The Team House - Inside the Putin/Trump Summit: Does it Go Anywhere?

Episode Date: August 18, 2025

The conversation delves into the recent Trump-Putin summit, analyzing its implications for Ukraine and the broader geopolitical landscape. The speakers discuss the dynamics of negotiations, the role of the U.S. and Europe, the potential for sanctions, and the future of NATO. They emphasize the importance of security assurances for Ukraine and the need for a united front against autocracy, while also addressing public perception and political ramifications in the U.S. and Europe.00:00 The Trump-Putin Summit: An Overview07:05 Negotiation Dynamics: Ceasefire vs. Peace Deal13:57 The Role of NATO and Security Assurances19:56 Sanctions and Economic Implications24:59 The Complexity of Ceasefire and Territorial Integrity26:53 The Complexity of Ceasefire Agreements29:51 NATO Membership and Its Implications35:40 The Role of European Leaders in Peace Negotiations41:38 The Strategic Mistakes of Putin47:49 The U.S. Support for Ukraine and Its Global ImpactBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Aizan. We got the full crew here. Today, we got Gandhi Milburn, Mick Mulro, Jason Lyons, and myself. A lot happening happened over the weekend. The big news, obviously, is Trump and Putin's summit in Alaska. Lasted about three hours. Big show of, you know, big pomp and circumstance with a B-2 and with the F-35 flying over. Like, that means anything.

Red carpet, too, for Putin, like he's some kind of fucking... Great guy. I mean, we could pick apart the specifics all day long, and this could be a four-hour podcast. But they talked for three hours. It was three-on-three. Initially, it was supposed to be one-on-one. Thank God, it wasn't. But it was three-on-three.

Wyckoff Rubio and President Trump with Putin, Lavarov, and what's Putin's guy's name? His aide? You already said Lava-off. The other guy's name? Yeah, he's got an aide, like an economic advisor. I know what you're talking about. I can't remember his name. Anyway, it was three Russians versus us.

It was there. It lasted about three hours. It was supposed to be a press conference afterwards. There were just statements. It seemed like Putin took up most of the air in the room. They took no questions. And then there was supposed to be a working lunch. I think prior to the press comments, they moved the press conference up.

The working lunch never happened. Everybody jumped on their jets and went home. What came out of it? it was basically instead of talking about a ceasefire, they want an actual peace deal. Not many details have been coming out. Slightly some over the weekend have. I saw Whitcloth and Rubio. They were on the Sunday shows.

We're expecting Zelensky and a lot of European leaders to meet in D.C. in the White House tomorrow. What do you guys tracking with this? What are your thoughts on this? You guys can mud wrestle for who goes first? make you go go ahead so to put to look at it balanced right the positive and the negative I don't know what you want me to start with but I'll start with this going into this negotiation these fire was the objective it was clear president said it and he also said they would be

significant consequences if there wasn't and there wasn't right So that was disappointing. Obviously, I was covering it all day for ABC or at least analyzing it. We really wanted to see him come out of there and say that there was a ceasefire because it's, you know, the concern is that Russia is just going to use these talks to look like they're actually heading toward some kind of into the conflict and a negotiated settlement, but essentially just keep doing what they're doing, which is incrementally taking territory. from Ukraine and deliberately targeting civilians and killing civilians. Five died since the summit to where we're talking right now. And let's be clear on who Putin is. He's a guy who deliberately

targets maternity hospitals and nursing homes, right? Two subparts of any society that you would think would be completely off limits. That's who he is. So the concern is that that's what he's doing. He's just going to play this out and keep going to meetings and, you know, try to get the president to come to Moscow. And it's just a delaying tactic for him to try to, you know, do what he, what he wants to do, which is he doesn't want to cease far. He wants Ukraine, right? So that's one thing. I think what the U.S. has to do now is walk the walk. So we said, and there's a bill pending right now, the Blumenthal Graham Bill or, yeah, Bill that's in the Senate. If that passed, and it has 85 co-sponsors, so it will pass, and it goes through Congress, there's 10 days for the

president to sign it. It's veto-proof, or he doesn't sign it, and it just becomes law in 10 days. That's where we need to go. And I think I heard the vice president, former vice president, and Pence say that this morning on television. So I think that's an indicator that's a lot of Republicans think that's the case. And obviously Democrats do, too. So that's where we need to go now. We need to cut off his supply to fund his war effort. And that is these secondary sanctions that prevents him from selling his energy.

It's not a guarantee that it would prevent him selling his energy, but it sure is to help a lot more consequences than what is happening right now, which is none. The second thing I think we could do is start releasing these frozen assets of Russia. I'm like a broken record with this, but I'm a broken record for a reason. And let Ukraine start buying very advanced weapon systems with zero caveats on them, right? Shoot them wherever you need to. Don't hit civilians, obviously, like your adversaries. But anywhere on Russia's open game.

And there's $350 billion that I know of, or I think I know. that could be used for that. And then I would start talking about, and this is where I'd go into a little bit of the positive that came out of this, what is going to be the security assurances? Because it can't just be Russia saying, I promise not to attack you. That's not worth anything.

