Analyzing Trump and Putin's Diplomatic Dynamics: A Critical Perspective

Uh I speak to him a lot about getting this thing done and I always hang up say well that was a nice phone call and then

missiles launched into Kiev or some other city and I said strange and after that happens three or four times you say

the talk doesn't mean anything. My conversations with him are always very pleasant. They say is that very lovely

conversation and then the missiles go off that night. I don't want to say he's an assassin, but he's a tough guy. It's

been proven over the years. He's fooled a lot of people. He fooled Bush. He fooled a lot of people. He fooled

Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden. He didn't fool me. But what I do say is that uh at a certain point, you know, ultimately

talk doesn't talk. It's got to be action. And I'm I'm almost speechless there

myself. I mean, what do you think of that? Has he been fooled? No. I think the key point here, Danny,

is that Trump fooled himself, right? Putin didn't fool him. Putin has been a straight shooter on this issue from the

get-go, especially with regard to Trump. You don't have to like Putin's position, his bargaining position, but it's been

perfectly clear from the beginning. What Trump did was fool himself into thinking that he could get Putin to change his

terms of a settlement. And he has these various conversations with Putin that he says are nice and pleasant

conversations. But who cares whether he has nice or pleasant conversations with Putin? The key issue is here. The key

issue here is what does he think of Putin's terms and is he going to accept them or not? And this is what I assume

they talk about to some extent in their conversations. I would imagine that Putin has told him

what the bottom line is from a Russian perspective, but Trump doesn't seem to understand this. And this is why this

charade has gone on for months and months. And we are where we are at today. Trump fooled himself.

Yeah. And I and I think that that's going to be borne out in the next uh sound bite we have from that same

conversation because as I play this refer back to the phone call the the last one that took place between the

two. I think there's been five or six even since he took office. So there's been plenty of opportunity here directly

from Putin on what he thinks. But on July 3rd for sure, Trump is reported according to the readouts on both sides

to have asked Russia again for an unconditional ceasefire. Uh and according to the uh actually again both

sides the the Russians in particular were very detailed in their readout is that Putin said we're not going to stop

ceasefire. We're we're until we get the the core issues solved. Only then are we going to stop and we are not going to

budge on these. So he again to your point totally told him straight up upfront what he did but apparently he

did it very politely but he said we're not going to budge on this and then in light of that you have Trump then saying

that he thought we were going to have this solved four times. I felt that we had a deal about four times and I

thought we should had a deal done a long time ago, but it just keeps going on and on and on

and every night people are dying. A lot of people a lot of Russian soldiers are dying. By the way,

I I got to just ask up on what basis could he possibly think he had a deal when Putin has, as you said, never

changed his terms. Yeah. And again, he never says what that deal was. Okay, they nearly had a deal

four times. Please tell me what the deal was that he thought that he had. And of course, he doesn't tell you because he

is blowing smoke when he said they almost had a deal four times. And with regard to this issue of the ceasefire,

the Russians have said ad nauseium that they will not accept a ceasefire. Nevertheless, Trump and his lieutenants

and the Europeans and the Ukrainians continue to push for a ceasefire. The Russians say that is categorically

unacceptable. Don't these people like President Trump understand that that's just wasting

one's time to keep calling for a ceasefire? Furthermore, common sense should tell these people that the

Russians would be fools to accept the ceasefire if you're winning on the battlefield. and the other side is

losing. Why would you agree to a ceasefire to give them in effect a timeout so they can reconstitute the

force their forces rearm and put up a better fight against you? If you have the other side on the run, the name of

the game is to keep pushing. And this of course is exactly what the Russians are doing. And to go back to my previous

point, it's what the Russians have said they're going to do. Period. End the story. But nevertheless, we continue to

push for a ceasefire. And this is probably what President Trump means when he said they almost had a deal four

times. He probably convinced himself the Russians were going to accept his proposal for a ceasefire when in fact

they were never going to accept that. And so what do you think that the the Russians are going to do with this

information now? They they have been given this what Ria Novasti called an ultimatum of 50 days or there's going to

be sanctions. Um, what I would think and tell me what if you agree or disagree or expand on it that the the the Kremlin's

probably going today like that's it. That's that's all you're going to see. 50 days and it's going to be where it is

right now because I don't think there's any difference. So, how do you see the Kremlin reacting to this?

I think they're just going to continue to do what they're doing. They're just going to continue to push forward uh and

win on the battlefield. I mean, I think the Russians clearly understand there's really no possibility for a negotiated

settlement at this point in time unless Trump does a 180 degree turn and there's no evidence that's going to happen. So,

I think if you're the Russians, you just continue to soldier on and try to wrap this up uh as quickly as possible. And

of course, at the same time, if you're smart, you talk in a diplomatic way toward both the Americans, the

Europeans, and the world community. You want to make it look like you are reasonable. And I'm talking about the

Russians here. They don't want to fly off the handle and use hot rhetoric. They want to use diplomatic rhetoric.

