223. Trump’s Latest Vanity Project Is Proof He’s Losing

"Trump is losing. I know his character. I've seen it up close and I know he knows he's losing too. Just look at Iran, Epstein, gas prices. It's all going wrong. And even today, the press is refusing to cover his New York trip to visit Mandani. We all know how much that will hurt his ego. So, Caddy, he needs to distract us." Thank you, the Kennedy Center destruction, and the drone arch that he's building. We're going to look at all of that in the first half. And in the second half of the show, Trump's flip-flopping on whether to join Saudi strikes on the Houthis in Yemen, and what it means for Trump's relationship with MBS. "This episode is brought to you by Uttaro." A tariff, a spending plan, a regulatory change. It can all start just as the first line of a speech. But it sets in motion things that can reach far beyond Washington, an unfold for years to come. That's right, Caddy. Mark has moved on expectations. Not just events, investors are constantly weighing. What a decision could mean for companies, sectors, and the wider economy. So, Uttaro is an investing platform where you can access a wide range of markets and explore how political and economic developments could affect them. You could also learn from the global community of investors and see how people around the world are interpreting the same news. As with all investing, your capital is at risk. See itaro.com/tripus for full terms. Imagine setting your makeup, then forgetting it's even theirs. Meet new grippy setting mist from Maybelline, New York. Jell-to-miss technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours, with flexible all-day-convy grip. No tightness, no stickiness, no residue. Plump, dewy, hydrated skin. That still feels like your skin. Try new grippy setting mist from Maybelline, New York. Maybe it's Maybelline. Welcome to the RESTIS Politics US. With me, Cathy K. I'm Anthony Scaramucci. How are you? You're back at home. You must be so relieved to be back in New York. I'm doing well, although I have to tell you, I just want to thank everybody in the United Kingdom, and there were two lovely people in Bath that gave me a t-shirt, guys. It's in the laundry. I promise to wear it on the show. And, Cathy, I got this for you. See, this is from Allison Minor, Cathy. He's a big shout-out to Allison. This is a loose-site block, the mooch and Cathy K. Look at that. Nice. That's coming your way when I see you in Washington. Well, we like monuments. We like things with our names on, right? On this program. What is granite and jello having commoncat? Granite and jello. Well, I can see that granite is building, and I guess Donald Trump likes jello? No, it's Donald Trump is the answer, okay, because it's granite for the monuments and golden marble. Right. And it's jello for the fall of policy, okay? Yes, I see that. He's going to put snipers on the arch, but he can't hold the decision for 72. Two hours. Can I do it? So this is the big art de Triomphe, art de Trump as it's being called in Washington, which is looks like something out of some sort of national socialist architects draw. Spear would have had it in his bottom drawer and it looks horrendous with a massive kind of gold thing. It now looks like Trump says he's going to push ahead with that, and the way he's going to push ahead with it, Anthony, because he's a little worried that maybe some people are going to object to this i.e. the Supreme Court. This is now said that he's going to make this arc into effectively a military bunker with drone launching pads on the roof and sniper positions and not just sniper positions, but all of the ammunition for the snipers in the art. I don't know if you've ever driven around the year 12, that kind of crazy roundabout around the art de Triomphe in Paris, I don't if you had to go and grab ammunition quickly from the art de Triomphe, you'd have to dodge about 10 lanes of cars getting there. You'd be run over on the way there. Anyway, this arc is going to be in the middle of a roundabout that I guarantee you is going to be a constant traffic jam and yet somehow this is going to be sniper central. What's going on? Okay. So now we're going to take out the Trump decoder ring. I'm reaching into the cereal box and clicking through the ring, and I just want to remind people when Trump said he was a doctor when he was wearing the flowing rose with Jesus, it was one of his comms people said, just say the photograph was doctored. So then Trump in his brain said I was a doctor, okay? So let me explain what he's doing, okay? Somebody told him, you got to get this done through national security. The ballroom national security, you won't get shot at in the ballroom. And if you're going to get the money for the project, because we still don't know how we're going to pay for the arc of Trump, you got to say it's national security. So he's tweeting out, we're going to put ammo and machine