So I just saw Special Ovoiwickoff saying that what was agreed with Russia was that there'd be Article 5 type security assurances from the United States and Europe, of course. That's a big deal. That's a big deal. Even if it's not NATO, which I think Ukraine will eventually end up in NATO, but if they have an Article 5,

which means they're attacked again, it's like they attacked all of us. We're all going to war. That's the big benefit of NATO membership, Article 5. So if there can be some treaty, some ironclad, you know, is a term everybody's using to do that,

that's a big deal for Ukraine and it'll make it much more palatable for them to cede some territory, I believe. Ultimately, they have to make that decision, not the United States. But if they do get to a point where they can agree to some, and I would say not seated, I would just say acknowledge you can't get it back militarily, not legally, just give parts of your country. But if that's acceptable to Ukraine, then this security assurance is ironclad, which I think would have to be treaty of some sorts, you know, so it goes through the Senate with the United States. And then the Europeans should start planning right now how they would move forces into Ukraine

to have an actual physical presence to shore up any of this security assurance. I think the Ukrainians would need to go in and stay there until, you know, just have rotations through there until either Ukraine is firmly in NATO or it's just, you know, clear that it's not going to happen. So I know there was a big diatri, but I think there was some positives and some negatives that came out of this. Andy? Yeah, I think I, first of all, yeah, I absolutely agree with Mick on his point that Putin doesn't want a ceasefire. He wants the part of Ukraine that Russia's already annexed. He wants to keep that. And he wants to, he wants to, he wants a cap on Ukrainian armed forces, I would guess. And it's, you know, at a considerably

lower level than the Ukrainian army is now. And he definitely wants the door slammed on any path for Ukraine to NATO or Article 5 type arrangement, perhaps even into the EU. So those do mark points that the U.S. has leverage on. And, you know, I would just like to just kind of like to make the point that we don't need, you know, Russia's got nothing on the U.S. Russia is a tin pot nation. It's not like, you know, it's not even like, you know, it's not even like China. Russia is no, I mean,

I wouldn't say Russia is no threat to us. Russia is certainly a threat to U.S. interests. But my point is

that a raid against Russia and given the diplomatic military might that the United States has, we're dealing with

an adversary who is way beneath us. You know, I just like, again, I mean, there's no,

Russia's in no position. really to make demands of us. Now, admittedly, Russia has a chunk of Ukraine and has the ability to continue the war indefinitely, although they're taking, as we've talked on this show, huge amount of casualties by which I mean an estimated 1,000 casualties a day, and some days that's close to 1,000 dead, you know, and a number of casualties varies between 1,400 a day by the most conservative estimates. That's just a huge amount. But the fact that Putin can very cynically just continue this war indefinitely shows how little he cares for, you know, for his own people.

Yeah, that being said, I think everyone on the show understands Putin is just a bad person. Getting back to what Meg was saying about secondary sanctions, so first of all, yes, absolutely. the way that we leverage Putin is that if he doesn't come to the table, and we need to hear more of this, really, are the negative sanctions on him. If he doesn't come to the bargaining table, then we do back some path, I would say a pathway to NATO and certainly security guarantees. And secondly, as far as secondary sanctions, yes, sanctions on those countries about backing Russia or trading with Russia, India, Turkey being primary among them. That will hurt, that will hurt Russia. But we've got to be serious about this.

I mean, you know, we've been talking about putting tariffs on the entire world with the exception of Russia. I don't know. I don't know why we're so reluctant to. Those Canadians. You know, I mean, it's. Oh, God, they're Canadian. I'm sick of them. To be honest.

I mean, you know, the Canadians are smart. Too nice. I mean, I get it. But they keep fighting alongside us in the war. I would like to see us say, hey, listen, you either accept this or we are absolutely good security guarantees for Ukraine. I mean, substantial security guarantees, some kind of Article 5 agreement, but it's definitely a pathway to NATO in the next five years. That'll certainly make Putin pay attention. We played, you know, he played his game. Yeah, I mean, rolled out the

red carpet. I know that's become a meme of this whole conference, but I think it's, you know, a lot of find that quite offensive. I do to see U.S. military personnel on their knees rolling out a red carpet for a man who I consider an adversary to a national interest. It disgust me. And Putin lapsed that up. Those optics are huge for him. Yeah, I mean, how are those playing in Russia, right? Like all the entire summit, actually. Like, you know, even at that press conference, Putin spoke for like two thirds of the time talking about like Russian history and shit, the same thing he did with like Tucker Carlson, on that interview.

It's just, it seems like a bunch of bullshit, to be honest. And like, and like, you even look at the deal points that kind of like, like leaked out a little bit

where like, they want the entirety of Dombas for Karkeev insumans, insumi, where it's like they don't even have that. They're trying to get an entire, parts of Ukraine, they don't even currently have.

Yeah. It's like absolute nonsense. And like, what is an Article 5 like clause or treaty even look like? I don't join NATO. If it's Article 5, like, what's the fucking difference? Yeah, that's a good point.

