Was Trump's latest 'peace plan' written by the Kremlin?

This is a global player original podcast. Even from the last time I spoke to you and I apologize for keeping you waiting, but there was more work to be done. Now obviously like any final agreement, they'll have to be agreed upon by the president. Um and there are a couple of issues that that we need to continue to work on. But I think the report today is that um I think today was worthwhile. It was very, very pr i it is probably the most productive day we have had on this issue.

uh maybe in the entirety of our engagement but certainly in a very long time. That is the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio talking in Geneva after frantic negotiations. on the Ukraine-Russia war. He says that the 28 point Trump peace plan that came out over the weekend is bringing the conflict closer to its end than it has ever been.

But many people see it as a ridiculously one-sided document in favor of Russia. And a leading Republican Senator has come out and said, why is America rewarding the aggressor? and punishing the victim. Welcome to the news agents. The news agents. It's John. It's Lewis. And there is a bit of a drama going on about this 28-point peace plan because some of what was released.

was in English and rather clunky English at that and that led to various people to put it into kind of chat GPT and Grok and whatever else. And What they both came up with was well, this was a document that was written in Russian and translated into English, giving vent to the idea that somehow This is a Russian peace plan that the Americans are passing off as their own. Now I've spoken to various people who say it's much more complicated than that. But frankly, if this was a Russian

foreign ministry document, there wouldn't be flaws in the English. It would be absolutely perfect. They speak better English than us. Exactly. They're not clunky or clumsy in that way. But there is something very odd that has gone on in the drawing up of this peace pram which seems to

unbelievably favour Russia where all the sacrifice is going to come from Ukraine and Russia gives very little in return. Look, the sort of context of this obviously in a way we've been talking about all year. We've been talking about it ever since that fateful

explosion between Trump and Zelensky in the Oval Office back in February, uh going on for for a year ago now. And ever since that time Ukraine and the European powers have been trying to have changed tax Instead of attacking anything that the Americans were doing or that Trump was doing, instead of just rejecting stuff out of hand, even when it has clearly been unacceptable to the Ukrainians or to the Europeans,

The strategy and tactic has been to engage with it, to say, Mr President, one a very, very interesting proposal. This is. Uh let's go away and think about it, let's criticise it. To try and manage Trump expectations and to try and keep him on side

so that the arms and intelligence to w to a limited extent but still continue to flow. It feels to me as if maybe it's not this week but certainly it's coming, that we are reaching the end of that game, that diplomatic game, because we're reaching something approaching a crunch point. And this document, this twenty eight page document, for all of its demerits and faults, appears to be that endpoint.

And it's just worth dwelling for a second o on on on what it says. So as I say, this came out over the weekend. It forms the basis of the negotiations which have been taking place in in Geneva. And the idea is, within these twenty-eight points, is that it forces an end to the war in Ukraine by freezing the conflict. roughly along where the front lines are at the moment. It won't recognise Russian occupation in international law of those places, but it will freeze the border.

It will take Ukraine's NATO membership off the table permanently. And in return, Ukraine would get some sort of formal sovereignty guarantees, perhaps backed up by the US, although it's unclear exactly what that. would look like. It would be allowed to join the EU, which is a potentially a significant concession, but there may also be limits on its army from where it is today to around six hundred thousand. So given the territorial concessions which are being spoken about, given the

Taking off the table the prohibition of joining NATO, which has obviously been a key Ukrainian ask. These are very, very tough pills for Kyiv to swallow. Yeah, and just to sort of you know, so that Russia would be able not only to keep the areas that it has taken, but also would have control of the whole of the Dompa.

And part of the reason that the Russian operation failed in twenty twenty two, aside from the chaos after the invasion, was that they just didn't have enough forces in position to take Kyiv. The thinking is that if you have the Donbass as well, then you're within striking distance of Kiev and m it'll be a much easier operation. So what you have is you have a Ukrainian military that is halved in size, you have Russian troops in the Donbass. You have no international peacekeeping troops.