gun terrorists at the top of the arch. We're going to, I mean, I guess we're back in the Civil War. But we're like defending Washington, DC against Virginia is this, this is like redux. We've seen this movie. And remember, I want to remind everybody we were not getting the interstate highway bill passed. Okay. Eisenhower wanted to build this infrastructure around the country. And it wasn't going to get passed. And then he came at it from a different angle with the American public. He said that we need this for national security reasons. And boom, got passed. And so somebody told Trump the arch, you'll get the money for it. But you got to say it's national security, you know who told Trump this, right? The Supreme Court, the Supreme Court told Trump this because he knocked down the east wing in the middle of the night, said he needed a ballroom. And all of the court said, no, no, you can't do that historic preservation laws. And then he said, oh, but actually it's not really a ballroom. It's a bunker disguised as a ballroom. It's a very big national security bunker with a ballroom just happening to be on top of it. At that point, the Supreme Court said, yeah, you can do it. Let me just say this to you about Trump for a second under the gun with the Epstein files. Massie and Rocana. I've got the 218 votes to get the other three and a half million documents disclosed. I am under the gun with the midterms and I've got pressure on me in the northern states that are, they're calling the White House every day, Susan Collins saying, cut the deal with the Canadians and I've got an unbelievable unmitigated disaster going on in the Middle East. And so what I would like to focus on are reflecting polls, arc the triumphs and ballrooms. So guys, the politics of distraction lives, but I just want to ask Cadi question, why is the House of Representatives closed Cadi gate because Republicans likely will lose the House. And so wouldn't they be smart by leaving the House open and promulgating policies that they would get in place prior to their departure as leaders? You talked about this last week, Anthony. The House is closed because the Speaker of the House doesn't want to have a vote on the Epstein files. And now the impeachment of Pete Hexeth. And now the impeachment of Pete Hexeth as well. So much better to send the House as well, probably the House also does not really want to be caught up talking about the Kennedy Center, the prospect that the President might actually demolish the Kennedy Center after he had himself photographed through a window of his helicopter with a big board that said Kennedy Center demolition on it. At which point we would also say he's trolling us. He's not going to knock down this monument to a slain president. That's what this was built for. And that this is just a joke except that we know he has knocked down the ballroom. So a court took this seriously enough that there is now a court injunction and he would have to give 30 days notice before he's allowed to knock down the Kennedy Center. You and I did that great series that was so interesting on Trump for our founding members on Trump in the 1980s when he was a builder. He has a long track record. The ballroom was not the first thing he knocked down without permission. He has a track record from his days in real estate of knocking things down without permission. He took down the bomb with Teller department store to build Trump tower and broke every law, every zoning law in the process. With all those lovely freezes that just happened to get demolished into the process. So I think there is a I've driven past the Kennedy Center in the last few days. There's loads of construction fencing around it now. This is a place I used to go to the Kennedy Center once a month to listen to music. Everybody went there in Washington. It was a very bipartisan place. You got Republicans going there. Democrats going there. It was not a kind of hive of democratic activity. Republican presidents have always gone there now. It looks like I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that Trump knocks it down. And I think this is Trump again testing the courts. In a sense, he's defying the courts. What do you, as JD Van said, you know, you can order the administration to do something, but who's actually going to enforce that? And I think this could be a case of him thinking, how can I defy the courts? He's pissed off with the courts for saying he had to take his name off the building. And this is a petty peeve of his. He is annoyed that he can't use national security keeps blaming the court for not allowing the national security rationale when it comes to his tariffs. So now he's going to try and use the national security rationale for the arch. He's been told he can't not down the building, but things aren't going well for him. The polls are terrible. There's the Epstein files. There's Iran. And what does he focus on? He focuses on