If they can get it, if they can get it. Right. I mean, here's the other thing is the people that are opposed, potentially opposed to NATO membership in our system, they are term limited, right? So if there's some kind of ironclad way, and again, this is up to Ukraine, right? They shouldn't give up anything.

They don't want to give up. But if they do for these assurances, There's a coalition of the willing, it's 30 countries. They could move troops in. You got a ceasefire. There should be some iron. What I mean, ironclad. I mean, it's not an executive order, which we all can see is not necessarily ironclad.

It can just switch with the next administration. So it has to be some kind of treaty, I think, that everybody agrees to, for that to be actually worth it for Ukraine. And then down the road, I mean, first of all, Putin doesn't. get a veto on NATO, right? Or Finland and Sweden wouldn't be in NATO right now. I mean, there wouldn't be a NATO right now. So down the road, I agree with Andy. I think we need to get to a point where Ukraine is firmly part of NATO. And I think that should be part of the plan. We got to stop just conceding everything before the negotiations start. That's the other thing.

Like we shouldn't go in there saying, oh, we already agree that no U.S. troops are going to be on the ground, NATO, know this, know that. These are all things that are supposed to happen during negotiations. Not saying that we concede them, but you certainly don't concede points before you start the negotiations. And they haven't even started yet. I would, I would, you know, again, to try to balance this, hey, the U.S. is putting a lot of effort into this. I agree with Andy.

I don't know what the deal was with the red carpet stuff. But I think it, I think the U.S. is putting a lot of effort into this. Obviously, we're going to see the meeting with President. President Zelensky, I think President McCrone, President Stubbs. Starmer is going. Starmer's going now? Okay. You know, they're not asking me, but I'd also suggest that they don't lay everything on the table. They don't come out there and just say everything they talk.

I mean, part of negotiation should be, you know, we had a great meeting today. We're making progress. This is the kind of things we're looking at. The next step for a tri-part, a trilateral meeting is going to happen then. then but not not put everything out on the table it's certainly not air you dirty laundering from the news letter that we're launching it just doesn't help this both the team house podcast the eyes on podcast and the high side was in which i think belgian and he's speaking today earlier today news letter is going to come into your inbox security can't be like you're going to get the most great podcasts on eyes on in the team house and specifics in terms of

what that security guarantee is going to look like, depending on the high side. So as far as people who are going to be at the White House to March, rude, stuff, shir, stalk, smart macrons, stormer, Melody, you never really know what you can have yet. So this is a once a week email. It'll slide into your inbox.

It's a big crew of people. Yeah, it's really good. Let's go back to this. On the website for it, sorry. Yeah, I was saying that matters. Because, I mean, it's, yeah, it's certainly happening in recent months. But the combined support to include procurement deals, combined support from European nations for Ukraine now outweighs that of the United States.

So yes, the support from the U.S. is still substantial and it's still certainly something that the Ukrainians feel they need. But my point is that it isn't a case of any more of United States full support. the war comes to an end. Ukraine can continue fighting with the support, the increasing support of European nations. And I think, I don't know, but I would imagine that European

leaders and Zelensky have planned for the worse, and they certainly should, when they come to the White House on Monday, such that, you know, my point is the U.S. does not have as much leverage as we did maybe a year or two years

ago, and that, Europeans are on the point probably of saying, well, okay, fair enough, but we don't agree. You and Putin can talk about what you want, but we're going to continue to support Ukraine in its fight and then just walk away. And then we now we look really, now we look really powerless, right? You know, so soft, I mean, it's hard and soft power, right? Soft power diplomacy. I mean, you've got to back it with, obviously you have to back it with, with action

and my point is simply this that we're not really necessarily in position but we have that leverage anymore. Yeah and dude you just look at the optics and that's what the whole summit was I think they both try to like win in the perception game who's going back

as like a fucking hero dude like there's so many ways you can cut up and dice up the footage from the summit to make him look like you know he we shouldn't even President Chau Trump shouldn't even be meeting with them.

You shouldn't even give him that opportunity to get the fucking photo, frankly. What is he done to deserve that? And the other wild part was like Trump had a interview with Sean Hannity afterwards. And he said, oh yeah, now it's all up to Zelensky. Like, what? Like, peace isn't up to Zelensky. It's up to the Russians who invaded a fucking country that was not aggressive with it

three years ago to get out of their country. Like, it's just incredible the hoops that Zelensky has to go through compared to, like, his bro poop. Frankly, he looked ridiculous. I mean, that's what it's playing, like, honestly. That's how it's been playing from the last two days. Is that Trump look ridiculous? Super, like, jovial, like their best buds. Like, dude, this ain't your best butt.

Sorry to break it to you. I know he's got a proclivity towards, like, dictators and stuff. But it's like at some point you got to act like an actual like American president. And it's crazy because the most liberal guy here is acting like the most hawkish, right? Because I could just warm my mouth and say whatever I want. But it's, I mean, it's just kind of mind boggly, to be honest. So hopefully this, I mean, it does look like a win to Putin right now, right? He got hoisted from Briya to presidential meetings in the United States.

