← Next Up with Mark Halperin
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Political Fallout From Paramount-Netflix War Over Warner, Trump’s Ukraine Talks & Putin’s Endgame
01:10:58
Mark Halperin kicks off today’s episode with his signature reported monologue on the escalating Netflix–Paramount battle for Warner Bros. — and why it has politicians simultaneously looking for advantage and feeling increasingly uneasy. He explains why this goes well beyond a Hollywood corporate fight, with major implications for Donald Trump and for how information will reach voters in the 2026 and 2028 elections. As political advertising continues shifting to streaming, Mark breaks down how the fate of Warner’s assets could reshape the mechanics of voter outreach in the years ahead. Mark is then joined by Wall Street Journal media and entertainment reporter Joe Flint for an inside look at the high-stakes corporate chess match surrounding Paramount, Netflix, and the hostile bid for Warner Bros. They dissect Paramount’s aggressive counterstrategy, the power players working behind the scenes, and how President Trump’s relationships and regulatory leverage could influence the outcom...
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- [00:01]
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- [01:03]
Mark Halperin
Welcome back. Nexters. Mark Halpern here, editor in chief of the live interactive video platform two way and your guide to everything. NextUp. Glad to have you here. As the holiday season goes into full force. We're still covering lots of news and we're happy to have you with us. A great show today. We got to talk about one big topic, which is a business story. I mean, a political story masquerading in a business story. This whole thing with Warner Brothers Discovery, Netflix and Paramount is just a massive thing. So I'm going to talk about the political piece of it. Then we're have Joe Flint, the great media and entertainment reporter at the Wall Street Journal here to try to explain all the different business offshoots of this story. And then Russia, Ukraine, massive, massive implications for however this ends. David Ignatius, great reporter, associate editor and economist for the Washington Post. He will be here and we'll try to unpack where that story is going next. But I am excited to tell you about my reported monologue is about the business story, which is actually a political story. All the political implications that my sources see in this extraordinary fight for the assets at Warner Brothers Discovery that's coming next up. But first, my two guests on the big business story and Ukraine, Russia. Then my reported monologue. All that's coming next up. Don't go away.
- [02:31]
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- [04:15]
All right, nexters, welcome back and jump right into my reported monologue. I've been talking to people in the political world of what is the biggest business story in the United States right now? Really? Maybe biggest business story in the world. The saga about Warner Brothers, Netflix, Paramount. It is a big business story, and we'll talk to Joe Flynn about it. But it's a huge political story. And what I've been trying to do is break down what are the ways that this is a major political story. It involves, no question, political power. It involves our culture, our news coverage, and our politics, our elections. The stakes are massive. And in politics, as in life, whoever tells the story, whoever controls the means of storytelling, has a huge advantage. So who's going to control America's entertainment, America's news, America's platforms for distribution? Who is going to have the edge in gaining the public's attention? The players here, the institutional players and the individual business leaders. And then the president, a political leader. Everybody is at the table here. Everybody knows what the stakes are politically. Along with, again, the business story at Warner Brothers. You've got David Zaslav. He's a longtime executive. He was at Discovery. He runs this whole thing. And he was planning to divide Warner Brothers Discovery into two companies. He was going to put kind of the Hollywood and movie entities in one company and then the linear cable networks like CNN and others in a separate company. That was disrupted because the suitors came calling and the final two bidders were Netflix, where Ted Sarandis is one of the leaders in Netflix. And he convinced the board at Warner Brothers go with him. Now we've got David Ellison of Paramount, who has been super aggressive in buying this, buying this company. He wants the whole company. Netflix wants just the movie parts, the sexy streamers. Ellison wants the whole thing, and he wants to combine the company he just bought Paramount with the assets of all of Warner Brothers Discovery. He's backed by Jared Kushner and by foreign money, Middle east investors to help him try to make this deal. Then, of course, there's the president and then every politician who's at all interested in American culture, American business, American monopoly power or concentration of power that's close to every politician from Elizabeth Warren on the left to lots of people on the right. They are all focused on this as a political matter because we're in a moment where somebody's going to consolidate power. It's either going to be Paramount or it's going to be Netflix. And that consolidation is going to cause antitrust concerns. Is the consolidation too much? For. For Netflix, the consolidation is on the streaming business. For Paramount, it's about the studio business. It's also about the news business, combining CNN and cbs. That antitrust storm is going to exist in the United States. It's also going to exist in Europe. Washington's immediate reaction to the deal, and again, the deal on the table is for Netflix to combine, but with Time Warner is. That's a mega entity that's massive. And that is triggered really bipartisan concern that it's just. It's too big. And you've seen progressives already warring. Elizabeth Warren is just one of many progressives saying it's too much concentration of power. When you concentrate that much power in any business, whether it's aerospace or making tractors, it's going to hurt the consumer. It's going to Raise prices and, and limit choice. Conservatives are more divided. I, I think most progressives are against, against the combination of Netflix with Warner Brothers. Conservatives are more divided. Right. You've got some who are skeptical, like liberals are, of big media, of consolidating power, whether it's news or entertainment or distribution in one place. But then you also have this pro business wing of the party that says, hey, is this private markets working their way out? Consolidation produces economies of scale. It can produce more efficiencies, and America can still be the leader in these businesses and entertainment and news and information with the consolidation. And then you've got this foreign investment issue which hasn't really come up all that much yet. But the politics of this, I think, are almost certain. If the shareholders start to lean towards the Paramount offer, I think the question of Jared Kushner's involvement as an investor and some of this Middle east money, I think, will become an issue. The President is front and center. He loves big stories, he loves big business, you know, business stories, but he loves being at the center of things. And he's already acknowledged that he's paying attention here at the Kennedy Center Honors over the weekend, he was asked about this, and the President made it clear he's focused on this. This is S1, please. What about Netflix and Warner Brothers?
- [09:01]
Donald Trump
Well, that's got to go through a process and we'll see what happens. It's a Netflix, a great company. They've done a phenomenal job. Ted is a fantastic man. I have a lot of respect for him, but it's a. It's a lot of market share, so we'll have to see what happens.
- [09:16]
Mark Halperin
Now, people were interested in the president saying that because he said, ted, the guy who runs Netflix is a good guy. He praised him. It was thought that the President would clearly favor the Paramount offer because he's very good friends with Larry Ellison, whose son, David Allison, is running Paramount and has been very aggressive in trying to make the deal. Now, the President saying, yeah, maybe these aren't friends of mine. Here's the President saying he's not particularly close to anybody on this S3 for.