all these vanity projects. What? As just as a distraction, because that's what he actually loves. This is what he wants to be a builder again. Yeah, but it's more to it because you try to explore this the people, he is an uncomfortable outsider. He has a chip on his shoulder. You know, I grew up on Long Island. I am a total outsider, but I'm a comfortable outsider. I don't care that I'm an outsider. You don't want to let me in your country club. Who cares? Okay. But Trump cares. They didn't let him into a country club out here, which is like one of the most famous prestigious clubs. He goes out and builds 18 clubs. Okay. That's his personality. You guys don't like me. I'm going to shove myself up your you know what? I'd be trying to become president and irritating and triggering you. And the Kennedy Center is all of that in one. So just hear me out for a second. I am the biggest celebrity. There's no bigger celebrity than me. And oh, by the way, you other celebrities, you don't like me. You won't come to the Kennedy Center if I'm there. And so the Kennedy Center had four years of honoring the meditarians, honoring the arts, honoring people that contributed to the culture of American and global society without the presence of the president of the United States. And you know the ritual because you've done it. I've gone to Barack Obama's White House. And where George Lucas was being nominated, he just built this beautiful visual arts museum in LA. When George Lucas was being nominated, I went to the I went to the White House. We had the celebration inside the White House and the East Wing. And then we all went over to the Kennedy Center with the president to see the rendition. This destroys Donald Trump that he never did that in his first term. So what did he do? He fired everybody. Took out David Rubenstein. He gave 100 million dollars plus to the center. The chairman. He made himself the chairman. He put all of his cronies in there. And then he selected a few people that would accept a a anoree from him. And he went to the Kennedy Center as president. And it was an unmitigated disaster. So you know what? And I am going to blow up and demolish your center to punish you for not liking me. Okay. And that's that's it, Katty. And you and if people don't understand that, start understanding it because that is him. That is the low level primordial thinking of the orange maniac. So he ordered a renovation fund back in February, $257 million in renovations. And he has done some renovations. He's renovated, particularly the outside lobby, outside the president's box. Has now got guess what color? Go on, guess, I guess. It's going to take a while to guess what color? That's got to be gold. I'm assuming you're a gold, right? It's got a lot more gold. It's got a kind of gold circular sofa thing right in the middle of it. Anyway, so he wanted that. That was he was very focused on. Apparently, there was a stage where he was calling the renovators of the Kennedy Center once a week. I mean, this guy's got a war going on, a tariff war going on, but he's calling because he wants to make sure that the marble is installed properly next to the chairs in the Kennedy Center for years. So he's been calling the Kennedy Center people about that. He's very involved in the renovation process, but now the judge comes along, says, you can't have your name up there. He has to take the name down. And that's when he starts floating the idea of demolishing the building entirely. And I, and here's my question to you. When he came in and I get all of that, I think you're quite right on the background that he didn't go in the first term. And that's now pissed him off. So he comes in and he wants to make it his, he makes it all his lackeys, Rick Grinnell, his very pugilistic former ambassador to Germany, takes over running the Kennedy Center with Trump as chairman of the board. And suddenly all of the acts pull out. They don't want to perform there. They, they have the prospect of no seats, no performances. There's nothing in the schedule anymore beyond. I was told this fall. And so they have nothing to put on. And at that point, the Kennedy Center is no longer viable. But do you think Trump, when he took over January of 2025, made himself chairman? Do you think he thought this was going to be a kind of thriving mega cultural center? Or do you think he anticipated that all of these acts would drop out? And they would have nothing left to show. And it would be a disaster. No, he thought that he was going to get the kid rock and the YMCA, the village people. And he was going to get his coderay of people to reestablish the Kennedy Center. It was going to become the Maga Center, which is why it was going to be the Trump Kennedy Center. And so he underestimated the amount of cultural hate he was going to get there because he's getting pumped. You know, Rick Grinnell put him in charge. He's going to pump you. You know, you know, and