The Daily Beast Podcast - This Will Be Trump's Dark Legacy For America

Episode Date: August 14, 2025

Foreign policy insider David Rothkopf joins Joanna Coles for a blistering deep-dive into Donald Trump’s high-stakes summit with Vladimir Putin in Alaska—and the dangerous implications for Ukraine, Europe, and global security. From Trump’s flattery-fueled diplomacy and one-on-one meetings with no note takers, to Putin’s KGB-honed manipulation tactics, Rothkopf exposes a portrait of ego, opportunism, and geopolitical risk. With insider accounts, sharp analysis, and startling parallels to past encounters, this episode unpacks how one man’s insecurities and ambitions could shape the fate of nations. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

No president in our history has weakened us more at home. When Donald Trump leaves office, the United States will not be the most powerful nation under his doing the work of our enemies here at home. I'm Joanna Coles. This is the Daily Beast podcast. Thank you for your thousands of comments about Inside Trump's Head, our new spin-off series where I sit with Michael Wolf and we visit Inside Trump's Head. We go spalunking with ropes and crows. rampons to find out what's going on in there and it's never what you think it is.

But right now we're going to be talking to David Rothkopf about the meeting with Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday. And Europe sits with baited breath after their meeting with Donald Trump today where they all sat and discussed their solutions for what feels like forever war with Russia and Ukraine. Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast. Please subscribe to Inside Trump's Head. Feel free to leave us a comment and share it with your friends. It's always much more fun to have something to discuss with people.

And we love to get your feedback. But no one better placed, a former official of the Clinton campaign and a man who edited foreign policy magazine and who's got extensive contacts in the intelligence and foreign networks. So please, David Rothkopf, no time to waste. The future of the world is at stake. Let's get into it. So, David, we're talking just after Trump has commanded a call with the European leaders and obviously Zelensky.

What are your thoughts going into this summit? Well, I think my thoughts are, you know, let's keep our expectations in check. That's what the White House is trying to do. And that's because, first of all, you know, Putin has been intransigent on a lot of these issues. Secondly, Trump really hasn't moved very far in terms of his view of what the outcome should be. It's kind of still primarily the Russian view. And thirdly, and most importantly, you can't actually make progress without Zelensky in the room. So the most likely outcome of this will be either saying, we will now have a meeting with

Zelensky in Europe someplace, or we're working on a meeting with Zelensky someplace. But, you know, a big breakthrough seems unlikely. You might get Trump being optimistic or you might get Trump being a little pouty, but you're never going to get Trump, you know, slapping Putin around like he did Zelensky because, you know, Putin's his daddy. Putin's his daddy. Well, you're also never going to get him reading anything about the history of the two countries, either or doing any preparation. As we know from his previous meeting with Putin in Helsinki, he famously said he hadn't done any preparation for it.

And you're right that the White House does seem to be readjusting its expectations. Caroline leave it saying it was going to be a listening tour. You've had enormous experience of these kind of summits. How unusual is it that an American president would go to talk to the Russian president on his own without anybody there except the interpreters? And then I want you to comment on Steve Whitkoff, Trump's envoy to Russia, also having these meetings and then coming out and not being quite clear what had happened in the meeting and him seeing most bewildered of all. Well, you know, there are a couple of reasons Trump. does this. One is they don't really have many Russia experts around. You know, real Russia experts didn't really want to join the administration. They've downsized and minimized the National

Security Council, which provides with this kind of thing. And Trump doesn't listen to experts, you know, and people know that. So, you know, that's part of it. But I think, you know, the other part, the darker part that you're getting at is Trump likes to meet with Putin one-on-one, and Putin likes to meet with the Americans one-on-one. He doesn't want note-takers. You know, he says, well, we can be more candid. But this is also a chance for Trump to be, for Putin, rather to be more manipulative, use the skills he developed in a lifetime as an intelligence officer, flatter Trump a little bit, work, Trump a little bit, say, hey, we're really on the same side here.

