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Can Trump finally end the Russia-Ukraine war?
00:14:17
August 19 | 10 Minute Drill Podcast World leaders descend on Washington as President Trump and President Zelenskyy sit down with NATO allies to discuss Russia, Ukraine, and the path to peace. We break down Trump’s proposed security guarantees,...
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World leaders gather in Washington to talk about the future of the Russia, Ukraine conflict. The latest on President Trump's fight against D.C. crime, and we're going to look at California's radical redistricting plan. All of that and so much more today on 10 Minute Drill.
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Everybody get up. Get up.
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The story of America is the story of an adventure.
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I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. We are a nation under God, and I believe God intended for us to be free.
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Yesterday, President Trump welcomed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, as well as leaders from across Europe to talk about the future of the Russia, Ukraine conflict. The welcoming press conference with Zelenskyy was night and day different than the one just a few months ago. President Zelensky came in with a lot of gratitude, both for President Trump's involvement in this peace process, but also for the United States contribution to their efforts in this conflict.
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First of all, thank you for invitation.
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And thank you very much for your efforts, personal efforts to stop killings and stop this war.
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Thank you.
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President Trump talks specifically about guaranteeing security to Ukraine. Ukraine's involvement with NATO has always been a subject of debate. And President Trump noted that while Ukraine would not be joining NATO in the near future, depending on how this negotiation goes, America would be guaranteeing significant security to the Ukrainian people.
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We haven't discussed any of that yet. We're going to be discussing it today. But we will give them very good protection, very good security. That's part of it. And the people that are waiting for us, they are, I think they're very like minded. They want to, they want to help out.
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One touching moment came when President Zelensky presented President Trump with a letter from his wife for Melania in response to Melania's very effective letter that she sent to President Putin calling on him to end the war for the sake of the children. Consider the image of these world leaders who gathered on such short notice. When I make an appointment with my dentist, I need three weeks notice. The world leaders from the most powerful nations in the world came to the White House with less than one business day's notice, which highlights one, just how critical they see America's role in this conflict. Two, how dire this situation is for Ukraine. And I think that it's really, really important to note. Here's Mark Ruda on that issue.
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Really want to thank you, President of the United States, Dear Donald, for the fact that you, as I said before, broke the debt basically with President Putin by starting that dialogue.
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President Trump noted that President Putin has agreed to these security guarantees.
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President Putin agreed that Russia would accept security guarantees for Ukraine. And this is one of the key points that we need to consider, and we're going to be considering that at the table also.
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But two outstanding questions left from this summit yesterday and the summit in Friday. One, what does that security guarantee look like? What shape does it take for from America and European countries? And two, what is Putin willing to concede here? What is Putin willing to give up that will make him accept that security guarantee? We have a lot of questions. He's making maximalist territorial demands that Ukraine is unwilling to give up and that America should not be willing to stand by and say are acceptable. All of this follows a summit on Friday in Alaska that we haven't had an opportunity to talk about yet, but we previewed last Thursday. Note the stagecraft of President Putin arriving walking down that red carpet with a B2 bomber flying over his head. You'll remember the B2 bomber was exactly what dropped massive bombs on Iran just weeks ago in an action that Russia was not happy about. Also note that President Putin walking down that red carpet facing a massive, massive organization of American aircrafts, fighters, tanks, helicopters, everything showing the American might on the world stage as a reminder that America is not messing around and that all of this exists in Alaska, just miles from Russia's border, as you see images from this summit. Also take note of recent shifts in public opinion on this issue.
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But look at where we are now. Look at this. No takes the cake at 46%. We have had an inverse of the positions. The Republican Party has shifted at least a little bit on Ukraine. And now all of a sudden, they don't believe that in fact, the US Gives too much support to Ukraine, or. Which is very much unlike we saw what we saw in February.