by the way, these people are so hated that they just dropped to the New York Times. The emails from Rick Grinnell telling, you know, send back the artwork to the countries it came from. Exactly. The slain president of the United States, when the center opened, art was contributed from around the world. But we're America first people send back the art. We don't want that foreign art. Yeah, it's it's unbelievable. But but caddy, my question back to you, ready? The president is sitting there with his baseball cap on. And he's looking at a thing that says Kennedy Center demolished and a picture is taken through the window. Okay. Is that you can see it? Was that intentional or accident? It was totally intentional. Of course it was totally intentional. The press people said to the reporter, Hey, heads up when you're about when the president's about to take off. If you stand right there behind the window, you're going to get a great shot. People in Washington are asking, is he trolling us because he does that? We've seen him do it repeatedly. Or is there a world in which he's actually serious? And he's so annoyed. And I've heard also that he's really annoyed that he's not being thanked. That why aren't they thanking me for rescuing the Kennedy Center? And the only way now his argument is to rescue the Kennedy Center is to put my name on it to make this actually the Trump Center because when they tried to take my name off it, everything went wrong. So he has, he's in a mode of a lot of grievance about the Kennedy Center. It's occupying an awful lot of his time. That and the arch at the moment seem to be occupying an awful lot of his time. But here's my question to you is, why didn't he manage to get all of those mega performers, the village people? Why didn't he manage to get them to come and play there? Because they can support Trump, but they're still in the entertainment ecosystem. It's the same reason why Sylvester Stallone, as reported in the Times of London interview, he was asked to be the Hollywood ambassador for Donald Trump and Maga and he turned it down. Interesting. Get Rock is got to deal with all of those people. And he doesn't want to be shunned by all those people in entirely. He can piss off those people by supporting Trump, but he doesn't want to cross the Union line of going into the Kennedy Center. JFK at a famous line in his inaugural address asked not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. Trump is asking what the Kennedy Center can do for his name. It's all about me. It will always be all about me. And I just wanted to disrupt the very big lie that Trump is saying, which is about the money. Okay. The money is very easy for the Kennedy Center to raise. And let's just go back. Okay. In 2019, you know, they did this thing called the reach expansion, the FT, the Financial Times, who's a good friend of this program, did a weekend festival there, which I actually spoke at. It's in the the reach area. Yeah. It's very nice. It's a little modern, couple of modern buildings right next to the Kennedy Center. Yep. $250 million a private equity. Okay. Went into the system. Chairman David Rubenstein helped to open it in 2019. And by the way, 100% private and it came with no renaming demand. Okay. So here's where we are. And you and I are talking about this for a reason, because Trump is losing, because I know his personality. He would not be toy. If he was winning any Ron, if he was winning the midterms, if he was winning the House of Representatives, if he was beating up on Massey and Rocana, as it relates to this Epstein potential disclosure, he would not be focused on this. And you know this. And I know this CNN, MS now, Politico, you're not allowed in the press room anymore. And I think it was Aaron Burnett, because I was in London watching it late night. And Aaron, so we didn't even write a bad article about him this week. What triggered that? And the answer is, Caddy, he's got to distract you from all the things that are going wrong right now. So that's another string he can pull to get the press off of the stuff that is really going bad for the guy. Yeah. I think you're right. There's a whole load that's going wrong. He does like buildings. This is his comfort zone. He would rather honestly be talking about the marble armrests and door knobs and the gold faucets in the Kennedy Center and the gold statues on top of the Ark of Triumph and the drapes in the new ballroom than he would be talking about what is the long-term strategy for the United States in the Middle East vis-à-vis China. What are we going to do for the long term to reduce America's deficit? What are we going to do for the long term to rebalance our industrial policy? Those things bore him. So while you and I are speaking, one of the worst possible things just happened to Donald Trump. Let me tell you what that is. The White House press pool has just announced while you and I are speaking that they are