The Duran Podcast - Putin magic. Zelensky angry with Trump

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

Putin magic. Zelensky angry with Trump

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the Trump-Putin phone call and what the Washington Post claims Putin offered to Trump or demanded of Trump. And then let's also talk about the Financial Times article, which details the meeting, the closed-door, closed-door meeting at the White House between Trump and Zelensky, which according to the meeting. The Financial Times and their European sources, they claim that the meeting did not go well between Trump and Zelensky and that Trump was very angry with Zelensky and throwing papers and maps around and stuff like that and making demands of Zelensky. But the interesting part to, or the interesting narrative to both the Washington Post article and the Financial Times article, in my opinion, is that the Washington Post relied. on two sources. One of them was a European diplomat. And the Financial Times appears to be relying

completely on European diplomats for their sourcing. So someone is leaking. Someone is leaking. Is it the Trump White House leaking to the Europeans? Or is it the Zelensky team that was accompanying Zelensky to the meeting in the White House that are calling up the Europeans and leaking to them what was being said during the White House meeting. I think I know which one I'm leaning towards, but what do you think? Well, I think the first thing to say, and it's implicit in your question, and it is obviously true, is that these are very, very contaminated sources. These stories we should take extremely seriously. I mean, the Washington Post has been enormously hostile to Trump throughout the time that he has been, Trump has been in politics.

It was a huge supporter of all the allegations that were made against Jobback in his first term. And it clearly has a very strong connection with people in, you know, the American deep state, the permanent government, transabonance people of that kind. And it has a very, very pro-Zolensky, pro-Ukraine bias. And undoubtedly that is playing a significant role in its reporting. In the case of the Financial Times, I think you can go a step further. I think that the Financial Times is being fed information straightforwardly by the British government. Now bear in mind, this is the second article in from the Financial Times about a conversation that Trump is supposed to have had with a foreign leader, either with Zelensky or with Putin,

that we have seen over the course of this week. Now the previous one, which we've discussed and touched on, in a previous program was the one in which supposedly, allegedly, Trump got so angry by Putin's history lecture at the summit meeting in Alaska that he was about to storm out of the meeting. And this anger that Trump felt towards Putin thereafter supposedly biased Trump in Zelensky's favor from that point on. So that's being, you know, one narrative. Now, a couple of days later, we get the absolutely contrary narrative from the financial times.

This time, they're saying that Trump massively influenced by Putin over the telephone suddenly turns on Zelensky in this meeting that took place on Friday told Putin, sorry, Zelensky, you're going to lose, you must capitulate completely to everything. everything that the Russians want and don't show me all of these papers or that kind of thing. So you can already see the level of manipulation that's taking place. I mean, we have one story a couple of days ago, and we have, which points in one direction, a Trump angry with Putin and favorable to Zelensky. Now we have another story, Trump siding with Putin against Zelensky. And, well, you can argue that there might not be total inconsistency with these two accounts. And, you know, to some extent, I'm going to say that.

But the way in which these articles have been written and the sourcing of these articles needs to make you extremely suspicious. Now, the first article, the Washington Post one, must have been based on, in fact, information provided to the Europeans by someone within the American government. I mean, it has to be, because Zelensky wasn't involved in that conversation. So there must have been an American source to this information, and that does tell us that there are people within the White House, within the foreign policy bureaucracy in the United States, who are providing leaking information about calls between Putin and

Trump to the Europeans and to others. And this is a hit piece, clearly, and we can see that from the, we read the Washington Post article. The Financial Times article, there might have been some American sourcing, but the obvious person provided this information is Zelensky and his team. We know that Zelensky, after meeting Trump, called the various European leaders, gave him his own account of the way the conversation went. We can be sure that a lot of this was passed on to the British, and the British came back, and the British authorities, because I've no doubt that the Financial Times article principally, again, is sourced from official British government sources, that the Financial Times was then guided or steered to publish this article

about the meeting between Zelensky and Trump. So, anyway, that's the overall frame of these conversations. Now, let's go back to these two articles. The more interesting one, I think, ultimately is the Financial Times article. But we go back to the Washington Post article, and its account, which has never been officially confirmed by any Russian source is that the Russians are again running with this idea, that there should be a ceasefire in Zaporosia in Hurson region, and that the Ukrainians must in return pull out completely from Dombas.