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One of the big reasons I believe Republicans have become more supportive of Ukraine in the last several months is that President Trump has been vocal about his own frustration with Vladimir Putin and his unwillingness to act in good faith towards peace, even as President Trump has tried to bring him to the diplomatic table. You'll remember President Trump telling the story of Melania. He went home to talk to her and said, I just had the best conversation with Vladimir. I think we're really, really close. And. And she'd say, well, he just bombed a nursing home. He has gotten more vocal with his frustration with Russia. And that has brought everyone to the understanding again of who the real aggressor is here. It's important always to remember Vladimir Putin is a war criminal. One Theme that repeatedly came up with the European leaders was Russia and Russian soldiers kidnapping Ukrainian children and taking them into Russia and giving them out for adoption among Russian citizens, one of the more egregious war crimes we've heard of in recent years. But as President Trump met with Putin in Alaska, not everyone was happy about it. Here is Democrat Senator and consistent naysayer Chris Murphy. That meeting was a disaster. It was an embarrassment for the United States.
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It was a failure. Putin got everything he wanted.
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One challenge for Democrats like Chris Murphy is they are not presenting any kind of alternative. And they cheered as Joe Biden continued to announce larger and larger relief packages that were never tied to any plan to end this conflict and end the bloodshed. While we would all love to see this end in a similar way to World War II, where the aggressors were marched back to their own borders with new governments reorganized, unless Americans in European countries, similarly to World War II, put boots on the ground to fight, we're not going to see that outcome. And so what President Trump is trying to negotiate is what is the fastest path to ending the bloodshed. And I have never heard anything from Chris Murphy that was intelligent at all, let alone an intelligent solution to this problem. The other thing that people have complained about President Trump holding this summit with Putin in Alaska is that it ended the diplomatic isolation that Putin has faced for the last several years. The problem is how severe is that diplomatic isolation when countries like China and India continue to buy Russian oil and countries in Europe continue to buy Russian liquid natural gas, particularly to make up for their own energy shortages they're facing as a result of of their climate agendas and their net zero pledges, their climate attention and focus has led to funding Russia's aggression into Ukraine. And so it's very difficult to take any criticism about diplomatic isolation when Russia's continued to benefit so much from other countries buying their energy. President Trump is a change maker. He is a change agent who promised to come in and try and do this differently. The polling suggests people overwhelmingly want to see this conflict come to an end and see an end to all the bloodshed. There are new signals that the Democrat brand may still be in the basement.
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It's because at this particular point, the Democratic brand is in the basement. It is total and complete garbage in the mind of the American public.
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As we always say, we can't imagine why the brand is in the basement. But with that in mind, let's shift over to D.C. crime, where Democrats continue to oppose President Trump trying to stop murder late Last week we found out that as President Trump was deploying the National Guard in an attempt to stop violent crime in the District of Columbia, D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser went on vacation to Martha's Vineyard. And not to make this a Harry Anton show, but here's Harry Anton on how people are feeling about President Trump's efforts to stop violent crime.
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Democrats have to get it around their heads that Americans are far more hawkish on crime than they think that they are. What are we talking about? Trump's net approval handling crime. Where was he last year? He was way underwater at -13 points. Views of term number one. But look at where he is now. He's on the positive side of the ledger.