But if, and there's a lot of folks calling for this, if the secondary sanctions bill, the sanctioning Russia Act is passed, he's going to go from, you know, smiley face to frowny face pretty fast. Right. So what's holding it up, though, Mick? If there's 85, you can't get 85 senators to agree on anything. I know. I don't know. Apparently, Trump has to give Senator Thune, you know, majority leader the thumbs up.

Of course, she doesn't have to. They could just pass it. They are an independent branch of a government. He didn't agree to a ceasefire. It's time to pass it. I mean, we can't keep making threats and they're not following up or they're just going to be like, okay, well, it doesn't really matter. We're going to lose all the clout in this.

Like Andy was saying, you know, eventually the Europeans are just said, just get out of the way then because you guys aren't, you're just hosting lavish, you know, meetings and not. Sorry, what were you going to say? I was just going to ask because I'm completely ignorant when it comes to sanctions, how they, the ins and out to them. So I'm going to ask this question.

What is the downside for us for imposing sanctions? Because I know Rubio said this morning that he doesn't believe that imposing more sanctions is going to do any good. But what is the downside of it? Why wouldn't we? Why can't we do that amongst other things? Is there a downside? Yeah, I think so.

But I mean, I'd point out that Secretary Rubio, when he was Senator Rubio, was what has supported this 100%, right? And I think he actually has came out to support this exactly. So how it works, my understanding is it imposes a 500% tariff on countries that purchase energy from Russia. So if you are China and you purchase energy from Russia, then when you try to sell stuff to us, it's a 500% tariff, which essentially is a block to trade. Yeah.

I mean, it might as well be 10,000 by then, right? Now, I've seen economists, which I'm not, say this could be super disruptive to international trade. So I don't know the actual consequences to it. I'm looking at it from a national security Ukrainian and an war in Ukraine perspective. But I think even the prospect of it is why Putin asked for the meeting. It didn't agree to anything that we know of. but I do think prospect of it is concerning, which means I think we should move forward with it. I mean, like D already said, we're basically putting tariffs on everybody in the planet, except for Russia.

So why not? And this, they would not be affected by it. China, India, and Turkey are the countries that buy the most energy from Russia. They wouldn't be affected at all, but they just don't. Is there another country that can make up the difference? let's say they did stop buying energy from Russia. That's a good question for our energy experts. But the U.S. OPEC, I don't know.

That would be a good question. I don't want to say. I don't want to say because I don't know. That could also be disruptive. But the whole point of it is not to actually enforce the 500 percent. Right. Right. It's to just have them stop buying energy from Russia.

Yeah. So there is no downside for us then. There's no big downside. I guess it's just a global economy, like oil might tank. You know, oil's already low and stuff like that. Well, maybe it rises. I don't know. Oh, it might skyrocket.

You're right. Sorry. Because it's at like 60-something right now. It's pretty low oil. Relatively. Yeah, I just, it all sort of come out, like, the whole idea of the summit was kind of like a framework for a ceasefire, right? But now they're like, oh, we're talking peace deal, which is like you're trying to

high jump before you can even. crawl. Also, the other part that we didn't, like, we have talked about before, like, for Ukraine to okay, because they are a democratic country, like it or not, Putin and everybody else, like, they have to change their constitution and get, like, parliamentary approval to swap to, like, actually hard, make the, make the borders, like, hard borders. Yeah, they have to amend the Constitution to be able to have the referendum, I think. And then the, and on the other part of this, there's, Pete, there's Ukrainians that live

on this territory. They don't want to become Russian, obviously. They've, you know, they've been fighting tooth and nail at the risks of our lives and losing lives to be able to not be Russian. So what it's, it's super complicated. So say they do give up some terrain. There needs to be resettlement. There needs to be, there's costs including that, rehousing. Who's paying for that? International community? Russia. Russia, all of its assets that are from, right now, you know, the way I see it should never go back to Russia. Either they need to use it to defend themselves or they need to use it to rebuild themselves, which was caused by Russia. This is going to, that's why it's so important to have a ceasefire during negotiations,

because even if this is good face negotiations, which is a big if, it's going to take a long time to get there just because of all of the issues they have to deal with. The ref, the menning, the constitution, the referendums, the resettling populations, all the other issues, which are also extraordinarily important. Like the first lady wrote this letter about these Ukrainian children that were stolen. I mean, this is just barbaric act. I mean, all that stuff has to be included in the agreement. And then we have to have an ironclad security assurance, which, to my way of thinking, is some kind of treaty. Right. There's something that just can't be broken.

Like, I mean, we gave assurances to Ukraine. We defend them in the 90s when they gave up the nuclear weapons. And obviously the Minsk. You said the Minsk agreement. It's got to be more ironclad than that. Troops need to be prepared. You have Russia part of the treaty. That's the problem.