Now, we've discussed this before, and I have said that I've seen nothing publicly from any Russian official to confirm this. But if it was what the Russians were proposing to Wickoff back in August, it would not completely shock me or astonish me. I mean, it would be very controversial in Russia. It would have been very controversial in August to put it mildly, you know, letting the Ukrainians return. control of two of the territories within two of the four regions, including the cities of

Hassan and Zaporozhia. But you could argue that the entire conflict began in Dombas. Dombas is what Putin personally cares most about. Dombas also is the key. It's the place where the Ukrainians have the major fortified lines. We've discussed in program after program. There is nowhere else in Ukraine that can replicate this line of defenses. The geography is completely different in every other part of Ukraine.

And you can imagine that the Russians might say, look, we aren't giving up our claim to Zaporosian-Herson region. We can't do. But if you pull out of Dombas, then we will be prepared to stop our advance, at least for the time being. and sit down and have talks and negotiate. So I can just about see that that is happening. But then we're now told that Putin went beyond the August proposal,

because supposedly he's even prepared to retreat from positions in Zaporosje and Herson that the Russians have captured. This is what, you know, the latest reporting is. And that, I'll be straightforward, I don't believe. How does that square with the Russian Constitution, with the referendums? I mean, if there was some basis of truth to this offer that Putin might have made according to the Washington Post. You know, the interesting part is that you're saying back in August, a lot has changed from August to today as well. So, I mean, so if you go back to August, even then, how would this square with the referendum?

How would the Kremlin, Putin sell this to the parliament, to the Duma, to the Russian people? We had a referendum. We voted. They voted in Zapparaja. They voted in Herzegov. We passed the referendum into the constitution. Now we're going back on that. I mean, a very hard cell in August, an all but impossible cell I would have said today.

And of course, if it involves retreats, even more difficult. Obviously, what Putin will say is that this is a temporary arrangement. And we are only, you know, we're only allowing the Ukrainians to stay there for a short time. And we expect the Ukrainians eventually to leave as part of the negotiations. And we reserve the right to attack. but there would be massive, massive criticism. And this is where we come back to something else that happened over the last couple of hours, which is that Dimitri Medvedev, the hardliner, as we know,

at least he publicly positions himself as the hardliner. And of course, he's one person, I would say, in the Russian government, who, for Putin, it would be most difficult to sack. because Medvedev is former president, former prime minister, he's vice chairman of the Security Council, he is also very importantly the head of the military industrial commission. He is the man who is responsible for the enormous increase in military production in Russia that we have seen over the last four years. Now Medvedev comes back and he's in Pyongyang, he's meeting Kim Jong-un, he's having all kinds of discussions, but he comes back and he publishes a conference,

comment, you know, on his telegram, but channel, and he says that, you know, obviously, you know, we're not averse to meeting Trump. By the way, he wasn't very polite about Trump, but obviously we're prepared to meet Trump. You do realize, I mean, this is, I'm interpreting a little bit, I'm passing a bit what he said, you do realize that the whole business of the Tomahawks is just bluff and triple bluff. It was all like what Trump was saying about nuclear submarines early on. we shouldn't take it very seriously. The key thing is that we must win this war and not only win this war, but be seen to win this war,

including by the Ukrainians. Now, that I have to say, looks to me like a warning to Putin, or at least the setting of a red line to Putin, or at least a limit to Putin about what he might discuss or negotiate with when he meets with Trump, presumably in Budapest. He's saying, look, I don't like this idea. If there is any idea or proposal of stopping in Zaporosia and her son, I don't agree. I don't support this. Doing so is in effect giving the Ukraine. Ukrainians, something they can cling on to and say that we haven't actually fully lost.

And it is vital. It is essential that the Ukrainians not only lose, but be seen to lose, because our objective must always continue to be the change of regime in Kiev. So you can already, you could still see that there is this struggle going on in the Kremlin. and it is not resolved. Now, that doesn't prove, by the way, that Putin himself ever told Wickoff either in Moscow or Trump in Alaska

or Trump over the course of the latest conversation that the Russians are prepared to stop in Soporosia and Herson region. As I said, there's been no public official comment about this from any Russian official. But if he did, and again, I want to say, I think it is not impossible that back in August he might have done so. Then I think that, as I said, there would be a row at the very least, I mean, more than a row. There would be considerable anger and tension in Moscow over this.