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He's on the positive side per usual with these types of protests, particularly paid protests. Last week we covered extensively the fact that everyone from George Soros to Arabella Advisors is funding these protests. There are rent a protest groups engaged here and the radical Communist Party is a driving force behind this. Per usual, you can see that there is a divide between white liberals protesting in the District of Columbia and the people that are actually benefiting from this. The Wall Street Journal talked to a number of people who were actually relieved when they heard that President Trump was taking this action to stop violent crime in their neighborhoods. Ebony Payne often has to spend much of her evening sorting through messages from her Kingman park neighbors in the northeast part of the city reporting assaults, smashed car windows, break ins, shootings and teenagers threatening children or even dogs. The 34 year old neighborhood commissioner said she and her community are frustrated by the city's inability to respond to out of control crime. When they heard President Trump was federalizing the District of Columbia police and sending in hundreds of National Guard troops, some residents first reaction was relief. She said. We all wanted something to be done. It's just really unfortunate that we're in this situation where there's a sledgehammer on our city because we couldn't get a handle on our crime problem. One dynamic highlighted in that story was people in some of these higher crime neighborhoods wanting that support to get there even faster. We'll continue to watch this play out, but it's important to hear from the people actually in these neighborhoods who have seen crime rise, seen violent crime affect those around them, and never had anyone actually come up with something creative to stop it. That's what President Trump is trying to do. And if the polling is right, people overwhelmingly support bringing some creativity in for a solution. As the Texas Democrats return home and admit defeat, they're trying to claim some victory in suggesting that they played a role in motivating California to take the extreme steps Gavin Newsom is preparing to take to gerrymander their state even further. Here's Gavin Newsom.
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Later this week we're going to announce the campaign. Next week the legislature is going to move this forward with 2/3. We're going to get it in a special election on November 4th and we're going to fight fire with fire.
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But it's important to remember that even with Texas's new maps that Democrats are trying to argue are a threat to democracy, they have fairer maps than California has right now, even before they take things a step further. In California, Republicans won 40% of the statewide vote but only control 17% of the seats. And in Texas, Democrats won 42% of the vote and will control 21% of the seats, but also will be facing much more competitive maps than what California is preparing for. California is preparing their own nuclear option, trying to throw out their incredibly popular Independent Redistricting Commission so that the legislature can set new maps that they released on Friday and put those to a vote in a November election. I see three problems with Gavin Newsom's plan here. First, the Independent Redistricting Commission is popular. New polling from Politico found that 61% of California Democrats would oppose his effort to get rid of that redistricting commission and give themselves more political partisan power to set the maps. Democrats in California might be far left liberals, but they like the veneer of independence that redistricting commission has given them. Gavin's proposal to sidestep that completely and give them extreme power to set their maps will be an uphill battle going into the November election. The second problem that I see here is the expense. It is going to cost $235 million that California currently doesn't have. They are failing to rebuild after the LA wildfires. They're failing at their high speed rail and more than tens of billions of dollars behind schedule. They also have a massive budget deficit. And yet Gavin Newsom wants to spend $235 million on a partisan gerrymandering project that is deeply unpopular because he wants to run for president. But the third problem I would point out is look at the absurdity of these maps. First. If you take a look at Kevin Kiley's district, for those of you who are audio only, it is a map space that hugs the border of California, Nevada, covering Lake Tahoe. But look again and it looks a lot like an elephant. Let's scroll on down to the 38th, 46th, 45th and 41st district. When you look closely at this now when they released the image it had different colors. The 41st district is a very strange shape that actually with outlines looks a little bit like a monster. I have applied googly eyes and a smiley face so you can see exactly what I'm talking about. One more problem with this is the rampant corruption already in the process. California media is reporting that California legislative leaders are are drawing new districts for themselves to be able to run in three sources close to the situation told KCRA 3 the Democrat leader of the California Senate, Mike McGuire, had one of the new targeted districts drawn specifically for him in exchange for his support of the redistricting plan. These maps were drawn by politicians and party insiders behind closed doors with no transparency and no input from the public. Several elected politicians with open congressional committees will vote on these self serving districts, said Amy Thomatan, a spokesperson with the Protect Voters First Coalition. That is a clear conflict of interest and undermines public trust in the fairness of our elections. Californians deserve district lines that are drawn in the open by our Citizens Independent Commission, which the voters elected to do and with full opportunity for public review and comment, not maps engineered by politicians to serve themselves or their partisan agenda. So again, as you hear these problems with this insane redistricting nuclear option from Gavin Newsom, you have to ask are his presidential ambitions so much that he's willing to destroy his state even further to do it? Only time will tell. That is all the time we have for today. Thank you so much for joining us on 10 Minute Drill. Please like subscribe Leave us a review. Have a great day. Thanks again.