- [09:45]
Donald Trump
Warner Brothers, that I don't know enough about it.
- [09:48]
Mark Halperin
You spoke about Netflix last night, saying you have concerns about that.
- [09:52]
Donald Trump
I know, I know the companies very well. I know what they're doing, but I have to see. I have to see what percentage of market they have. We have to see the Netflix percentage of market. Paramount, the percentage of market. I mean, none of them are particularly great friends of mine, you know, just. I Want to, I want to do what's right. So, so very important to do what's right.
- [10:13]
Mark Halperin
So very important to do what's right. Now, I take the president's word, he wants to do it right. But he is friends with the Allisons and it sounds like he's become pretty good friends with Sarandez. So this role of the president and of the Trump administration is going to be a huge deal in figuring out how this is going to, how this is going to work. He says he wants to do what's right. Both of these companies will have regulatory issues, both will have questions. And in these antitrust cases. And again, this is where the politics comes into it. There's, there's numbers, there's metrics. What percent of streaming do you have? And then is it, is it makes sense to just look at for profit streaming or that should be compared to YouTube, right. There's all sorts of ways to slice and dice the data. But then there's this more tactile sense. Then there's just more thing of like, which makes more sense, right? And then for that's for the government, for the board of, of Warner Brothers and for the shareholders, the question is which offers better, right? That's the political story that the shareholders have to worry about. But then they're going to influence the shareholders by making different arguments. You know, what are the short term risks, what are the long term lists? Skydance is behind, right. Paramount is behind because the board currently of Time Warner, of Warner Brothers, they want the Netflix offer. So what is Ellison trying to do? Allison is trying to argue that there's all sorts of risks to letting Netflix get the thing. And these arguments are business arguments, but they've got political overtones, right? So one of the political overtones is are movie theaters gonna still exist? Now, the movie business, theatrical releases going to the cinema, the bijou. It is not the business it once was. Is it going to still even exist? What Allison is arguing is the movie business will die for sure. Because if Netflix buys Warner Brothers, they'll just put everything on streaming. Okay, so here's Allison talking about the so called death of the theatrical release is S4, please.
- [12:15]
David Ellison
And, and we think that is bad again, that's bad for the consumer, it's bad for the creative community. This deal, if it is allowed to move forward, will actually be the death of the theatrical movie business in Hollywood. We're sitting here today trying to save it.
- [12:29]
Mark Halperin
Understood. Now that's a great political argument, right? There's a lot of a populist Appeal to the notion of not everybody wants to pay 10 bucks or whatever it is, what plan they have for Netflix, There should be movie theaters. Here's another thing. Ellison is arguing that the government scrutiny of the deal on the table between Netflix and, and, and Warner needs to be really strict, needs to be really disciplined and thoughtful. Here's Alison again on. On CNBC. This is S5, please. Why not just let the process run out and sit around and wait if you're really so confident that Netflix can't get any trust?
- [13:06]
David Ellison
So I think if you look at basically how long it'll take them to go through antitrust and the $5.8 billion break fee.
- [13:12]
Joe Flint
Reverse.
- [13:13]
Mark Halperin
Break fee.
- [13:13]
Joe Flint
Yeah, yeah, yeah, reverse.
- [13:14]
David Ellison
But basically, if you think about that, if this takes two years, and I think, and you've seen reports on this, that this has basically been a defensive move by Netflix, and if they actually slow down our scale for the next two years, that's a win for them. That by nature is anti competitive.
- [13:31]
Joe Flint
Right.
- [13:32]
Mark Halperin
So one big piece of the political story is government scrutiny of whichever deal gets done. Now, we'll have a couple of weeks now where we'll play out and we'll see whether the shareholders caused the Warner Brothers board and CEO to flip and say, well, no, you know, the Ellison offer is better, but whichever deal gets done in the next couple weeks and is final, final, then we're going to see a long period of lawsuits and scrutiny from the Trump administration. And the suspicion is that if the scrutiny is on the Netflix deal, it may be very tough scrutiny because of the Ellison friendship with the president and because of Jared Kushner's involvement in the Ellison bid. It's going to be. The Justice Department's going to scrutinize it. The ftc, there's been skepticism, and the president's already talked about this privately. According to many news organizations, Netflix is already really powerful and big. Should they really be allowed to do this? This question about scrutiny is going to go on for some time. And it could be that one side wins and then. And then the regulators say no, and. And then we'll see. That could be months, certainly be months, could be years down the road. Will the loser come back and say, well, we still want to buy the company. We'll see. But that regular, that question of where's the president on this? Which side wins and then which side gets the scrutiny? And how does that go? That's massive. Okay. That's the first political angle is just how's the president and his government going to navigate Once, once there's a, once there's a final deal on the table and how's that going to be navigated? The second political point is about the culture wars. About, as I said at the top, who controls our media? Okay, Someone is going to win this asset. Almost certainly one of these two will win. It could be over a long period of time. That's going to be a giant in the media world. If it's Netflix, they're just on the entertainment side, okay? But that's a massive capacity because so much of our political conversation downstream from culture comes now from the streamers. You think about the shows you watch on Netflix or on Disney plus or on Hulu, these are, these are hugely cultural influential shows. And when they're ad supported now that's where a lot of political messages are going. So that consolidated real estate is a massive, a massive political part here. The winner of this, they say they're in it for business and to a large extent they are. But Ellison, for instance, has, has said he sees too much bias on the news side. He wants CNN and CBS combined and he wants to make this into a product that is, appeals to the 70% of the country that isn't super partisan. That's a massive thing that's on the news side. But even on the entertainment side, where you think, well, it's entertainment, conservatives look at the, the entertainment products out there and their critique is too woke, too coastal, too elite. And so they're looking to Ellison, who's, you know, a coastal elite, but not woke, and saying we want the storytelling not to be done by Netflix, whose leaders and history is, is liberal. The Obamas have a deal there that's very resonant for a lot of people on the right. They want to change, they want Ellison to win, to change the storytelling and the news to be more fair minded, maybe, maybe more conservative. The Democrats think of this differently. They, they think of freedom for telling stories. They don't want a combination. The liberals who don't want Netflix there, they don't want there to be so much consolidation that you don't have freedom, you don't have great storytelling. And then the central question is not just what's out there, but what stories get made and what don't. You know, in politics, right, you've got gatekeeping, you've got cultural prioritization. We what is going to happen on the entertainment side? Because they both want the entertainment. Both, both the suitors, Paramount and Netflix, they want the entertainment stuff that will give them enormous ability to influence the Cultural conversation. And then if Paramount gets is the winner, they want the news products. Netflix is going to let the news product be in a separate company. They don't want it. But for the President, CNN is massive. CNN is massive. He does not want CNN to continue