And to say that it would be a hard sell would be a massive understatement. And I think that, and here I would say something else, by the way, which is you. is that we've discussed what would happen if Putin simply went ahead and did all of these things, and disregarded the sentiment, in the Security Council, in the Russian elite, and in wider Russian society. Well, at that point, quite apart from anything else, you'd probably start to see public divisions appearing in Moscow. and you might even risk a publicly played out political crisis. And I think that is something that Putin will want to avoid at all costs. Yeah.

There's no confirmation, zero evidence confirmation that Putin said these things, whether it was in speaking with WIPCOF or definitely with the Washington Post article. Once again, the Washington Post article, there two sources are a U.S. We don't know who it is. It could be anyone, just a U.S. official, and a European diplomat. Those are their sources for this offer, allegedly, that Putin made to Trump. But do you think that given this is the Washington Post, which has very close connections to the three-letter agencies, very tied into the three-letter agencies, that their understanding that Putin leans more towards diplomacy than military action, that Putin does want to find an

understanding with Trump, that Putin does want to find a diplomatic solution to Ukraine, that they're using this against him? Yes. By coming up with these types of narratives and articles, understanding that this could so discontent and problems in the Kremlin going forward? Absolutely. I would say that there's probably a big part of what is going on. Now, to repeat again, I am not saying definitely that this didn't happen. You know, that Putin didn't have some kind of conversation with Wigov and that this proposal might have been discussed. My guess is that if it was brought up at all, the person who

had brought it up was probably not Putin, but more probably Wick off, actually. In other words, this is an American idea that the Americans sometimes come to it, Putin didn't completely shut the door on it, which is very like Putin, by the way. And a mistake, incidentally, just to make that also clear. I mean, if he was not going to accept it, he should have also made that clear. But anyway, it's possible that something like that happened. But one way or the other, the intention. Intelligence agencies in Washington absolutely are aware that this debate that we've been talking about in Moscow has been taking place.

And they will look at any opportunity to expand the cracks, to play up difficulties and problems wherever they can and in whatever they can. And this is why they're bringing up again this idea of. You know, put in even considering contemplating retreats in these places, which would be, I mean, that would make this whole thing even more controversial to put it mildly. Retreat as we're winning. Retreaters were winning. As I said, I mean, it would be, it would be, to say that it would be a hard sell, it would be, you know, it would be almost inconceivable, I would have said. Okay, so expanding the cracks. Expanding the cracks.

Okay, the Europeans, expanding the cracks for Trump, for the Budapest summit, for the meeting with Putin, that's what they're doing in this Financial Times article. Once again, the Financial Times article, from what I remember, I could be wrong about this, but I think it's 100% sourced from European officials. Maybe I'm wrong about it. I think they have three sources or four sources, but I remember all of those sources where European and officials or diplomats or people like this. So obviously they're looking to expand the cracks for Trump, for the negotiations, for any kind of normalization of diplomatic ties, for a resolution

to Project Ukraine. What are your thoughts on the FT article? Well, the first thing to say is that I think it is highly likely that it was a very difficult and very tense meeting and that raised voices did, that there were raised voices and that there was some degree, that there was indeed a lot of argument and anger over the course of this meeting. But I'm going to say straight away that if that was the case, and I think it probably was, the person who initiated it was the same person who initiated the previous row, which was in February in the Oval Office. And that was Vladimir Zelensky. In fact, I'm going to say this. I actually said, in a video I did just before this meeting on Friday, that given the Trump had just spoken to Putin,

and given the Trump seemed to be intending not to supply Tongahawk missiles to Ukraine, that Zelensky would come to the meeting in Washington, to the White House, in a furious mood, and it was quite possible that there would be around. So what they're basically doing, and I think this is probably what has happened, is that I suspect Zelensky took it incredibly badly, that Trump said no Tom Holt missiles, and I'm meeting Putin very soon. And there probably was, as I said, raised voices and angry words exchanged. And I suspect that Trump did tell Zelensky all this nonsense.

