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Unknown A
Got a ton coming up for you on today's show is a mega show. Today. President Trump throws Volodymyr Zelensky, leader of Ukraine, out of the White House after a nuclear meltdown of a press conference. The rest of the world reacts and we examine whether there's a new Trump doctrine or whether Zelensky simply blew it. That's all that first tomorrow night Daily where Backstage returns live for President Donald Trump's address to Congress. We are covering it all. Do not miss the exclusive Pre show at 8:30pm Eastern followed by the full address completely uninterrupted. And when he's done, we're back with breakdown for It All Means Watch with us tomorrow night at Daily Wire plus. Okay, so before I get to the actual nuclear meltdown on press conference, we're gonna go through the whole press conference because I think that it is a disservice to all involved for us to simply focus on the moment where everything went out.
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Unknown A
This is a long press conference. It was a nearly 50 minute press conference. And I want to go through everything that led up to the press conference because it sort of explains where everybody is President Trump, Vice President Vance, Vladimir Zelensky, President of Ukraine and how we got to the nuclear meltdown. I want to remind you what a wise man wrote In October of 2022, quote, Henry Kissinger has been publicly excoriated for suggesting that the off ramp to this conflict will be territorial concessions by Ukraine to Russia, a repeat of the Moscow Peace Treaty that was signed after the Soviet invasion of Finland in 1941. But he may be correct, particularly if the west is unwilling to bear the full economic military cost of a larger war with Russia. In the end, it may be that the least bad scenario is about simply preventing the worst case scenario.
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Unknown A
That wise man of course was yours truly. I've been arguing since mid-2022 that the off ramp in Ukraine involves territorial concessions to Russia, Donbass and Crimea in return for security guarantees that would ensure no renewal of Russian war in Ukraine. That has been a clear off ramp for legitimately almost three years at this point. And so my view when it comes to the war in Ukraine is whatever gets us to that durable off ramp is good and whatever gets in the way of that durable off ramp is bad. That's all. By the way, that also happens to be the policy of the Trump administration, which is seeking an off ramp that would in fact not allow Vladimir Putin to waltz into Kyiv, but also acknowledges that the likelihood of Ukraine winning back down basin Crimea is basically zero and has been since 2014. So that was the predicate, the big meeting that was supposed to happen on Friday.
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Unknown A
So on Friday, President of Ukraine, Vladimir's lens was supposed to arrive in the United States and go to the White House and he was supposed to sign a minerals deal. Now, there was an immediate conflict between what both parties wanted from this President Trump. He wanted the minerals deal because, number one, he believes that the United States ought to be repaid for its investment in other countries. This is a long standing belief of President Trump's that when we get involved in foreign policy, there ought to be some clear return to the United States. Whether we're talking about defending Kuwait from Saddam Hussein or whether we're talking about paying to defend Ukraine from Russia, there should be some sort of return to the American taxpayer. Otherwise, in President Trump's beliefs, we are getting screwed. Okay, that is a longstanding Trump position. But there's something else going on here, and this is made clear during the press conference.
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Unknown A
President Trump always saw the economic minerals deal as a sort of foot in the door to prevent a Russian invasion. Because if the United States has workers in Ukraine who are, for example, mining raw rare earths minerals, and then Russians invade, the United States immediately drag in. And President Trump is not wrong about this. In fact, for centuries, this has been a Western way of making war, is that if there is in fact a British East India Company that's involved in trade in a far flung place and then they're attacked by local government, that does actually dredge up the problem of perhaps the British Empire getting directly, militarily involved. And so you don't want to screw with the British East India Company. That is almost how President Trump is seeing the rare earth minerals deal. That's what he's doing right there. Meanwhile, Zelensky is saying, I can't go back to my people and say that I signed a minerals deal or anything else without security guarantees.
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Unknown A
The final settlement does not involve actual explicit security guarantees. I can't actually go back to my people with that. Which, by the way, is one of the reasons I've also been suggesting for years that the United States might have to go over Zelensky's head in order to negotiate into this war and then cram it down on it. They might have to. The United States might have to go to Russia and say, listen, we know the outline of the deal. You may not like it, we may not like it, Zelensky may not like it. But again, outline of the deal. Donbass and Crimea remain in Russian hands. There are, in fact, security guarantees to the Ukrainians, and that's the best it's going to get. Okay? So entering this meeting, all President Trump wanted was a grip and grin. All he wanted was Zelensky to show up and Trump would shake his hand and there would be a sort of implicit understanding that only became explicit during this meeting, that the rare earth minerals deal was a sort of trigger force for the United States providing security guarantees.
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Unknown A
And Trump comes very close to saying that several times in the actual meeting. Zelensky comes in with another agenda. And as we'll see, it's probably because he's taught by Democrats, apparently. He comes in and he wants President Trump in the room to say that he's going to give a security guarantee, a thing that President Trump does not want to do. Because, again, from President Trump's perspective, the United States should not have to provide that security guarantee. Basically, Europe should have to provide that security guarantee. So that is the setup right here. Now, beyond that, there's personal dislike between these two leaders. So Vladimir Zelensky does not like President Trump. He's angry at President Trump. He believes that President Trump and Vice President do not like him, that they said nasty things about him, which is true. That they have said things that are untrue about the Ukraine, Russia war in terms of casting moral aspersions to Ukraine that are unearned while going easy on Vladimir Putin's case.
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Unknown A
He made that. That's true as well. The Trump Vance case is Zelensky is being intransigent because he wants my moral condemnation. But moral condemnation don't get the job done. The thing that gets the job done is whatever gets us to that off ramp. So that means that we have to sort of massage Putin in public relations in order to get him to the table. Then we'll do that. That is another one of these conflicts that's happening. And by the way, Lima Zelensky, people forget this because, of course, he's a very famous world leader since the outbreak of the 2022 war. Zelenskyy was an actor. He's an egomaniac. Zelensky likes being on camera. He made his money on camera. There's all sorts of footage of him wandering around the Internet when he was a comedian doing bizarre things, body humor kind of stuff. That's who Zelensky is.
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Unknown A
He's quite performant. Like, very performant. Guess what? So is President Trump, and so, as it turns out, is Vice President Vance. So that's the setup. Pocket is right there. Now, it didn't have to go sideways. It did. Zelensky could have come in, could have done the reprin, could have gotten the win, could have walked out, and that would have been enough. But Zelensky really blows it. I mean, he really, really blows it here. I will say of the three people in the room, the adult in the room is strong by far. It's not close. Zelensky comes in, he's very aggressive. He is, in fact rude to President Trump. He's a little rude to J.D. vance. J.D. vance I do not think acquits himself well in this particular exchange. I know there are people on the right who think that J.D. vans handled himself beautifully. I think the J.D.
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Unknown A
vance actually threw a couple of hand grenades in the middle of the conversation because there may in fact be some foreign policy differences between Vance's view of the United States in the world and Trump's view of the United States in the world that may be emerging. It's kind of an interesting conversation. We'll save for a little later in the show. What are the ramifications of all this? Which direction does the world go after this blow up of meaning, hey, now I want to get into the actual meeting. So as you can see, the interpersonal dynamics are already set from the very beginning for things to be pretty contentious. When Vladimir Zelensky shows up at the White House, he is wearing a sort of military jumpsuit. Now, this has been a sort of bugaboo for many people on the right for a long time. Zelensky wears what Trump has called a costume.
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Unknown A
Why does he wear a suit now? Wouldn't it have behoved Zelensky wear a suit for Trump? Absolutely. What's the downside? I understand that Zelensky is trying to keep his country's spirits up, but it seems to me that if he'd turn up a suit, had a great meeting with Trump and walk out, that would have been a pretty good boost for the Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines. Is it really more important that he shows up in the jumpsuit as some sort of slap in the face at Trump? Again, this setup leads one to believe that one of the things that Zelenskyy is doing here is he's recognizing tacitly that the United States is out of Ukraine business. What he's actually trying to do, perhaps strategically, is blow up the meeting in order to get the EU to step in and try and provide some sort of aid that the United States unwilling provide.
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Unknown A
If that's the case, then Zelensky actually got something that he wanted out of this whole situation. But you can see right from the get go there's an antagonism right at the outset.
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Unknown B
He's all dressed up today.
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Unknown A
Okay, so he's all dressed up today. Right. And Zelenskyy can see he's a little bit ticked off by this, obviously a huge size differential. Zelensky's not a big man and Trump is a very large human being. And then they finally sit down in and they're. And they have this conversation. So again, we're going through this in detail because this is, I think, one of the most fascinating and probably historic conversations we have ever seen publicly between a President of the United States and a foreign leader. And we should recognize that conversations like this have wide ranging ramifications in terms of future policy. For example, the Iraq war was largely begun. The original Iraq war, the Gulf War, might have started because of a stray comment from a low level State Department staffer who sort of implied that if Saddam Hussein had walked into it, the United States might not actually do anything about it.
