🚨 Trump's Russian-Ukraine plan EXPOSED in breaking update

I'm joined Now by National Security expert and the author of the new book The Folly of realism How the West deceived itself about Russia and betrayed Ukraine Lieutenant Colonel Alexander vinman thanks so much for joining I'm really eagered to have this conversation uh we met face to face just recently at the Democracy matters forum and I was hearing you speak about the importance of connecting with um with like-minded folks in in a way that the mot types seem to do really effectively but with lies and uh uh ever since been excited to to do something

with you well thank you so this is obviously a very timely release of your book given what we've just seen in the Oval Office the the big blowup between Trump Vance and zalinski to what extent do you think that that's that this was orchestrated by Trump by Vance by this Administration to really play into the hands of Vladimir Putin that this didn't just happen by chance that this was an intentional strategy to really blow up peace talks between the two countries yeah yeah I think of course the from the Russian side they will do everything

they will seep in all sorts of different propaganda different influence operations to try to blow up the relationship I mean some of the telltale signs of that in numbers came in from the Russians from this um Saudi Arabia you know peace Summit uh that we just had weeks ago about like well there were $300 billion dollars in in um trade that we could have had with the Russians or something like that so that's triggered the the Trump talk about getting $350 billion out of Ukraine but to think that it was orchestrated uh is a stretch

I think it's something frankly much more uh continuous with the history of US relationships the book is the Folly of realism and we're now in the poison School a poison Kool-Aid stage of of the Folly of this Cult of realism where we don't learn the lessons of the P past we don't learn that Russia is manipulating us we deceive ourselves about Russia we betray Ukraine so I think this is much more continuous with that what we saw was frankly an Earnest effort by the Trump Administration to get this deal they wanted a deal they wanted

it all the way through the ukrainians being satisfied walking back the craziest uh elements of the deal like an extortion racket for 500 billion all those things mainly they were there because this would be a good hook to get the US involved uh the US wants access to rare Earths that's why we had this whole idiotic conversation about buying Greenland and putting pressure on Denmark so they did it from that perspective but what what ended up happening is it just blew up because JD Vance was was an imbecile uh Trump was a bully and this

this one this this unbelievably Brave man that's been you know under his country's been under assault for three years he's been the target of a multiple assassination attempts you know he's the guy that said I don't need a ride give me give me bullets give me ammunition I don't need a ride um he stood his ground something that Trump was not used to vents were not used to with all the toing from the Republicans and frankly even some of the flattery that comes from our allies uh the the French President and the UK president I

understand why they're doing it this is a way to kind of manipulate them but zalinski was not going to let lies stand that Russia was not anything but the bad guy that Russia was anything but barbaric and killing his folks so that's that's how the fight got started well you know there is a school of thought that given the extent to which other world leaders kind of know how to manipulate Trump that all you have to do is kill him with kindness that you have to stroke his ego that's how he operates that folks are

saying well why not just just go in say what you need to say to Trump bring some bring some create some medal some civilian honor uh the the first ever from Ukraine and and and Heap it on to Donald Trump as some as some big prestigious thing and just kind of like win him over win him over that way why do you think that knowing how he oper Ates um that that tack wasn't taken that it was important to stand his ground stand on business and defend objective reality about about this war about Russia and

so on that is an awesome question that that really what it comes down to is recent history not the Deep history of all the mistakes that we've made along the way I mean remember the subtitle is how the the West deceives deceived itself about Russia and betrayed Ukraine we continue to do that but within just the recent history within the Trump Administration in its five weeks it seems like five years what we have is Trump saying that Putin is not a dictator that Putin uh wants peace earnestly saying that zalinski is the dictator saying that

Ukraine caused the War and in the beginning of this this last week on Monday in one of the most disgusting only to be surmounted at on Friday by that over office spectacle what happened on Monday was a vote in the United Nations in which us sided with Russia sided with North Korea against our allies and uh refused to condemn Russia as an aggressor now some people might say well you know Trump is trying the same technique that works with him that he wants to flatter Putin into uh you know into getting a deal that is

not going to happen Putin is a master manipulator he's a KGB case officer he knows that he could pull this with Trump and get get what he wants but Putin is not going to compromise and give up uh things that are important to him what's important to him is subduing Ukraine folding Ukraine back into Russia because he has this Empire building project so for zilinsky to go in there and let slide on the heels of showing him pictures of sold has PS being abused of talking about 20,000 children being kidnapped and brainwashed that that are

now in Russia to allow that to slide is not just the typical flattery that you know other folks do that would be weakness that would be weakness to his own people that are fighting his own troops on the front line that need to see a a firm resolved courageous leader that would be weakness to Putin that would Inspire uh the belief that Russia could win this war and this wasn't just about the Oval Office about the president this was the whole world watching and frankly seeing a nightmare situation unfold and zilinsky you know some people

