What A Day - Trump Dumps Putin?

Episode Date: September 24, 2025

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the brutal war has cost millions of lives. But President Donald Trump has consistently said that he could easily end the war. We think by that he probably meant charm Russian President Vladimir Putin into making a deal. Weirdly enough, efforts to cozy up to Russia have not actually stopped Putin from doing anything. Not only has Russia continued to bomb Ukraine, but it is now sending drones into Poland. But maybe, just maybe, Vladimir Putin has reached the end of Trump's patience. To find out what the hell is going on, we spoke to Tommy Vietor, co-host of Crooked Media's "Pod Save the World."And in headlines, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer gets testy with Trump after the president cancels a meeting with him in a Truth Social post, former Vice President Kamala Harris makes the rounds to promote her shockingly blunt new book, and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt says anyone who intentionally stopped the escalator Trump was on at the UN, needs to be "fired and investigated immediately."Show Notes:Check out Pod Save The World – https://tinyurl.com/m2t4crnkCall Congress – 202-224-3121Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/3kk4nyz8What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcastFollow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

It's Wednesday, September 24th. I'm Jane Koston, and this is What Today, the show that will once again urge you to vote in the fat bear week bracket because, number one, it's a good thing in the world. And number two, it's time that Chunk, the bear that has persevered despite a broken jaw, gets the recognition he deserves. On today's show, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer gets testy with President Donald Trump after the president cancels a meeting with him in a truth social post. And former Vice President Kamala Harris makes the rounds to promote her shockingly blunt new book. But let's start with Russia's war on Ukraine. Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the brutal war has cost millions of lives, Russian, and Ukrainian, and pushed Europe closer to the brink of calamity than it's been since the end of the Second World War.

But the real victim is, As always, Trump. Here he is speaking at the 80th United Nations General Assembly in New York on Tuesday. I've also been working relentlessly stopping the killing in Ukraine. I thought that would be of the seven wars that I stopped. I thought that would be the easiest because of my relationship with President Putin, which had always been a good one. I thought that was going to be the easiest one.

But, you know, in war, you never know what's going to happen. there are always lots of surprises, both good and bad. Sure. See, I totally believe that Trump believed that he could charm Russian President Vladimir Putin into making a deal to end the war that Putin started. Charm him by, say, having Vice President J.D. Vance yell at Ukrainian President Volana Mer Zelenskyy in the Oval Office. Or by saying last month that Ukraine should see the Donbiz region of the country to Russia in exchange for peace. But weirdly enough, efforts to cozy up with Russia have not actually stopped Putin from doing anything. Not only has Russia continued to bomb Ukraine, Russia is now

sending drones into Poland. On Friday, three Russian fighter jets even violated Estonian airspace. But maybe, just maybe, Vladimir Putin has reached the end of Trump's patience, too. On Tuesday, after meeting with Zelensky at the UN, Trump posted on true social quote, I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and win all of Ukraine back in its original form. So what the hell is going on here? To find out, I spoke to Tommy Vitor. He's the co-host of Crooked Media's Pots Save the World. Tommy Vitor, welcome back to Wodey.

It's great to be here. Just minutes after Trump met with Zelensky, he jumped on true social and seemed to pivot away from Russia. In the post, he suggested that Ukraine could win back all its territory and then some in the war. And then in classic Trump fashion, blittled Russia calling it a paper tiger before wishing both countries the best? What the hell? What is happening?

I don't understand this at all. No one thinks that. Even like the biggest defenders of Ukraine don't think they're likely to win back all of their territory. Are we talking about Crimea? Yeah. Which has been occupied for many, many years now. And, you know, you have this moment during the Zelensky meeting

where Trump also said during a reporter Q&A that NATO countries should shoot down Russian planes to enter their airspace. And this did come after on Friday, three Russian fighter jets violated Estonian airspace. NATO put out a statement today saying that they will respond with both military and non-military means. But did his reaction surprise you? Because this seems to be like, what?

Yeah. So that was really interesting. So there's also a report today that three drones flew over the Copenhagen airport. And there's a question of whether those are Russian as well. As you mentioned, Russian jets recently answered Estonian airspace. Russian drones have been in Polish airspace. So Putin is clearly testing NATO over and over and over again. So Trump is asked, hey, should NATO country shoot the done?

He goes, yes. And then another reporter, a minute later, is like follows up. He's like, does that mean you'll get their back if they do? And he's like, well, well, we'll see about that. So, you know, he's recommending that NATO start a war. But at the same time, he's sort of like dancing around whether we still support the Article 5 responsibility to come to the defense of a NATO country that is attacked. So is this a pivot? And if it is, what should we make, if anything, of it?