Maintaining the sort of ceasefire line, as it were. This document that's gone, that's nowhere. And there is some kind of vague Article five idea, the NATO constitution, which says that an attack on one is an attack on all and therefore if Russia tried to attack again then the West NATO would intervene. And you think Given where Donald Trump has been in his attitude towards Ukraine and the hostility he has shown and shown again this weekend.

towards Zelensky, you know, why can't they ever be grateful enough about all that we've done for them? Would you really trust your future to Donald Trump acting in good faith to be the one who would come? to Ukraine's rescue if Putin struck again in two years' time when he has rearmed, when he's re equipped and he feels absolutely confident to take Kyiv. It doesn't leave

a sovereign Ukraine looking like a stable, viable country on those terms. And that is why you've got Ukrainian politicians thinking, Oh my God, this is terrible. But what is the alternative? And so as you say, Lewis, I think the significant thing is that Europe is engaging. Britain's national security advisor, Jonathan Powell, playing a key role.

in all of this I'm told. And uh you know, a lot of people in the West are are kinda hoping that he can be the one that will persuade Washington that it needs to make this document a more balanced approach. But if it becomes more balanced If it becomes acceptable to Ukraine, then presumably Moscow walks away from it. We should also sort of dwell on the sort of the genesis of the document, right? Which is itself.

Fascinating. Bizarre. And bizarre because you know, I say that Marco Rubio has has been negotiating this in Geneva, which is true. I mean he's definitely been negotiating certainly this stage of it, this what might be an implementation stage. And bear in mind, I mean Trump's resolved from this a little bit now, but you know, at the end of last week he was saying he wanted a deal signed, sealed, delivered. By Thursday, by you know, Thanksgiving.

And, you know, he said it's probably gonna now push into next week at least. But nonetheless, you know, so this has been very much presented initially as a fet accompli. Trump then says it's not the final deal. Putin also says it's probably not the final deal. But nonetheless these are the sort of outlines. And it seems that the outlines have not necessarily been negotiated between Marco Rubio and his his opposite numbers, but instead again this kind of omnipresent figure of Steve Whitcock.

who has been people will remember you might remember has been, you know, deeply involved in the the Middle East and the the Gaza process, but has been a sort of envoy for Trump in this process as well. Negotiating in Miami with a Russian opposite number, drawing this document up, again in very kind of opaque

circumstances behind closed doors. I mean these things are often I hung closed doors, but normally they're at least done by the State Department or Foreign Offices or or whatever. But this is being done in a very classically Trumpian way. Certainly no Ukrainians in the room and certainly no Europeans

in the room either, despite the fact that the Ukrainians are expected to live with it and to some extent the Europeans are being expected to financially at least enforce it. Well you say no Ukrainians. The Russian you're talking about is actually Ukrainian. Kiril Dmitriev. is seen as the Antichrist in Kyiv because he is someone who was a Ukrainian national but who is now in effect the head of the Russian Sovereign Wealth Fund. fifty years old, educated in America, uh very sophisticated.

Very wealthy, dealing with Steve Whitcoff, who has no diplomatic experience whatsoever, before becoming Donald Trump's right hand man for negotiations once Donald Trump started his second term. He's a property developer and he went to meetings at the Kremlin with kind of, you know, Sergei Lavrov and Vladimir Putin.

With no translator, relying on the Kremlin translator, no note takers on his side. No State Department officials. No State Department officials. And he went there with his very much younger girlfriend, flew in on a private jet, goes to this meeting at the Kremlin and kind of says I think Vladimir Putin is a man of good faith and all the rest of it. And so Steve Whitkoff has been

negotiating with this guy, Kirill Dmitriev. Now we've only seen some of the document and I was speaking to a senior Foreign Office uh source with a lot of experience on the Russia desk, who was talking about how You know, we know about what the ideas are of what Ukraine has got to surrender. We don't know what the business deals are. And and I think the European side want to know who's gonna get the rare earth minerals? What's the sh carve up gonna be of, you know, bits of land?

And what America stands to gain in terms of inward investment. And all of those things are very, very opaque at the moment. And I think that c this is where the Europe feels so blindsided. by the idea that this is not only being cooked up by America and Russia, but it's being cooked up by Kiril Dmitriev, this kind of slightly odd figure who is uh sort of freelancing on behalf of the Kremlin and Steve Whitkoff, the property developer, billionaire, who is Trump's man on all of that.