the way it is. He's been mixed in his view of how CBS has performed ever since they just recently became part of Paramount. With our friend Barry Weiss over there, he's critical of 60 minutes, been critical of explicitly in the last few days of the CBS management. So I don't know if that's as it often is for the president on social media just for show, but the President would like to see a combined cnn, CBS cover things differently, not be liberally biased. And Allison has been extraordinarily articulate in talking about and optimistic and kind of idealistic and saying we want a whole brand news product. So the first area again is regulation and scrutiny of antitrust. That's politics. And then the second political area is this conversation about culture. Huge impact. Whoever wins this, maybe it'll be resolved next year, maybe It'll take till 2027. Is streaming is now for young people one of the main persuasion battlegrounds. It's where young voters are watching. They're not, they're not watching ad, political ads on their local CBS or NBC station. They're on streaming. And that power to control those streaming platforms is a huge political fight. All the people who do politics now thinking about 2026, then the presidential, they're still going to buy ads on local broadcast channels for sure and cable. But a lot of that is shifting to a place where the rules of buying ads, the algorithms and how they work, the policies for buying ads, campaigns are scrambling to understand that. We saw that in 24, it'll be even more pronounced in 26. And now we have before them as they think about how do you influence voters behavior, how do you influence who they're going to vote for and how they think about issues. Now they're thinking, well, where is that going to play out? It's going to play out on streaming. It'll be on social media too. But a big part of it will, will be streaming. And now the private decisions that are being made by places like Netflix, Paramount and, and Warner, they're going to be made have a huge impact on again, what are the shows, who's watching them? How do you buy ads there? How do you maybe get messages within there? And then again, what's the culture? That's a, that's a massive, a massive shake up in how people think about campaigns where they're raising billions of dollars to spend on voter communication. Where are they going to spend it? They're going to spend it on these platforms. Who's going to control them? Past mergers of in the media were big. We've seen big ones. You know, somebody bought the Walt Disney Company. We've seen. We've seen all sorts of political, I mean, media deals. This one is existential, okay? Everything now is content. Content is our culture, and our culture is upstream from politics. This fight is going to decide who tells the American story, right? Who's going to shape the national narrative, not just in terms of the content they create, but who controls the platforms. Because those platforms, in and of themselves, what sometimes people call pipes, those platforms are so central now to the brands people look to, the shows they look to, the personalities they look to. So, yeah, it's a big business story, no doubt. And we go look at it as a business story in just a minute. And I cover it and watch it closely as a business story. But this is about political realignment. This is about who is going to control some of the most influential platforms, some of the most influential shows that are out there. And I got to tell you, right now, it's up for grabs. Okay, it's up for grabs. Who's going to win this? But you can be sure that people in Washington are watching. When you have Elizabeth Warren saying Netflix shouldn't win, when you have some people close to the president saying Netflix shouldn't win, when you have Jared Kushner saying Netflix shouldn't win, there's a lot of people across the spectrum saying, we don't want that outcome. It's going to be fascinating to watch the political messages that come from both sides. You know, Netflix can say, hey, look, this other bid, this bid from. From Paramount includes foreign money. That's a political argument. That's a political hot button. And on the Paramount side, they can say, hey, this Netflix offer is not good for the movie business. It's not good for the culture of freedom, and it's not good for the news business. So you're going to see a lot of arguments out there. They're going to be paid advertising. There's going to be press conferences, there's going to be phone calls, there's going to be hits on tv. Watch it all. A great business story for sure. But think about what's happening right now. Some of the biggest brands, historically and currently in entertainment, in platform hbo, one of the biggest brands in the history of platforms and then news. All of it's now up for grabs. And the politicians are concerned, of course, about the consumers. They want the consumer to be king. And they know that the wrong kind of consolidation will hurt consumers or potentially hurt jobs. It'll hurt the ability of movie theater owners to stay in business. There's a lot there to be concerned about regarding the public interest. But also, make no mistake, when something's a political story, power's up for grabs as well. The president.
- [23:08]
I think, playing a little bit of possum, right, saying, oh, these guys aren't my friends and I don't know much about it. He knows a lot about it. He and his advisors know that this is a massive political moment for the country. We don't know how this is going to end. But what we do know is the winner of this fight, the person who controls the assets, whether it's CNN or HBO or the streaming services, what we know is the winner of this fight either is a conscious political player or a passive political player. But whatever happens, the massive implications of this for our politics, for our government and for how consumers have access to information, it cannot be overstated. It's a huge deal. I'll continue to cover it. I'll continue to follow it and continue to report on it. Because while the business side of this story gets the most of the attention, the politics are massive. All right, that's my reported monologue for the week, talking to people in both political parties about how, how they see the politics of this huge business story. Let me know what you think. Send me an email on today's report@nextup halperinmail.com make sure, of course, you subscribe to the program. We want you to be watching and listening all the time on the YouTube channel. You can watch our full episodes plus their exclusive bonus clips there. So go to YouTube.com nextup halperin if you prefer the podcast format, as many of you do, go to listen to the show, make sure you subscribe and market and share it. Next up, Halperin with Mark or next up with Mark Alperin. Wherever you get your podcasts and have your downloads turned on. So you always get my reports right when they drop on Tuesdays and Thursdays. All right, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to talk to one of the best business reporters covering this story. Joe Flint, media and entertainment reporter at the Wall Street Journal, will be with us. He's next up.
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- [28:16]
Joe Flint
All right, we.
- [28:16]
Mark Halperin
Talked about the political aspects of the story. Now let's talk about one of the great business stories we've seen in a while. Joining me now, next up, Joe Flint, media and entertainment reporter at the Wall Street Journal and part of a team at the Journal who's covered this so far and I suspect will continue as well as anybody else. Joe, welcome.
- [28:33]
Joe Flint
Thanks for having me.
- [28:35]
Mark Halperin
There's so many elements this even if you just boil it down to a business story. What happens next? We've got both two suitors for the same company. It's clear that Warner wants to make a deal with Netflix and it's clear that Paramount isn't giving up. They still want to try to go to the, to the, to the shareholders. The board and the CEO at Warner have a preference. What happens next? How does Paramount try to break up the deal?
- [29:04]
Joe Flint
Well, they try to encourage shareholders to accept their tender offer for Warner, which is about $30 per share, and see if they have enough success there to kind of coerce the Warner management to have to have to rethink this. Hostile bids are usually not successful, but it's not impossible either. And the next few weeks will be critical to Paramount's efforts.