Yeah. And President Putin more like that I hate generalizing the entire country of Russia. But, you know. Yeah, it's Putin, right? Yeah, let's not turn against the entire. It gets back to be. being prepared to enforce doing bad things against Russia and really being prepared to follow through. And at no stage had we shown that we are willing to do that. And, you know, to make

point on the ceasefire, enforcing the ceasefire, the only way to enforce the ceasefire is to establish terms that both sides agree to unequivocally. And the only way that the Russian are going to agree unequivocally to anything as if what is the threats that they face are breaking that ceasefire are really damaging to them, A, and B, they believe that the U.S. in particular will follow through on those threats. I mean, you're going to have the most two most powerful armies in Europe, combat experienced with the most, and on the Ukrainian side, certainly the best equipped. militaries in Europe facing each other over a very short distance.

I mean, you can't rely on a peacekeeping force to enforce that ceasefire. It has to be the terms of the agreement. And as Mick points out, that is what's going to be so complex about this. You think that if, I mean, I know it's not going to happen, but if tomorrow Ukraine is granted NATO membership, that that would be a game changer? or do you think Putin is all in no matter what? Well, I really comes down to the willingness to, I mean, if they won't be, because I think, unfortunately, the U.S. would veto it.

In a way, NATO membership works as any member can veto it. If you remember Sweden, I think it was Sweden that Turkey was holding out on because of some issue. But the whole point is, as soon as they are part of NATO, then Article 5 applies in any further aggression against Ukraine would mean they're fighting all of us. It also probably means they have to hard, like make the lines, like this is the actual, this is Ukraine now, this is Russia now. Yeah, yeah. Because it's in there also a stipulation.

I think that where if there are soldiers on the ground, like Article 5, like you mentioned, like automatically triggers. Because they're technically in your country. And so for the, what is it, 30 members? Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's, it might be more than that. everyone has to agree. So everyone would have to, in this case, would have to say, not only you know, I want them, man, I think most countries do, but it's a decision to go to war against Russia right now.

So they would be making both decisions. And, you know, from my way, I think they need to start putting consequences on Russia, which means they should start planning how, if there's a ceasefire, like, okay, so how are these units going to work together and enforcing that ceasefire? How are they going to move into Ukraine? and how they're going to integrate, at least in coordination-wise, with the Ukrainian military. I think they ought to start doing that now for practical reasons, but also to show Putin, this is happening.

We're planning on it. And, and I know this might be controversial, I'd also say, I'd also put a line in the sand. Like, is there a place that Russia gets to when Europe decides no moss? Like, are they going to let them take key? I'm not saying it's happened anytime soon. same is ever going to happen. But when is Europe going to say, okay, we're willing to contribute troops to prevent Ukraine from being taken over entirely? Right? Because now, every, all the West, including the U.S., is just reacting to what Putin wants. Yeah.

We need to start having him react to what we are saying we want and what we're going to do. Milburn? Yeah, I mean, you know, it gets fast. to, I guess we were talking a lot about this summit, but the question remains, what was the summit even about? You know, we're in, we're certainly not in, we're certainly in no better position than, it's from the US standpoint than we were before this summer. We seem to have even less leverage because we have shown such extraordinary deference to Putin. I mean, you know, I know we keep getting back to the optics, but they were, they were really harmful to the United States.

The United States' position as appearing as a, I mean, in part, not even, didn't even portray us as being impartial in this, as my point. You know, of course, we should be leaning towards Ukraine as the invaded country. And I think, I mean, for me, I, again, I mean, you see endless churn about what was accomplished, what was discussed. You know, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this didn't know, to clean some substantive insights into what occurred. And it appears to be just kind of a, you know, a protocol direction.

For the lunch, though, that didn't happen. Like, why didn't that lunch happen? Yeah, well, I think what his, well, I think, I don't know, but here's what I think. happened. You know, you had this extraordinary reception, which, which didn't have to happen. You know, I mean, diplomatically, the right thing to do would have been to give Putin quite a cold reception. We didn't have to do literally the red carpet, the F-22s, you know, the arch of kind of that extraordinary arch, the flyover. I mean, all of that stuff was just weird. And I tell you, if I'd been one of the military commanders ordered to do that, I would have, I would have felt, now I'm just glad I wasn't in that position.

I would certainly have felt it would see. I mean, and I think probably someone realized during the summit, hey, this is going south for us. This is not looking good when I say us. I'm talking collectively as the U.S. and so that's why you kind of saw this scripted i think press conference afterwards and the plans afterwards for dinner and all of this were it was a working lunch yeah i was kind of hoping that uh i hope someone realized that it was not looking good yeah i was kind of hoping at the last minute that uh we get that w w music and then zelinski would come shooting off a player you know and just yeah yeah just

walk into the whole thing and disrupt it. It also kind of looks like, you know, okay, Trump had his three-hour meeting with Putin, and then he goes and reports back to the Zelenskyi and the European leaders. It's like, why are we given Putin any kind of, like, reporting anything? And I, and Frank, like, giving him any kind of lead on this.