I think it's flailing bullshit. I just think he's all over the place on this. Remember, I mean, going into the Alaska summit, Trump was going to take a hard line. He was going to demand a ceasefire be put in place by Putin. And then he gets to Alaska. He meets with Putin. They drop the demand for a ceasefire. There's been no proposal put forward for Ukrainian security guarantee.

He switched from suggesting that the U.S. would put sanctions on Russia to demanding that Europe do it first and that they they put sanctions on the Chinese and other countries that are buying Russian oil. Like, but here's what's been getting me because this is obviously, this is a conflict that began before Trump even went down the escalator that worked back in 2015. And it wasn't, it was a month ago that Trump was talking about how, you know, Ukraine is going to need to make territorial concessions. And he's been flip-flopping on this conflict.

for now more than a year, I would say, while a large segment of the GOP has been vocally opposed to supporting Ukraine since the invasion in 2022, a invasion which a bunch of so-called realists said would never happen, is he just getting impatient with this process? Yeah, like part of that statement, he did this long truth social post that included this line about how Zelensky and the Ukrainians

could take back all of their territory, but also part of it made it sound like he was just like, well, best of luck by kind of washing his hands of it, right? But he's been all over the place on a bunch of stuff. In recent days, he's been talking about the United States retaking Bagram airbase in Afghanistan. Which I seem to recall that there was this whole thing about how we needed to not be in Afghanistan. And now, I think my favorite part of that was he was like, you know, we built that air base. I'm like, no, we did not.

The Soviets did. We had spilled Bagam Air Base in the 50s, and we took it over after 9-11. And it sounds like he wants to reoccupy it. And, like, the Taliban, I don't, you know, I don't trust them to believe in a lot of stuff. But one thing they do believe is that foreign occupiers should not be on their soil. This has been something they've been pretty strong on. Pretty consistent on this one. There's a, you know, there's a rocky movie where this even gets into this a little bit.

Does that mean we're going to reinvade Afghanistan? Because that will take tens of thousands of troops and billions of dollars and will get us back into the Forever Wars. I thought we all agreed that we did not want to wage. But getting back to Ukraine, for his part, Zelensky told reporters that Trump's true social post was, quote, a big shift and that Trump was a, quote, game changer. Now, for my view, Zelensky clearly gets that flattery works on Trump. Yes. If you just are as nice as possible to him and tell him everything he wants to hear, he will be nice to you. But can he actually count on any of this?

Because you're seeing, you know, the Ukrainian military has been making some progress. in the northeastern regions of Ukraine with regard to this war. But Russia's not going to stop. Right. They will never stop. This will, they will not stop. I don't believe there will be a treaty or an agreement. So can he count on this as meaning anything at all?

I don't think so. I mean, my guess is Trump has seen all these incursions into NATO airspace by Putin, and he wants to send a message back in the form of whatever this truth social post was and seem like he's pressuring Putin, you know, back to the, to the negotiating table, seat, board, whatever the fuck, it's been a long day. But, like, you can't just flail around on a war strategy like this. You need to be planning for six months, a year, two years. Like, we need to be shipping them lots of weapons.

Those weapons shipments need to be authorized by Congress and paid for and put in planes and flown over to Europe and delivered to the Ukrainians. And we can't do what we did in July, which was pause weapons shipments and then unpause them a week later. Right. Like, he's just flailing away and flip-flopping. And, like, his people will try to sell you on this being the madman theory of diplomacy and Trump being unpredictable. But unpredictability in the form of a tweet doesn't do much for you when you run out of ammunition on the battlefield in eastern Ukraine. And that's what I fear is going to happen here. Also, Vladimir Putin is extremely predictable. He has been talking about wanting to essentially reestablish a greater Russia for 20 years now. Right. Decades. That's extremely predictable.

But to the point about flattery, European leaders were also praising Trump's remarks about Russia. And in fact, French President Emmanuel Macron implied to reporters that maybe a united front with Europe and the U.S. could bring about a positive outcome for Ukraine, a quote, good future. Now, to your point, I don't think that this post actually means that anything, but what do you think this says about how the world has learned to deal with Trump? I mean, I do think you're right. They all think that flattery is what it takes. I mean, there's a part of it that is true, right? If you say that he should get the Nobel Peace Prize, he will like you and he will say nice things about you. I don't think it means he has your back at the end of the day. Like Zelensky said thank you seven thousand times in the six-minute press avail that I watched because J.D. Vance famously screamed. at him in the Oval Office. Yeah. If you ever said, thank you. But I still don't think that's going to end up delivering the weapon systems that Ukraine needs.