that you're telling me about you're winning the war. Pull another one. I mean, it's absolute nonsense. You know it is. I know it is. Don't show me all these silly maps that you're coming with and presenting to me. You're losing. And, you know, if you weren't losing, you were winning,

why are you coming and asking me for tomahawks, which I'm not going to give you? So, you know, I think a lot of that did take place. But Zelensky, as he always does, went off, spoke to his European friends, complained about what the conversation, how the conversation went. And they and he then flipped the entire story round to make it seem like it was Trump who was combative and launched this furious row with Zelensky and it was Trump who used bad language and it was Trump who was Trump who was Trump who was aggressive. and all of those things. Why would Trump be aggressive in that way? I mean, I think Trump can be sometimes, you know, pretty strong in his use of words. But in this instance, I mean, he's in such a position of strength relatives to Zelensky. I can't really see why he would initiate a row in the way that this article says. But you could see why it's being done. Trump,

He's immediately seduced by Putin. Putin has this ability to hypnotize Trump at a distance. He's all the way in Moscow, but all he needs to do is exert his voice. He's this magician and sorcerer who's able to, well, perhaps he gives Trump instructions. You know, I mean, that's... But on the flip side, but on the flip side, he can't take Kiev in three days. Exactly, exactly. Exactly.

So he... His magic is limited. Exactly. His magic is limited, but it works perfectly with Trump. And so here is Trump. And he goes to this entire meeting with Zelensky, repeating Russian talking points. It's just repeating all the things that he's been told by Putin and gets coarse and aggressive when Zelensky stands up to him. Now, so that's, I think, what has happened. And you can see exactly what's going to happen over the next couple of days. There's going to be the drumbeat again that Trump is about to capitulate to Putin, that he's appeasing Putin. Donald Tusk, the Polish Prime Minister, is already writing like this. He's again trotting out the word appeasement.

There's going to be much more of that. There's going to be all the usual hit piece is coming. But the key thing here, and this takes us back at the Washington Post article, Is it that what Zelensky isn't even prepared to retreat from Dombas? He's coming. So, even this proposal that Putin is supposed to have made, and which the Washington Post reports reported about, Zelensky is not accepting.

He's not prepared to give a millimeter of ground anywhere. And the Europeans are backing him. They're backing him to the hill. The Financial Times article says the same. There's a European official who tells the Financial Times, it's like giving away a leg for nothing. So whatever discussions are taking place about, you know, stopping in Zaporazi and Herson, provided the Ukrainians withdraw from Donbass, which I think, by the way, I mean, I think on Donbass, I don't think even Putin is prepared to compromise.

discussions that might or might not be taking place about that. The simple fact is Zelensky won't accept it. The Europeans won't accept it. That seems to me to kill any prospect of a negotiated solution to the war. And I think Trump perhaps does need to understand this. We've discussed this previously. It is the Europeans and the Ukrainians who are proving to be completely immovable. The Russians might be showing a certain degree of flexibility, but the Ukrainians are showing none. The most Zelensky is prepared to concede is a ceasefire on the front lines, in other words, an indefinite reason. It's not even a concession. It's not even a concession. That's a benefit for him. It's a benefit for him. Because he knows he can rearm.

Because he knows he can rearm. And he knows he's losing and he's going to be in cauldrons and he's got all kinds of problems across seven different areas on the front line. So, yeah. You said it. So, I mean, so he is, he's not really, he's not making any concessions at all. And I have to say it, I don't think he ever will. Yeah. Well, I don't think any, the whole structure of power that has been created in Kiev is based

upon hostility to Russia. I mean, it cannot compromise with Russia. It is impossible and no one should expect it. Putin was wrong to think he could compromise with the Ukrainians back in 2022. And he's wrong to think he can do this now. He does still leave that. And Trump is wrong if he thinks that he can get the Ukrainians to agree. And the key thing to understand is that the Europeans absolutely are 100% behind the Ukrainians in this. And that basically means that there is not going to be a settlement of the war. Well, that takes us to the heart of the matter. I mean, you know, you have, Russia is showing flexibility in winning.

As they're winning, they're showing flexibility. Ukraine and the Europeans are showing no flexibility. as they are losing. Yes. Right? So, I mean, if Trump is serious about stopping the war, as he says a thousand times, not my war, Biden's war, I just want to see the killing end. If there is any truth to that, then the solution is so simple.