And, you know, get to where he wants to. And, of course, the most famous example of, you know, that sort of set the precedent for all this was Trump meeting with Putin in Helsinki in 2018, where although there were note takers in the room, they immediately grabbed the notes, destroyed the notes. And Trump came out of the meeting and said, oh, yeah, I believe Putin more than I believe my own intelligence community. I mean, just going back for that, because it's such a good story and it's so peculiar. How devastating was that for the American intelligence community? Absolutely devastating. Possibly the worst moment. in the history of the relationship between the president and the intelligence community.

Within, you know, hours of that when the story came out, his director of national intelligence, Dan Coates condemned what Trump had said. Because essentially, you know, you know, what is there between an intelligence community and a president other than trust? And Trump was saying, no, I believe the other guy, you know, our enemy. I believe our enemy more than I believe the people who have been dedicating their own lives to serving the United States. Can you talk a little bit more about the KGB skills? I love the way you said flatter him.

What are the other skills that you think will meet Donald Trump's own skills of the art of the deal? Well, look, you know, first of all, Donald Trump's skills of the art of the deal were something a good. ghost writer put into a book about the art of the deal. Okay. To be clear, I was being sarcastic. Yeah, okay. Because, you know, he is sort of famously bad at deals, you know, being unable to make progress in all the big deals that he said he was going to make progress on as president. But, you know, what is an intelligence officer trained to do? They're trained to establish a comfort level with their contact and understand the psychology of

the contact in order to be able to manipulate them and get them to do what you want them to do. That's the main job of an operative in the field. And, you know, there is a big book on Putin, excuse me, but there's a big book on Trump that Putin knows inside out, and we know it, right? We know that Donald Trump is super susceptible to flattery. That's why every foreign leader who goes in and says, oh, Mr. Trump, Your hair looks fantastic. Have you lost weight? You know, because they know that that is the way to get on his good side. I heard you won your golf tournament recently. You must be a great athlete.

And, you know, but that's that's how you get to this guy. And then, you know, you establish, you know, a rapport and say, well, we're kind of on the same side here, aren't we? Now, in this particular case, Trump has shown no signs that he isn't actually on the same side. as Putin. You know, he's talked a little bit, oh, I'm a little disappointed in Vlad. But the reality is we, Trump has cut back aid to Ukraine dramatically. He's making the Europeans pay us for whatever

actually gets to Ukraine. So he's hurt Ukraine's position. He's attacked Zelensky publicly. He's already agreed over and over that, you know, Crimea is part of Russia, that Eastern Ukraine is part of Russia, that they want to be part of Russia. And he regularly says, and has said as recently as this week, both sides are responsible for this war.

They're not. Russia invaded Ukraine, first in 2014, and then escalated it a few years ago. And, you know, the Ukrainians are the victims here. It's not, you know, both sides are responsible. Trump hasn't changed his view on any of those things. And as you point out in your column in the, the Daily Beast, he came into this election saying, oh, I would be able to close this war down on day one and they would never have invaded if I was president. And you point out, well,

they were at war throughout his previous presidency and he did nothing about it. Very little, right? I, you know, I mean, he's helped a little bit in this analysis by the fact that the Obama administration, you know, which is the administration that was in power when the war started, did even less. You know, he's helped. You know, They had debates internally, I know about that, where they were like, should we give them food rations for their troops or should we get them blankets? That's what it came down to. You know, Trump provided the Ukrainians with certain kinds of minimal weapons support, javelin anti-tank weapons. But for the most part, he didn't do anything.

And he kissed up to Putin. And, you know, very clear from the beginning to the end of his last term of office that he was far more pro-Russian than any American president in our history. And so, you know, fast forward to today has that changed. No evidence that it has. So what are you hearing from your sources about how Europe is currently reacting to the state of play? Well, the Europeans are nervous because they know Trump's relationship with Putin. And so that's why they got together with Zelensky, you know, today, Wednesday, as we're recording this and said, you know, let's all arrive at a common position. Let's have five principles guiding this thing about Ukrainian security, about borders and so forth, so that they

could present United Front to Trump. And although they talk about, oh, they had a great call with Trump and it was really exceptional and so forth, that's that flattery at work. What they really are saying is you can't go and act on your own here. That's really what they were afraid of. Trump and Putin would have a negotiation. Zelensky would be left out of it. Putin would manipulate Trump and things would get worse. What they're saying is there is a united block here, we the Europeans. And so you're not going to be able to bully the Ukrainians to the extent that you want.

