Preet Bharara:

From CAFE, and the Vox Media Podcast Network, this is Stay Tuned In Brief. I’m Preet Bharara. Last week, president Donald Trump talked with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss a potential end to Russia’s war in Ukraine. The meeting prompted many questions from Ukraine, and escalated tensions between the three countries, after Trump suggested Ukraine started the war. Oh, and there’s a lot of other news, too. Joining me to discuss the latest news are the host of MSNBC’s “The Saturday/Sunday Show” Jonathan Capehart and New Yorker staff writer Susan Glasser. Jonathan, Susan, welcome back to the show.

Jonathan Capehart:

Hey, Preet, thanks.

Susan Glasser:

Also great to be with you.

Preet Bharara:

So, I don’t mean to laugh. I’m very confused, as are a lot of people, about something that I mentioned in the introduction, and that is President Trump, apparently not seeming to understand the issue of causation, and the temporal timeline of events, said of Ukraine, about the war, “You should have never started it.” Susan, can we start with you? Can you explain that sentence?

Susan Glasser:

I wish I could, I wish I could. The eternal mystery.

Preet Bharara:

Just on the level of just pure English, and logic, what’s going on there?

Susan Glasser:

Well, it’s a Kremlin talking point, and it’s emanating from the mouth of the President of the United States. This was on Tuesday afternoon, at a Mar-a-Lago press conference, and it’s one of those things where, it can kick you in the stomach again, and again, and again, but sometimes we kind of forget, Donald Trump has never had a critical word to say about Vladimir Putin, about Russia. He called the invasion of Ukraine, three years ago this week, by the way, a move of strategic genius.

So, in a big picture sense, it’s not a surprise, and yet it still kicks you in the stomach. And I think that moment on Tuesday afternoon, for me, it was akin to Helsinki in the summer of 2018. It was this moment that kicks you in the stomach, that the President of the United States is giving us this Kremlin talking point, which is the idea that somehow Ukraine itself was the author of its own invasion, which to be clear, is a calumny. It’s a lie. Trump then followed it up by accusing, not Vladimir Putin of being a dictator, but Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Why? Because he’s not bowing down to Donald Trump, who has really never accepted, I think, the legitimacy of Ukraine as a viable independent state. He basically, I think, has the Kremlin view that Putin should be allowed to do whatever he wants to his neighbor.

Preet Bharara:

Jonathan, I want to ask you to follow up here, but to elaborate on my question, is Donald Trump the truest expression of Orwellianism? Because he could have said something slightly different, that was still pro-Putin. He could have said, “Well, Putin had no choice but to start the war,” or, “Zelenskyy and Ukraine were at fault for provoking Russia into starting the war,” which we might criticize also, but it would’ve been marginally factually more correct as to who started the war, what’s going on there with language? Can you fit this into a broader picture?

Jonathan Capehart:

I just think that… I have long said that Donald Trump is perhaps the most transparent politician I have ever had to cover. He doesn’t do nuance well, if at all. It is as if when he speaks, we are literally hearing the thoughts in his head, and sometimes it manifests itself in taking a position at 9:00 AM, and then switching that position, doing a full 180, maybe two hours, or two days later. The one place where he has been consistent, to Susan’s point, is in his praise, or giving the benefit of the doubt to, or backing at Russian President Vladimir Putin.

And I’m glad Susan also brought up Helsinki, because I remember watching that Helsinki press conference when I was… My husband and I were visiting his parents, my in-laws, and we watched it in the living room, and when it was over, I had not seen anything like it. And I thought, “Oh my God, the President of the United States just threw the intelligence operation of the United States under the bus, in favor of the Russian president. How do we recover from this?”

And here we are seven, eight years later, and he’s one upped that by blaming a nation, and the nation’s leader, for their own invasion. And so, this is where you have to… When Trump says the things that he says, you’ve got to believe that he believes it, and that there is no nuance available to him, because he doesn’t view, particularly things related to Russia, he does not view them in shades of gray. He views them in black and white.

Preet Bharara:

Well, so I was going to ask something that you just answered without my asking, and that is, when Donald Trump says, “You should have never started it,” is that a lie in his mind? Or does he believe it to be true? And which would be worse?