- [29:30]
Mark Halperin
It seems to me there, as you said, you and your colleagues have laid out, it's the hostile bids usually don't work. So they have a number of things going for them that are potential potentially helpful. One is, as I talked about earlier, there is a populist disdain for the notion that the combination of Netflix with Warner would produce a streaming behemoth that would have a huge market share in streaming and might kill the movies, kill movie theatrical releases. So that's one Is that something shareholders might, might feel moved by?
- [30:04]
Joe Flint
Well, I think that would depend on the individual shareholders. And it's interesting because obviously whichever deal goes forward is going to face a lot of regulatory scrutiny. Much of it will center on what defines the streaming marketplace. But there are those who feel that the impact this will have on the theatrical business should also be considered. And Netflix has not really embraced the theatrical business. Their CEO, Ted Sarandos, will tell you now that it's not that he hates theatrical. He just wants the gap between when a movie's in theaters and when it's available on a streaming service such as Netflix to be a lot shorter. Obviously, though, there are concerns, grave concerns in the Hollywood community about. About Netflix. Netflix is a huge success story and obviously consumers love it. They've built a massive business with global appeal. But for all their success and power in Hollywood, they are still viewed a little bit warily by the creative community, more so than the traditional studios. So there's a lot of concern, even though right now Netflix is saying all the right things. Go honor the Warner Brothers theatrical movie deals, not against theatrical. So we'll see how all that plays out in Washington and with shareholders.
- [31:15]
Mark Halperin
Normally, when there's a antitrust possibility, when regulators, whether it's the FTC or the Justice Department, normally you think, well, first, what are the regulators or the prosecutors going to do? And then you say, well, what are the judges going to do? But in this case, we've got the President who's made it clear that he's going to be interested in this. And part of that may be ideological, but a lot of it is personality. And he obviously has a close relationship with the Ellisons. But in the last couple months, Sarandis, presumably in preparation for this possibility, has visited with the President, has. Has clearly impressed the president, who's spoken favorably about him. What do we know about the. The president's favorability towards. Towards Netflix and towards their leader as compared to how he feels about the Ellison?
- [32:03]
Joe Flint
Well, funny enough, of course, the President yesterday said he doesn't really consider any of them either a friend. So it's very tough to predict. But to your point, it's highly unusual, and that seems to be a phrase we use a lot with this administration. It's highly unusual for a president to be weighing in at all in a pending merger that will go before the DOJ or ftc. Presidents typically don't want to be seen as putting their thumbs on the scale. Obviously, the Ellisons have a close relationship with the president, particularly Larry Ellison, the Oracle co founder, who's the father of David Ellison, who's running Paramount. But yes, Ted Sarandos has been to Mar a Lago and in the last few weeks been visiting the, the White House and I believe Trump called him the next Louis B. Mayor the other day. So they both certainly are trying to, I don't want say, work the ref because maybe the president shouldn't be the ref on this, but they're certainly trying to get some goodwill going.
- [33:09]
Mark Halperin
Yeah, I mean you never, Trump's hard to read on stuff, a lot of things, but President Trump likes personal relationships and he clearly feels more warmly towards a guy who is of liberal Hollywood, even though he's got a mixed relationship with Hollywood. He gave, he gave the Obamas a big deal, for instance. And that's not, not something that most Republicans like. One piece of this that I'm surprised has gotten relatively little attention is the fact that the, the hostile bid from Paramount includes foreign investment. And, and even though they say it's passive investment, they're not going to be running the company. That to me seems to be something that the Netflix people probably will start talking about. No, to say our money is American money and the hostile bid has foreign money.
- [33:54]
Joe Flint
Certainly that was a concern with Warner in terms of when they were judging the applicants, if you will. And the money from the Middle east that Warner feels could be a problem in getting the deal closed, particularly through European regulators. This is what Warner has indicated in our reporting. So that will get more attention. Paramount, if you weed through their 300 plus filing yesterday with the SEC.
- [34:25]
Did make moves to further isolate but kind of limit the effect that funding could, would have on, you know, there'll be no board members likely or, you know, having a major say in the company. But sure, that that is another question. And there's also the question, maybe you were going here next of you know, Jared Kushner's firm and its role in helping to finance Paramount and what that says and whether the, you know, president has a potential conflict there. So yeah, a lot of questions.
- [34:56]
Mark Halperin
Right. Well, let's be, let's be straightforward about the Jared Kushner thing. You know, the president's now said I'm involved, I'm not involved, I'm friends, I'm not friends. And, but we know the President's going to be involved with this. He's made that clear. I may be able to say this more clearly than you can because, because of your role. But, but I mean his son in law is one of the bidders. So to the extent one believes that the President's going to put his thumb on the scale, the, doesn't it seem pretty clear he's not going to Screw his son in law. And that that bid, the extent the President can influence the outcome, that that bid will be seen more favorably.
- [35:29]
Joe Flint
Well, as you said, you have a little more freedom to express those thoughts. I'm not sure. I just think the President can be so unpredictable. I don't know why, but when we were talking about this, the memory flashed in my head of when Warner acquired Ted Turner's empire and Ted Turner's son asked him, you know what's going to happen to me, Pop? And Ted said, you're toast. So I do. I do wonder if the President feels strongly enough that, that Netflix is the better suitor. I don't know what if that would have the impact that some might think it will.
- [36:06]
Mark Halperin
How do they communicate, how does Paramount communicate with the, with the state? The shareholders? They obviously Ellison can go on tv, they can post stuff on this new website they have. But do they have some, do they have email addresses? Do they have, you know, are they going to brief them? How do they try to sway the shareholders?
- [36:24]
Joe Flint
Well, with most big, big companies, of course there are individual shareholders, but a lion's share of the holdings are held by big institutional firms. So they will start going out to woo those firms. I'm sure they've already been working, working the phones. They might have been working the phones even before this began, although we were never able to nail that down enough to feel comfortable report. But they will start working the phones with those big institutional shareholders trying to sway them to their side of the argument that their bid is better financially, better from a regulatory standpoint. And Warner will likely now have to do the same. They're going to have to explain to their shareholders why they're taking a bid that on paper is a little less than what Paramount is offering.
- [37:11]
Mark Halperin
Right. And who are the big institutional shareholders?
- [37:15]
Joe Flint
Well, there's a lot. I don't want to go through a list of names, but I mean, are there hundreds? No, no, it's probably more like about a dozen or two.
- [37:26]
Mark Halperin
And do we know about their political proclivities, their connections to the Ellisons or to Netflix management? Is there any leave there?