And that, by the way, is the downfall of his campaign promise. I'm going to solve this in 24 hours. Because what he thought he could do is call up Ukraine and say, we're going to cut off all eight, cut a deal or you're going to get slaughtered. And the Ukrainian said, do whatever you've got to do. We still have support from the Europeans. We're going to fight. This is our land.

This is our lives. And we're not going to fold. And this has been the real source of frustration to Trump. Trump also thought Putin would do them a favor, you know, do them a solid. Oh, yeah, I'm going to give up this, you know, this, my dream of re-reelms. conquering Ukraine, which he's had throughout his, well, certainly since the fall of Soviet Union in 1991. Also, interesting that Zelensky, when he came for the now infamous visit in the White House, didn't do the flattery thing. I mean, a man at war who's managed to keep the Russians

somewhat at bay, although they've taken, what, 20% of Ukrainian territory at this point, but put up much more resistance than anybody thought possible when the war started. Do you think that his lack of flattery to Trump, have they made it up since then? I think they've restored the relationship to a functioning level. You know, I don't think Zelensky will ever trust Trump. And I don't think, you know, Trump will ever fully trust Zelensky. I mean, remember, it was over his trying to blackmail Zelensky in his previous term that he got impeached for the first time. So this has been a troubled relationship from the outset.

Also, what Trump is trying to push towards here is very uncomfortable for Ukraine. Give up land, you know, exceed to Russian assertion that Crimea is part of Russia, limit somehow what Ukraine can do to protect itself. there's a rumor floating around now that one of the ideas that the Americans have put up is, well, why don't we, you know, treat the disputed regions like the, you know, we're currently treating the West Bank, you know, in Israel, where, you know, Israel has security control over them. And then, you know, we'll have a, we'll resolve this issue, although, you know, another of the rumors is that one of the possibilities is that the issue doesn't get resolved for decades, right?

I think, of course, the West Bank is a pretty telling example because that had been terrible. It hasn't worked out at all. But the Trump administration is so close to the Netanyahu administration that they're actually buying the nonsense that that was an effective kind of a settlement. So is there a sort of realistic? state deal here somehow for Trump? I mean, you have written about Trump's endless grift. Are there economic opportunities for him that he's trying to negotiate here, do you think? Well, first of all, you know, his big deal with Ukraine earlier a couple of months ago was that the U.S. would support

Ukraine, but in exchange, we would get access to their rare earth metals in Ukraine. This is, you know, Every deal now has like a Trump sidebar deal, you know, the Nvidia export deal or the, you know, there are all these kind of straight. The U.S. steel, Nippon steel, golden share goes to Trump. He's like trying to get a sweetener in it. He's like a mafia done. Of course, you know, the problem with the Ukraine, rare earth steel is nobody's actually sure that the rare earths exist. many of the rare earths exist in disputed territory controlled by the Russians, and it will take decades and decades to get to those rare earths.

So for Ukraine, as it is for a lot of these other countries, they say, oh, sure, you know, that sounds fine, because they know it's just not something that's going to happen during Trump's presidency. But, you know, yesterday, you know, Trump made a, you know, was talking about this in one of his press conferences. And he started talking about the Russians have taken over all the waterfront. And, you know, ocean front real estate is the best real estate. You know, I'm a real estate guy.

I know that. And, you know, you can only imagine how his brain works in it. After all, this is the brain and the kind of thinking that had him a couple months ago going, hey, we're going to build a casino in Gaza. You know, I mean. Well, that's what I was wondering if he was expecting to see in the Dombas suddenly a new skyline of Trump towers or, you know, Trump Tower taking over the skyline in Red Square. Yeah, no, he will put the, he'll be the Don in the Don race. So we shouldn't be laughing, really, because this is tragic.