Susan Glasser:

Look, Donald Trump invents facts to fit the narrative that he wants, and he wants to make a deal with Russia. He’s perfectly willing to do that on Russia’s terms, and to cut Ukraine out of its own future. And that’s what he’s doing. So, if this is a fact in his own mind. What you’re seeing also is Donald Trump is a classic bully. He punches down. It’s not an accident that in his first month back in office, what are the targets he’s gone after? Not Russia and China, but Canada, Greenland, Panama, Ukraine. He’s a bully who punches down.

He doesn’t like that Zelenskyy has pushed back, that Zelenskyy has refused the essentially mobster-like deal that he was offered, “deal,” that, “Donald Trump would like you to sign this piece of paper right now.” And this has actually happened, to sign over $500 billion in rare earth minerals in exchange for the assistance we’ve already given, not even for future assistance, but in exchange for what we’ve already given, which is nowhere near $500 billion. “And if you don’t sign that, we’re going to sell you out to Russia.” And we’re probably frankly going to do that anyways.

Preet Bharara:

Going to do that anyway.

Susan Glasser:

And then he’s mad at Zelenskyy for not taking that deal. This is what’s the backdrop to what’s happening here. But, I think it’s just important to underscore that it wasn’t just some crazy words from Donald Trump this week. This is a very significant week, because this is a week in some fundamental way, where the United States, because of Trump, has switched teams in global politics. We are now on team dictator. We are now on team bad guy, we’re on team Russia, we are on team AFD in Germany. We had the Vice President of the United States go to the Munich Security Conference and essentially endorse the neo-Nazi party in Germany in the upcoming elections, and I think this is a different world. It is not just about crazy words from Trump.

Preet Bharara:

Which dictator, guys? Trump says that Zelenskyy is a dictator because he won’t have an election.

Susan Glasser:

It’s a lie, and a calumny.

Jonathan Capehart:

Yeah. And also, and I think Susan would agree, I can’t think of an authoritarian who Trump has not offered words of praise, or words of admiration. Xi in China, Orban in Hungary. He may have even said something nice about Erdogan in Turkey.

Susan Glasser:

He has Mohammed bin Salman as the mediator in these “talks” with Russia. The Saudis, among the worst abusers of human rights in the world.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. Well, do you want to remind people about what particular act that is to lay at the feet-

Susan Glasser:

Involving a bone saw, perhaps?

Preet Bharara:

Yes.

Susan Glasser:

Yeah.

Jonathan Capehart:

And my now late, murdered colleague at the Washington Post.

Preet Bharara:

Mr. Khashoggi.

Jonathan Capehart:

Mr. Khashoggi. That guy.

Preet Bharara:

Here’s a question about the inner relationship between Trump’s positions on these kinds of things, and his following among his base in the US. I can understand why the Doge is popular, rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse is ever going to be popular. Demonizing the federal government can be popular in many, many quarters. From everything that I see, the American people as a general matter believe that Vladimir Putin is a dictator. They have a low opinion of him. I saw some poll recently that in America, seven or eight or 9% of people have a positive opinion of Vladimir Putin. How do you explain the disconnect between Trump’s view of Putin, the public’s view of Putin, and the lack of any effect on anyone’s opinions of Trump from that?

Susan Glasser:

Yeah, I mean I think this is one where whatever the opinion polls say, there’s right and there’s wrong. And it was notable that at a moment when Republicans have generally not only gone silent in their pushing back against even Trump, or Musk’s wildest excesses, that you have seen The New York Post, The Wall Street Journal, aggressively sort of saying, “Donald Trump is wrong, he’s gone too far.” You had Senator Thom Tillis going on the floor of the US Senate, Republican who rolled over and voted for Trump’s unqualified nominees, and yet was able to say, “Hey, wait a minute, Putin is the dictator.”

That’s the cover of the New York Post. We’re having this conversation on Friday. It says, a picture of Vladimir Putin says, “This is the dictator.” So you do see… I agree with you, Preet, that Americans are just not on board. Even MAGA Republican Americans, not on board with Trump’s pro-Putinism. But, again, we’re in a world where the checks and balances in our system have disappeared. So, frankly, it doesn’t matter that Trump is undertaking this unpopular policy, or many other unpopular policies. He has enormous latitude in foreign affairs, and he has made it very clear, in deed, as well as in word, that he is in the middle of changing sides in the Ukraine war.