And frankly, what I think is going to happen, why they kind of pivoted from ceasefire to full peace deal is because they want to get it out there. They're like, oh, Putin actually wants peace. And when the Zelensky and the EU leaders are like, this is crazy. What he's asking for. He's being ridiculous. Like he has been for the last three years.

They could kind of paint it on like Zelensky. They're being like, oh, you know what? You really don't want peace. That's my speculation as to what Russia would like. And I can't even begin to try and like understand what Trump wants, frankly. What are your thoughts? Mick, you go first. So I do think tomorrow is going to be hopefully a very productive day on,

because the European leaders have to be there. They're the primary ones that are going to be enforcing any kind of security guarantees. Kittkoff just said on television that the U.S. was going to be part of the security game, which is why I'm saying that was a positive. I mean, he's, unless that's not the case, but he's a spokesperson. He's a special on. So, but tomorrow, I think, needs to be a lot behind the scenes. Like, what are we, what are we all collectively trying to get to with President Zelensky in the lead on what he could accept?

And probably equally important, what he could actually sell to the Ukrainian people, right? Because he's not making these decisions, ultimately. He's the best position to represent, obviously, it's democratically elected leader of Ukraine. But he can't even just go on there and slap the table and say, this is the deal. So he needs to, and we need to not put that out there. That's why I'm saying needs to be behind the scenes. Like they need to collect, like, what is Europe actually willing to do? What is U.S. actually willing to do?

What does President Zelensky think is acceptable to him? And does he think he can actually sell to the Ukrainian people? And then don't tell anybody, which I know is going to be almost in a possibility. Because you don't want your, you're like hard and fast negotiation, milestones to be known. Not only do you not want to give away things like NATO membership and U.S. boots on the ground before you actually enter the negotiations, but you don't want to actually say what your bottom line is.

And I think that everybody should know that and then everybody should keep it bum. And then the consequences should be discussed. Okay. So we want to have a trilateral meeting with Putin and Zelensky being basically a primaries and U.S. facilitating it if they need us to do it. Or they could get the Europeans to do it. And then if Putin doesn't show any progress, consequences have to happen or he'll meet, you know, he'll have the red carpet rolled out for him every month as long as he can keep his war going and make it look like that he's advancing it. So there has to be consequences and

we have to get all of our stuff in one sock. it's hard to imagine how both sides could go to a peace agreement without a ceasefire which is what now the US stance is based on what Putin has said I mean it's how do you do that it's it's extraordinary the other thing you know

there's so many extraordinary things about this was in this call to NATO to Zelensky and then NATO leaders apparently what has been reported is that either Wittkoff or Trump reported that Putin had said, hey, look, I can take the rest of the Netsk region and any other areas where the fighting is taking place. He means the south. I can take any area I want in Ukraine.

And I was thinking, hey, well, of course Putin's saying that. But if he could do that, why wouldn't he do that? You know, is he just, is he just like taking that, all those casualties just because he can and he doesn't, he's too nice to take territory? I mean, what, first of all, so that's an extraordinary thing for Putin to say if he said it and B, why would we repeat that tornado leaders? It's not like they're going to say, oh, wow, we didn't, we had no idea. It's just crazy. Yeah, so we'll see how it goes. I hope it'd be interesting to watch.

Like, there was no, no questions asked by reporters. There were reporters screaming questions at Putin and stuff when they were taking the photos prior to the summit. There were no questions afterwards at the press conference. But what's it going to look like tomorrow with all those European leaders, you know, are they to be open for questions? It's going to be like, you know, the normal, like, how it's been for, from the Trump administration, that Oval Office kind of like powwow, gaggle, whatever, of,

just like where they're just basically like just rap sessioning. It's just like a jam session. Like anything goes. It'll be kind of interesting. There will be a lot of them. So I think it's going to get a little bit crowded in the Oval Office. I do want to add one thing that, you know, I'm half British. And so the British half of me sees something positive coming out of this.

There is there is a European assertiveness coming to the fall that has not been there for many years. You know, arguably not since the Second World War. By that I mean, you know, Starma and Macron in particular are becoming respected leaders. Well, I mean, you can say what you like about them, but they are center stage now in substantive issues. and going and again, I mean, the proof will be tomorrow and tomorrow's discussion to see how it pans out. But I think they're coming with armed with a worst case scenario of, hey, look, US, if you're not on board with what we're saying

and with a path to peace having to involve the ceasefire, having to involve all these things, if you're not on board with this, the war will continue and we're quite capable of supporting Ukraine without your help. I think that's what's going to happen.

And you know, so again it gets back to yeah, that's kind of positive. We've been certainly financially we've been trying to get European nations to step up to the play when it comes to the defense of Europe

and now they're willing to do it. But unfortunately, We the United States don't seem to be leading that. We don't seem to be on the same train. I hope I'm wrong. Mike, you were starting to say something. What were you at the thought? Well, that's why I was, you know, we were talking about how this would be a giant media scrum gaggle tomorrow.