might criticize him for not flattering and getting the deal the deal was important but it wasn't that important because the trend line was that uh Putin or that Trump was going to cater to Putin and that you know he was gonna go back and take this and say look see I could get uh the ukrainians to compromise without getting the Russians to compromise so it was it was not the right answer the right answer was zalinsky holding his ground and frankly in somehow uh having both Trump and vents look like bullies and weak at the

same time what does Trump get out of cow Towing to Putin I understand what Putin gets Putin has these these long-term Ambitions to to recreate basically the block of countries that that compose the USSR so I understand where what he gets out of this already we're seeing um this idea floated that the US should be removed from NATO which would of course NATO but what is what what like where does how does Trump come out on top of all of this yeah so this is this is the puzzling part I mean I'm wondering to myself

up until this beginning of this week I was like you know like all this nonsense or maybe it's not nonsense I just I really really don't buy into conspiracy theories what being in government and watching it leak like a Civ it's hard for me to believe like these you know these conspiracies about like you know all sorts of different stuff so the fact that the Russ the Russians were operating Trump as a like agent seemed a little far-fetched they could manipulate him as a useful idiot they have been that very effectively but have compromising material

on him seemed like a bridge too far now this week the former director of the FSB KGB officer uh Nikolai patrushev who is the national head of the new National Security Council for Russia I sat across at the table the table from a bunch of times he said we got Trump into position now he he's obliged to repay the favor I think that's mainly grenades uh being thrown but I do wonder about this whole Manchurian Candidate thing I think it's a far-flung idea but you know the way that Trump is bending over backwards to serve

Putin without any hope of getting this peace deal that he really wants desperately makes really little sense can I posit two two ideas and you let me know what you think of them the first is that Trump just wants to be part of the autocrat club and so he sees somebody like Putin he sees somebody like XI he sees somebody like Eran he sees somebody like Kim Jong-un and if he just aligns himself with them even if he doesn't expressly get anything from it by virtue of aligning himself with him he with them he can

then perceive himself in that same Club on that same um level as as all of these guys and so he might again he might not receive some end of the quidd proquo expressly but just being able to to kind of align himself with these guys gets him what he wants at least from a legacy of perception uh perspective the other the other idea is clearly Trump was Trump and Republicans derived a lot of help on social media with these Mass influence campaigns from Russia and so so long as he and the rep party can continue

to work in tandem with the with the Kremlin they've basically been able to contract out a lot of the work that they would need the scop work that they would need to the Russians knowing full well that they'll be perfectly content to do it so long as they have a compliant useful Republican party in place and so that is that is more expressly a quidd proquo um between the two parties and we've seen that the Russians are perfectly content to interfere in our elections there were there were um you know charges levied against against you

know multiple dozens of of members of of the krein for interference efforts back in 2016 and so we know that they're perfectly content to do that and so I'm just curious what your thoughts are on both of those on both the autocrat club um question and also the the foreign interference in elections using social media using scops question you you put it perfectly uh for for the first one I'll only add that I think it's both the um perceiving himself to be an admiring autocrats because he wants to be one he wants to be completely

unconstrained no guardrails so I think that's definitely true that's consistent all along I think the second one about uh welcoming a foreign interference is also true it doesn't have to be completely coordinated it doesn't have to be collusion correct although there was some there was a fair bit of collusion obviously in the first election in 2016 this was more of trump inviting them to muck around and tip the scales in his favor he's he said that outright I mean he said that to both China and and and Russia directly that he's more than willing for

them to kind of tip the scales in his favor I think it's those two things I think there are other psychological or pathological um uh functions here one of them is probably the fact that he is got this massive ego and narcissism that he could just change the course of human events and in C certain regards he he he has what he wants to do is everybody says Russia is bad and he doesn't see it that way he's had he's been pursuing Russia for years he's been wanting to do business with Russia he's been wanting

to build a relationship he's been criticized for trying to build a relationship with Russia so through force of will he wants to change Force um the US government and the people to accept his view of the world it's it's a it's a pathology so like a sociopath would would do uh I think those are all in play but like I said I wonder can there be more Can it can it be that you know petrusev is in fact you know stating a fact I think again it's him throwing hand grenades but the way that Trump

uh is catering to to Russia makes you wonder you know in the book you discuss how the the moment that we're in right now is the result of of missteps with regard to Russia going back six president but I'm curious now looking at what we've seen from Donald Trump whether you think that there's a market difference between the previous presidents and and and Trump because you know I look at this and he has he has a very specific agenda that even the previous presidents who mishandled this according to this book um the Folly of realism

uh that you've spoken about Barack Obama George W bush Bill Clinton there there is you know missteps notwithstanding there's a maret difference between how how they handled the situation and how Trump handled the situation and so given what we've just seen in the last few days curious what you think between the previous presidents and this one right now we're truly in Uncharted Territory the Folly of realism the Folly is the fact that we've been following this this uh you know international relations theory of realism which says that countries pursue their interests and their interests maximally