- [37:38]
Joe Flint
I certainly wouldn't be knowledgeable enough to speculate on that. But I will say institutional shareholders tend to be. It's, it's about the offer and the best offer and what's best for their, their portfolios and, and clients. I mean, obviously they have to factor in how a deal is going to get closed, but I think whoever goes forward may end up in court. This is not necessarily a slam dunk. For either of them from a regulatory standpoint, no matter what side says.
- [38:07]
Mark Halperin
Right. So it absolutely correct. Neither. It's neither, it's neither. It's slam dunk for neither. And one side seems like one side's got the president's son in law in the deal. So if you're looking for, if you're a state shareholder and you're looking for a consummation of the deal and you know, one deal breaks the company apart, the other keeps it together. One deal puts CNN under the management of someone who wants to change how news works. The other, it's unclear what would happen to CNN as a standalone company. Those seem to me to be pretty big differences that may or may not matter to any of these institutions. Let's talk about the four big players because again, there's so many angles to this. Part of this is, you know, one political titan, the president and then three business titans and their, their motivations here. They want to win because they're competitive. And we see that whenever we have this kind of, this kind of face Off. Allison wants to buy the whole thing. He wants to combine CBS and NBC. He wants to leapfrog into the top tier of the streaming game and he wants to continue to build this massive media empire in news and entertainment. Sarandis wants to dominate streaming and take that part of the company to get the library and to get another streaming component. And the president wants whatever he wants. The mystery to me is, is the man called Zas. David Zaslav, who runs Warner now Warner Brothers Discovery. He's, he is, according to, according to Ellison, has refused to engage with their bid and clearly wants to have the tie up with Netflix. He's made a ton of money in this company. He's been criticized for his management of the company. But he stands to not only gain for himself, but he stands to have gained for the shareholders because the stock price is up. And now on the offer, whichever offer they take, if either of them goes through, he will have done what some people think he needs to have done, which is to create value for the shareholders. What is motivating him? Is he trying to do right by the shareholders? Is he trying to get rich? Is he trying to stay as a big player in news and entertainment? What are his motivations?
- [40:16]
Joe Flint
Is there a D there? All of the above. All.
- [40:21]
In fairness, just with regarding the Zaslav, I mean this was not a process that the company was expecting to be in right now. They were planning to split the company into two. One side would be what we'll Call the sexy assets of the movie studio, the TV studio, hbo and the other side, the cable networks, not so glamorous, melting ice cube, but still very profitable business. But seen as a drag on the company, just like Comcast is doing. Breaking up nbcu.
- [40:49]
Mark Halperin
Yeah, let me stop you there. If that split had happened and there hadn't been a buyer or two buyers, he was going to run the entertainment side. Was he going to have any connect, Was he going to have any connection, Going to have any connection to the company that was going to be CNN and the other linear cable channels, or he wouldn't have anything to do with that?
- [41:07]
Joe Flint
If that happened, there'd still be some connection there. In fact, and this goes to one of the motivations I think Paramount had in jumping in when they did. As part of the split, the cable networks company was going to own 20% of the studios and streaming business. And the incoming CEO of that business had said already they'd gotten a lot of interest in that 20% state. And I believe that Paramount, seeing that, wanted to make a play for the entire company, didn't want to wait two years the way Zaslav was anticipating that in two years the split would be done and everyone would come in and want to buy the studio streamer. They didn't want to deal with that and have someone else holding 20% and just thought, we can make a deal for the whole company and that'll be an easier sell to the board, Right?
- [41:53]
Mark Halperin
Ladies and gentlemen, if you're watching or listening, this is an incredible story and Joe Flint's as good as anybody at explaining it. But I recognize this is complicated. It's, it's, it's, it's got government regulation, it's got corporate rules, it's got the rules of takeovers. It is legal implications. And again, all the political stuff I talked about earlier, it's super complicated. I, and I, and I'm sorry if some of you might be having trouble following it, but we're talking about, in a simplified and as elegant a way as we can. But it is, it is complicated. I accept that. I know that. But it's a great story. So you've got the, the reality of, of. There's a, There's a timetable, December into January, of different deadlines for making offers, changing the offers. Both sides can, in theory, change things up. In the history of these things, and again, you talked about how rarely a hostile effort succeeds. Do we ever see the, the decision makers, the board and the CEO, in this case of, of Warner Brothers Discovery, do we Ever see them flip? Do we ever see them say, yeah, you know, we, we like the other. The previous people who were hostile, now we want to be with them. Or they'd only change if, if the state, if the shareholders insisted, I think.
- [43:06]
Joe Flint
They would definitely, you know, sort of see which way the wind is blowing. Yeah, but I said it's. It's not impossible. It's not unheard of. It has happened. It's just that the odds can be a little long for Paramount. But clearly they believe these are assets they must have to go forward and be able to compete, which is why they're willing to do this and not quietly walk away.
- [43:29]
Mark Halperin
Yeah. David Ellison has been in and around Hollywood for a while. Not in the news business, but in the entertainment business. Does he have existing and. Or existing friendly relationship with Zaslav? Do they. Do they. Do they like each other? Because if you look at just this week, Ellison is being very critical of the fact that Zaslav and the board have not engaged with him. But is that friends in a fight or they don't really know each other?
- [43:55]
Joe Flint
Well, I think they've gotten to know each other, and I'm not sure where they would be standing right now. I will say that the Warner folks, I, I don't think. Look, no one likes 3 unsolicited bids for your company. It was pretty much Ellison's actions that kind of led Warner to have to put the company on the block because they made these three bids. Then other people started asking, too. And so the board decided, hey, we need to explore this. They also had a business dispute a few months back over south park reruns, believe it or not, very popular on HBO Max, and they couldn't come to terms on a deal that Zaz thought was locked down. So there's been some tension in that relationship, certainly over the last few months.
- [44:39]
Mark Halperin
And again, Paramount makes South park and sells it to. To the cable channel.
- [44:46]
Joe Flint
They sell. They, of course, it airs on Paramount's Comedy Central, but HBO Max, the Warner property, had the reruns, which do very well. Right.
- [44:54]
Mark Halperin
Okay. Right now we've got two offers, and it's, again, it's a little bit apples and oranges because the Netflix offer is for. It's just for the part of the company, the studio and the streaming and the premium channels and the, and the Paramount offers for the whole thing. Is, is, is. Are we at the right valuation? Do people in the business say, well, they can raise their offers, but if they start to raise their offers here, they're going to be over overpaying for the assets.