not going to cover Donald Trump in New York after the CNN ban. So they are pulling out the TV pool reporting and they are pulling out all the other reporting. And so the White House correspondent association probably got together and said, okay guys, that's enough. Let's go home. Yeah. Very bad for Donald Trump because I need your eyeballs. I need your attention and even though I'm be raiding you, please come back. Please come back. And that's what's going on right now. So he'll be furious this morning that the rest of the press is pulling out and he won't be able to garner the attention that he's looking for when he's at the UN. Yeah. Well, CNN was meant to be the press pool today and CNN isn't allowed to do it. So the others have stood by him, which is exactly what they should have done. Maybe they should be rethinking their annual schmooz fest as well with the president of the White House correspondent's dinner. Okay. We're going to take a break. Come back and talk about Saudi Arabia, the Houthis. Oh, and that long term Middle East strategy that Donald Trump doesn't want to think about because he's got a lot of rebuilding projects to focus on in Washington, DC. When we come back, we're going to be talking about 19 DHS as opposed to Marvel and Gold caddy. This episode is brought to you by Zip Recruiter. I am a big believer and knee in saving time where I can. If there's a way to lay off a job on somebody, I have found that way. So you just have to name the chore whether it's a grocery list or hiring somebody to help clean the pool. I have figured out a way to delegate. And that's why Zip Recruiter is one of the most valuable things that you can use in your business. Yeah. When you're hiring save time and use Zip Recruiter, try it free at ziprecruiter.com/politics. Its new feature shows you the most interesting qualified candidates. That's just a great time saver, so you talk to the right people from the get go. Meet great candidates sooner with Zip Recruiter, four out of five employers who post on Zip Recruiter, get a quality candidate within the first day. Try it for free at ziprecruiter.com/politics that's ziprecruiter.com/politics. Meet your match on Zip Recruiter. When setting your makeup, then forgetting it's even theirs. Meet new groupie setting mist from Mavily New York. Gel to mist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours, with flexible all day comfy grip. Just plump, dewy hydrated skin that still feels like your skin. Try new groupie setting mist from Mavily New York. Maybe it's Mabeline. Welcome back to the rest is politics, US, with me, and Anthony, and it has been a week of whiplash in the Middle East. Look, I think this has been a very interesting week for American foreign policy in the Middle East. I think we have just upended decades of foreign policy, where the US guaranteed security in exchange for energy supplies and has now changed that policy under Donald Trump, who was asked by MBS and Saudi Arabia to help defend him against the Houthis, who have been attacking as far as ReAD, been attacking their oil refineries. MBS made those calls to Donald Trump at the end of last week and over the weekend. It was a weird weekend in Washington, Anthony, because first of all, we got the news that Donald Trump had been at Camp David for a little bit of a break over the weekend. He suddenly cut that break short. He helicoptered back into Washington Saturday night. The State Department was putting out alerts saying the Middle East is very dangerous. We all assumed there was going to be some kind of an attack Saturday night. That's what it looked like. We were all checking our phones, my friends and I in the press call. They were texting me. We woke up on Sunday, nothing. Donald Trump tells Fox News over the weekend, "I am in deciding mode on the Middle East." He was talking about Iran and what he could do there, but he is being asked by the Houthis, hold off. Don't attack us. He's being asked by the Saudis. Don't hold off. Do attack them. He's already to go. The reporting from the New York Times has been really good on this. The bombs were loaded onto the planes. The commanders had been given the targets. All of the intel had been sent over. They were ready to go and overnight Saturday into Sunday, Donald Trump pulls back and says, "No, we are not going to get involved in a second front in this war." Last year, it's worth a quick reminder. The Americans spent 50 days and lots of money and lots of munitions more importantly to attack the Houthis in Yemen and did almost nothing to change the Houthi positions. I think there was a recognition that this was the kind of strike that wouldn't necessarily work against the Houthis. The Houthis meanwhile have said to the Americans, "It's okay. Your ships can pass through the Suez Canal. Your ships can pass through Babel Mandab, that little choke point at the bottom of the Red Sea. We just want to go after the Saudis and the