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Unknown A
Her name was April Glasby and the State Department had told Sam Hussein the Washington had no special defense or security commitments to Kuwait. And at that point Saddam took that seriously and he walked into Kuwait. So stray comments, certainly big blocks like this can have some pretty radical ramifications for how foreign policy is conducted. In the same way that the Russian invasion of Ukraine probably has to do with the United States pulling out of Afghanistan ignominiously in disgrace. In the same way, comments that are made on the public stage can have extraordinarily powerful ramifications for the future of foreign policy. That's what we're going to go through this in such detail. All this could have pretty radical ramifications for Ukraine, for the United States as well. We'll get into that. First, this country is founded on freedom. Freedom from a country that forced us to buy their overpriced deal and then try blockading us.
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Unknown B
Thank you very much. It's an honor to have President Zelensky of Ukraine and we've been working very hard, very close and we've actually known each other for a long time. We've been dealing with each other for a long time and very well. We had little negotiations fat, but that worked out great I think for both countries, I think for the world actually beyond both countries. And we have something that is a very fair deal and we look forward to getting in and digging, digging, digging and working and getting some of the rare earth. But it means we're going to be inside and it's a big commitment from the United States and we appreciate working with you very much, and we will continue to do that. We have had some very good discussions with Russia. I spoke with President Putin, and we're going to try and bring this to a close.
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Unknown B
It's something that you want and that he wants. We have to negotiate a deal, but we've started the confines of a deal, and I think something can happen.
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Unknown A
So you can see from Zelensky's body language, he's immediately on his guard, right? He's already very nervous. He's clearly not liking what he's hearing from Trump. What Trump is saying here is extremely good for Zelensky. And Zelensky came and oriented against Trump from the beginning. And you can see what Trump is saying here is he's looking for some sort of win, right? That's all he says right from the beginning. We had a negotiation spap, and that worked out great. And we're looking forward to getting and digging, digging, digging, working, getting some of the rare earth. But it means we're inside. It's a big commitment from the United States. What is he saying there? What President Trump is saying there is we look forward to getting boots on the ground, digging things. And once we're there, it's sort of a tacit security guarantee. Now Zelensky comes out firing, Zelensky comes out and he's like, I want security guarantee in the room.
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Unknown A
Which, again, you understand why he wants it. He's the president of Ukraine. He does not want another negotiation to end within two years, the Russians coming back in. However, these are negotiations you save for the back room. This is not stuff you do in the front room. Why is he negotiating in the room with President Trump isn't rejecting his security guarantee out right here. Trump has said nothing about security guarantee. It's Zelensky who starts pushing him right out the gate.
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Unknown C
Thanks so much, Mr. President. Thank you for invitation. And really, I hope that this document, first document, will be the first step to real security guarantees for Ukraine, our people, our children. I really count on it. And of course, we count that America will not stop support really, for us. It's very important to support and to continue it. I want to discuss it with details during our conversation and of course, the infrastructure or security guarantees, because for today, I understand what Europe is ready to do. And of course, I want to discuss with you what the United States will be ready to do. And I really count on your strong position to stop Putin. And you said that enough with the war. I think that is very important to say these words to Putin at the very beginning, at the very beginning of war, because he's a killer and terrorist.
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Unknown C
But I hope that together we can stop him. But for us, it's very important to, you know, to save our country, our values, our freedom and democracy. And, of course, no compromises with the.
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Unknown A
Killer about our territories. But it will be later. Okay, now here's the thing. Trump could blow up him at this point, but you're two minutes deep in the meeting, so what does Trump do? Like an adult, President Trump sits there, he listens to Zelensky, and he doesn't blow it up. He understands what Zelensky saying. Zelensky saying, I don't want to make any compromises. Putin's a killer. I want security guarantees. I want to work with Europeans in this. There's a protecting negotiation in the room in front of the press. So Zelensky is the one who starts this whole thing. And for 40 minutes, Trump allows him to do it. Why? Because that's what an adult does. What an adult does is he says, listen, I understand that you gotta rant for the cameras, gotta do your thing for the camera. I get it. I totally get it.
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Unknown A
And in the back room, we're gonna negotiate what this actually looks like. And listen, now, listen how sober President Trump is here. I mean, it's an amazing day for the guy who's supposed to be the one flying off the handle in this meeting. It's not Trump who flies off the handle. It's Lenski and then Pants who flies off the handle. So here is President Trump.
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Unknown B
I think once we make the agreement, that's gonna be 95% of it. They're not gonna go back to fighting. I've spoken with President Putin, and I think. I mean, I feel very strong. I've known him for a long time, and I feel very strongly that they're very serious about it. And we'll make a deal. And when the deal is made, I don't think we talked about security. Everyone was talking about the other day. All they talked about was security. I said, let me make the deal first. I have to make the deal first.
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Unknown A
Okay, so what is he saying again? He's saying the same thing. When it comes to the economy, he's gonna make the deal first. And that is going to be the lever that allows for security guarantees. Right? That is what he's saying. Okay, this continues. This clip 5. So a reporter asks Zelensky if he feels like the United States is on the side of Ukraine at the moment. And President Trump's like, What are you even asking for? I mean, clearly we are. I'm here with him. I'm standing a rare earth minerals agreement with him. Like right now. Do you feel like the US Is on your side, that the President, the President Trump is on your side at this, at this moment?
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Unknown B
What do you think he wants to know? Do you think that. Sort of a stupid question. I guess we wouldn't be here if I wasn't.
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Unknown C
I think that. I think that the United States on our side from the very beginning of occupation, and I think that President Trump on our side and, and of course, I not hope, I'm sure that United States president will not stop support. This is crucial for us.
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Unknown A
Okay? So again, so let's keep pushing. So Trump says, of course we're going to sign an agreement. All Trump wants from his meeting is to get out of there with the rarest minerals deal that is going to provide the lever for a broader American commitment or tacit American commitment to the security of Ukraine. That's what this is. And Zelensky keeps pushing because he feels like publicly he needs to push out. If he thought that he was gonna get Trump to cave in the room or something, or if it's all virtue signaling for the cameras, or if he feels he needs to say this for his own people at home, or if this was all a sort of design to blow up the meeting in order to get the Europeans to step in. I'm not sure what Zelensky's strategy here was. All I know, it's a very, very bad strategy.
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Unknown A
So President Trump, again, being very sober about all of this, probably talking about how Trump was the one who was combative. He really was not. For 40 minutes he sat there while Zelensky effectively attempted to negotiate a deal in the room. And here's President Trump talking about compromise.
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Unknown B
I think you're gonna have to always make compromises. You can't do any deals without compromises. So certainly he's gonna have to make some compromises, but hopefully they won't be as big as some people think you're going to have to make. That's all. That's all we can do. I'm here as a, as an arbitrator, as a mediator, to a certain extent, between two parties that have been very hostile.
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Unknown A
Now, you can see a fundamental difference between Trump and Zelensky here. Zelensky thinks that United States is full fledged on the side of Ukraine in terms of this negotiation, meaning that like Biden, just pour in aid without any sort of end, without any sort of designs to end the war. And Trump says, listen, I got a broker deal. I want the deal. Now we'll talk about the ramifications of the meeting and how actually one of the things that the Trump administration might think about doing and President Trump had said during that campaign pretty clearly is say to Vladimir Putin, listen, we want to deal. You know, we want to deal. We've been very obvious about how we want to deal. I've been giving you all sorts of props in public. If you don't make a deal, then we'ratchet up support because we can't just let you win by default.
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Unknown A
Right. But that's not actually the approach that Trump is taking. That's arguable. But again, in the meeting so far, Trump is the person who's being mature and Zelensky's the person, as I say over and over again, you can hear him being combat. This is for 40 minutes now. One of these sort of hot moments happened when one of the reporters, a guy from one American news Network, I believe this report happens to be Dan Marjorie Taylor Breen, the congressman from Georgia, and asks Zelensky about wearing a suit. Why don't you wear a suit? You're the highest level in this country's office and you refuse to wear a suit.
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Unknown C
Of problems.
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Unknown A
A lot of Americans have problems.
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Unknown C
I don't have such. I will wear a costume after this war will finish. Yes, maybe. Maybe something like yours. Yes, maybe some. Something better. I don't know. We will see. Maybe something cheaper then. Yeah. Thank you.
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Unknown A
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Unknown A
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Unknown A
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Unknown A
Okay, now back to sort of the real issue. Today President Trump is asked about security. He's saying the thing over and over. He's basically offering Zelensky offra like here's the Barrett's minerals. Let's sign it. We're on side. That is it. That's the way we get involved. Here he is.