so nothing else matters everything's transactional you know you you try to get the best deal in each engagement really now classical realists might might have a longer side side of view but that's not what we've been doing we've been very very transactional very shortsighted and the Folly is that we haven't learned for the mistakes we've succumbed to hopes and fears hopes that we could get more out of the relationship with Russia fears that somehow if we hold our ground if we're conditional in our engagement uh if we are condemnatory when they when they uh graduate

from just Mischief making and economic coercion something that Trump is engaging in to hybrid Warfare election interference to outright military aggression that you know we if we were uh uh condemnatory or conditional that we would somehow create the issue that or to create the situation that we're most trying to avoid like a hostile Russia we did that we we accommodated we appeased and got there anyway because we were so shortsighted when there was a risk in front of us we tried to mitigate it minimize it not recogn izing how that's taking the guardrails off breeding

impunity doesn't it rhyme with what's going on with with Trump right now uh and then with regards to our hopes misplaced hopes all along the way thinking that you know Russia could in the beginning may be justified in the 90s you know coming out of the Cold War there was an idea that they could be part of the democratic world but by the time you get to KGB you know Putin in 2000s things quickly unravel and we still don't change our tune so if that's the pattern all the way through you know 2014 2022 2014

is when this war really started 2022 uh and this affected Biden in the beginning you know especially the fear side of the equation that like if you support Ukraine too much you you're either driving the war or that you're causing an escalation we're now in completely Uncharted Territory we threw we threw out all of any possibility of learning lessons of the past we Are Burning Bridges as fast as we come to them with our allies the source of our strength and security yes we're a massively powerful country massively wealthy country but it's magnified and Amplified

because of our relationships with our allies and we're burning those down as quickly as we you know we're we we make encounters and favoring Russia which if they could get away with it they would destroy us they would wipe us off the face of the Earth they won't because of mutually assure destruction but if they could get away with it they will and this is this this is this is the Uncharted Territory that we find ourselves in uh and it's it is a nightmare scenario in a lot of ways let's finish off with this um

is there a way back from this or is the post-world War II Alliance that's been responsible for the longest period of Peace in modern world history is that completely upended with no hope of going back it's peace and prosperity I mean we took the US leadership has not only made us the most wealthy country in the world uh and allowed the American public to to prosper but we've also dragged Humanity out of uh out of really difficult situations uh through our Innovation through our energy through our support through organizations like us Aid that alleviated uh

the the suffering around the world uh I think a lot some of it's broken and maybe irreparable uh but I think there is an opportunity to recover long term why because Donald Trump is is is destroying so many things he's uh he's overreaching and creating harm that is only now starting to unfold the human suffering around the world because of the uh uh uh it's going to not just stay around the world it's going to hit home here too the the um centuries the monitoring stations for uh pandemics of uh uh that might be spreading

out of the Middle East are gone that means that we don't have that kind of a way to detect things early and deal with them um the loss of influence around the world is going to be filled by adversaries the Chinese so some of those things are we're going to just deal with a new reality four years from now when we we're faced with a different election I think some of our allies they're going to look for ways to uh secure themselves that means security Arrangements that are absent uh us involvement but when the time

comes when we pick another president they're they're our allies are going to embrace us for sure because they want that kind of strength they understand that you know the American public made had has made multiple mistakes deluded itself our UK friends have done that same thing with regards to brexit leaving the European Union and they'll Embrace us maybe with some conditionality and want us to demonstrate that we're going to be uh you know fair not just fair weather friends and there's a path to this I talk about this idea of Neo idealism this ability to

uh cast a long-term Vision uh where values are Central to our interests where values actually are uh um will be will have Primacy they're they're front and center to be able to allow us to recapture moral leadership around the world to recover from Donald Trump it becomes even more important and it's not ideological it's highly pragmatic there is going to be a correction think about the pendulum swinging so far o over to this extreme there's going to be a correction and it may even create some unique opportunities it may create I hope so on the

domestic front where things were were are that are so Out Of Reach like universal healthcare like uni uh IM comprehensive immigration reform things will be so broken that they will need you know much more comprehensive fix fixes so I think there's opportunity uh coming out of uh Trump uh and we will see this this this honeymoon this luster or is already starting to wear off because the economic impacts are being felt in people's 401ks and uh and inflation and they could see that this guy's a bully and a brute and a coward at the same

time and I think that that this is going to start to break through and people will start waking up that's my that's what I see happening uh in the early stages already well the optimism is appreciated the book is the Folly of realism How the West deceived itself about Russia and betrayed Ukraine Lieutenant Colonel Alexander vinman thank you so much for taking the time Brian thanks for having me on it was a terrific conversation [Music]