Go to Budapest, meet with Putin, present the June 2024, once again, to Ukraine, they're going to turn it down. The Europeans are going to turn it down. You know that they're going to turn it down if you're the United States. If you're Russia, you also know this as well. There's no doubt about it. And then move forward with diplomacy with Russia if you're the United States and ditch the Europeans. Ditch you stop. It's over. We tried. But as a country, as a sovereign country, the United States of America, we're out of the Ukraine business. We're out. We have been funding the war. Ukraine has been our proxy.

We have been waging a proxy war against Russia. You don't have to admit all of this. Most people are not going to press Trump to admit this. But we all understand what the Biden White House and the Trump White House have been doing. We understand it. But you start new in Budapest. You turn a new page. Exactly.

And it's never going to happen. I mean, we know this is not going to happen. But I mean, that is the most simple crystal. clear solution to this. Yes. Agreed. I mean, I absolutely agree. I think that this is the only realistic way forward, because whatever proposal anybody puts to

the Ukrainians, even if, I mean, even if the Russians capture Donbass. And remember, for the Russians, and the Russians have made this very clear, capturing Donbass is only part of the issue. There must be protections for Russians right across Ukraine. There must be a complete reordering and reorganization of Ukrainian society and all of that, which is impossible that Ukrainians will never agree to it. They presented two memorandums, didn't they Alexander the Russians? Exactly.

Exactly. So there is never going to be that kind of concession from the Ukrainians. I don't believe there would be, even as the Russians returns. to the outskirts of Kiev. I just cannot see this system, this political structure, as I said in Kiev, ever conceding that. And internally, and this is the other thing to say, this political structure in Kiev is becoming stronger.

The defeats in the war are radicalizing it. And you can see that, I mean, you know, the mayor of the Dessa has just been sacked. The mayor of Kiev itself is likely to be sacked before very long. There's a continued centralization of power. There's talk that even Budanov, who is now suspected of being a more moderate figure, which is bizarre when you go back to what he was up to before. He is now, apparently, they're now trying to oust him. You see the Azov people at the center of things.

you see right sector at the center of things. I mean, I just cannot imagine Zelensky or anyone from his entourage or anyone from his political circle or from any other political circle that functions in Kiev coming to a compromise with the Russians. I mean, Zelensky even said what his feelings about Putin are. He's a loathing and detestation of Putin. It was all there right out in the open. And how can you possibly expect a person who has those kind of feelings, which are shared, I think, within the entire Ukrainian elite,

to come to a negotiated solution, a compromise at any kind with the Russians. It's not going to happen. Yeah, I'll take it one step further from what you said. the more Zelensky loses, the more Ukraine loses, and the more obvious it becomes that Ukraine is losing, the more supports Zelensky will get not only from the people in Kiev, he's not only going to consolidate his power and his control in Kiev, the more he's losing. It's also going to come from the Europeans, from NATO, Kellogg, the three-letter agencies, because what they're going to be saying is, you know, maybe once upon a time, we could have removed Zelensky with the illusionie. We could have swapped them out, but we're never going to risk swapping out Zelensky now that everything is crumbling. We've got to keep some form of stability in Kiev to keep this thing going, no matter how bad things are getting. Pakrovsk lost, Mironograd lost, Seversk, Liman, whatever.

all these cities in Dombas falling to the Russians one by one, what they're going to say, what the Europeans are going to say is, look, yeah, Zeletsky's a loser, sure. He's ineffective, sure, but we can't swap him out because that would just be the immediate end of progen, so we've got to do everything in our power now to keep him in place and prop him up. Correct. I'd like to turn to Trump again because it was one of the things that Trump did do, as we said over the last couple of hours, is that he stopped any, he stopped the proposal, which I think was a real proposal, by the way. I personally do not think it was just bluff. I think that there were real discussions within the system brought up by various people to send Tomahawks to Ukraine. I think that there were probably perhaps ensuing.

technical barriers to doing it, but the point was that there was a political decision, or at least a political wish on the part of some people in Washington, Kellogg and the others, to make that commitment, partly with the intention, in fact, no doubt with the intention, not just renewing and cementing the commitment to Ukraine. train, but also basically destroying any possibility of any kind of detente or dialogue or rapprochement with Putin and Russia. So I think that this was, I don't myself think it was just bluff. What I know a lot of people think, think this, I don't.