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Unknown B
I don't want to talk about security yet because I want to get the deal done. You know, you fall into the same trap like everybody else a million times. You say it over and over. I Want to get the deal done. Security is so easy. That's about 2% of the problem. I'm not worried about security. I'm worried about getting the deal done. The security is the easy part. Security is very nice. Everybody stops shooting. And now with Europe, put people there. I know France is going to. I know the UK Is going to. I know other countries are going to, and they happen to be right next door. We haven't committed, but we could conceivably, you know, we have security in a different form.
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Unknown A
Okay. He's right there getting Zelensky. He wants. Okay, great, Mr. President. We'll talk about the time. Closed doors. He doesn't. Right. Trump said these words, quote, we haven't committed, but we could conceivably, you know, we have security in a different form. He's giving Zelensky what he wants. He's giving him the excuse. But Zelensky can't take the W. He can't take. So Zelensky keeps pushing.
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Unknown B
Yeah.
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Unknown C
So please, about security guarantees and about just ceasefire. We can't just speak about ceasefire and speak and speak. It will not work. Justice, fire will not never work. Because I'm like a president.
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Unknown A
I have.
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Unknown C
I have this experience. And not only me, Ukraine before. Before my presidency from the 2014. Putin broken 25 times. 25 times he broken his own signature. 25 times he broken ceasefire.
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Unknown A
Okay, so again, you can see Zelensky is saying that Putin can't be trusted is why we need security. And again, I don't think that Zelensky is wrong about this person. But why is he negotiating all this? And he's not gonna get what he wants in the room? And so President Trump is asked about NATO, and again, I think one of the things that people want to attribute to Trump is that he wants to rewrite all the bargains of the world. And there are people inside the Republican Party who clearly want to do this, but I'm not sure that that's what President Trump wants. Been a lot of talk about Trump, for example, pulling out of NATO, some loose talk. Elon Musk suggested that over the weekend. That'd be a, I think, a terrible move. There's been a lot of talk about President Trump basically ripping up the idea that America guarantees the freedom of the seas and sort of conceding Far east to China and all the rest of this kind of stuff.
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Unknown A
We'll get into that in a little bit. But here's President Trump projecting that outright. He's asked about NATO, he's asked about Poland. He's asked about Baltics, and here's what he says.
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Unknown B
I'm very committed to Poland. I think Poland has really stepped up and done a great job for NATO. They, as you know, they paid more than they had to. They are one of the finest groups of people I've ever known. I'm very committed to Poland. Poland's in a tough neighborhood. You know, the Baltics, they got a lot of. It's a tough neighborhood, too. But we're committed. We're going to be very committed, and we're committed to NATO. But NATO has to step up, and the Europeans have to step up more than they have. And I want to see them equalize because they are in for far less than we're in, and they should be at least equal.
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Unknown A
Okay, so again, this is President Trump actually saying that he's through strength thing, right? We want to be a NATO. Everybody's gonna pay their pay up, pay their fair share. Nothing here is radical. Nothing here is particularly polarizing what President Trump is saying. Okay? And then Zelensky, he continues to push. This is the theme. The theme is the first 40 minutes Zelensky pushes, and Trump is pretty passive. Trump does not push back too hard. Here's Zelensky talking about Russia's intentions on the Baltics, on Poland. And by the way, he's not wrong that Russia obviously is revanchist, that Russia would love to split apart NATO by invading, say, Lithuania, Estonia, if NATO weren't there. But Trump just committed to a continued NATO funding in those places. Here's Zelensky.
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Unknown C
And also, it's about the NATO. Yes, between, like the president said, you have big, nice ocean. Yes, between us. But if we will not stay, Russia will go further, to Baltics and to Poland, by the way. But first to the Baltics. It's understandable for them because they've been, they've been in the U.S.S.R. you know, they've been one of the republics of the USSR And Putin wants to bring them back to his empire. It's a fact. And when he will go there, if he will not stay, you will fight your American soldiers. It doesn't matter do you have auction or not. Your soldiers will fight.
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Unknown A
You know, President Trump could fire back on him. So that's not true. You know, why would American soldiers have to fight the Baltics? He doesn't fight back on this because President Trump is actually not talking about surrendering all Eastern Europe to Vladimir Putin like all his British claim that he is. And then Trump is asked about why he has not said mean words. About Putin. This is Trump's perspective. If I say mean words about Putin, is that gets a deal or it doesn't get to the deal. Here's President Trump.
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Unknown B
Well, if I didn't align myself with both of them, you'd never have a deal. He want me to say really terrible things about Putin and then say, hi, Vladimir, how are we doing on the deal?
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Unknown A
It doesn't work that way.
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Unknown B
I'm not aligned with Putin. I'm not aligned with anybody. I'm aligned with the United States of America, and for the good of the world, I'm aligned with the world, and I want to get this thing over with. You see the hatred he's got for Putin. It's very tough for me to make a deal with that kind of hat. He's got tremendous hatred, and I understand that. But I can tell you the other side isn't exactly in love with, you know, him either. So it's not a question of alignment.
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Unknown A
Again, Trump is saying, I want you to deal. Right. Okay. Now, meeting could have ended anytime in here. Here's where it started. Go sideways, like, really sideways. And again, it's very tense. You can see the tension. Zelensky's tense. He's leaning toward Trump almost aggressively throughout this meeting. Trump's kind of sitting back, kind of taking it like an adult. And the adult in the room was Trump in this meeting. That is the reality. Okay, so JD Vance jumps in. So JD hasn't said anything this entire time, and Vice President of the United States is sitting there. Now, in my belief, the Vice President of the United States should have been attempting to facilitate the end of this meeting. Okay, Everything that needs to be said has now been said. He should have, and Trump should have, and everybody should. It would have been everybody's interest, say, okay, guys, now we've taken 45 minutes questions.
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Unknown A
We're going back room, we're going to talk, and we're going to do a signing ceremony. And so here's what happens. Vance decides he needs to jump in and he needs to defend President Trump. I know this is Vice President Vance's sort of typical role as bulldog for Trump. I get it, that's fine. But it does set up a conflagration. So here is Vance, and again, what he says right here is not particularly controversial, but Zelensky decides that he's going to go after Vance. Now, the reality is that whatever relationship Zelensky has with Trump, his relationship with Vance is terrible. His relationship with Vance is terrible because Vance has openly said he does not care If Russia just eats up, Ukraine just doesn't care. Because Vance associates with a number of public figures who say some of the wildest things about Ukraine it is possible to say and some of the most probant things it's possible to say.
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Unknown A
And I'm sure Zelensky knows this. And so Zelensky takes passing at the fact that he's in the room with Vance. That's Zelensky's fault. It is. But Vance then escalates. So you'll see we're breaking this down. Okay, this is the critical clip from the meeting. It's several minutes. We're going to stop and start as we can analyze what exactly happens here. Here is Vice President Vance jumping in to defend President Trump over the accusation that somehow because he wants to negotiate an end to the war, that this makes him probutin. I respond to this. So look, for four years in the United States of America, we had a president who stood up at press conferences and talked tough about Vladimir Putin. And then Putin invaded Ukraine and destroyed a significant chunk of the country. The path to peace and the path to prosperity is maybe engaging in diplomacy.
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Unknown A
We tried the pathway of Joe Biden of thumping our chest and pretending that the President of the United States words mattered more than the President of the United States's actions. What makes America a good country is America engaging in diplomacy. That's what President Trump is doing.
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Unknown C
Can I ask you.
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Unknown A
Okay, stop right there for a second. Okay, so. So what Van says there is totally inarguable. Okay. The vice President, he doesn't think he's bad getting a fight with the ones he's. Once he jumps in and starts fighting with vans again, there's some people think that Vance said. I don't think that's right. If you hear what Vice President Van says right there, not only does he rip on Biden, but he literally says the words Putin invaded Ukraine and destroyed a significant chunk of the country. There's been controversy for two weeks over whether this administration is going to admit that Putin started the war as Vance himself saying that Putin invaded the country and destroyed a large chunklet. So this is not Vance attempting to start a firefight. Zelensky jumps in and starts arguing with Vance. And I'm not sure what was going through Zelensky's head right here.
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Unknown A
Honestly. It could be that he was planning some sort of conflagration to get European support Again, it could be that he's trying to signal to the folks back home. It could be just in lighting events. Okay, but this thing Breaks into like a wild nuclear meltdown here. Here's Zelensky going after bans. Sure.
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Unknown C
Yeah. Yeah.
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Unknown A
Okay.
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Unknown C
So he occupied our parts, big parts of Ukraine, parts of east and Crimea. So he occupied it on 2014. So during a lot of years, I'm not speaking about just Biden, but those time was Obama, then President Obama, then President Trump, then President Biden, now President Trump. And God bless. Now President Trump will stop him. But during 2014, nobody stopped him. He just occupied and took. He killed people. You know what they called the 2015, 2014.
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Unknown A
He was not here.