- [45:22]
Joe Flint
Well, I think there's already some concern with the, with the Netflix bid. If you look at how their stock is doing the last several days, the market is, you know, not, not sold on this. Their stock's gone down the last, the last few days. So I think there's some concern on the Netflix side about the size of the deal.
- [45:38]
Mark Halperin
So let me stop you right there on that. I'm sorry, just trying to walk people through it. So, so the, so the market's saying, Netflix, we think your bid may be too high, that you may be either overpaying or trying to swallow an asset that's not going to be good for your business. Right. That's the, that's the message. Would that impact the behavior of Netflix in terms of making a bigger offer? Would it impact the behavior of, of the board of Warner saying, well, this is not a good sign?
- [46:05]
Joe Flint
Well, certainly, I imagine Netflix, they've been out trying to make the case as well. They held an analyst call when they had announced the deal yesterday. Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters, co CEOs, were both at an investor conference and praising the deal and explaining why it's important to them. So I think they're hoping that the market will start to come around. But Netflix has never done a big deal like this. That's the other concern. They've smartly, in my view, chosen to stay out of the consolidation game and built a very good empire without necessarily needing to do all these deals. Clearly, these assets are very good. The Warner assets, the library, hbo. They're top of the line, so certainly can understand their interest. But they're getting into a lot of businesses they haven't been in before, and it's debatable how much synergy they'll be. And by synergy, that's the polite way of saying in Hollywood, cutting costs and layoffs. Paramount, of course, operates in all the same businesses as Warner, which again would be a concern for regulators. Netflix doesn't do theatrical, as we discussed. Really? They don't make TV shows for other outlets. Warner Brothers makes a lot of TV shows for everyone. So there's different businesses that they're in here that would, I think, our concern.
- [47:24]
Mark Halperin
So let's talk about that, because there's a reason why they haven't done deals, right? They've been very successful doing what they do, sticking to their knitting of getting more people to sign up, and they've added different layers, ad supported, et cetera. It seems to me, kind of a big risk here. They're buying, they're buying things that they don't really know how to do. And I don't really get the upside. So do the analysts. They have say these additional programs, both the library that they're purchasing and have capacity to produce new programs, are going to increase, solve the problem they've had, which they bumped up against the subscriber potentials. Like anybody who's going to get Netflix pretty much has it already. And they believe that this unlocks even greater of those monthly payments which any, anybody who'd be in a business want. You want to be in a business where you get monthly payments. It's the best businesses to be in because the recurring revenue just keeps coming in the door. But how does, how does this, what's the theory of the case of Netflix to get out of what they've done, go do a big acquisition. They have the cash because they got a lot of cash. But why, why is this a good. Why, what's the theory of why this is a good business deal for Netflix?
- [48:32]
Joe Flint
Well, I think as you said, the subscriber growth, which has been amazing, is starting to slow a little bit. They are very concerned, as all streamers are, with time spent on their platforms. And Netflix actually, for all their popularity, they're six right now, according to Nielsen in terms of, in the US of amount of time spent on their platforms. Paramount, if you include CBS and everything Paramount owns, is actually higher. So this is great content that they feel will help increase, that it will help internationally. Netflix is very popular all over the world, but they make a lot of local content. They don't necessarily have the type of content that can translates through borders, that does well like Warner does. So that's another driving factor as well. But, but to your point, you know, with it comes other businesses Netflix hasn't been in. They've said they'll embrace them, but we would expect them to say that right now as they're trying to get a deal through and ease concerns in Hollywood and Washington about job loss. Right.
- [49:33]
Mark Halperin
Let's talk about the CNN of it all. I've been, I've been in the news business, the television news business. So I'm very familiar. I think it's been three decades of conversation about combining CBS and cnn. That just has been around forever under different owners, owners of both entities. And there's some logic to that, I suppose, because, because CBS as a news division has lagged. Barry Weiss is there now trying to figure it out. Ellison has been very, if you take him at face value, very. I'm Gonna say lyrical or high minded in his rhetoric saying we want to produce high quality news and we believe if you produce not non biased high quality news products that that's a good business to be in. And I love the fact that he says it and I love that he hired Barry and I, and I, I hope it's right. But is that a big part of the financials of this or is that to appeal to Donald Trump? Like where's the mark? What's the, the theory of the case of high quality news product being something Paramount could make, could make a living doing?
- [50:38]
Joe Flint
Well, unfortunately, as you know and I know, the news business is very challenged right now economically. There's been a lot of changes in the marketplace. Yes. I mean at some point CNN has been linked with cbs. I remember writing stories about CNN and abc. There's always been talk of combining the global reach and scale of CNN with a broadcast network. Be very complimentary. Incredible cost. I don't think though it is a huge driver financially of a deal. But these are nice trophy assets to own. I mean owning a cnn, even with its ratings troubles, it's still a well known brand around the globe, as is CBS News in the United States primarily.
- [51:27]
Mark Halperin
If Allison loses, and as you've pointed out, he's more likely than not to lose based on the odds historically of the hostile bidder and given how clearly oriented the Warner board and CEO are towards the Netflix offer, if they lose, is it in peril the company that they've just purchased is, in other words, is that a good business by itself or he really needs this deal to make this work for him?
- [51:56]
Joe Flint
Well, I think it's still a good, good business. I mean Paramount has a lot of strong assets besides the, its own movie studio and library. Paramount plus has been growing nicely as a streaming service. CBS is, you know, a big, a big broadcast network. They own a lot of cable networks which are challenged like all cable networks are, but good brands. But it's not seen as being on the scale of a Disney, an Amazon, a Netflix. So that's, that's the challenge there to try to get bigger. And are there other assets that they can go after to try to beef themselves up? Of course there are, but I, I think this was always in the back of Ellison's mind of first Paramount, then Warner. And so, you know, with that not happening, if it does, if it doesn't happen, to be clear, there may be a little bit of going back to the drawing board.
- [52:48]
Mark Halperin
Yeah. Is Comcast a possibility for Ellison?
- [52:53]
Joe Flint
Well, that'd be an interesting one. Obviously, Comcast was going after Warner as well. They were a long shot, pretty much acknowledged. They always, always knew that there, there would be some more, there would be more regulatory issues there than with a Warner, so that would be a concern. I won't bore your listeners with that.
- [53:14]
Mark Halperin
But, but just the local TV stations alone would, Would be a huge complexity. Lastly, again, there's a bunch of deadlines and potential deadlines over the next 90 days or, or maybe 45 days. Is this with us for two years? Is this possible this gets settled sooner than two years from now? Because even if one side's offer is accepted, finally, we're going to have regulatory scrutiny. We're going to have private lawsuits. So Hollywood's going to, you know, probably unions will sue. There's all sorts of people who are going to object to whoever wins. So is this going to be resolved, say in 2026 or it's going into 2027, no matter what?