That's why I'm advocating to say basically just clear statements of support to Ukraine. We're working out our side of it. We're not going to tell you what it is because it doesn't, it's, it's, it's, it's, not to our own advantage. You don't see Russia is, you know, they just say maximumist stuff, but they're not, they're not talking about their internal discussions. Maybe they don't even have them because it's, you know, an autocracy. But we need to be much more circumspect about what we're saying collectively to the media,

even though I'm an analyst in the media. They don't need to. We don't need to know everything. We want this to actually work. And sometimes giving away everything we're willing to do and not do. is not beneficial to our part of the negotiations. And then again, and I think Andy just said it, Europe needs to be ready to, you know,

not just be the guys sitting around the speakerphone listening to everything that just happened. They need to be in the room. I mean, they're the ones that are going to move troops into Ukraine to support the ceasefire. And they're the ones that I didn't just come up with this. They're the ones actually talking about, well, what is our red line? Are we going to let, you know, if the worst case scenario, we're going to let Russia take all of Ukraine?

Or are we going to decide that, you know, that's not going to be the case? You know, you're going to be at Chamberlain or a Churchill here. So I hope tomorrow they just come out full support. They basically explain without given details that we're all in the same sheet of music. And then they're ready for the trilateral multinational, right, include. the UK and France and they have more than a right to have a seat at the table. They're the ones that are going to put their troops in arms away. And it's their backyard too, right?

It's their backyard. They don't need, they don't need permission. I mean, this is their, I agree, they are certainly stepping up across Europe. Germany. I mean, like a lot of my German friends are sending me memes about how Europe is now demanding the Germany build a large standing army and be prepared tomorrow. George cars Europe. But they have. They've changed their perspective on. And this is all, this all goes to a massive strategic mistake by President Putin. Right. So he invaded a country

that's 28 times smaller in landmass, four times smaller in population. It's been three and a half years, over three and a half years. And he's taken about 19% of the country. He's also caused NATO to expand by two more countries at the 32 now, I guess. And he's gotten every country in NATO to want to spend more on their own defense because of him. So he can, he writes the history books in Russia, but he doesn't write the history books. The history books are going to look at this as a huge strategic mistake. And we need to make it an even larger one. Yeah.

The war has become a, the war has become. become an instrument of political control for him at home, silencing opposition. All these laws that have come out about, you know, if you criticize the war or the Russian army, you can go to jail for five years. He realizes that his reputation, his legacy is state to this war. And that is why the consequences for him. him of not towing the line when it

comes to what the West wants in regards to a ceasefire and peace agreement, the consequences have to be really bad because he already sees, he already perceives the fact that if he turns, you know,

if he comes back with less than owning all the terrain that he has, you know, that they've already own, all these things that he has said. If he comes back less than that, there are going to be elements of the Russian population, sizeable elements that start questioning

why this war happened in the first place, right? They should be questioning that now with 950,000. Yeah. A whole generation of Russian males are. You know, I'm sure they are, but the opposition has been remarkably silent to this point. It's also kind of scary, though, just to see, like, you know, there's a possibility of, like, Europe going yet alone without the U.S., how that's like a possibility where, like, it's, I think Europe should take the lead on this because it is their backyard.

But the fact that hopefully the U.S. and Europe tomorrow with Ukraine and Zelensky can get there, can start, you know, singing off the same sheet of music, right? Like, and be united in terms of what they want from Putin. And support for Ukraine seems to be going up in the U.S. Every poll I've seen indicates that. Distrust and actual hatred, if you will, for Putin is very high. Yeah. That's encouraging. It is.

I think Democrats, it's like 93% completely distrust and disapprove of Putin and 88% of Republicans and independents' or SOP or somewhere in the middle, right? So that's also pretty unheard of in modern. But what is amazing is still 12% of the American public company, 12% of the 7% that who support him. Like what? So can that be.

Yeah. That's another rabbit hole to you. They really dig into and be like, what is going on in the United States in terms of like what they support? and you know 12% is 30 plus million you know if you run the math or you know even more yeah it's it's head scratch it is head scratching i mean i still you know i still hear arguments from people who are otherwise intelligence about intelligent about you know how the u.s has been duped into supporting ukraine with all this you know all these arm and everything

guys who were not at all outraged, well, perhaps were temporarily outraged by the way that Afghanistan went down after 20 years of us pouring blood and treasure into that country for nothing. I cannot recognize the fact that we have spent only money, the U.S. have spent only money in really creating a,

in delivering a devastating blow to Russia via our proxy Ukraine. You know, I mean, that from a pure U.S. standpoint, the standpoint of U.S. interest, that was a remarkable feat. And all we did was spend money. And yet there are still knuckleheads

who think that, you know, Phil was, start talking as though we were cheated. Right. I don't know. Strength is relative, right? I mean, that's the same. people how much we spent on our national defense and they probably, I guess, wouldn't even know. No.