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Unknown C
Yeah. Yes. But during 2014, till 2022, you know what the situation. The same people have been dying on the contact line. Nobody stopped him. You know that. We had conversations with him, a lot of conversations. My bilateral conversation. And we signed with him. Me like a new president in 2019. I signed with him the deal. I signed with him Macron and Merkel. We signed ceasefire.
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Unknown A
Ceasefire.
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Unknown C
All of them told me that he will never go. We signed him gas contract. Gas contract, yes. But after that he broke in the ceasefire. He killed our people. And he didn't exchange prisoners. We signed the exchange of prisoners, but he didn't do it. What kind of diplomacy GD you are speaking about? What do you mean?
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Unknown A
I'm talking about the kind of diplomacy. Pause it right here. Okay. So you'll hear Vance's response. So Vance's first sentence and response is lentz is the correct response. And that should be end of the meeting. You just said, you know, President Zelensky, I'm talking about pan diplomacy will actually end this war properly. We're going to have these discussions behind closed door. Instead, Vice President Vance takes the opportunity to throw two grenades. One is directed President Trump and one is directed at Zelensky. The one that is clearly directed at President Trump is that he mentions, as you will see Zelensky going to pen in the final days of the campaign and walking around Pennsylvania with Josh Shapiro, that is clearly directed to Trump.
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Unknown C
Okay.
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Unknown A
The reason he's mentioning that is to piss Trump off because that's like a red flag in front of both. If you mentioned that Zelensky, which again was an idiot move, a foolish move. I commented on the time that Zelensky went to Pennsylvania and campaigned with Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, who was campaigning for Kamal Harris. In the last. In the last stage of the campaign, you mentioned that in front of Trump, Trump is going to get enraged. He's also going to get enraged because Vance says out loud, well, Trump's probably think Trump's like, I've been contained this whole time. And Vance says, you're being really, really disrespectful. Have you seen Trump? This man is being disrespectful and loved Joe Biden. That is like a red flag in front of a bull. Meanwhile, he then says to Zelenskyy a thing that no leader can sit there and hear, which is, you're losing the war.
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Unknown A
You're having to forcibly conscript people. Right. Which is an accusation about the inhumanity of the Ukrainian regime that Franklin Danskin used with regard to, say, Vladimir Putin, who has kidnapped apparently tens of thousands of Ukrainian children and then taken them back to Russia for Russification. And all this. So you can hear. This is. This is the part. Zelensky started it and then JD Just pours the fuel on the fire. Like really pours the fuel on the fire. Here we go. I'm talking about the kind of diplomacy that's going to end the destruction of your country. Yes, but if you don't, with respect, I think it's disrespectful for you to come to the Oval Office and try to litigate this in front of the American media. Right now, you guys are going around and forcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems. You should be thanking the president for bringing it into this.
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Unknown C
Have you ever been to Ukraine that you say what problems we have?
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Unknown A
I have been to come once. I've actually, I've actually watched and seen the stories. And I know what happens is you bring people, you bring them on a propaganda tour. Mr. President, are. Do you disagree that you've had problems bringing people in your military? And do you think that I belong to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration is trying to. Trying to prevent the destruction of your country.
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Unknown C
A lot of questions. Let's start from the beginning. First of all, during the war, everybody has problems, even you. But you have nice ocean and don't feel now, but you will feel it in the future.
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Unknown A
God bless.
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Unknown C
God bless.
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Unknown B
Don't tell us what we're going to feel. We're trying to solve a problem. Don't tell us what we're going to feel.
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Unknown C
I'm not telling you because you're in.
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Unknown A
No position to dictate that.
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Unknown C
Remember this.
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Unknown B
You're in no position to dictate what we're going to feel.
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Unknown C
We're going to feel very good.
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Unknown B
We're going to feel very good and very strong. You're right now not in a Very good position you've allowed yourself to be.
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Unknown C
Right from the very beginning of the world.
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Unknown B
You're not in a good position. You don't have the cards right now with us. You start having cards right now, you don't miss. You're gambling with the lives of millions of people. You're gambling with World War Three. You're gambling with World War iii. And what you're doing is very disrespectful to the country. This country. It's far more than a lot of people say they should have.
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Unknown A
You said thank you once, a lot of times. You went to Pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition in October. Offer some words of appreciation for the United States of America and the president who's trying to save your country. Please.
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Unknown C
You're saying that if you will speak very loudly about the war.
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Unknown B
He's not speaking loudly. He's not speaking loudly. Your country's in big trouble. No, no. You've got a lot of talking. Your country is in big trouble.
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Unknown C
I know.
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Unknown B
You're not winning. You're not winning this.
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Unknown C
I.
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Unknown B
You have a damn good chance of coming out okay. Because of Mr. President.
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Unknown C
We are staying in our country, staying strong. From the very beginning of the war, we've been alone and we are single.
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Unknown A
I said thanks.
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Unknown B
You haven't been alone. He gave you three, stupid president, $350 billion. We gave you military equipment. And you men are brave, but they had to use our military. If you didn't have our military equipment, if you didn't have our military equipment, this war would have been over in two weeks.
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Unknown C
In three days. I heard it from Putin in three days. This is maybe less in two weeks. Of course.
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Unknown A
Yeah.
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Unknown B
It's going to be a very hard thing to do, business like this.
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Unknown A
Thank you. I said a lot of times to American people, except that there are disagreements, and let's go litigate those disagreements rather than trying to fight it out of the American media. When you're wrong, we know you're wrong.
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Unknown B
But you see, I think it's good for the American people to see what's going on. I think it's very important. That's why I kept this going so long. You have to be thankful you don't have the cars. You're buried there. People are dying. You're running low on soldiers. You're running low on soldiers. It would be a damn good thing. And then you tell us, I don't want a ceasefire. I don't want a ceasefire. I want to go and I want to this. Look, if you could get A ceasefire right now. I tell you, you take it so the bullets stop flying and your men stop.
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Unknown C
Of course we want to stop the.
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Unknown A
War, but I'm saying you don't want to. But I said to you, I want.
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Unknown B
To see guarantees because you'll get a ceasefire faster than a degree.
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Unknown A
Okay, so Zelenskyy is so obviously spoiling for a fight. He's so obviously spoiling for a fight, and JD Pushes back on him in a way that is designed to blow up the entire thing. The people who wanted to fight in this meeting are Zelensky on the one side, who clearly was spoiling for a fight from pretty much the first moment. And then JD when he gets his chance, the Vice President of the United States. When he gets his chance, he immediately throws two grenades again, one designed to piss off Trump and one designed to piss off Zelensky. And Zelensky, who's been spoiling for a fight the whole time, jumps on that grenade with his chest. He jumps on that grenade and then gets into a fight with Trump in the Oval Office. And then Trump. Predictably, the fallout is that President Trump says, well, we don't get out.
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Unknown A
Trump throws him out of the Oval Office, and then he releases a statement. Not true social quote. We had a very meaningful meeting in the White House today. Much was learned that could never get us through without conversation under such fire and pressure. It's amazing what comes out. Promotion. I determined that President Zelensky is not ready for peace if America is involved, because he feels our involvement gives him a big advantage in negotiation. I don't want it ban if I want peace. He disrespected the United States, American, his charitable office. He can come back when he is ready for peace. Okay, so what is the actual impact of all of that now? Again, the reality is, at the end of the war, as I say, from the very beginning, the end of the war is Russia ends up with controlled Donbass and Crimea. Security guarantees are issued by Europe.
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Unknown A
There's some passive American support of those security guarantees in all likelihood. Whatever accelerates the process for that is good. Whatever decelerates the progress toward that is bad. Did this whole TTE accelerate the progress toward that? So many things can be true at once. One, I think, troubles the adults in the room pretty much the entire time. Two, Zelensky came in spoiling for a fight. And as we'll examine in just a moment, that's probably because he was talking with many of the wrong people in the United States. And also possibly because he's strategizing for European support. Three, Vice President Vance definitely escalated this. You can hear in the exchange it is Zelensky who is pushing Trump and Vance, but it is Vance who says it incredibly personal. And I think that that may have something to do with Vance's own views on foreign policy, which again, I don't know how well those match up with President Trump's generalized world view on foreign policy.
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Unknown A
Even if they cross over with regard to the perspectives on Zelenskyy. Zelenskyy then made the source. Again, this is either brutal incompetence by Zelensky or an attempt to essentially drive support for Ukraine from the Europeans via hatred of Trump. It may be that could easily be that. So Zelensky goes on prepair that same evening. And here is Zelensky over and over refusing to apologize to the president. So I'm not Hearing from you, Mr.
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Unknown B
President, a thought that you owe the president an apology?
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Unknown C
No, I respect president and I respect American people. And if, I don't know if I think that we have to be very open and very honest and I'm not sure that we did something bad. I think maybe sometimes some things we have to discuss out of media.