Preet Bharara:

Jonathan, do you have a thought on that?

Jonathan Capehart:

I think back, I saw a clip of Senator Tillis’s remarks.

Senator Thom Tillis:

Whoever believes that there is any space for Vladimir Putin in the future of a stable globe, better go to Ukraine, they better go to Europe. They better invest the time to understand that this man is a cancer, and the greatest threat to democracy in my lifetime.

Jonathan Capehart:

I was thrilled to see that clip, and I was thrilled to hear his words, because it was sort of like going back in time, and witnessing the Republican Party of old, the Republican Party pre-Trump, the Republican Party that wasn’t isolationist, wasn’t pro-authoritarian, pro-dictator, wasn’t pro-Russia, was willing to stand up to the president, stand up for what were long espoused Republican ideals about American strength, and being a bulwark against authoritarianism, and in particular, Russia. And what makes watching Senator Tillis even more painful, is that while he can say that on the Senate floor, he couldn’t find it within himself to vote against some of the most unqualified people ever nominated to the positions that they’re now holding. He did not vote against them. And the Republican Party, these Republicans who know better, didn’t vote against them.

The way to enforce the guardrails, reinforce the guardrails, show the American people that they are still there, is to say no to the President, to stand up for the prerogatives of a co-equal branch of government. The legislative branch is just stepping aside, and letting the executive take a wrecking ball to the federal government. I mean, I know people don’t like the federal government. Yes, there’s waste, fraud, and abuse, but you know what? People need the government when disaster strikes, people need the government when they are on hard times, where are people going to turn the next time there is a tragedy in their community? It’s unclear now.

Preet Bharara:

Stay tuned. There’s more coming up after this.

So, how is this going to play out? How do you have a meeting to discuss the conclusion of the war, without one of the countries that’s involved? What’s the timeframe on which this is going to happen? Is it inevitable that Ukraine must cave?

Susan Glasser:

These are actually… These are good questions, Preet. First of all, to be clear, Trump and Putin have not met. They have talked on the phone. They are working towards a meeting, which could come as soon as in the next few weeks, in person. Their advisors have met now in Riyadh this week, in Saudi Arabia. And we’re just learning through Reuters, and other reports this morning that there were secret conversations going on between Russia, and the United States in Switzerland. All of this cutting out Ukraine, in a direct… Talk about a sharp pivot. The line from the Biden administration these last few years has been… And from our European allies, has been, “Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.”

And there, Trump chucks that out the window the second he wins re-election, even before coming into office, and he’s immediately essentially going back to a kind of 19th century view of the world, where predatory great powers meet amongst themselves, and carve up the world. It’s an imperialist notion that is very much Vladimir Putin’s worldview, and Trump has embraced that, by sitting down and thinking that he’s just going to decide the fate of Ukraine.

Now interestingly, I’ve been paying close attention, because I lived and worked in Russia for a number of years, to what the Russian state media are saying, what the Russian response to this has been. And there are two strands here. Number one, a kind of incredulous that Donald Trump, the President of the United States would go so far so quickly over to their side. You literally had, I thought, a very revealing tweet from Dmitry Medvedev, the former president of Russia who said, “If you had told me,” this was about Trump’s statement that Ukraine started the war, Medvedev said, “If you had told me three months ago that this was something that the President of the USA said, I would’ve laughed out loud. I would not have believed it.”

So Incredulousness, kind of at their luck that Trump would be such a… Reveal himself to be so pro-Russian. But then, there’s also this question about what kind of a bargain is Putin going to drive here? Are there terms that are acceptable? And there is an argument that part of what Trump is doing in undermining Ukraine publicly, and attacking Zelenskyy publicly, is laying the groundwork to blame Ukraine, either because there is not a deal that the two parties are willing to accept, or if Ukraine complains, that it’s a bad deal, he’ll say, “Well, it’s their fault for not participating in the way he wanted.”

Preet Bharara:

I mean, if you were comfortable as Trump is saying Ukraine started the war, then there’s literally nothing you can be uncomfortable to say, to come in on Putin’s side. I don’t know what the limitation on truth, or position might be.