And this is obviously the thing that um makes so many Ukrainians and Europeans nervous.

this is, you know, reminiscent of and and this has been one of the themes of this year, right? So great power politics. And this is what Putin has wanted from the very beginning, which is to You know, as if this were a sort of modern day Versailles conference, sort of sit there as the great powers or great power, the United States uh uh and Russia, itself very elevating to Russia, which in many ways is quite a weak state, and carve up Europe

and create a new European security order as as they see fit. And to do so without the Ukrainians in the room and without the Europeans in i in the room is obviously Very, very uncomfortable. That said, you know, the Europeans have not, as I'm saying, rejected or most certainly Kirst Arma hasn't, rejected it out of hand because they continue to play this. delicate diplomatic dance of wanting to

continue to curry Trump's favour as much as possible. So Starmer's come out and said on his way to Johannesburg for the G twenty, said that you know, this uh it's promising to see a proposal such as this. Obviously some things still need some work.

Rydyn ni'n gwybod, gyda President Macron, mae wedi'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i

um have put in place support for Ukraine, particularly capability. And I'm now planning that we will meet virtually tomorrow. So we will host a coalitional willing uh call to further discuss the progress that is being made and I hope can be made. towards the thing that matters above all else, which is a just and lasting peace, which matters for Ukraine, but it also matters for all of us, because the conflict in Ukraine has had a direct impact.

here in the United Kingdom. So um progress yes, more work to do, um but we've all got our sleeves rolled up, uh ready to put in those hard yards. Hopefully uh to get to the right outcome. So well yeah you can say that again, right? Because finding that and that's been the sort of principle throughout the course of the year, right? Or the problem throughout the course of the year. Trying to find the kind of landing zone between what is acceptable

to Putin and what Zelensky can sell back home is really vanishingly thin and slender. And actually, I mean, look, there is a world what the Americans would say Um what even and you can sort of feel even people in Europe who have obviously been sentimentally and politically determined to see a Ukrainian victory do acknowledge is obviously this is now about to enter its fourth year, the war, and Ukraine

It's whole continuing largely to hold its own, but isn't winning. The prospect of retaking through conquest the territory it has lost at the very least. is negligible to Nil, not least because of the Russians, you know, Putin literally throwing into the organ grinder just endless numbers of of men and materiel.

And given the constraints that it has and given the fact that the Americans are no longer willing to supply the arms and money that they once did, it is the time to come to some sort of accommodation. And in the meantime, after that Europe can try and arm Ukraine to the teeth to make sure that the Russians never come back from war. But it's a hell of a gamble and you can see why Zelensky and so many Ukrainians who have sacrificed

So much blood and treasure would be reluctant to accept it. Look, you just want the forever wars and arguments like this Surely we're on the right side of history to be saying it needs to end and it needs to end now. Against that you have other people who are saying, No, no, no, the strains are showing in Russia. Russia is getting twenty dollars less per barrel of oil for its oil than it was getting a year ago, so income is much less. The Russian bank is having to sell gold.

to finance the economy. There are all sorts of areas of Russian economy where the stresses and strains of four years of sanctions are showing that cars are falling to part and you can't get parts for them or whatever it happens to be. And therefore this is not the time to go wink, this is the time to apply more pressure onto Russia. And in that you have Donald Trump who

doesn't quite blow with the wind, because that I think is wrong. I think what Trump has done with this document is gone back to where Trump always is, which is inexplicably pro Putin in a way that defies rational explanation. And that has been consistent from Donald Trump ever since the accusations came about the twenty sixteen election that there was undue Russian influence in it and that could have uh helped Trump win the election.

He has always been sympathetic towards Putin. What the West have been able to do at times, like the sanctions on Russian oil that he recently announced, they have made him do some stuff. But you always got the sense from the Alaska meeting, from everything else, that his instinct his instinct is I'm broadly with Putin on all of this. And I think the West still finds that.

unfathomable and impossible to explain. Well yes, I mean I I think because we've spoken bef before on the show about, you know, Trump's motivations and some of them are sort of more exotic and perhaps intriguing. But one thing that I think that, you know, can be proven Beyond doubt is simply that, you know, he has a view of the world, again, which goes back to

Great powers. The Monroe Doctrine. Yeah, the Monroe Doctrine but also you know, Thucydides is you know, the poor must suffer what they must, you know, as in Ukraine's weak. It's just how he sees the world. It's his vision uh you know, it's a property developer view of the world. Ukraine's weak, if you're weak you get eaten.