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Unknown A
So did any of this, like, change the underlying dynamics of the deal? Maybe not. But the perceptions from other players say Russia and China are going to matter. So Russia put out a statement saying that the United States has sudden shift in foreign policy, quote, largely aligns with its own position. Kremlin spokesman diprisk, quote, the administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations. This largely aligns with our vision. There's a long way to go because a lot of damage has been done to the whole complex bilateral relations. But if the political will of the two leaders, President Putin and President Trump, is maintained, this path could be quick and successful. And of course, they then insulted Vladimir Zelensky throughout all of this. So one of the big questions that we're gonna have to answer here is whether this meeting is symptomatic of a broader American foreign policy shift or whether it is reflective of bad political calculations by Vladimir Zelensky.
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Unknown A
Whether it is reflective of specific designs in Ukraine, but doesn't have implications for, say, NATO or the Far East. That is the big question that comes out of all this. We'll get to that in just one moment. First, tomorrow night, folks, 9:00pm Eastern, President Donald Trump addresses Congress. A moment, this big man's coverage like never before. That's exactly what we are bringing you. For the first time ever, Matt Walsh and I will be live from D.C. at the President's speech as history unfolds. It all starts at our exclusive Pre show at 8:30pm Eastern on Daily Wide, setting stage for President Trump's address. Then watch Trump's speech with us live as we bring you the kind of real time analysis you won't get anywhere else. And don't go anywhere after. It's backstage live, breaking down every major moment in real time. This is the coverage you won't find on MDC Media.
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Unknown A
Watch it all exclusively at Daily Wire Plus. Okay, so the Republican reaction to this was to condense Zelensky quite properly. So Lindsey Graham, there's no bigger backer in Congress of the Ukraine involvement by the Americans than Senator Lindsey Graham. He said that Zelensky probably should resign over all this because he's now blown out his level sport with Americans. This absolute utter disaster. The question for me is, is he redeemable in the eyes of Americans? Most Americans witnessing what they saw today would not want Zelensky to be their business partner. And Zelensky felt like he needed to beat Trump in the Oval Office. JD Was awesome. This was a missed opportunity. And the question for me, for the Ukrainian people, I don't know if Zelensky can ever get you to where you want to go with the United States. Either he dramatically changes or you need to get somebody new.
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Unknown A
So Speaker House Mike Johnson repeated that general sentiment, suggesting that is on CNN as well as NBC that that we know Vladimir Putin's be trusted. We're not abandoning Ukraine. But Zelensky is a disaster area. I think Vladimir Putin is an old school Communist, a former KGB agent. He's not to be trusted and he is dangerous. No, they're not abandoning Ukraine. I was with the President a day before that meeting and he was excited about this mineral rights deal. He believed it and we all believed it to be in the best interest of both countries. We understand that he is a dangerous adversary and he's the one that provoked the war. Well, something has to change. Either he needs to come to his senses, to come back to the table in gratitude, or someone else needs to leave the country to do that. Okay, so again, this has been the sort of general Republican response to all this.
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Unknown A
Secretary Rubio said something similar. Listen, we're not trying to undermine Ukraine. We're trying to get to negotiated end here. And you can frame and you can posture, but the negotiated end kind of looks the same no matter how you slice it. And we need to figure out is there a way to get them to stop the war? And the only way you're going to do that is to get Russians engaged in negotiations, something the Europeans aren't even having able to do. The Biden administration wasn't able to do or didn't even try. That's the goal here. It's that simple. Can we try to sit with them and figure out whether there's anything, what are the Russians demands, under what conditions would the Russians be willing to stop this war? And as I said, we don't know what those are because we haven't talked to them in three years.
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Unknown A
That's the singular goal here, is to try to bring about an end of this conflict. And it begins by getting them to the table. Howard Lutnick's Commerce Secretary repeated this. He says, listen, Zelensky came in here and wanted to make a make believe bargain that wasn't on the table. What was he doing? That's why the President called it World War iii. You're gambling with World War iii. We're not going to give you security guarantees while you're at war with Russia. It's just ridiculous. His requests were ridiculous. They were not reasonable. The President let it go for a while, you know, was very. He was there to make peace. Our president is there to make peace, as he said, end the death. And Zelensky was not there to make peace. He was there to strike some sort of make believe bargain that he had in his mind and eventually that just ran its course.
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Unknown A
Okay. And then Scott Besant, who's the Treasury Secretary, said something similar. He says, listen, the whole point of getting to economic deals is yet a peace deal. This is what Trump was saying in the room. Again, Trump was the adult. It is impossible to have an economic deal without a peace deal. The san qua non for an economic deal is that Ukrainian leadership wants a peace deal. I thought this was a building block towards getting to. Well, it was supposed to be. But President Zelensky came into the Oval on Friday. There were three things that were going to be done. There was going to be a press conference. There was going to be a private lunch with 16 of us. And as you can see from Dan Scavino's the Post on his X account, we were already set up to sign the deal. So it's unclear now President Zelensky has thrown off the sequencing.
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Unknown A
And this is right, by the way. Again, this is not just from the United States. The British ambassador to the United States and Peter Mandelson, he said that that was the whole point. The whole point of the rare earth mineral deal was to set up the possibility of a peace deal that would then include some security guarantees. And yes, I do think it would be a good idea if he signed the economic and commercial deal put forward by the United States.
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Unknown B
And the reason I say that is.
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Unknown A
Quite apart from the economic gain that Ukraine will derive from that, it will also give the United States a stake in Ukraine's future.
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Unknown B
It will mean that U.S. commercial interests.
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Unknown A
U.S. individual citizens will be on the ground there. And that will be an even greater added incentive for the US to protect the Ukrainian future and make sure that war does not ensue again. Okay. By the way, you know who agrees with all this? Donald Trump. Donald Trump agrees with all this. So yesterday, President Trump went to troops social. He posted a quote from some dude named Michael McHugh I've never heard of. And here's the quote he posted, quote, now's the ones you'll have no choice but to back down and accept Trump's terms. But here's the genius part. Trump is actually protecting Ukraine without dragging the US into war. By negotiating a mineral drill, Trump ensures Americans will be involved in Ukraine's mining industry. This prevents Russia from launching invasion because attacking Ukraine would mean endangering American lives, something that forced the US to respond.
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Unknown A
Trump played both sides like a master chess player. In the end, Zelensky, you have no choice but concede because the value of support Ukraine cannot win or prolong war against Russia. And once you have companies in minding operations in Ukraine who will be unable to attack without triggering mass international consequences. Don't address make Donald Trump and his name of chess. He's 10 moves ahead of everyone. Okay, so that's what Trump was trying to do. Trump was trying to give Zelensky the W, and Zelensky wouldn't take the W. So why did this go so wrong? Well, one reason apparently is because according to Michael Goodwin, writing at the New York Post, Zelensky decided he was going to take his hints and his advisory opinions from Democrats. Quote. Before meeting President Trump, Zelensky met with anti Trump Democrats who advised him to reject the terms of the mineral deal the President was offering.
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Unknown A
According to Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, just finished a meeting with President Zelensky here in Washington. He confirmed the Ukrainian people will not support a thief. Remember where Putin gets everything once there are no security arrangements for Ukraine. The meeting, as the world now knows when quickly off the rails, ended with Trump angrily ejecting the quote arrogant inbrate from the White House. But apparently again, the goal here for Democrats was to basically sink the deal. So Chris Murphy could advise Zelensky before the meeting. Again, he's a hardcore Democrat who loved run for president, Senator from Connecticut. Here he was now suggesting that Trump was a Putin acolyte for the failure of the meeting. So in other words, Murphy sent Zelensky to get absolutely creamed in that meeting, and then he turns around and says that Trump is working for Putin. It is absolutely shameful what is happening right now.
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Unknown A
The White House has become an arm of the Kremlin. Every single day. You hear from a national security advisor, from the president, United States, from his entire national security team, Kremlin talking points. The last week, the White House has been pretending as if Ukraine started this war. That's essentially saying that Poland invaded Germany at the beginning of World War II. So Murphy set this whole thing up to fail, presumably, or at least he was involved in it. Okay, so what is the actual outcome of all this? Well, first of all, you have the idiot processor. A bunch of protesters showed up. The van's family was supposed to go skiing, and people showed up for miles around to yell at gdans. They go to secure locations, cassettes. Gross. Really, really gross. Here's what that looked like. Yeah, yeah, you can hear people screaming at various cars.
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Unknown A
They're just trying to go skiing for the weekend. So that's just absolutely delightful. What are the actual impacts from all of this? Well, on the one hand, it could be that Europe finally stepped up and Trump actually gets what he wants out of this, that Europe decides that they are going to actually fill the gap. According to Wall Street Journal, the UK And France said they would lead a European effort to forge a Ukraine peace plan to present to President Trump as they sought to catch up differences between Kyiv and Washington following Friday's White House clash. British Prime Minister Keir starmer, hosting nearly 20 allies in London on Sunday, said the progress had been made in building a coalition of the Willem, which would commit military assets, including troops on the ground, to secure any eventual peace. He said more countries need to come on board with Europe to build a force that actually deter Russian aggression in Ukraine.