- [53:54]
Joe Flint
Well, let's put it this way. I'm hoping to retire by 2030, so I hope it's done by then. But no, I think we're looking at certainly at least a year and we're already at the end of this year. So this whole thing may not be sorted out in terms of a winner until early next year, and then you'll have at least another year after that of, of regulatory review and lawsuits. State, you know, state attorney generals weighing in everything else in. The Europeans, you said, and the European Review. Yeah, which is not going to be an easy thing for either of these buyers, either.
- [54:28]
Mark Halperin
The European regulators move as quickly as Italian desk clerks in hotels, which is not very quickly. And you're, and your editors and your readers are just totally gung ho for this, right?
- [54:39]
Joe Flint
Sure. I mean, right now it's obviously a hot story. There's a lot of interest in it. These are known brand assets. So hopefully the reader enthusiasm will, will be there. Certainly not. You know, I'm complaining a little about the hours it's keeping me up. But, but it's always good to be a reporter on a story with a lot of interest in it.
- [54:57]
Mark Halperin
Yeah, well, I've got great interest in it. And, and there's lots of other coverage of this story in the Hollywood Trades, the New York Times and some other places. But, but I say this, it's part of why Joe, we wanted. John, the Journal's coverage of this is best in class. And, and really, it does a good job of capturing the personalities which is a big part of this story. The implications for consumers and the White House angle, but also all the regulatory stuff. So Joe, congratulations to you and your colleague and I'm sorry your holiday is going to be ruined and much of your 2026 probably spent covering this. Joe Flint, media and entertainment reporter at the Great Wall Street Journal. Joe, thank you.
- [55:31]
Joe Flint
Thanks for having me.
- [55:32]
Mark Halperin
Happy Holidays. Next up, we switch to another simple story, what's going on with Russia and Ukraine? David Ignatius, the associate editor and columnist for the Washington Post. One of the best reporters I know. David Ignatius is next up.
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Mark Halperin
Coaching.
- [58:52]
Joining me now. And next up, one of the best reporters in America also happens to be a columnist editor at the Washington Post, David Ignatius to talk about the situation between Russia and Ukraine and the United States and Europe. David.
- [59:04]
David Ignatius
Welcome. Nice to be here.
- [59:06]
Mark Halperin
Mark. I want to focus on the president in Europe. He he privately and publicly. I know you hear what I hear from people in the administration and the president very publicly with with the interview with Politico disdainful of Europe. This has been a long running theme of the entire administration and it runs alongside the negotiations. What do the Europeans think right now? If there's a prospect of the US walking away, why can't the Europeans step up and handle it without the United.
- [59:34]
David Ignatius
States? Well, possibly they can. I think they've kind of think carefully now about their capabilities. The one area that they absolutely can't match is the intelligence support that allows Ukrainian and European long range missiles, for example to target.
- [59:57]
Strikes in Russia or at key Russian positions in Ukraine and that the Europeans don't yet have. I've been told twice now in the last 24 hours that the US is assuring both the Ukrainians and the Europeans that intelligence support will continue. But these days I think it's hard for people to be sure that administration promises are reliable.
- [60:25]
The Europeans feel that they're heading into a war with Russia already no matter what happens in these negotiations. And I think they're shocked that at a time when they feel fundamentally challenged the national security strategy talks about civilizational erasure. Well no eraser quite like Russian army more and more menacing. The Europeans feel abandoned. They don't get it. They don't understand this conception of American interests. But to your basic question, are they trying to figure out how they would carry this fight by themselves? Yes, they.
- [61:05]
Mark Halperin
Are. When was the last time a British or French.
- [61:10]
Military personnel was shot at in hostile.
- [61:13]
David Ignatius
Conflict?
- [61:16]
Oh, gosh. I mean, you know, the French and British served with the United States in the long counterterrorism wars. They certainly fought in Afghanistan. I've embedded with British forces in western Afghanistan, and they had quite a lot of combat there. Similarly, they fought with our Joint Special Operations Command against ISIS in Syria. They were in some of our most sensitive and secret bases, cooperating hand in hand. The French have been active and trying to deal with ISIS on the rise in Africa, which is a hard problem to get your arms around. But the French have tried and then basically stepped back because they feel they need more support. But to your question, do these Europeans ever actually fight? That's a kind of trope among some Trump supporters. The answer is yes, they do. And they've. And they fought in close collaboration with the US Under US Command. When we asked them to, I.
- [62:24]
Mark Halperin
Actually meant it kind of in the opposite direction, which is, aren't they capable if they want to go it alone? Everyone agrees with you. The intelligence piece. They need US Support. But if the British and French, who've talked now for months about providing ground forces to deal with peace, if they decided that they wanted to show support for Ukraine by putting French and British forces on the ground to help in the war effort, is that something they'd be capable of doing whether they'd have domestic support for it or not? Do they have the military capability to do.
- [62:55]
David Ignatius
That? They would have the military capability, from what I know, to put in.
- [63:03]
Limited forces.
- [63:06]
But in terms of staving off Russia's advance, that's going to continue to have to be the Ukrainian military. I mean, the Europeans could provide.
- [63:17]
What the United States likes to provide in conflicts, which is command and control enablers, as they're called. Air support, intelligence, immediate overhead intelligence support in terms of having a large army. And this is not going to be a war where you send in the tanks to roll the Russians. It's just. It's a different era of warfare. Do the Europeans had the drones and other electric systems, electronic systems, digital systems? That's what we need to ask. And I think the answer is.
- [63:49]
Probably they've been using the same contractors the US Has. It's not widely known, but the Palantir support for Ukraine is largely is funded, I think probably entirely by European money. But the Palantir is a key contributor in this. You know, I call it the algorithm war that's going on in.
- [64:10]
Mark Halperin
Ukraine. As we sit here and talk on, on Tuesday morning. If Zelensky will not give up the kind of territorial concessions, make, the kind of territory concessions that the Witkoff Putin plan calls for, doesn't that mean that this is not a solvable problem by negotiations, at least not anytime.
- [64:29]
David Ignatius
Soon? It may mean that I was surprised by the sort of absolute tone of Zelensky's statement that he won't give up any territory, because the discussion for many, many weeks has been about how you would.