Susan Glasser:

Look, this is a man who is not limited by truth. The consequences though, are beyond… So first of all, there’s the question of Ukraine, and I think people have watched this for a long time. They believe that even if there is a ceasefire, without meaningful security guarantees for Ukraine coming from the United States, and its NATO partners, that it’s hard to imagine that Putin wouldn’t just use this time to regroup, and come back after a state that he’s after all said, is not… Doesn’t have the right to exist. It’s not a legitimate entity.

And he has done this before. There were two rounds of ceasefires negotiated in Minsk after the war began in 2014. Putin simply blew past those terms, and as we know, launched this full scale invasion. So, number one, security guarantees, and without them, what’s going to happen to Ukraine? And then number two, is Trump willing to go even further and sell out our actual treaty allies in NATO? We are committed right now, as members of NATO, to mutual defense, to defending all three members of the Baltic States, defending Poland, defending Romania. And the question is, we have American troops, as well as allied troops, in all of those frontline states against Russia. One of Russia’s demands may well be that we pull back from those Baltic States. Is Trump willing to do that? There are many people today in Europe who believe that that is a real possibility, and leaving those NATO allies vulnerable to Russian incursion.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. Jonathan, let me ask you a question, the first part of which is maybe a little bit unfair, but it relates to the second part of my question, and that is, further to what Susan just said, how many people in America you think, can correctly articulate what NATO is, why it is, what it does for mutual security? And the reason I ask that question is, what is your sense of both the likelihood that Trump either doesn’t hold true to our obligations under NATO, or withdraws from NATO, and what would be the fallout?

Jonathan Capehart:

I’m not sure many Americans fully understand what NATO is, why NATO exists, what its purpose is. I bet most Americans don’t know that, to Susan’s point earlier, she was talking about Article Five. Article Five of the NATO Charter says, “An attack on a NATO nation is an attack on all of them,” and that they will come to that nation’s defense. Article Five has only been invoked once, one time, and that was after the United States was attacked on September 11th, 2001. NATO, the liberal, small-D democratic order, is the result of United States leadership seven decades ago. And the benefits from having these alliances, the American people have lived with them basically their entire lives, for the last seven decades, and a lot of folks have forgotten that a lot of the peace and prosperity is a result of that.

So, I think that is why it is so alarming. It was so alarming in Trump 1.0, during his first term, the Helsinki press conference, his shaking down the NATO allies to increase their defense spending. To your point earlier, Preet, about nuance, there are ways to say to the NATO countries, “Y’all need to bump up your defense expenditures, so that at least in some ways you’re putting a little more skin in the game compared to us.” But instead, the way Donald Trump went about it, and continues to go about it, is to say, “We, the United States are footing the, and you guys, NATO countries, are ripping us off.” And I think it’s that ripping us off talk, that rhetoric, that far too many Americans latched onto, and to believe that the world is ripping off the United States, we’re sending all this money overseas, and we, the United States, aren’t getting anything back in return. That is the president’s logic, and a lot of people believe that.

Preet Bharara:

On that narrow issue, it did work.

Jonathan Capehart:

Well. Yeah, no, but that’s what’s so frightening, Preet.

Susan Glasser:

Yeah, but actually, Preet, I do want to say that Donald Trump did not tell the American people, “I’m running for election so that I can get in bed with Vladimir Putin, and sell out Ukraine.” He did not run on that. I’m sorry, but he didn’t actually say that, and a lot of people, of course the project their-

Preet Bharara:

But he didn’t hide his affection.

Susan Glasser:

… False-

Preet Bharara:

He didn’t hide his affection and love for Vladimir Putin, either.

Susan Glasser:

Well, again, look, I think you’re exactly right. Caveat emptor, we knew what we were getting. I 100% agree with that statement here. I think what people don’t understand is how far it can go, that Trump, even in his first term, called NATO obsolete, and actively threatened to pull out of NATO, something he was only constrained from doing by his own advisors, the kind of advisors who do not surround him in this second term. It’s a very real possibility that he’s already laying the groundwork for doing that, and blaming NATO itself, in the same way that he blamed Ukraine for its own invasion.