Russia's stronger. I mean he talks about this in explicit terms. It's a bigger country, it's got more money, it's got more soldiers, therefore you have to make a deal, right? And the idea of sentiment of more romantic and grounded ideas of sovereignty and of national self determination and national liberation and freedom do not cut any mustard with him because he just thinks, Well, those things are fine, but if you can't provide them for yourself

Then you don't have them. Right. And that is basically I think he can't understand why Zelensky has his own politics to deal with and of course his own sense of of dignity and so on. And that you know, Zelensky spoke in explicitly those terms on Friday. You know, he said that he feels that Ukraine is being put in a position where it must choose between its dignity as a nation and the United States is an ally. And of course there's a third consideration which we've alluded to, which is this.

It might be that Zelensky himself and others in Ukraine who are of course so weary of this war, you know, people are still being killed every day. There were yet more civilian drone attacks. overnight, right? No one needs to tell them about how costly this war is. But of course there is also that impulse and imperative

That what have they been fighting this war for? It can't be for nothing. They can't get to the end of it and still be in as a weaker security position, indeed weaker in some ways, than it was at the beginning. What have all those Ukrainian soldiers died and suffered for? And i in that regard, this document is still wanting and the fear is, right, is that but this is a bit like music.

right? It just becomes like Munich. I. e. the Czechs are told you give up this territory, you give up the Sudetenland. And it was all fine. And it'll be fine. Six months later what does Hitler do? He marches into the rest of Czechoslovakia. And you know, that is clearly the concern and worry about history repeating itself all over again. A history, of course, about which Trump is largely ignorant.

And you know, just to end on a kind of glib point, you know, Donald Trump I mean this Thursday in the United States everything comes to a halt because it's Thanksgiving and Donald Trump wanted this deal to be done by Thanksgiving, just setting an artificial deadline like that, to which the obvious rejoinder would be, you would be a Turkey voting for Thanksgiving if you accepted this document. Well they did and I suppose look

If you got a document which genuinely could build into it some sort of security guarantees, if you could get an assurance from European powers that they would arm Ukraine properly, if you don't accept the annexation but you accept it as a matter of of current fact. And you also get accession to the EU and the EU has a mutual self defence pact, right? So that is a sort of quasi defensive mechanism.

Maybe there's a world you could say that given we're going into the the fourth year, given what a toll it's taken, given the fact that the Americans are are are withdrawing their support, maybe that's something Zelensky could sell. The problem is I mean there's an interesting like sort of dynamic with all of this, right? Which is that one of the reasons the Americans think

that maybe now is the time is because Zelensky actually internally within Ukraine politically has never been weaker because of these corruption scandals which, you know, failure unfairly sort of circle circling a around him and obviously the public is weary. There's an interesting kind of like Point there does that make a deal more likely or does it make it less likely? Because

You could argue it makes it more likely because Zelensky's under so much pressure from without and within. But also, in order to swallow a deal that clearly where Ukraine is not going to get everything it wants, in fact it's not going to get perhaps most things that it wants.

You would require an internal leader to be able to say with complete authority to Ukraine itself, This is the best we're gonna get and these are the reasons why me must accept it. But you need complete authority and legitimacy for that, right? So there was some Speculation at the weekend saying the absolute nightmare.

scenario would be if Zelensky were to accept the deal and then he were to be removed because i you know internal politics within Ukraine, which has basically been in abeyance to some extent during the war returns and they say Zelensky sold us out and then is replaced with who knows what, then that's a nightmare scenario of complete internal political destabilisation within Ukraine.