But if we're spending money to seriously degrade Russia's military capability, which we are, our strength goes up relative to theirs. So it's, you could take a, I think we have a moral and ethical obligation to defend democracy around the world. But even if you don't, even if you're just America first, this is America, this is advantages, the United States of America. It means all those 950,000 casualties, if we were to go to war with Russia, wouldn't be available to fight us. All the tanks, all the armored personnel carriers, all the aircraft, all that stuff that Ukraine has managed to take off the battlefield literally is not going to go up against the United States if we were to have a conflict with them.

So it's not charity, as President Zelensky has said. I think folks are just kind of susceptible to, you know, 10 word kind of answer or like a TikTok one minute thing with like a graph that says 200 billion or 300 billion like meaning and they equated to oh if that 300 billion

didn't go there which is not the number it would have been in my pocket or I would have had some I would have gotten some kind of chariot carry they're also buying our stuff yeah that's true too and majority of the stuff it wasn't like we're sending

pallets of cash to them it was like Like artillery, it's equipment and stuff like that, stuff we were going to decommission, especially early on. It's like, what do we do? You know, I understand. I understand if the American elector and the American people were pissed because we sent 100,000 guys there. I understand that, especially after 20 plus years of the GWR. And, you know, Afghanistan and Iraq. But that's not the case.

Like, $60,000. To, like, literally decimate the Russian army and also do the right thing, too. put that on top of it, right? Like, Ukraine didn't do anything. They got evaded. It's not exactly, that's a fucking rounding error in our deficit and national debt. Yeah, we're over a trillion dollars on national. Benefits, too, when it comes to armaments.

I mean, it's, it was a research and development laboratory. I mean, I know this sounds cynical, but it was for many of our weapons systems. And it showed the world, you know, whether or not this is fair, but a lot of countries that, that had been all out on. buying Soviet era or Russian-made equipment, associate now that equipment with being it being destroyed by Western weapons systems. And so, you know, there's, it's had kind of a shift in the way the world views, not just military power, but, you know, Ukraine siding with the, with, I mean, the West siding with Ukraine, providing Ukraine, with, with all these systems from Stormshadow

to attackans, high mass, that have just devastated, it had a devastating effect. Yes, short term, but devastating short term simply because we didn't give them enough. It has been a great laboratory and a kind of exposure to the world of some of the weaknesses in Russian military equipment, doctrine, training, tactics, all of the above. Mick, you were saying something. Sorry, you got caught up. I remember what it was.

All right. I agree with Andy. Yeah, whenever in doubt, just agree with Andy. That's what I do. That's the rule for my wife, not Andy. That's probably a better move. Yeah. I mean, I would say this.

You know, we over, we have a tendency to overestimate our adversaries, right? Turn them into, because I mean, the analyst is never going to get yelled at for for that. They get yelled at, I assume, for like, underestimating. Yeah. But Russia is proven to be not very good at fighting, you know. That's why they're always talking about nuclear weapons. I think they even see like conventionally, holy mackerel, like the Ukraine basically was a David and Goliath scenario. And David's still fighting.

You know, David's still fighting and Goliath is turned out to be Goliath. So that's why they always talk. As soon as they start seeing that everybody can see that they're not as strong as we thought, they start talking about nuclear weapons. So I don't say we even engage with that anymore. You can let Medvedev, whatever his name is, just say stuff like that. We need to focus on ending the conflict and then understanding once and for all that NATO has a significant role to play in the future of protecting democracies, including our own. I think this has made it clear that it's not obsolete. It's not

something that just won the Cold War. It's something that is beneficial to all the countries that are in it. And they need to play a part, you know, to promote Trump's whites. It's not just get behind the U.S. and we'll protect everybody. We will. But you've got to do your part. You got to bring, you've got to bring your game to the fight. And that means building up your own defenses, which now they clearly are, and standing unified when it comes to the autocracies of the world like Putin

and showing unifying unity. Yeah, right on. Anything else, guys? I mean, this may fail to hit? no guys do us a favor like and subscribe follow us everywhere

the links are in the description if you want to know more we have a new newsletter link is in the description there sign up to that patreon.com slash the team has all that stuff guys as always a pleasure thank you so much

bye everyone so much hey guys I want to tell all of you today about a new newsletter we're launching that encompasses both the Team House podcast, the Eyes On podcast, and the Highside news outlet, which I run with Sean Naylor. The newsletter is going to be once a week. It's going to come into your inbox and you're going to get the most current podcasts on IZON and the Team House and whatever's topical or current on the high side. So it's another way for us

to get the information out to you as social media algorithms are pretty iffy and you never really know what you're going to get. So this is a once-a-week email. It'll slide into your inbox, and it will have, you know, the greatest hits of that week. It's really good at me. Checking it out. The website for it is teamhousepodcast.com

slash join. Teamhousepodcast. Dot kit.com slash join. You go there and you enter into your email list, or you enter your email into the little thing on the website, and you're good to go, and that'll be it. So we really appreciate your support and hope you'll consider signing up. Where's the link?

The link will also be down in the description if you're looking for it there. And that's teamhousepodcast.com.kitt, kiloindiatango.com backslash join.