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Unknown A
Well, I mean, that's what Trump's been calling for all the way. And it's very weird to hear the Europeans suddenly doing the stuff that Trump actually wants them to do, like, for example, spend on defense and commit to defending their own continent. Here is Ursula Vanderland, she's head of the eu, suggesting, weirdly enough, peace through strength. We had a very good and frank discussion. Basically, we've discussed everything that is around peace through strength. And of Course, security guarantees are of utmost importance for Ukraine, but we need comprehensive security guarantees. This includes that we have to put Ukraine in a position of strength, that it has the means to fortify and protect itself from the economic survival to the military resilience. Maybe this was the ones he played. Maybe the ones he played was alienate Trump, knowing that Trump doesn't like him very much, and then play it to the Europeans and get what we want from the Europeans.
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Unknown A
There's some problems with that, namely that the United States material is way better than the European's material. And the other problem, of course, is can you trust the Europeans, given the fact that the Europeans have a long history of being absolute suckers when it comes to being taken in by foreign dictators. It is worth noting at this point that during this war, during this actual honest to God war, EU imports of Russian oil surpassed the financial aid they sent to Ukraine. So in other words, they paid the Russians more than they sent to the Ukrainians, which just shows you their levels of commitment. But perhaps reality is starting set in for the Europeans. The Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, he said, of course Europe should step up. It's bizarre for Europe to ask the United States to be the one that actually fills the gap.
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Unknown A
There's paradox and somebody overlooked it. Let's listen to this. 500 million Europeans are asking 300 million Americans to defend them against 140 million Russians. I want to repeat these words. If you do not account, count on yourself. Start relying on yourself, not in isolation or the full awareness of your own potential. Europe, there's something we lack today. It's not economic or demographic power, but the belief that we're truly a global force. Now, again, there's a reason why President Trump likes the Polish because again, they're saying the correct thing right here. Even the UK's Keir Starmer, of course, is a left wing socialist side. He says, woopa, boots on the ground and in the air, preserving npc. Not every nation will feel able to contribute, but that can't mean that we sit back. Instead, those willing will intensify planning. Now, with real urgency, the UK is prepared to back this with boots on the ground and planes in the air.
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Unknown A
Together with others, Europe must do the heavy lifting. Hey, so again, Trump seems to be getting what he wants here. Europe steps up, they do the heavy lifting. Probably Zelensky has come back and sign some sort of deal with the United States and the deal gets cut, in which case, good job, everybody goes home happy. The reason there's a lot of Heartburn that is happening around this meeting is not really to do with Ukraine. It really isn't through Ukraine. The question is whether there is a resetting of the world order that is happening right now. Now, a reset from the sort of bizarre vision of the Obama Biden era would certainly be in order because leading from behind, America should not actually engage in peace through strength. The United States should essentially allow America's enemies to walk all over America's friends and then every so often throw some half higher support to America's friends that we obliviate on a sort of Wilsonian moral level without actually filling that gap that is ending and that the era of sort of hard power is returning.
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Unknown A
But the question really is whether the Trump administration, what the Trump doctrine is. I said before on the show, because President Trump will be on the show, that the Trump doctrine is peace through strength, that America stronger in the world is better, that America with strong allies is in fact better. But there's an open question because it turns out that there are members of the Trump administration who don't necessarily believe all of that. So the Wall Street Journal has an editorial this morning saying with his first week back in office, especially after Friday's office brawling with Ukraine's president, it's clear President Trump has designed for a new world order. Perhaps he could share this issue with the country when he addressed his Congress on Tuesday. The conventional view of Mr. Trump is that he's above all transactional. He wants yields at home, abroad, that he can sell his great successes.
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Unknown A
But the way his second term is unfolding is may undersell his ambition. Mr. Trump's strategy seems to be moving toward that of tucker Carlson and J.D. vance, who view America is inclined no longer able to lead or defend at the West. That is the question, right? That's the question. The question is whether he is interested in hammering traditionally those friends like Canada and Mexico in violation of his own USMCA trade deal, or whether he is interested in receding control of Taiwan to China. He says Trump hasn't articulated this. This is the Wall Street Journal editorial board. Trump hasn't articulated this. Some of the intellectuals surrounding him have. Elbridge Colby nominated for the chief of strategy post. The Pentagon has argued the US Must leave Europe and release their own vices focus on the Asia Pacific. But Colby has also said South Korea might have to fend for itself.
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Unknown A
And he sent a letter to us last year, quote, Taiwan isn't itself of that's essential importance to America. Mr. Vance, the most vigorous promoter of the abandoned Ukraine Strategy arguing the war with Russia is a little more than an ethnic dispute. Ross Duthat of the New York Times, who is sort of the clarifier for J.D. vance, says the vice president and president merely quotes stripping away foreign policy illusions. So this is the question. The question is whether what we are looking at is America withdrawing from the world, ceding the Far east to China, allowing America's allies to basically run on their own in those areas. And if they get invaded or taken over, Taiwan, South Korea, that's their business. Whether Eastern Europe will be left open to the predations of the Russians, whether the Middle east will basically be left up for grabs between Turkey, Iran, Saudi, the Israelis, and what that will look like.
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Unknown A
What does it look like? America withdrawing from the world. So that's sort of the open question after the Trump Ukraine meeting. Is this symptomatic of a broader foreign policy shift away from America being the world's hegemonic leader and toward the idea that we're going to retreat from the world behind our oceans and then assume that everything will be okay Now? I don't know that's the case. In fact, I think that's probably not the case because the truth is there are a lot conflicting signals. It seems to me. If you look at the Russia, Ukraine situation in isolation, what you're saying is President Trump trying to get to a deal for any means that he can. I may not agree with the means, by the way, I may think the best approach to Vladimir Putin is say, listen, you can see we're making every possible single.
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Unknown A
We're saying openly, we want a deal. We want to get to a deal that will keep you Donbassing Crimea, that deal, not allow you to invade the rest of Ukraine. That's the deal. And if we don't get that deal, then we'll pour resources in Ukraine. We're going to hit you so hard. That is how Trump typically negotiates a 10 weird. He's not doing that here. Typically, the way that Trump negotiates is Colombia does something we don't like, we threaten to increase our tariffs on Colombia to 50% in the next 8K. President Trump has no problem throwing his weight around. And the sort of strange notion that we have to throw our way around with Ukraine predominantly, and that Russia is actually the conciliatory party here. What are the signs of Russian conciliation? If you saw those, I might be on board with that. I'm waiting to see those.
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Unknown A
Still, it seems to me that what actually happened in terms of real politic is that Russia now feels emboldened. If you're Vladimir Putin, don't you poor troops across that border as soon as possible. You now know that Zelensky and Trump don't get along, that the United States is not fond of Zelensky, they don't like how he's handling it. That the Europeans, for all the big talk, aren't going to do much in the moment when you try to push as hard as you can, because that is Russian strategy to push where there's much. The war may have been lengthened by this meeting, not shortened by this meeting. I don't know. We'll see how it works out. But the real question is overall American approach toward foreign policy. So I'll talk for a second about why in general, America's involvement in world matters for America. Here's some stuff you're not going to hear me say.
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Unknown A
I'm not talking about democracy. I'm not going to talk about Wilsonian values. I'm not going to talk about the spreading of free speech and the blessings of liberty. All that stuff is super nice. It's great if you can get it, terrific. But that is not at the center of America's interest. You know what's at the center of America's interest? A thriving America. That's what the center of America's interest is. This is the difference between quote, unquote, neocons, people who in the 2000s were suggesting we need to spread democracy all over the world, and people who are real politique aficionados, people who, let's be real, after the Iraq war, everybody is now in the real policy category. There are very few Wilsonian thinkers who think that it's the job of the United States to spread democracy everywhere in the world. That rhetoric has been blown up.
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Unknown A
It's why it was so irritating when Joe Biden used to use it, because it was stupid. But let's be clear. America's national interest does in fact rely on a strong America abroad. Because here's the thing with us being the world's hedge fund comes enormous economic benefits to the American people. So, for example, if you think that we can continue to fund our unbelievably onerous welfare state via debt, if we are not the leading power on Earth, you got another thing coming. That is not the way this works. We sell our debt, trillions of dollars a debt every single year. Abroad. The question is, why does the rest of the world buy American debt? And there are several reasons. One, they think that we'll repay them and this has several elements. One, we are economically strong. Well, part of America's economic strength is not in fact, autarky, overpriced products.