And of course where Donald Trump is right, you know, is to say, look, this is your backyard Europe, if you want to do something about it, you do it. You know, we had all the talk about the coalition of the willing earlier on this year, which hasn't seemed to make that much progress. You've still got countries in Europe buying Russian oil. We've got this, you know, billions and billions of Russian money held in Belgian banks.

that has been confiscated but is not being used. I mean it's kind of, you know, the Russians can't get their hands on it, but should Europe be using that money to fund Ukrainian rearmament? So Zelensky's in a position where he looks at America and thinks, I can't rely on you. And he looks at Europe. And worries, I can't rely on you either. And that is the you know, Europe in the short term is not in any position to really act in a way

that would make up for America saying, Okay, we're done. And that's why you can see the pressure is intolerable and immense on Zelensky to cut a deal now. And why probably There will be something that comes out of this. And not least because if Zelensky is thinking and again this is the extra complexity, if Zelensky is sat there thinking, well, maybe I can't rely on the Americans in future, but maybe we can rely on the the continent of Europe.

The very fact that European powers, including still reasonably big military spenders like the UK and France and so on, the very fact that We're not in the room. I'm sure you know there'll be some consultation and so on, but the very fact that much of this is being dictated as if this is something that you, Europe, will accept. Good example is even Trump has said

Oh we'll let Russia back into the G eight. Well, you know or to the G seven become the G eight again, they were expelled over the invasion of Crimea. You know, well, there are six other members of the G seven on the United States, but Trump doesn't think about that, right? He's just like, Yeah, no, we'll let you back in. That's how Trump sees the world. But the fact that Europe because its hard power is not substantial enough, is just sort of written out of the picture of much of this.

tells Zelensky a lot, certainly in the short to medium term, about how useful Europe in and of itself will be as a power. Though that said it is true to say that if he were to choose to try and fight on alone, which ultimately this is gonna be a bit of a sort of

again, overdoing the ninety the Second World War stuff, but a sort of nineteen forty kind of decision maybe for for Vzelensky in terms of do we try and fight alone or at least without the U United States or do we accept what the US is doing? It is true to say as well that, you know European support has been at least as substantial, despite what Trump says in his own mind, substantial as American support, certainly for the last year or so. But it is an invidious situation for him.

In a moment we'll be considering another Donald Trump relationship and that is the bromance that's emerged between him and the communist New York mayor, Zoran Mamdani. UK under Ran News here in Edinburgh. I'm Simon Marks. My American Week is next. Reporting from the heart of New LBC app. LBC, leading Britain's conversation. The news agents. Are you affirming that you think President Trump is a fascist?

I've spoken about That's okay, you could just say it's easier. It's easier than explaining it. I don't mind. So that was one of the most extraordinary out of an entire series of utterly extraordinary moments in the much anticipated showdown in the Oval Office. Which became a love in in the Oval Office between Donald Trump and Zora Mamdani, a man who well, as you heard there, Mamdani before had been calling him a fascist and Trump had been calling him a communist.

Uh and neither seemed to mind very much. Shocking Washington, shocking the Beltway, and I suspect many Americans as well. And shocking Republicans who had been kind of hoping that they would pitch Zoram Mamdani as the evil face of the new democratic party. And this is the enemy. And there you have Donald Trump kind of in this bromance and you thought at one stage, you know, God, you're gonna need to get a room together because honestly the loving was so intense.

And it was just so far from what expectation had been beforehand that this was gonna be a frosty meeting, this was gonna be Zelensky and Trump, you know, February Mark II. And it was nothing, nothing like that. Which I suspect speaks to Trump's love of a bullsey New Yorker and also Mamdani's cleverness. He knows that he still needs federal aid from Donald Trump and was able to charm him. I thought that whole meeting showed why.

And I know some people get angry about me saying this, but it is true. Why, you know, both Trump and Mam Dani are both deeply interesting. And in their own ways, deeply impressive politicians. That doesn't negate anything of all the bad stuff Trump does. One of the things I think sometimes misunderstood about Trump is he can demonstrate a remarkable kind of suppleness. and people always think of him as being as you know, bombastic

at his most bombastic moments, at his most vile moments, at his most crude moments, at his most crass moments, and God knows, there are so many of those. He's also

a skilled politician, right? And I think for lots of reasons, this sort of love in I'm surprised at how sort of warm it was, but I'm not that surprised that it descended into a loving for this reason, right, which is that partly you sa as you say, John, I mean that I think clearly Mam Danny, who i is very charming and clearly went in there and charmed him and did so for his own political purposes, that was very successful.