remarkable thing here." This is why I think this upends decades of policy and decades of careful diplomacy by previous administrations. Here is Donald Trump saying, "We are going to protect American assets in that region, but Saudi Arabia, we are not going to defend you, so long as we have a guarantee from the Houthis that they are not going to go after us. So we will sacrifice our relationships with MBS in exchange for some kind of security for American assets because we are overstretched, we are thin on munitions, we are spending too much money, and voters do not like this war, so they definitely don't want a second one. But what does this do, Anthony, for Jared Kushner's relationship with MBS, is MBS now demanding his money back? And paid $2 billion into Jared Kushner's private equity fund. He now finds that actually it didn't buy him very much." You know, the mob, you say, have an expression, okay? And again, for the censors, I'll just say it this way, we're not talking about Jared Kushner, we're talking about the mob, you know, there's two types of bribes, you know, you bribed the person and then they actually do what you want. Or this is your second type of thing where you actually bribed the person and then they don't do it. And then money goes into a cesspool, okay, that's the second time. Again, I'm talking about the mob, not the Kushner or Trump family, okay? Let's go back to this. It's very, very important, okay? Because I understand from some of the people inside what actually happened here, because I explained last week that Trump wants that shipping lane open, and I also now need to tell people that MBS went to Trump and said, I need this and he's willing to do certain things for Americans to help the dollar and he's going to buy more munitions from them and all this other stuff. So Trump was like, okay, okay, I'm going to do this, but his inner circle said no. And the most skeptical people inside the inner circle said, hey, man, you open up another front six weeks before the midterms, okay, that would make a second or six weeks out with oil prices already elevated. Now, just for everybody knows, okay, oil prices are down about four dollars today as you and I are speaking stock market up in the United States, because the market is sensing that this is de-escalation, okay? The market was set up for the Red Sea getting closed and having a nightmare where oil prices were going to go to $120 a share. And so they went to Trump with the gas prices and the diesel prices at historic highs and said, you can't do this, okay? Now, the second most interesting thing about this, and this is the thing that is really going to vex Trump. You don't have a ground game, buddy. And when you don't have a ground game to back up the air strikes, the air strikes are going nowhere because these guys have learned without a ground game, we're going to put all of our drones in the mountains without a ground game. We've got 60 feet underground for all of our munitions waiting out your bombs until we can pull that stuff out, which is what happened last year exactly to decimate your ports. They've tried this. Now, here's the thing that's really making me laugh, but it shouldn't make me laugh and I apologize to my fellow Americans because obviously I want the Americans to win, but what's making me laugh is Tehran. They just sent conditions to Qatar, okay? And they want to quote unquote end the war on all fronts, but guess what they want? They want billions upon billions of dollars of reparations and they want the Americans out of the Middle East, okay? So who's winning, Katty? Who's winning? On that point, Americans out of the Middle East, you've got General McCaffrey, who knows that region well, saying there are 15 bases that are not going to reopen. You've got the key base in Bahrain that is a shell of itself at the moment. The US personnel have basically gone making any kind of supply chain effort in the Middle East, much more complicated, much more expensive. So in some ways, they have got the Americans out of the Middle East. And in this kind of equation of security for energy, which America has bought into for decades, they've also now shown that they've got the Americans out of the Middle East, at least in the terms that the Middle East had understood it before. There is no longer a large broad security umbrella. There is a very narrow security umbrella, a tiny teeny one for American assets. We will protect America's direct assets where they interest us, but we're not actually gonna bomb the Houthis to protect the Saudi assets and to help the Saudis. So I think the relationship in the last six months since this war has started, this war fundamentally upended decades of American policy in the Middle East in ways that we couldn't have foreseen at the time, but which we are starting now to understand. And the question I suppose Anthony is, does Trump have a plan? Is this the 90 chess that you were talking