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Unknown A
One of America's economic strengths is that we are not a highly regulated society. Unlike much of Europe. Our tax structure is better than that of Europe in many ways. Particularly for business. We are more globally competitive. Our economic strength relies, yes, on globalization. I know that that word has taken on weird connotations. All that means is that when we trade with other countries, that's actually typically very good for the United States. It makes better products and services at a cheaper price. Our innovation tends to win. Our economic strength is the reason that people buy our debt because they figure we're the best bet on the block. Two, foreign policy strength, which undergirds economic strength. This is something people don't like to talk about. But the reality is that free trade, for example, isn't something that just randomly happens. It happens because the United States Navy is guarding all the shipping lanes on planet Earth.
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Unknown A
It is the United States that ensures the Straits of Malacca, where a huge percentage of world trade goes, is open. The reason that there are so many countries that are willing to buy our debt is because the United States is involved with those countries in ways that include its security. In fact, as we'll talk about in a moment, one of the reasons that the United States dollar is the world's global reserve currency is because of our foreign policy strength. And then finally, lack of viable alternatives. Right, because we occupy so much space on planet Earth, that means there is no alternative to investing in the United States. We can invest in China. China's a debt driven society. We can go invest in the eu. The EU is the most non innovative society in the developed world by far. Hey. Second, why does the rest of the world buy American debt?
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Unknown A
Because they want fungible assets that translate into dollars. So, for example, foreign banks will buy American bonds. Why do they buy American bonds instead? Because they can then easily exchange those bonds for dollars. And people need dollars. These dollars are the world's reserve currency. What does that mean? That dollars are the world's reserve currency? You hear that all the time. It's a huge thing that the dollar is the world reserve currency. That means an enormous percentage of trade all around the world not involving the United States happens to be the dollar. So for example, if, for example, the Indians want to trade with the Chinese, they both translate to dollars. They don't just go rupee to yuan. Instead, they both translate to dollars. It's true all over the world if you want to trade a euro for a, for a ruble for decades, until the current sanctions, both the EU and Russia would translate into dollars and then trade with each other using dollars.
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Unknown A
So banks around the world will exchange these foreign currency into dollars. Then they'll trade those dollars for other forms of dollars of the currency. So according to the Brookings Institute, 54% of all global trade invoices are done a purely in dollars. And then even the ones that are not done in dollars, the foreign exchange happens in dollars. 88% of all foreign exchange transactions happens in dollars. And there you're talking about tens of trillions of dollars every single year. And this has huge benefits for the United States because when people buy our debt because they want access to the dollar, it funds our welfare state. What do you think? Who's blue pay for that? Ain't you ain't taxpayers. It's that it injects capital into our markets. There's dollars wandering around abroad. Those dollars have to go somewhere. It turns out a lot of dollars go into our capital markets, our stock market.
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Unknown A
It also, because we have such enormous leverage in global markets, allows us to use economic weaponry like sanctions against Iran or to increase tariffs against our enemies. It gives us leverage in foreign policy. So what keeps the United States dollar as the world reserve currency? There are a few factors. One, stability of the currency. And that requires stability in the country. That means economic growth in the United States. Two, availability of the dollars.
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Unknown C
Right.
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Unknown A
If the United States is really stable, but we trade with currency you can't get elsewhere, no one's gonna use that as a reserve currency. So that means that trade, that means that global involvement matters an awful lot. Now here's an example. The reason the US originally became the world's reserve currency is because in 1971, US sent something called the Brenton Woods Agreement. The Bretton Woods Agreement was an agreement that was signed in 1944, very end of World War II, in which the United States basically, we pegged our currency to gold, to the price of gold, and then all other currency pegged themselves to the United states dollars. In 1950s, 1960s, the United States wildly overspent. We spent way too much money on our welfare programs and we started to bankrupt ourselves. So what happened is massive gold outflows. What people were doing is they were showing up at the central banks in the United States and they were saying, we want to trade our US Dollars for gold.
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Unknown A
And so Nixon said, we're not going to be dependent on gold anymore. We stop pegging the US Dollar to gold. So that should have completely debased the dollar. Right. Because now what does it peg to? Well instead Nixon pegged it to the full faith and credit of the United States. Right. Look at your dollar bill. That's essentially what it says. So how do we ensure that people would trust the dollar? Well one of the ways is we created something called the petrodollar system. So we went to Saudi Arabia, which was at the time with obec, the dominant oil trading firm on planet Earth. And we said that they should only use dollars for transactions involving oil. So if you want to buy oil from Saudi, you couldn't use a ruble, you couldn't use a yuan, you had to use a dollar. What did Saudi get in exchange?
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Unknown A
We provide military protection, economic aid and security guarantees to Saudi. And so again foreign policy matters an awful lot for domestic economic policy. For how, for how we spend, for the value of the dollar. What factors undermine the dollar as the world's reserve currency? Well number one, foreign policy weakness. If we retreat, then it turns out people don't want dollars as much. They do not see us as a good bet. They also are going to move away from the dollar and start embracing more local forms of currency. Every time we use economic weaponry, for example, it's effects diminish. So this is why peace through strength matters. Peace through strength is a turn. You don't want to have to use economic or military weaponry. You spend on your military so no one wants to screw with you. And then you don't have to for example levy enormous sanctions on the Russians.
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Unknown A
Right. If we had had peace through strength policy before Russia invaded Ukraine and Russia would invade Ukraine and then we wouldn't have had to put giant sanctions on them. And then the Russians wouldn't have moved into a full on satrapy relationship with the Chinese. And then they wouldn't move away from the dollar, which is led to a broader de dollarization. Other factors, domestic overspending. If we spend too much money on our welfare programs, this makes us way more dependent on foreign purchases of our debt. If we withdraw from world markets in trade, that makes dollars way less available. And if there's chaos in markets in general, if for example the free trade lanes start to break up, if U.S. navy retreats, there is now pressure for regional trading blocks to stop using the dollar as the reserve currency. So what would actually happen if we lose that debt?
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Unknown A
Why is all this important to you? One massive increase in borrowing costs. So the national debt, we can no longer pay that off. We can no longer Sell more of it. That means radically increase tax at home or radically increase inflation or both. 2 currency depreciation inflation. Because if less people are buying the dollar globally, the price of the dollar goes down. If there's less demand and the supply remains the same, the price of the dollar goes down. That means all your prices go up. It means less foreign investment in U.S. financial markets. Your stock prices drop as well. The availability of capital to start businesses drops pretty dramatically as well. And of course we lose our ability to use economics as leverage. They can no longer do sanctions because obviously if you're trying to cut somebody off and use the dollar and they're not using the dollar anymore.
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Unknown A
No matter. So all this materializing real time as the United States retreats from the world, as the United States loses its relative power, it's not absolute power, it's relative power. As that happens, things start to get worse. Here is a chart of the United States dollar as the world's reserve currency. And as you can see from the imf, as you can see, the US dollar share of foreign reserves has dropped from somewhere around 72% in 2000 all the way down to, if you're adjusting for interest rates and exchange rates all the way down to about 56%. That is a massive decrease in the US dollar as a share of foreign reserves. That is a problem. It's something we should be looking to fix. The only way to fix that is with productivity at home, a strong and healthy market here at home, cuts to our national debt, cuts to our welfare state, and yes, a continued presence abroad that ensures a stable world and global situation.
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Unknown A
That is not for the good of other countries, that is for the good of you. That is good for me, that is good for American citizens. At no point during this little disquisition have I mentioned the following words. Democracy, liberalism, free speech, sexual orientation. I don't mention any of those things. And when you're talking about clear real policy interests, that is why it matters. How the United States orients itself to the world and China goes after Taiwan, goes after the Taiwan Straits, that's going to have massive knock on effects for American citizens. Not just in terms of the semiconductors at tsmc, but in terms of the breakup of the global trade system, of the free market, of American power and its perception abroad. And yeah, that's gonna cost you. It's gonna cost all of us. Doesn't require an invasion of the United States. We have big oceans, thank God.
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Unknown A
In order for the United States to suffer because the United States turns out that when you dismantle a global hegemon like the United States, that doesn't tend to be amazing for the global hegemon. Meanwhile, as it turns out, other things were happening on planet Earth that were not important at all. That would be the Oscars last night. So this may be the first you heard of the Oscars because no one watched any of the movies. We reviewed all of them on Friday and it turns out the only two that did any box office at all were Wicked and Dune part 2 and another one really did pretty well last night. The Oscars itself was semi apolitical except for one bizarre statement in support of Hamas. That happened when a documentary that was all about the evils of the Israelis. You know, a year and not a year and a half after the mass murder of Jews on 6, 4, 7 and continued holding of hostages in the Gaza Strip, these Shema's got a person named Basil, Adra, Rachel Jor, Khandan Balalah and you've Abraham.