Trump also loves winners, right? He loves winners. He will have been in his own way deeply impressed. by what Mam Danny did. And the sense in which he has, again, in his own way and in a sense in his own image. took on the democratic establishment from within and beat them at their own game, right? Remind you of anybody? And I don't think Trump will be unaware of, or insensible to, all of these kind of figures who in their own way

and some of them would reject the characterization, but in their own way, are taking to politics in a politics that Trump has shaped, right? That they are in some way Emulating themselves, at least to some extent, on Trump's style of politics. Direct, bombastic, populist. You know, fundamentally you know, very social media driven. All of these things, this political world that Trump has helped create, he is seeing a whole generation of politicians like Mam Danny basically

Come along and to some extent at least be a bit like Trump. But y what you said about Trump loving a winner is absolutely spot on and the way Mam Dani did it and coming from nowhere and you know and Trump chart

in this meeting, the way his poll ratings keep going up. But the other thing that Trump loves is attention. And he likes people who can command attention in the media. You know, Donald Trump has all the newspapers delivered to him at the White House. He's still very old fashioned in that respect. Is he reading every article and every op ed? No. Is he looking for who's getting the headlines? Yes. And he loved the fact that so many journalists.

were so wrapped in attention to this meeting. Have a listen. has eaten this thing up. You know, I've had a lot of meetings with the heads of major countries. Nobody cared. This meeting that you people have gone cra you know, outside you have hundreds of people waiting. This is just a small little group. For some reason the press

has found this to be a very interesting meeting. The biggest people in the world they come over from countries nobody cares. But they did care about this meeting. And it was a great meeting. Go ahead. Exactly. There are two men there and again it goes back to what I was just saying about their style of politics. These are two men who in their own ways are masters of the attention economy and the digital attention economy. They both know it.

Trump respects it, Trump likes it, and he loves the fact Because in his whole whole world, right, his the whole Trumping world, attention is your currency. He loves the fact that he's not a little bit more than a little

Mam Danny is buying him even more attention. And on some level, you know, is not a ri not a rival to him, and will be intrigued by what is going on in the Democratic Party. I mean I actually think I mean like look, this is I think you're starting to see it more and more as the weeks go by. Something that, you know, is such an intriguing subplot of this next stage of the of the Trump presidency is not his relationship with the Democrats.

It's his relationship with the Republican Party. I mean, which timeline are we in, John? Where we somehow found ourselves in a situation where Zara Mamdani and Donald Trump are best buds?

But Marjorie Taylor Green is leaving the party. Is leaving the party and leaving Congress as she announced at the weekend, partly because of this most bitter acrimonious feud that she's had with Trump over the course of the last couple of weeks. Yeah. It's sort of unbelievable. If anyone had said that Donald Trump would be hugging Zoram Mamdan.

And at war with Marjorie Taylor Green, you're not going to be able to do that. This is crazy. I mean, you know, the number of times we have seen Marjorie Taylor Green At Mar a Lago, famously Emily's little encounter with her

And all the rest of it. Do you think she's gonna apologise to Emily? Exactly. You were right about the space lasers, you really were. So sorry. Yeah. I'm not sure Marjorie Taylor Green has been on that much of a journey. No, well no. Well call I have to call in the nurses then. But you could but you can also imagine A world in which Magaland I mean was hoping That Trump would knock the hell out of Mamdani and that would be great for them. And that the Democratic Party

were hoping for that too. Exactly. Because they don't want Mamdani to become the obvious new place. Where the Democratic Party gets support. Established Democrats are fearful of Mamdani. They want Mamdani put into his box. He hasn't been put into his box. He's been lionized by the president. And I can't I mean, I might be kind of like over imbuing Trump with a sense of strategy here or

I couldn't help but wonder if that was part of it. He knew that it would irritate the Democrat. Maybe it's not about like strategy itself. He just knows it might piss some of them off. And he just the sort of impishness within him kind of enjoys that. And I wouldn't be surprised by that at all. But his relationship I mean th because the Marjorie Taylor Green

Trump breakdown, right, is hasn't come out of nowhere in the sense that I mean some of it has clearly become personal. She's clearly going on an intriguing journey. But some of it is political, right? And this is gonna be, and you can already see it, two things happening within the Republican Party, within Magnus. One is some distaste. Which

Marjorie Taylor Green has expressed, going back to the first things we were talking about, with actually how Trump is conducting the presidency in his second term. You know, they wanted it to be sort of populism times a hundred, America first times a hundred, glorious isolationism.