And it's tragic for people in Ukraine, too. David, let's take a break for these messages. And we're back with David Rothkoff discussing the Putin and Trump summit in Alaska on Friday. He seems very confused by what's at stake. Normally a president going into a meeting with another president, would you think be at least talking to or relying on advice from his secretary of state? Have you even heard about Marco Rubio in any of this? No, because first of all, you know, this is one of the issues that got handed off to Steve.

Now, having said that, Steve Whitkoff is a real estate guy from New York who doesn't know anything about Russia, who's already been embarrassed on a couple of his trips to Putin because he would just fawn over Putin or, you know, a gift that Putin gave to pass to Trump and so forth. So he's a kind of easy mark for the Putin's of this world. But, you know, Trump, as I said earlier, doesn't care about expert, doesn't care about expertise. I think it's very interesting. I know you have a new podcast called Inside the Mind of Donald Trump. It's called Inside Trump's Head.

Okay, inside Trump's head. Good. I think that's better because it doesn't acknowledge that there's a mind in there. But the point is to a degree to which even those of us who talk about this every day don't quite get it, we are into a period of government in the United States where it's all about one man, one person. Every critical decision is made by that guy. That guy is the secret weapon. The people around that guy are just there to tell that guy that he is the guy.

And so much of what is happening in the United States and in the world right, now is directly connected to the ego and the insecurities and the twisted character of Donald Trump, that it's not, you know, offset. We, you know, we've had presidents before with flaws, but we tend to have a government that's by an organization, by institutions. So some of those, you know, personal traits get offset. That's not, that's not true here. Our international relations are the relations, not between America and another country. They're the relation between Donald Trump and his counterpart. And our justice policy is not the policies written in law.

They're how Donald Trump feels the law ought to be implemented or how he feels about his adversaries that he wants to have punished. our tax policies are a gift Donald Trump gives to his friends. It's all about one guy in a way that we haven't seen in sort of Western history except among dictators and absolute monarchs. It's Louis the 14th territory. It's I am the state. And the person he's meeting on Friday, Vladimir Putin, what do you imagine that meeting is going to be like?

What do you imagine they talk about? Well, I think, you know, I think the first part of the meeting will be good to see you again. Let's reestablish our personal relationship. You know, Trump has always put a lot of stock in recognition by Putin, you know, by having the other big world. You know, he, he doesn't feel like he's a world leader unless people like Putin treat him like one. Then I think they're going to move into the issue of Ukraine.

And Trump is just going to be focused on, give me something. The best outcome, let's set a time for a meeting with Zelensky. You think the best outcome is a meeting with Zelensky, the three of them? That's my fault. You know, I mean, it could be like, we're going to have a meeting with Zelensky and I'm optimistic, right? You know, there can be something like that. But I think that's the best possible outcome. I think the worst outcome is going to be we're going to work on a meeting because Zelensky and the Europeans have said,

here are five principles that have got to be adhered to. And Putin may say, well, you know, we have different. guideline. You know, I'm not, I'm not going to guarantee to swap back land to the Ukraine, or I'm, Ukraine cannot have an army, or Ukraine can't be a NATO, something very strong, at which point, you know, Trump is, Trump is going to say, well, what can we agree to? And it's like, okay, well, let's agree to talk. And I think that's, that's where, that's where it is. But at the end of the day, you know, Zelensky said today, you know, he thinks Putin is going to essentially, take advantage of Trump and drive the outcome of the meeting.

And I don't see any reason to believe it's the contrary. There is no evidence that Donald Trump is going to use the tools at his disposal to influence Putin. Even though he said it, he said, oh, well, we can put sanctions and so forth. Well, we could have put sanctions on long ago. We're holding $50 billion of Russian money in our banks. We could have given that to Ukraine long ago. We could have imposed secondary sanctions on China, not just India, but we won't do it. Trump won't do it because it just doesn't fit with his support for Putin or the desire not to have a bigger dust up with China, etc.

