which, of course, we double-locked, had been bust open with a long plunge to the icy courtyard below, and the implication being that maybe he would meet with an accident. So I think they thought that this campaign would make me leave and actually it didn't. And in the end they just cancelled my visa. But the big point, I mean, the reason I tell you this is that the FSB KGB are adept at surveillance. They break in and watch everybody. And of course that means that we trumps of Donald Trump, the tapes of Donald Trump during his visit, for example in 2013 for the Miss Universe beauty passion, that we take some of Obama of Hillary Clinton.

of any high-profile American visitor will be bugged, followed, intercepted, there'll be an attempt to kind of compromise their electronic devices. That's just standard operating procedure. So there will be tapes of Trump in Moscow. And really, you just have to ask yourself,

what did Trump do there? I mean, perhaps he had an early night with a cup of herbal tea, started leafing through war and peace or something else by Tolstoy. Or maybe he had a more exotic and interesting experience. But the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2020,

in a report, you know, the time chaired by Marco Rubio, no less, produced a report and confirmed that the FSB had surveillance cameras and guest bedrooms in the hotel where Trump stayed. So there'll be tapes. And the crucial thing is, you know, rather than speculating,

what we can say is fact is that whatever happened there or didn't happen there, Trump knows the Putin knows. And I think it's this kind of Trump knowing that Putin knows. giving gives Putin leverage. And I don't think Putin is sort of threatening to expose Donald Trump. I think Putin basically flatters him, like the kind of veteran KGB officer he is and says,

Donald, we are beset by enemies. They're the same people trying to bring down our presidencies. You are a great historical figure on the world stage. I will always be your friend. I will always be your rock. And, oh, and by the way, Zelensky is a bad guy. And Trump internalizes this and it works. It works every time.

It works every time. So what are, what of Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping saying to each other about Donald Trump, Luke? I mean, we've got the Chinese leader arriving tonight. We're recording this on Wednesday afternoon. I think it's Wednesday. I mean, it's impossible these days. Everything just morphs so quickly into each other. But it is Wednesday afternoon.

Chinese leader arrives for a state dinner. And obviously, meetings with Donald Trump. What do you think the Russians and the Chinese say to each other about Donald Trump? I think they see Trump as someone they can manipulate and dupe with relative ease. And meanwhile, they can, while doing that, they can kind of build their own project, which is to revise the world order, make it less US-dominated, or the phrase the Russians love to use is less unipolar, unipolar. It's a multipolar world.

in other words, the kind of Russia and China inflected world. And their relationship is pragmatic, but it's very close. I mean, I write about it in my book. I describe it as a kind of complex sibling tale because they were allies when it was Mao and Stalin. Then they fell out in the 1960s and had a brief border war. Then under Putin, there's been this strategic partnership. And the Chinese are supplying the Russian military with optical equipment,

with all sorts of very useful goods enabling the Russians to smash their Ukrainians. So of course, you know, China is pragmatic. It's less, it's more risk-averse than Russia, but there's a very, very close relationship between the two of them. Donald Trump has talked about prising Russia away from China, but it's not going to happen.

It's not going to happen this week and it's not going to happen next week. We've mentioned that both Vladimir, Putin and Donald Trump have got forever wars on their plate now. As part of that, Donald Trump has pulled the last remaining aircraft carrier out of the South China seas, leaving Taiwan more vulnerable than it has been. Do you think this is a moment where China could decide to take Taiwan? I mean, that's a really interesting question.

And I sort of think, you know, a few years ago that you might sort of speculate that that's a kind of imminent possibility. I do think Putin's failure in Ukraine, his failure to take Kiev to toppol Zelensky, even to seize the Dombas region, this part of eastern Ukraine that Putin really badly wants and covets, has had a kind of chastening effect on Xi Jinping. Because, you know, on paper, seizing Taiwan looks relatively straightforward, right? It's an island that's relatively near. You attack it with overwhelming multi-level force from the air, from the sea. You know, you destroy its critical infrastructure. I mean, it looks doable. And yet, surely the lesson of the Russian invasion is that things can go wrong.

So I think, I'm not a sinologist, but I think she isn't kind of, you know, is in Bide mode. He's waiting to see. And certainly on a kind of level of ideas, what Trump is doing with Greenland and Canada and what Putin is doing in Europe also means that a kind of Chinese escapade is more likely, right?

If the rules-based order is gone, if we're back in a 19th century world of great powers and spheres of influence and China very much sees Taiwan as its own possession and the East China Sea as its domain, then anything is possible. So, you know, we have to watch this space, but it may prove a bit harder than it looks. It's, yeah, it's a fascinating situation. Michael Wolfe on our episode of Inside Trump's head today said he thought there was no better

timing for the Chinese to do it because Trump is entirely vulnerable. He'll probably lose the Congress in the midterms. and that we've removed the one aircraft carrier from the region. Anyway, we'll see. And I'm sure Trump will emerge from talks with Xi saying that they've discussed it and she has told him that he's no intention of going into Taiwan while Trump is president. Or at least that's what he's always said before. So I have a question for you actually about Trump's wife.

So his first wife, Ivana, comes from the Czech Republic. Second wife Marla Maples, who he speeds through very quickly or she speeds through him very quickly, is Marla Maples, who's an American, but his third wife is from Slovenia. Do you think there's any connection there? Do you think, I mean, there's been speculation that Melania somehow was a kind of also an agent of influence. And again, an amazing job because she's ended up as first lady, although she seems reluctant to accept the role at least full-time. Have your sources talked about this at all?