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Unknown A
It's not too hard by way to find a left wing Jew to join along with people who wish to slaughter Jews in order to rip on Israel. Actually not all that difficult to task. So there's a movie, a documentary called no Other Land, which earned approximately 1 28th of am I Racist? I believe at the box office. And these guys got up to talk about how Israel was the problem in the Middle East. You know, the week after Palestinians held a giant ceremony celebrating the strangulation murder of two toddlers before returning their dead bodies to the Israelis. But you know, Hollywood's into Hollywood. About two months ago I became a father and my hope to my daughter.
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Unknown C
That she will not have to live.
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Unknown A
The same life I'm living now. Always fearing, always, always feeling settlers, violence, home demolitions and forced spirit displacements that my community, Massafiyata is living and facing every day under Lazer occupation. No other land reflect the harsh reality.
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Unknown C
That we have been enduring for decades and still resist as we call on.
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Unknown A
The world to take serious actions to stop the injustice and to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people. The atrocious destruction of Gaza and its people which must end. The Israeli hostages brutally taken in the crime of October 7th which must be freed. When I look at Basel, I see my brother. But we are unequal. We live in a regime where I am free under civilian law and Basil is under military laws that destroy his life and he cannot control. There is a different path, a political solution with our ethnic supremacy, with national.
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Unknown C
Rights for both of our people.
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Unknown A
And I have to say as I'm here, the foreign policy in this country.
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Unknown C
Is helping to block this path.
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Unknown A
And, you know, just disgusting, truly disgusting. I better understand for Hamas. Let's be real about this. The Palestinian Authority pays terrorists. That's what they literally do. Hamas, the dominant force inside the West Bank. Hamas continues to occupy the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians are by and large supportive of terrorism against Israelis and which to exterminate the State of Israel. The reason that there is a quote unquote, military occupation of these areas, not no domestic home rule by the pa, is because every time Israel attempts to withdraw from these areas, terrorists take them over and use them as bases for terrorist attacks. The reason for checkpoints is because of terrorist attacks. The reason that Israel has maintained a military presence in these areas and put its own people in harm's way is because of Palestinian terrorism and exterminationist hatred for Jews. So, yeah, for sure, you definitely should give a best documentary award to this sort of propaganda on behalf of terrorism in the year and a half after the worst terrorist attack on Jews since World War II.
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Unknown A
Just vile stuff, but, you know, leave it to the academy, okay? Meanwhile, there were some good things that happened during the show in the best moment came when Karen Culkin was given an award for a movie called A Real Pain. He won Best Supporting Actor. And his speech was really, really charming. He basically suggested that he get his wife pregnant for the fourth time. It was very funny. About a year ago, I was on the stage like this, and I very stupidly, publicly said that I want a third kid from her because she said if I won the award, I would. She would give me the kid. Turns out she said that she didn't think I was gonna win, but. And people came up to her and were like, you know, really annoying her, I think. I think it got to her. But anyway, after the show, we're walking through a parking lot, she hold me.
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Unknown A
And we were trying to find her car, and we were there, so you're with us. And she goes, oh, God, I did say that. I guess I owe you a third kid. And I turned to her and I said, really? I want four. And she turned me. I swear to God, this happened just a year ago. She said, I will give you four when you win an Oscar. I held my hand out, she shook it, and I have not brought it up once until just now. You remember that, honey? You do. Okay, then. I just have this to say to you. Jazz, love of my life, ye have a little faith. No pressure. I love you. I'm really sorry I did this again. And let's get cracking on those kids. What do you say? That's great. That's charming and wonderful and hilarious and good for Karen Culkin.
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Unknown A
So the best thing I've seen in the Oscars in years is that particular moment. And then there are some low moments. Like for example, every prostitute in America has to be thanked. So the movie, the one best picture is Anora. Anora is the story of a worker, which means a prostitute who cynically marries a half moron 18 year old Russian oligarch son. And then it turns out the romance doesn't exactly work and she's sad. That's the whole movie. Hope you enjoyed it. The guy who won best director and best picture for was named Sean Baker and he felt the necessity to thank the prostitutes. Let's do it. I want to thank the sex worker community. They have, they have shared their stories. They have shared their life experience with me over the years. My deepest respect. Thank you. I share this with you. Deep respect.
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Unknown A
Deep respect for people sell their bodies of money. The home movie, by the way, is repudiation of that. The reason she's sad at the end is because she has to go back to being worker. And that sucks. That's the, that it is amazing to me how people in Hollywood will make movies with very clear conservative messages at the end and they don't even realize the movie they just made. Mikey Madison won best actress over apparently Demi Moore. So I guess that the plot of the Oscars was just a plot of substance where the young, better looking young woman apparently wins the Oscar over the older woman. Whoops. Anyway, here is Mikey Madison also thanking the prostitutes of America. I also just want to again recognize and honor the sex worker community. I will, I will continue to support and be an ally all of the incredible people, the women that I've had the privilege of meeting from that community has been one of the highlights of this incredible, of this entire incredible experience.
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Unknown A
It's true. There's, there's no, no more incredible experience than hanging out with the prostitutes. Okay. Also, Daryl Hannah showed up to show support for Ukraine. Now I do find it hilarious that Hollywood has decided that this is the same Hollywood that will stand for Hamas will also show support for Ukraine. Which is interesting I have a feeling has less to do with their support of Ukraine than the fact that Trump does not sufficiently support Ukraine. In their view, it's all oppositional. Here is Daryl Hannah or Darryl Hannah doing her routine father Ukraine. Okay, well, you saved Ukraine. Great job. Also Adrian Brody won Best actor for again playing a veteran of the Holocaust. So that he played a very similar part when he won for the Pianist. And now he won again for the Brutalist. And I have to say, it is pretty incredible that he tried to call it anti Semitism, but Hollywood is so perverse that he can't just call it anti Semitism, a movie about anti Semitism.
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Unknown A
He also has to call out racism and all the rest of it. Like in Hollywood, the way it works is you can't say antisemitism without saying also racism, sexism, and homophobia. It's like a formula. And if you don't say the magical incantation, then they smite you. Here's Adrian Brody. I'm here once again to represent the lingering traumas and the repercussions of war and systematic oppression and of anti Semitism.
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Unknown B
And racism and of other.
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Unknown A
And I believe that I pray for a healthier and a happier and a more inclusive world.
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Unknown B
And I believe if the past can.
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Unknown A
Teach us anything, it's a reminder to not let hate go unchecked. It's always the same crap in Hollywood. It can never be a specific malady. It always has to be racist. Exactly. If you don't say them all at the same time, then obviously it's because you don't like black people enough or something like that. Speaking black people, apparently we have to have a standing ovation anytime a black person wins any award for the first time. So we're getting low on the list. We've had a black president. We've had a black secretary of state. We've had a black vice president. We've had best actors wear black, best actresses wear black, best directors wear black. And so now we've reached the point where we need scanning ovations for the first black man to win best costume design. When we get down to best key grip. And I guess we'll still be doing standing ovations for this, as though black Americans could never win costume design until this very moment.
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Unknown A
Here we go. I'm the first black man to receive the costume design award. Huge glass ceiling. That was the remaining glass ceiling, guys. Thank you, everyone in the UK for all of your beautiful work. I could not have done this without you. Until this very moment. Until this very moment when black man finally became the first black man to win best costume design. I thought the racism really was gonna try and America. But now that Paul Tazewell has been the first black man to win best costume design, I gotta say, man, we. I think we're there, guys. I think finally we're there. Okay, that's the whole Oscars. Basically. Conan Ryan was fine. You didn't do anything particularly shocking or wonderful. He wasn't as annoying as some of the other husking. Jimmy Kimmel or something. Maybe one of the best moments where Conan was joking with Adam Sandler, who showed up in shorts and a T shirt.
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Unknown A
Basically, for such a prestigious night, it's important that everyone is properly dressed. Okay, you're dressed well, Adam. Conan. What's up, my brother? What's going on, man? What are you wearing? What are you doing right now? I'm asking you what you're wearing. Nobody even thought about what I was wearing. Tbrunna, you're dressed like a guy playing video poker at 2:00am and you know what?
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Unknown B
Scottish.
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Unknown A
I like the way I look because I'm a good person. I don't care about what I wear, what I don't wear. Did my my snazzy gym shorts and fluffy sweatshirt offend you so much that you had to mock me in front of my peers? Okay, I'm sorry. Okay, so some people like this. I've been reliably informed. I've never been a fan of mcph. That is what it is. Well, that was your Oscars review. It was lackluster, as were virtually all the movies this year. Hopefully we'll do better next year. All right, guys. Coming up, Adam Claven joins the show to analyze Nora. The film won best picture at the Oscars last night as well some of the other pictures that were nominated first. However, you have to be a Daily Wire subscriber. If you're not a member, use Coach here. Check out 2 months ran downline will plus click that link in the description and join.