about? And actually, we want to Barack Obama style, get out of the Middle East and do the pivot to Asia, or, which is when I was in Hong Kong last week, this is the question people were asking me as, is it as chaotic as it looks? And is this because Trump has problems making decisions? And is it because he is surrounded by people who aren't very good at what they do? I think on the decision front, yes. He speaks to MBS. Yes, yes, yes, I'll come and help you, my friend. We have a good relationship, you're asking me. And then he has 24 hours speaking to other people, Marco Rubio, Scott Besant, and then he comes back and says, actually, no, we're not going to bomb. So there's this kind of he hates making decisions. The people around him are not necessarily the best advisors, all of them, Pete Hexeth. Perhaps we're looking at you. And so we're in this position where it's chaos and allies all around the world are just having to deal with constant chaos coming out of the White House. Well, I don't think there is a 90 strategy. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there is a 90 chess strategy here. No, I think we're at 19D now, Cady. We started at 3D, but I sort of feel like by the time-- I think you're at 19, yeah. By the time Trump's term ends, we'll be at 117D chess. But right now we're at 19D. And I think it's a little bit of both, actually. So I think it's the chaos that's coming from Trump. It's lack of decision-making, trying to get everybody off guard, his reflex of contrarianism, and all that other stuff. And then underneath that, there are some smart people around that are like, hey, we got a ceasefire with the Houthis. And we don't want oil prices to go to $12 a gallon. You better leave that ceasefire in place. So I think it's a little bit of both. But where I want to ask you, and I want you to think about this for a second, what does all of this mean in the context of trade with Canada? Mayor Mondani. OK, so let everybody know. All of a sudden, Mondani was called Trump a fascist and a despot. Donald Trump's going to be visiting him when he goes to the UN. And Mondani's going to be talking about getting a federal subsidy to build affordable housing, which is probably something Trump will be interested in, because he likes housing. Yeah, he'll want his name on it. So step back for a second. We just explained this 19-D disaster. And we've just explained how chaotic everything is. So now, square the circle for me with Mondani, Karni, and Iran. Where does it all go, Cady, given the lack of predictability of this human being? I mean, I think the advice to anyone looking at America right now is to expect more chaos and more volatility, not less. I think partly, because you've got this kind of blurring of alliances on things like trade, on things like industrial policy, on immigration. You've just got-- there are people from the left and the right getting together. You've got Tucker Carlson endorsing effectively a side up in Michigan. So things are being very scrambled, which makes things unpredictable. But I'm thinking of something that Bob Rubin Clinton's former treasury secretary said to me, which is the way to look at all of this is not to think of this about as Hungary and Victor Orbán. That was a small country that was pretty simple. He could capture the courts. He could capture journalism pretty easily. It was not as complex a country. Think of this more as feudal, as more of a kind of Latin American thing where everything is done on a personal relationship with the guy in the center. So Mondani comes down, appeals to the builder in Donald Trump, plays a blinder, gets up kind of images of, you know, Trump's buildings in New York and the Trump housing projects that could be built. Trump loves that. Karney stands up to Trump. You and I have been told by senior Canadians that actually Trump really admires Karney, likes the way he negotiated. So it's very-- I think it's very personal, which is also partly why it's so chaotic and unpredictable. In the world where you had a role for the National Security Agency and the State Department, there were processes. There were ways America managed policy. If you had had an active functioning National Security Agency in an active functioning State Department right now, we would not have bombed Iran. I'm willing to guarantee we would not be in this war in the first place. No, question. No, you're down to a decision making of one person. You're down to a decision. And that, then, is that one person's relationship. And it is kind of much more feudal Latin American in some ways was how Bob Rubin described it to me, where it's all about the personal relationships. And that inherently is more volatile, more emotional, and more chaotic. So I don't know that it's strategic. I think it's the last person Donald Trump spoke to. The person who finds a way to get through to him in a way that flattens his ego gets kind of what he wants. I don't