Does this seem possible? I mean, I think it seems less likely. I mean, the Ivana connection with the Czechoslovak spy agency and with Moscow is well documented. As I said before, it's in the archives. We know about that operation. You know, Melania came slightly later. Slovenia, of course, is a small country.

It's less influential, you know, spy agencies, less adept, I think, than the Czechoslovaks who were pretty good at all this stuff, including kind of buggy in surveillance. So I'm not convinced by that. But I do, I do, there is one interesting, you know, there was one interesting Malania moment. I think last year when Trump was tilting a little bit rhetorically, not practically towards Ukraine when Russian TV started showing

semi-nude photos of Melania to millions of Russians and I mean I don't know how you read that but I certainly read that as a bit of a warning to the American president that if he tilts too far towards Ukraine you know more stuff could be published

but but I mean that... Hold on, hold on. I missed that episode so they were showing old modeling photos of Polani when she was doing her sort of naked modeling. They were showing those pictures on Russian television. On Russian State TV.

And what were they saying? What was the context of it, Luke? I mean, it was, I can't remember what the kind of pretext was from a news point of view. But the Sunday evening show hosted by well-known Kremlin propagandist

is the main vehicle in which Russia sends its message out primarily to its domestic population, to 110 adult, million adult Russians. But also, it seems strange that you would unearth these pictures and broadcast them on state television. And I think that was a message directed to Washington and the man sitting in the White House. I mean, probably he missed it. But nonetheless it was there for Trump and Putin watches to ponder over. What is your understanding of what the Russian people think of Donald Trump? I think the Russian people think that Donald Trump is a disappointment, which is really what kind of state media is telling them.

There were really high expectations when he became present again that he would deliver Ukraine on a plate, essentially bullies Zelensky into signing a peace deal, which essentially meant capitulation, all of Russia's wishes granted. And that didn't happen, not least because actually by stopping military assistance to Ukraine, ironically, Trump had kind of fewer levers that he could pull than if he had actually been helping in any kind of meaningful way. So there's this sort of tone of wistfulness and regret that Trump is not abiding by what the Russian state media calls the spirit of anchorage. In other words, what they thought was a stitch up where they would get, you know, Ukraine to give up territory and so on. So they seem as a disappointment. But also the criticism

is rather careful. There's still a kind of fairly polite tone towards Trump at the same time that the Kremlin press is screaming that the Europeans are degenerates and warmongers and fools and so on. So they kind of, you know, he's a friend, but he's a disappointing friend. Well, your book is absolutely fascinating.

I will confess, I didn't know a lot of it. And I was fascinated by the fact that they, I mean, it seems so obvious that the Russians and the Chinese would be thrilled by having Trump in the White House because it's only been good for them, despite his rhetoric, especially about the Chinese economy. But actually watching how carefully they essentially started courting him post having a relationship with Ivana is really fascinating. And also your interpretation of the Alaska summit, how it came about, and then how humiliating it turned out to be for Donald Trump, who, as you pointed out, and as we all saw at the time, didn't bother to take questions from the press. Vladimir Putin held court, and then everybody fled, none the wiser and certainly nowhere near

getting a peace deal with Ukraine, which of course was the goal. And it's also fascinating. I don't know if you've seen, have you seen the movie Brink of War? I have to confess I haven't, China. Sorry. Well, it's really interesting. It's Jeff Daniels playing Reagan, and it's the Reagan and Gorbachev summit in Reykjavik.

And it's just a fascinating comparison between then and now. Anyway, for anybody who is curious about that time about Reagan's impact on the beginnings of Glasnost and Perestroika and of course, Gorbachev's, it's really worth seeing. And interestingly, at the end of the movie, the version I saw, which was in Times Square, Jeff Daniels appears with a QR code and says, I feel so strongly about this movie and about, you know, the two sides working together for a greater piece that I will, if you download this QR code, you get a free ticket to send a friend, which I've never seen in the movies before.

Anyway, I'm strongly recommending your book. I very much hope it will eventually be available here. Can people in the US buy it from Amazon.co.uk. They can or the Guardian Book Shop. And also, of course, it's available in Canada. It's available in Canada. If you have Canadian friends, you can bring it over. Joanna, the Russians had a term for this, which is called Samizdat,

you know, secretly published literature smuggled into the Soviet Union. And in a way, I think betrayal is kind of Sammer's dad for Trump's America. So get a Canadian thread to bring it. Thank you so much for joining us. And I do hope you'll come back when Russia again is in the news. But you predict no end to the current conflict with Ukraine. You think it only works in Putin's interests. I'm afraid I don't.

I mean, I'd love to tell you something more cheerful, Joanna. But I think the war continues so long as he is in the Kremlin, upright. So it's not finishing this year and I fear it won't finish next year either. Luke, thank you very much and take care in Ukraine. Thank you. What do you think? Do you think Donald Trump is actually a Russian asset or do you think they just got unbelievably lucky? And as you heard Luke say, they were popping champagne corks when Donald Trump was elected in 2016

and they couldn't believe it when he was re-elected. in 2020. And basically, what more could he be doing to help the Russians? If you have been, thank you for joining us. And a big thank you to our production team, Ryan Murray, Rachel Pasa, Heather Pissaro, John Romero, and Neil Rosenhouse. So the good news is we have so many Bee Beast tier members now.

There are too many names to read out. And we really appreciate your support.