David, let's take a break for some ads. And we're back with David Rothkopf and we're talking about Putin and Trump. But David, isn't that also an outcome where Trump has forgotten, all about the meeting that he had today with the European leaders, where he comes out of the meeting with Putin, having basically agreed to what Putin wants, which is the land that he's already taken in the Ukraine, and then somehow leave Zelensky to mop it up? Yeah, I mean, I think that's it. You know, I mean, we think, you know, we know, we know how Trump works, and Trump works by his pitch to Putin obey. Yeah, I can get you what you want.

Just leave it to me. You know, at the end of the day, you'll get the land. Ukraine won't be in NATO. You know, we'll push the resolution of who controls the land off into the impossible future. You'll be strong and they'll end up being elections in Ukraine and Zelensky will go and you can put your own guy in there. Just let me handle it. And I, to me, that's the quiet conversation in the back. I can get the Europeans where we need to get them.

And I think that's most likely, you know, that's the card he's going to play. Because what's he going to do? Threaten Putin? Putin will laugh in his face. Ranking American presidents, where would you put Donald Trump for his foreign policy? You know, pretty close to the bottom, right? I mean, George W. Bush invading Iraq when there was no reason to, you know, invade Iraq and launching us into these never-ending wars that hundreds of thousands of innocent

people were killed. That was a catastrophe. And so that has to be seen as a bad foreign policy development, although Bush offset that with things like, you know, PEPFAR and the effort to fight AIDS in Africa. And he learned as he went. You know, Trump has not gotten us into a big war. And, you know, I think that is going to, you know, accrue to his credit. Having said that, no president in our history has weakened us more at home. And I think ultimately this is going to be how he has judged in a geopolitical sense. When Donald Trump leaves office, the United States will not be the most powerful nation on earth. because we're killing what we do in scientific research.

We're turning away tourists. We're turning away people who study in our schools. We're turning away the best minds. We are weakening the alliances that gave us a lot of strength in the past. We're weakening our economy with crazy inflationary self-destructive tariffs and now export taxes like the one that he's put on to Invidia. So, you know, I think, you know, foreign policy begins at home. And Donald, and this is to say nothing of, you know, racism or sending troops into U.S. cities or gutting the rule of law in the United States or weakening democracy in the United States, which was an advantage that we had.

And so, you know, Trump may avoid, you know, global catastrophe. He may not. And by the way, he's encouraging global catastrophe. in terms of climate change. But having said that, his doing the work of our enemies here at home by making America a much, much weaker country. Well, David, thank you on that sobering note. Will you promise to watch in as much as we can the meeting for us and come back and give us your analysis of it. Absolutely. Happy to do it. All right. And I urge all our readers to subscribe to the Daily Beast so they can read your columns. And you also have your own podcast. Well, we have the

DSR network, Deep State Radio, DSR Daily. We do 12, 15 podcasts a week at the DSR network and people can go to that or they can, I have a substack called Need to Know and they can go to the substand. I'm just exhausted thinking about your output, David, 15 podcasts week. Good Lord. Well, thank you so much for taking time to visit ours and we will look forward to speaking to you after this historic meeting where I'm sure Donald Trump will emerge from it and be utterly unable to remember what he said. And there will be no note takers to remind him. That's true. I can show your concern. All right, David, talk to you soon. Well, rather sobering conclusion from David there.

And he's right. It's just one man against the rest of the world, or one man commanding America in front of the rest of the world. For more understanding on what's going on in that man's brain, please subscribe to our new spin-off podcast inside Trump's head, where Michael Wolf and I take our crampons. We take our climbing gear. we spalunk or abseiled down into the cave of Trump's brain to try and shed some light on

what's going on in there. So don't forget to subscribe to our podcast. You can leave comments now on David Rothcop's columns. Don't forget to share this podcast with a friend. Share it with an enemy, but at least sit and discuss it. It's what makes us all human, right? I can't believe I just said that. Whatever, don't forget, as the first lady would say, be beast. And join me in thanking our producers, Devin Roderino, Anna von Erson, and our editor, Jesse Milwood. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studded The Daily Beast podcast at the Daily Beast.com slash podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, consider becoming a Daily Beast subscriber. Subscribing is the best way to feed the beast and support

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