Make it look it like the United States and the Europeans and the Ukrainians are the unreasonable actors in this

situation, not them. So, I don't expect to see much change in Russian behavior. Well, yeah, there there is one person

that was really excited about today's announcement and that was Fameir Zalinski. Gary, if you can roll that one

from earlier today. Thank you, General. We had very good conversation with

general just now and thank you general for coming and thanks we have often meetings with you and your team. Thanks

to your team also coming to K. Thank you so much. We are thankful to President Trump for his old messages and very

strong uh decisions about uh resuming uh delivers uh for us and we are thankful for bipartisan support and uh and of

course we had very good conversation in H and we had with president and we had very good phone conversation we made

some decisions very positive for both countries. And uh just now we spoke about uh air

defense with with general. So you mentioned a second ago, John, that the Russians understand about the

power dynamics here. They they know that the West doesn't have enough ammunition to make a difference. They know the

Ukraine side doesn't have enough personnel to use them, even if magically they could come up with the ammunition

and weapons at the scale that is needed. But what about Zalinski? because he seemed very very happy and content that

he got these but he has to know those exact same power fundamentals as well. So the question is is he just detached

from reality and like Hitler in the bunker in the last days of the the Third Reich or does he have some other play?

How do you see that? Well, I think anytime a leader gets into a war uh and the war goes south, uh it's rare that

that leader uh cuts his or her losses uh and exits the war. Uh I think what happens in most cases is that you hang

on hoping for a miracle. Uh I think if you look at the American experience in Afghanistan, we were there for 20 years

and it was very clear after less than 10 years that that was a hopeless situation. But we just hung on and uh

President Trump, who was the one who decided to get out, ran into a lot of opposition when he did. And President

Biden, who actually did get out, ran into a lot opposition when he left. And I'm old enough to remember the Vietnam

War. Uh I think had Congress not put its foot down, uh we'd still be there fighting that war. Uh you know, it just

it was very difficult when you have all these sunk costs uh to uh to just abandon the enterprise. And uh and

that's what you're seeing here. I mean, if you think about the price the Ukrainians have paid so far in this war,

it's really mind-boggling. Uh I believe that they have lost uh over uh a million men. Uh and uh this is uh battle deaths

and badly wounded. Uh and uh and all that's going to happen now is they're going to lose more people and they're

going to lose more territory as you and I have talked about on numerous occasions. It behooves the Ukrainians to

cut a deal here. But the leadership just doesn't think in those terms. They want to hang on. They're hoping for a

miracle. And now that, you know, the Americans are getting reinvolved or Donald Trump is acting like Joe Biden

II, uh, they're beginning to think that maybe they will get that miracle. Uh, but as you and I know, they're not going

to get the miracle. Yeah. And and I'd like your your view on that since you since you broached that

subject. uh because during this these uh uh during this uh press conference here today or this question and answer period

uh Trump did mention that again and he said hey you know this this is Biden's war it would have never happened if I'd

have been in office and you know now I've got to deal with it or so but with this action here I mean it can't he make

that claim anymore because it seems to me like it would have already been the case but now it's like you own it now

you can't be blaming anymore on Biden on this one. Yeah. I mean, I don't believe he could

make the argument that it wasn't his war yesterday or last week. I think once he walked into the White House and made it

clear that he wasn't going to shut down the Biden pipeline, it was his war. But certainly now it's his war. I don't

think that Trump understands here or in the case of Iran that uh once you jump into one of these wars, it becomes your

war and it's exceedingly difficult to get out. Uh I mean, Biden, to his credit, went to enormous lengths not to

get into a war in Iran. The Israelis tried to bait us into a war against Iran in 2024 on two separate occasions. and

the Biden administration smartly did not take the bite uh or take the bait rather. Uh what's happened here with

Trump uh and this goes back to the 12-day war is he took the bait and on June 22nd he jumped in. So we're now

committed uh to that war against Iran. And I think Trump thought it was a oneandone. I think he just thought he'd

go in there, we'd pound um the Iranians on June 22nd and that would be the end of the story. But I don't think that's

the way that one's going to end. And I think the same thing is true here. He he's jumped in with both feet now. You

could argue he was only in with one foot uh as of yesterday, but he's in with both feet now. And if anything, right,

there's no end in sight here. Does he really believe that this one's going to end in 50 days? In 50 days, he's going

to give Putin an ultimatum. Putin is going to throw up his hands. He's going to surrender. We're going to have a

deal. It's going to be a deal that's favorable to the United States, and we live happily ever after. You really

think that's going to happen? I don't think that's going to happen. I think this war is going to go on, and I think

the Russians are eventually going to win it. And when they win it, we're going to be in a poisonous political environment

afterwards. We're going to have a frozen conflict where both sides loathe each other, where both sides go to great

lengths to undermine each other's position. The Russians undermining our position in the West and we trying to

undermine his position inside those territories he's conquered in Ukraine. And then there are all sorts of other

potential flash points in Eastern Europe that are superimposed on this conflict. Endless trouble is ahead for us. Endless

trouble. This one is not going to end. And it's a pipe dream for Trump to think that in 50 days he's going to have a

magical solution.