I think there’s already a strong suggestion from Trump that he will do something similar with NATO. He has said that NATO allies should now be spending up to 5% of their GDP on defense, and that if they don’t do that, that’s not tolerable for us. And by the way, the United States does not spend 5% of our GDP on defense. We spend about 3.5%, a little bit more than 3.5%, and it appears that they’re going to be cutting defense spending with this Elon Musk project. So, what if he says, “Well see, look, they didn’t meet my demand, therefore, I’m going to pull out.”

Jonathan Capehart:

And yeah, I want to jump in on that. There’s cutting defense spending, and then there’s firing people within the Pentagon, and lots of reports that that is coming down. That is going to happen. And I’m going to be watching who’s getting fired, how high up on the chain do those firings go, and the implications those firings have for troops around the world, particularly troops who are in NATO countries.

Preet Bharara:

Can I ask an odd hypothetical, counterfactual, counter historical question, to two very smart people? If Donald Trump had been president in December of 1941, after Pearl Harbor was attacked, would he have taken the position that we don’t want to get involved in the war, because wars are stupid, and it’s not our problem? Or would he have decided, “We need to blow the Axis powers to smithereens, because they attacked the United States,” or some other option?

Susan Glasser:

Preet, I don’t have any doubt in my mind that Donald Trump would have been a charter member of the original America First movement, which took shape in the years leading up to 1941, was a very strong political force, kind of written out of history, because history is written in hindsight, and Republicans were not eager to showcase the fact that they were essentially an isolationist party. Even in the early years of World War II, even after the Nazi invasion of Poland, in September 1st, 1939, they continued to resist, even as Britain became the last democracy standing in Europe against the Nazis, they were against the war. I’m quite sure Donald Trump would’ve been in that position. What would he have done with the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor? It’s not clear, but I think what he would’ve done leading up to it is very clear.

Preet Bharara:

Jonathan, do you want to play in this game?

Jonathan Capehart:

No, because Susan is infinitely smarter than me on this topic.

Preet Bharara:

I want to ask you just a few final questions, sort of lightning round, but very quick answers. Trump has moved with shock and awe, and flooding the zone, and whatever other similar metaphor you want to use. There are some signs, or maybe it’s wishful thinking, the honeymoon that Trump has gotten is fading. Some of that comes from reports that there’s a backlash to the Doge indiscriminate firing, including the people in Republican districts, and there are members of Congress who are on the Republican side who are worried about it. Either of you have any thoughts about what the arc is here for Trump, his shock and awe program, and his popularity?

Jonathan Capehart:

I mean, look, I think it’s hard to keep in mind that he has only been in office now for a month, and it feels like we’ve lived through maybe a couple of years worth of disruptive, shocking, in many instances, horrifying moves by this president, his administration, and Elon Musk. I think that the backlash is only going to continue, because while people love to go after, or say they love to go after waste, fraud, and abuse, and you should do that, but it should be done with some sort of precision, with a scalpel, and not a wrecking ball. And there’s video coming out of a town hall in Atlanta, home of the CDC, where people are like, “What the hell is happening? What are you doing? How is this possible?”

And you know have messed up when you have Senator Katie Britt of Alabama trying to go through the back door to prevent these cuts, and funding freezes from impacting her district, or for impacting her state. So, if she’s doing that, imagine what all the other Republicans are doing, and we’re only a month in, and we still have the March 14th budget deadline to go through, where they’re going to try to cram through, what is it? More than $4 trillion worth of tax cuts, try to raise the debt ceiling by $4 trillion, and then they’re going to expect Democrats to go along with that to get them over the edge, over the hump, because they have their own infighting. We’re a month in, folks. Buckle up, because we’ve got many, many more months, and much more shock and awe to go through.

Preet Bharara:

So he’s hit his peak.

Susan Glasser:

Look, I just want to say, because I think it’s really important, not to accept the frame. This is not a story about waste, fraud, and abuse. This is a story about an illegal, and unconstitutional, richest man in the world wielding a chainsaw on the American way of government. And I think it’s so important to be clear with people, that that’s what’s going on here. You want to have a policy argument about foreign aid, or how many people should work at the IRS, we have a system to do that. We have a Congress in this country. We don’t have a king in this country, despite Donald Trump’s social media feed image of himself as a king, or no matter how many fake Napoleon quotes he tweets out. The bottom line is that it’s not an argument about government spending, and I think it’s important for us not to accept the frame that that’s what’s going on here.