What's Trump been doing? He's been getting more than anything else, he's been getting involved in conflicts all over the world. He's been spending a lot of time on foreign policy. He's certainly not been isolationist, and in the sort of America first critique has

been anything but America first. You know, they would say, Why is he spending so much time on Ukraine? Why do we care? Moderate Taylor Green has explicitly said that, saying we need to be focusing more on bread and butter issues about, you know, prices and in in the shops and

And so on. So it's partly that, but also as well, the fact that already and Trump will not like this And this is why we'll probably see him do even more sort of crazy things over the next few years to try and keep himself relevant and in the kind of attention world.

is because, you know, Mago and the Republican Party are already thinking about what comes next. And they're thinking about and this will become even more intense next year once the midterms are out the way, about who stands in twenty twenty eight. Because whatever Trump says they know it's very it's not gonna be Trump. There are real issues

That are dividing the MAGA world. Not the Republican Party. There's always been a division between, you know, kind of the Mitt Romneys and Jeb Bushies of this world or the old establishment Republicans and MAGA. Within MAGA land. There are huge issues and splits. You know, the Epstein files was one of the issues, affordability, healthcare, free speech.

You know, all of those things are really tearing at MAGA right now. And so to think of Marjorie Taylor Green and Donald Trump's bust up as just about personality, yes they are two very big personalities. But it's actually policies at the heart of this. And that is something that's gonna be fascinating to watch in the Republican Party, because it's the first time that this has happened. You know, Donald Trump creates Frankenstein's beast. in the f shape of MAGA. And the monster

Is kind of doing its own thing and Dr. Frankenstein is no longer in control of it. And that is gonna be what we're gonna watch unfold post midterms, but even maybe before the midterms, that Donald Trump no longer has the power over his base that he once did.

The news agents. As we record this, it's two o'clock on Monday afternoon and in about 90 minutes the BBC Panjandrum.

The Pooh bars of the BBC will be up before what are you laughing at? Lovely so only John Sopel can do stuff like that. You you're gonna have the chairman of the BBC Robbie Gibbs, Sir Robbie Gibbs previously discussed on this podcast, and a woman called Caroline Thompson, who used to be an exec at the BBC but who's also on the board, up before the media select committee to try to explain what the hell is going on.

at the BBC what the hell went on. Whether there is a political coup that took place that led to the uh ousting of the Director General and the head of news and

What is going to be done to change all this? That sort of story has disappeared a little bit from the headlines, but it the BBC, make no mistake, is still in a state of turmoil, I think it's fair to say. Not least because This will take place today and we'll talk about it tomorrow I'm sure, but not least because I think there's a growing awareness that the B U C

that they're currently without a leader or will be without a leader just at the moment when they're about to start negotiating for a whole new licence fee settlement. It could not be worth timing. Yeah, and just one other thing. I mean the mood of the staff from what I'm hearing about the chairman, Samir Shah.

is almost unprintable. Their fury at what he said in an all staff meeting the other week in the wake of Tim Davies' resignation and Deborah Tennessee's resignation about it being disrespectful to say that there'd been some kind of political coup and that he hadn't taken charge of it, I think infuriated so many people. So inconceivable.

that soon you could be without a director general, a director of news and a chairman. So these are big stakes for the BBC. Is morale at a new low? It's always at a new low, isn't it? Morale is at rock bottom. Rock bottom. It's been the roughest Oh wait, no, it's getting worse. Oh no, it's gone oh where's morale gone? I can't see morale. Look, you did Ken Clark on Friday and that was his great quote about politics that you keep thinking

You've hit rock bottom and then you find you can go even lower. And I think that that is the BBC right now. Bit like our podcast, really. Exactly. We'll see you tomorrow. Even worse. Bye. This has been a Global Player original production.