Now, Trump, for the moment, has turned against this idea. He's starting to talk again, and you can almost hear who is people that complain. about this too, you're people like Elbridge Colby, probably Pete Hegseth, probably other people within the Pentagon. Our inventories are low. We're short of missiles. We're short of Patriot missiles. We're short of Tamahawk missiles. Ukraine is turning out to be a massive drain. It's not weakening the Russians. It is weakening us. And for the moment at least, Trump is talking like this. swung back towards accepting that whole narrative. Now, put, well, that whole argument, it's not a narrative because it's true. Now, if Trump does stick to this, we know that

arms deliveries to Ukraine from Europe are actually dwindling. I mean, they're not sending arms to Ukraine. If Trump sticks to this position, then this could accelerate the end of the war. Because it seems to go beyond Tomahawks. It is an understanding and acceptance of reality, which if you remember back in, was it June or July, when the Pentagon tried to stop deliveries of certain weapons to Ukraine and Trump countermanded it, it seems that this time he's finally got the point. Now, whether he'll stick to it, whether people will come back to him and tell me, of course, you can afford more weapons. Ukraine is so important, we can't risk its loss, and if it is lost, the plane will all be with you, all of that.

But if Trump sticks to this recognition of what is the reality, then that may be the single most important thing that has come out of the events of the last week. I should say that I get the sense, a very, very strong sense that the civilians in the Pentagon, the people who are in charge of procurement, all of that, who are aware of inventories and who do the grant strategy, they basically do want to put a stop to project Ukraine because they see it as weakening and depleting the military power of the United States. The problem is that the generals, the uniformed people, General Kane, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Callag, have a completely opposite view. Like the generals always do, and have been doing ever since Vietnam, they don't want to give up on a war, even when it is being lost. They were telling the president that they were winning in Vietnam.

They were telling the president that they were winning in Afghanistan. They're telling the president again that they're winning in Ukraine. And there is this constant argument that's going on in Washington. And for the moment at least, Trump seems to be leaning towards the civilians who are much more realistic about this issue. Well, the generals, especially in today's world, have different interests as well. And we all know what goes on with a lot of... former generals or current generals anyway. So, you know, I wouldn't, I wouldn't listen to them too much if you want my honest opinion. The problem is the politicians. Yeah, well, they do.

It looks good. It looks good to listen to them, right? Peace through strength, right? Peace through strength. So I'm going to listen to my strong general. Okay. But the reality is unavoidable. You don't have the weapons. Europe definitely doesn't have the weapons. Europe doesn't have the money. the United States doesn't have the weapons and it doesn't have the money either. Correct. That's just the bottom line. So, you know, just to end the video, the reality is reality. Yes.

The United States, Europe definitely can't keep this thing going. The United States can't keep this thing going. Even the UK field marshal, the top army guy, Lord Richards. Lord Richards. Yeah, he even admitted. Perhaps, perhaps, by the way, Britain's best soldier. There you go. He's the one person who is most wanted to win.

He can't win, exactly. Period. And they asked him multiple times, independent. If we give them this. He's like, they can't win. What if we give them this? They can't win. What if we give them that?

They can't win. So, I mean, he was very clear. Ukraine cannot win. Doesn't get more clear than that. So that's the reality of it. Once again, if you're Trump and you're the marketing genius, that is Trump, then wouldn't you spin this the best, you can as some sort of a victory for you, the marketing genius that is Trump.

And what's the best way to spin this? The best way to spin this, knowing that Ukraine in Europe will never accept a deal is to somehow say, you know, I'm looking after the United States' best interests. I've decided that no matter what I do, the Europeans whose economies are going down in flames. You could say that too. He would say that. He would post that out of truth social message. I have no doubt about it.

Whose economy is going down in flames, I've decided that in the best interest of the United States, we need to step back from Europe and from Ukraine. And just, you know, leave it there. And I'm going to look to do business with the world or something like that. I mean, that seems like the most rational way out of this, knowing that you were the one. as the United States, as Trump, as Biden, as Obama, that you guys were the ones that absolutely armed Ukraine and put Ukraine in this position. But I mean, reality is reality. I'm trying to look at this from a real politic perspective.