What’s happening here is an illegal, and unconstitutional seizure of power. And the question on the table, and I think Jonathan gets to this, is Congress, the Republican-controlled Congress, going to stand up for its own prerogatives? Our constitution gives Congress the power to legislate. Congress has authorized these programs, it has funded them. The president has signed these bills. In many cases, Donald Trump himself increased funding for the programs that he’s now allowed the richest man in the world to eliminate with a team of what somebody described to me today as techno brown shirts, who now have all of yours, and my personal information on their computer. So, I just want to be clear that we’re not having a policy fight over foreign aid. We’re having a situation in this country where people have illegally seized power, and the question is, what are we as a people going to do about it?

Preet Bharara:

Well, half the people don’t care, Susan. Half the people don’t care. Half the people want them to have the power. Half the people are applauding it. Half the people think it’s funny. That’s why Donald Trump does it, and gets away with it, to joke about being a king, to say, “I want to be a dictator.” If there were shared values over process, not just outcome, if there were shared values about what democracy would look like, then it wouldn’t just be one half of the country, and it wouldn’t be one half of the Senate, and it wouldn’t be one half of the house. So, in some measure, this is for another day, in a longer discussion, how do we get people to care about these very important values and principles that you talk about? Final question to both of you, briefly, Senator Mitch McConnell announced he’s not running for re-election. Any thoughts on his legacy?

Susan Glasser:

Donald Trump is his legacy.

Jonathan Capehart:

Yeah.

Susan Glasser:

Had Mitch McConnell been willing to stand up and do what he knew to be the right thing in January of 2021, we would not be in this situation.

Jonathan Capehart:

And I would add, had he not made remaking the judiciary his number one task, when Donald Trump was president the first go round, we would not have the six three conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court, because let’s not forget, then Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stole a Supreme Court seat from President Barack Obama.

Preet Bharara:

I was going to ask further, if he has any legacy for the people of Kentucky, but I won’t ask that question.

Susan Glasser:

I would point out that literally two hours after announcing his retirement, what he did was switch sides, and vote for Kash Patel to be the director of the FBI. And if you want to look for moments when we’ve crossed lines in this Trump 2.0 presidency, that was a moment I think that we’re all going to look back on and say, “This is how they took it over.”

Preet Bharara:

Thanks folks, for a wonderful conversation. My only regret is that we got Susan Glasser to say calumny two times, rather than three times. It’s a very underused word. I hope it comes back into common usage on podcasts, and in common parlance, and around kitchen tables around the country, and around the world-

Jonathan Capehart:

I’m glad to know how to pronounce it.

Preet Bharara:

… Where there are speakers.

Susan Glasser:

Doing my part for democracy, Preet. Thank you.

Preet Bharara:

Jonathan Capehart, Susan Glasser, thanks so much.

Jonathan Capehart:

Thanks, Preet.

Susan Glasser:

Thank you. Great to be with you both.

Preet Bharara:

For more analysis of legal and political issues making the headlines, become a member of the CAFE Insider. Members get access to exclusive content, including the weekly podcast I host with former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance. Head to cafe.com/insider to sign up for a trial. That’s cafe.com/insider. If you like what we do, rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. Every positive review helps new listeners find the show.

Send me your questions about news, politics, and justice. Tweet them to me at Preet Bharara with the hashtag #AskPreet. You can also now reach me on Threads, or you can call and leave me a message at (669) 247-7338. That’s (669) 24-PREET. Or you can send an email to letters@cafe.com. Stay Tuned is presented by CAFE, and the Vox Media Podcast Network. The executive producer is Tamara Sepper. The technical director is David Tatasciore. The deputy editor is Celine Rohr. The editorial producers are Noa Azulai and Jake Kaplan. The associate producer is Claudia Hernández, and the CAFE team is Matthew Billy, Nat Weiner, and Liana Greenway. Our music is by Andrew Dost. I’m your host, Preet Bharara. As always, stay tuned.