know. Do you think this is-- am I wrong, that? You're not wrong. And I think that squaring the circle from my angle-- OK, I think the thing with Mondani is just a weird thing at his like the Kennedy Center. I can tie it back. I want to be loved by these celebrities. You're not loving me. I'm going to blow up your center. The New Yorkers hate the guy. He's got like a 70% disapproval rating in New York. But I am from New York. I want the gray lady, the New York Times, to love me. They don't love me. I actually want New Yorkers to love me. He's going to go see Mondani with a vision in his head that he's going to do a ribbon cutting somewhere in New York. You see, you guys don't understand me. I'm going to help this kid build these houses so I can do the ribbon cutting. He has no meeting set up with Mark Carney, no meeting. And no meeting by the way set up with BB Netanyahu either. And no meeting set up with BB Netanyahu. And so Carney is going to be there from the 21st to the 23rd. There's no meeting in the schedule. I am going to bet that they meet. And I'm going to bet that they talk. OK, because I know Trump's personality. He's not going to leave New York without talking to Carney. They'll make it up. They'll say it's a national security. Carney's told people privately, Trump's calling me all the time. And they say, what is he calling you guys? He's talking about trade. No, no, he calls me under the ruse of national security or under the ruse of Greenland and the Arctic Circle and stuff like that. So he's going to call them. They're real leverage here. If you're a statesman listening, Trump wants to be loved. Kedi K. He's getting no love. OK, he's getting no love at home. You know that. And he's getting no love outside of the house. But what does he want? He wants to be loved. And he particularly wants to be loved by people who are loved by other people. Well, there you go. So Mark Carney is super popular at the moment. Trump wants a bit of that. Very good insight. So it was Mandani. Mandani is going to be super popular. 100%. He wants some of that, too. Really good insight. It's a reflective glory. We'll see what happens. Anyway, it's going to be a busy week. And then, of course, on Wednesday, he's going to be meeting Xi Jinping. And we will talk about that on Thursday and where that goes, because I've heard that there was a whole load of activity planned between the Chinese and the Americans around important issues like AI. They were going to have focus groups and meetings and Donald Trump proposed all of this earlier this year. And up until this week, absolutely nothing has happened. So let's see if we can kick off some meaningful talks. So episode two of all the wrong moves, Gadi. Look at this. Let me promote in the book. Here, look. And by the way, everybody in the UK that came out and came to these seven events for me, thank you so much. So much fun with all of you. And I got to go to the Ted Lasso Pub in Richmond, which was also very cool. Nice course. Those of you that were trying to get me drunk prior to my presentation, but episode two, coming out, all the wrong moves for founding members. Gadi, where do you go to become a founding member? You go to therestispoliticsus.com. All right, but thank you guys. And thank you guys for the support of the book. By the book, guys, it is really good. It gives us a lot of insights into where we are now, and what needs to happen next. Remember, we got 1,000 books where you can be common annual member, and we'll send you a free book. Because of the way these restrictions work is only for UK members only. But if you want to become an annual member, in the UK, we'll send you a free book. And we will be back on Thursday with more doubtless talking about the she-visit as well. See you then, guys. Thanks for listening. Thank you, guys. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] We are getting statement from the 10th of that flight with 350 passengers on board. The great gain, strategic struggle between Britain and Russia. We assess a premissed up. With high confidence it was Russian. Holding the Russians accountable is world war. They took down a British passenger jet containing 350 people. Man in the Kremlin is playing Alex, you've got to ask yourself, you want to play or not. You're the prime minister. If done, nothing! We would need to understand the policy context. All the relevant context will be structured as a framework today, and disseminated into an operation order, or Frago. A Frago that says to kill the president of Russia. Yes. New from Golhanger. Who is going to be able to pull this off? You're my shoulder, are you Sergeant Topid Duffy? An audio drama journey like no other. Men like Duffy, they are our most valuable weapons. Devised as a technically rigorous geopolitical action forever. We're Britain plays its strongest hand against its strongest foe. Don't do it Duffy! Bear hunt. Available now wherever you get your podcasts.