And again, like you said, Putin is playing the long game. He's got a bigger country. They've ramped up arms production. They're launching hundreds and hundreds drones every night. He's got more men. He's got a bigger army. The long game version of this is not going great for Ukraine. Right.

And I think that Trump interpreted this interaction as a business deal, that if he just charmed Putin and said all the right things, not just to him, but against Ukraine, Putin would eventually come to the table. So now, from Putin's perspective, there's no reason to change anything. No. This is basically another indication that Ukraine actually can't count on the United States, even when the United States says nice things, because this is a massive reversal from just a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, I mean, I think this thing was at best a stalemate when Trump took office. And now I feel like Russia's had momentum in a lot of different parts of a very long front line in this war. And that will just continue. So do you remember that there was going

to be in, you know, like how we're going to get a health care plan in two weeks? Well, there was also going to be a trilateral meeting between Zelensky, Putin, and Trump. Will that ever actually happen? Is the Zeno's arrow paradox, the one where it's like you shoot the arrow, but you're always halfway to the final points you never actually get there? I went to Big Ten school. You went to football games? I went to football school. I'm probably wrong.

But yeah, no, there was the trilateral meeting that was going to happen, but then Trump inserted before that a bilateral meeting that had to happen first between Zelensky and Putin or some sort of, you know, representative. I don't know if that has ever happened. I don't believe any of this is going to happen. I think he is just getting headlines in buying time and punting the problem down the field, just as he's doing in Gaza. And, you know, he's saying to everybody that he's solved seven.

Conflicts. It's all bullshit, by the way. None of what he says is true. Yeah, I believe he counts solving India-Pakistan as ending conflicts. He's counting an economic agreement signed by Kosovo and Serbia in 2020 is ending the war. So that tells you what you need to know. Tommy Vitor, always a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for having me.

That was my conversation with Tommy Vitor, co-host of Crooked Media's Pod Save the World. We'll get to more than news in a moment. But if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, Watch us on YouTube and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. What Today is brought to you by the Freedom from Religion Foundation. Two significant court rulings this month highlight just how contested the boundary between religion and government remains. In Texas, a federal judge blocked a law requiring the Ten Commandments in every classroom.

In Arkansas, a judge ordered Conway schools to take down Commandments posters after they ignored an earlier ruling striking down the law. Both cases were brought by the Freedom from Religion Foundation. These aren't just local disputes. They're part of a larger national push by lawmakers to test how far they can go in eroding church-state separation. And the courts so far are pushing back. It's a reminder.

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Text the word church to 511-511. Let's protect a freedom that belongs to everyone. Text fees may apply. Here's what else we're following today. Head of lines. When your prisons filled with so-called asylum seekers who repaid kindness. And that's what they did. They repaid kindness with crime. It's time to end the failed experiment of open borders. You have to end it

now. See, I can tell you. I'm really good at this stuff. Your countries are going to hell. Trump also addressed his fellow world leaders at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday. He proceeded to rail against, quote, uncontrolled migration, called climate change, quote, the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world, and periodically took shots at former President Joe Biden. Sure. He also claimed to have ended seven wars and seven months, chastising the UN for not even calling to offer its help. He did not end seven wars and seven months. Then he turned his complaints to a faulty escalator inside the UN headquarters that made Trump

have to hoof it, and a broken teleprompter for his speech. All I got from the United Nations was an escalator that on the way up stopped right in the middle. If the first lady wasn't in great shape, she would have fallen. But she's in great shape. We're both in good shape. We both stood. And then a teleprompter that didn't work. These are the two things I got from the United Nations, a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter. Thank you very much. The escalator from 2015. It remembers. It has not forgotten. Trump's speech was almost an hour, nearly four times the voluntary 15-minute time limit for speakers. The overall message was pretty simple, though.