I mean, because, you know, yeah, the United States brought this to where it is. Yeah, absolutely. As did the Europeans, as did NATO. But the United States has the ability. They still have a chance to get themselves out of there. Exactly. The great problem with this is that the reality that you've just described was the same reality six months ago and arguably a year ago. And Trump has never at any time properly embraced it. He seems at various times to have danced around it. But he's never just, he's never quite got that. Well, you know, this is difficult.

This is where the problem is trying to understand Trump himself. There is an aspect of Trump, which I think is near con. I want to say that. I mean, he's not somebody who is completely hostile to the near-con perspective of things. I mean, he talks against them. He says all of these things. But I think he still really does, to some extent, get drawn into some of that strategic idea. He still believes that, you know, if we play these games in a complicated way, the United States

will come out the winner, which, of course, it never does. But I think there is an element of that in Trump. The second, and I get to say this, and I think he has, like a lot of Americans, a fundamental inability, but a great difficulty in accepting that American power has limits. I mean, he finds it very difficult to accept that the United States cannot will an outcome to any particular conflict and won't always in the end come out the winner. It's very much, again, structured, hardwired into himself. But I think the third reason is that ultimately he's scared. He's surrounded by these people.

He's donors, his generals, his neocom think tanks. They're all churning out this material at him all the time. He's obviously had an incredibly tough four years during the Biden era when he was being the target of all kind of lawfare. He had two impeachment before, when he was president before. And I think he's frightened of these people. And I think, you know, I think that obviously it's. something that he himself would never admit to. But, you know, he does have those insecurities. And

bear among, he experienced last year to assassination attempts. Yeah. All right. Anything else that you'd like to add to this? Well, Budapest is going to be very interesting, if it happens in Budapest, by the way, because there's some talk now that it might be put back till November held somewhere else. We'll see. The timing is interesting, just on that note, because you also have the Apex Summit. I mean, can they fit it in? I would have thought so.

I would have thought so. But why not have it in the Apex Summit? Right. I mean, why not have the meeting in South Korea, which is a much safer venue altogether? Perhaps Trump doesn't want to meet Putin and see at the same place, but I would have thought there would be lots of attractions to doing that, and there's no reason if you want Orban there and Seattle, why they can't be invited. But anyway, whatever, the point I'm trying to make is it's going to be very, very interesting

and it'll be very interesting to see which way this goes. and I think that the mood in Moscow is much more fragile and uncertain this time than it was back in August. I think that there is a lot of criticism of Putin and a sense that this isn't really going to go anywhere. And here we go again, another meeting with Trump in Budapest. And we all know where that's going to. So I think that perhaps based on some of the things Trump has now said, which are different from what he was saying, before Alaska, there's more realism on the American side. And that might lead us further this time. But it would be unwise to put money on it.

And Putin's own maneuver space is shrinking. Just a quick final question. What is Putin looking to get out of this? Does Putin want June 24, June 2024, signed? Agreed on? Or is he looking for something else? That's it. He said, he said, about June 2024, he said, he said clearly a couple of weeks ago, he said that this isn't just our conditions. It's also our objective. This is where this is what we want to see happen. But coming back, and we've discussed this. many, many times, Putin is the, perhaps the last president that Russia, the last leader of Russia is ever going to have, for whom the relationship with the United States remains key,

it's remained central, and he wants to establish a strong relationship with the United States. I mean, on our substack, I have written an article about this, which I've explained. Putin, child of the Cold War, a person who was born a few years after the Second World War ended, a person brought up in a world where for the Russians, the United States, was the key adversary, but also the key partner. The world ultimately began and ended with the United States. Putin probably shaped by that life experience, but the Russian leaders who will follow him, have a completely different life experience, are probably going to be much less interested in a long-term relationship with the United States. So I think this is something people

in Washington do need to understand. And if I can just say, maybe they should read my article. I think they should and watch our videos as well. Absolutely. And like the channel and subscribe. All right, we will end the video there, the Darayette. locals.com. We're on X and rumble and telegram and substack as well. So go to go to those links. Check us out there and also go to the Duran Shop, pick up some merch. Here's a link in the description box down below. Take care.