Trump vs. Putin

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It now appears that Trump and Putin are heading on
a collision course. Over the weekend, in the midst of
peace negotiations, Russian strongman Vladimir Putin unleashed the worst drone
and missile attacks on Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, since

(00:20):
the war began. Civilians slaughtered, countless people, maimed, crippled. It
was a savage, devastating attack, and in response, Trump went
on true social in fact, even gave interviews to the
media saying that what Putin did is unforgivable. It was

(00:42):
the act of someone who is quote unquote absolutely crazy
and who is clearly not interested in peace. And my friends,
I think it's now pretty obvious Vladimir Putin believes he
now holds the cards. He has the upper hand. He
now and his military are going to break out in
a spring offensive and they can capture a lot more

(01:06):
territory and force Ukraine to the negotiating table. And the
question now is what will Trump do. Putin has humiliated him,
Putin has played him for a fool. He never was
serious about pre peace talks, and now Trump is openly
mulling imposing secondary crippling sanctions on oil and natural gas

(01:30):
that could badly tank the Russian economy and make its
ability to prosecute the war in Ukraine all but impossible.
In other words, severe sanctions would risk a dramatic escalation.
And throughout all of this, Ukrainian President Zelensky, rather than

(01:52):
keeping his mouth shut, has now gone public and said
it was Trump's silence, his refusal to condemn Putin over
the last couple of weeks, that emboldened the Russian leader
to now launch these devastating drone and missile strikes and
to now expand and intensify the war. So you've got

(02:14):
all three parties now against each other, all of them
for different reasons. If I were Zelenski, I wouldn't bite
the hand that feeds me. Without American military aid, Ukraine
has finished, and he should know that, so he should
keep his mouth shut. As for Vladimir Putin, he may

(02:35):
now have made the fatal mistake of the war by
now slapping Trump in the face, by playing him for
a fool, by stringing him along during these peace talks.
He has now angered Trump. He has now humiliated and
embarrassed Trump, and he may find out very soon that

(02:57):
Trump is not a man to play with and not
a man to trifle with. If President Trump drops the
hammer on sanctions and really goes for Russia's throat for
the economic juggular, Putin may find out and soon that
without oil and gas, without money, he won't be able

(03:19):
to fight any war. And this may lead to a
devastating defeat on the battlefield. And as Russian history shows,
when the Russians lose wars, the Russian people turn on
their leaders. Putin may have just overplayed his hand, and
in the end he will have nobody to blame but himself.