America is hot and the rest of the world sucks. As the jurors were being escorted out of the courtroom, Mr. Ruth picked up a pin and started stabbing at his neck. The marshals that were in the courtroom swarmed him immediately, you know, grabbed his arms, and basically dragged him out of the courtroom. room. That's Associated Press journalist David Fisher, who was in the Fort Pierce, Florida courtroom for the trial of Ryan Ruth, the man who was charged with attempting to assassinate then-candidate Trump at a Florida golf course last year. Prosecutor said Ruth spent weeks plotting to kill Trump before aiming a rifle at him as he played golf at his West Palm Beach

Country Club. That was just nine weeks after Trump survived another attempt on his life while campaigning in Butler, Pennsylvania. The jury deliberated for about two hours on Tuesday before finding Ruth guilty on all five of the counts he was facing, including attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate, assaulting a federal officer, and possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial member. Ruth, who represented himself in the trial, don't do that,

told jurors in his closing argument that he didn't intend to kill anyone that day. He now faces life in prison and will be sentenced in December. The pen Ruth used, by the way, was a flexible one designed to prevent people in custody from using it as a weapon, so he was not able to. to hurt himself. Speaking from the UN headquarters Tuesday, Trump said he was happy with the verdict. Well, I'm very appreciative of the justice that was given and the way it was handled by Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche and everybody that's been, and their team of people. It was really well handled and it's very important. You can't let things like that happen. Nothing to do

with me but a president or even a person. You can't allow that to happen. We know Donald Trump watches a lot of television. Mr. President, if you're watching television, shut it off and come sit down and negotiate with us. That's Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer Tuesday, daring Trump to do his part to avoid a government shutdown. Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries had just confirmed the president would meet with them this week when Trump canceled via True Social. I'm pretty sure that's worse than getting dumped by text. Democrats are taking a page from past Republican strategies. and hope the impending shutdown will force some concessions on health care policy,

like extending the Affordable Care Act's insurance premium subsidies and reversing the Medicaid cuts in the one big, beautiful bill. But in his true social post, Trump said that he had reviewed the, quote, unsurious and ridiculous demands being made by the minority radical left Democrats and determined that a meeting wouldn't be productive. He also said he looks forward to meeting with them when they've become, quote, realistic about the things our country stands for.

whatever that means. Schumer and Jeffreys have responded in interviews, making clear that President Trump and the Republican Party will be the only ones to blame if a deal isn't reached in the next week. The government is set to shut down on October 1st, a week from today. You've got to fight fire with fire. Former Vice President Kamwa Harris is making the rounds to promote her new book, 107 days, which came out this week.

On Monday, she appeared on MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow show, and on Tuesday she went on ABC's Good Morning America and The View. Here she is speaking with View host, Anna Navarro. Ultimately, if you have to pin it down to one thing, what was the primary reason to you think that you lost? There are many factors, I think, that played into the outcome of that election. But I think probably one of the biggest in my mind is we just didn't have enough time. We didn't have enough time.

We didn't have enough time. Oh, yeah. Harris also said that Trump's presidency has been destroying everything America stands for and vehemently condemned his attacks on free speech. When asked if she could think of anything Trump has done right, she said, quote, nothing. But it wasn't all doom and gloom. Harris offered some hope and a few words of advice for the Democratic Party moving forward. I'm a bit done with the punditry

around everybody looking for a Messiah the savior of the Democratic Party there are so many superstars in the party and who are doing very very good work and it is important I think that we see that instead of having these endless conversations about who is the one understand there are many

and similarly with the issues What is the one message that Democrats need to have? There are many. Harris even told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow that she is endorsing Zeramam Dani in the New York City mayoral race, with the caveat that we should look at other stars in the party. Stars like her? She wouldn't say. When asked if she'll run again, she usually answers with some variation of,

I'm not thinking about that right now. But she has yet to say never. And that's the news. Before we go, in light of the Jimmy Kimmel news, Crooked Media is lucky to have one of his writers on our very own network. Louis Vertel, host of Keepit and Jimmy Kimmel Live writer, shares his own experience on this week's episode surrounding the news. and he's joined by Guy Branham. Tune in to Keep It Now, wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube. That's all for today.

If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, sigh on the knowledge that Donald Trump's love affair with escalators appears to be at an end and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading, and not just about how White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt said that if anyone at the United Nations, quote, intentionally stopped the escalator before president, President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump stepped on it, quote,

They need to be fired and investigated immediately, like me. Whataday is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Jane Koston, and these are the softest people alive. What Today is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producer is Emily Four. Our video editor is Joseph Dutra.

Our video producer is Johanna Case. We had production help today from Greg Walters, Matt Berg, Megan Larson, Gina Pollock, and Jonah Eatman. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our senior vice president of News and Politics is Adrian Hill. We had helped today from the Associated Press. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. I don't know. I don't know.