- [64:49]
Organize a land swap deal that Zelensky could sell to the Ukrainian people. And there are all sorts of versions. A demilitariz area in Donetsk, which is the area now controlled by Ukraine. If the Ukrainians retreated from that, would it be demilitarized with the services there, the fire, civil services, even police continue to be Ukrainian even though it was nominally under Russian administration? Those are the kinds of details they've been talking about. And Zelensky moved to this very hard position.
- [65:27]
Maybe as an attempt to get bargaining leverage with Trump. That doesn't tend to work very well. But I have to say, the last 24 hours, I've been confused by just where Ukraine wants to be at the end of this.
- [65:42]
Mark Halperin
Week. Yeah, I couldn't agree. Well said. You know, it's, it's always good to look forward, but I want to look back just a little bit because we know almost nothing, at least that's been publicly reported or that anyone's been willing to tell me about what the Witkoff Kushner conversations were resulted, what resulted from their meeting in Moscow with Putin and his advisors and then three days in South Florida with the Ukrainians and the US People. We don't know very much about what came out of there. Do you have a sense of where the current deal is, how it compares to that famous, you know, 20 something point plan that was released? Where are we now on the big issues of Ukrainian security and territory on terms of the working.
- [66:23]
David Ignatius
Document? So, Mark, I don't have.
- [66:28]
Firm enough sense of that to be able to write it. And so I shouldn't blab it out on your wonderful show, but I can sketch what I think this conversation has been about. So I think the basic argument that.
- [66:46]
Witkoff, Kushner and Trump by extension, have been making is.
- [66:53]
The deal you can get today is better than the deal you'll get six months from now if you fight on. Because the basic correlation of forces now, especially in Donetsk, is Very unfavorable. So be smart. Let us help you get a better deal than you'll end up with, with less loss of life. And the Ukrainians, understandably, have resisted and wanted assurances. I think the central theme.
- [67:24]
For Witkoff and Kushner is.
- [67:29]
What'S going to make Ukraine secure is integration into Europe with European military support on the ground and other ways, but more importantly, European investment. Rapid accession of Ukraine into the eu. Thinking with the Europeans about how that would work much faster than previous.
- [67:56]
Programs for this have allowed has been one of the things that they're talking about. I think there's an effort to organize significant U.S. investment involving some of the biggest financial firms in the US in post war Ukraine. Ukraine has a problem in that it really is a very corrupt country. The war has made it difficult to clean that out. Understandably, it's just a war economy, just always has a degree of corruption. And so I think it is sensible to get more American investment, more true European integration. Just a final thought on this, Mark. I felt from the beginning that this war really is about whether Ukraine can become part of Europe. That's how it started. In 2014, Ukraine wanted to join the European Union. Yanukovych initially supported. The Russians flipped out, and to this day, Vladimir Putin can't tolerate the idea of a European Ukraine. No, you know, we're one.
- [69:02]
Joe Flint
People.
- [69:03]
David Ignatius
You're. You're of.
- [69:04]
Mark Halperin
Russia. You're.
- [69:04]
David Ignatius
Not. You're not European. And that's, you know, the Ukrainians have now passed that. They feel deeply that they're. That they're European. Their anger to Russia is enormous. So if there could be a deal that allows them to be, you know, in a way that's safe and secure, part of Europe, then I'll take that as a Ukrainian win. And some of these little details that Zelensky is handling over seem less important to me than that issue that, that, you know, that they're. That I know Witkoff and Kushner.
- [69:34]
Mark Halperin
Are trying to focus on how quickly could that happen? How quickly could life in Ukraine, of what remains of Ukraine be normal enough, even as they cede land to Russia to have commerce, to rebuild schools and businesses, to have the Europeans there in a peace setting. Is that something that could happen within months? Or is the rebuilding and the threat of the Russians going to be something that puts that off for a very long.
- [70:01]
David Ignatius
Time? So I think the answer is probably several years. You know, there's some more specific timelines that are being floated, but I don't think they're definite yet. But the idea is that what will provide security.
- [70:17]
Beyond the security guarantees that they are trying to strengthen, they're already Article 5 alike. But let's be honest, given the US National Security Strategy, we're pulling away from NATO in Article 5. Like guarantees don't mean as much as they did a month ago. So the view is that what really will provide security is economic integration of the region. That that's really a more reliable bet that in truth, look at post war Europe. That's what made Europe stable and secure. Its economy began to grow and boom, it's now less secure because its economy is weaker. But I think that's the idea that they're working on. It's not crazy. The problem is that both the Europeans and the Ukrainians feel deeply insecure about just a hostile, unyielding Russia. And unless Trump and company address that, this isn't going to.
- [71:12]
Mark Halperin
Work. Just game out here. If the talks collapse, if the president basically says there's no way to make peace between these two sides.
- [71:21]
One of the mysteries, and it's an extraordinary story that's been told, but probably not as fully as it someday will be, is how the Ukrainians have kept from Kyiv from falling, have kept so much of their land, how they've stood up to the Russians. If the president, quote, unquote, walks away, presumably Congress doesn't pass any new aid. Is it possible that Russia will make extraordinary and very fast gains that will change the landscape along the lines of what the president and his team have warned the Ukrainians.
- [71:46]
David Ignatius
About? It's possible, but I think Trump and company have probably overstated the degree of Ukrainian vulnerability. That's why they think this is the moment to make peace, because Ukraine is so weak, surely these people get it, they're about to lose. Trump just said a version of that in the political interview today. And other analysts have a more favorable, more positive view of where Ukraine is on the battlefield, that a complete collapse in Donetsk is not likely. The Ukrainians have been doing a lot of thinking about.
- [72:28]
How they would manage a phased retreat from this town of Pokrovsky, which has become way more important than it, than it needs to be. I wish and I've written that they would think more about a defensible line, wherever that ends up being. It's not going to be right where it is now because it's too vulnerable, but somewhere that they could fortify and be safe behind. But.
- [72:58]
I think the Ukrainians are exhausted. I think that the way in which energy and electricity are being being pounded, just talking to people yesterday you know, in, in Kiev or with connections with people in Kiev. You know, it's just, it's freezing. People are demoralized. They have no electricity. It's just so disheartening. They feel isolated, but they're pretty, they're tough. They've gotten, they've gotten through bad winters before. And I'm, they. I don't see any sign they're ready to give up.
- [73:26]
Mark Halperin
Yet. That's extraordinary what they've done. Save the hardest question for last. What do you think Putin expects the outcome to.
- [73:32]
David Ignatius
Be?
- [73:35]
I think he's now prepared to.
- [73:40]
Settle for control of the four administrative regions, plus Crimea, that were part of the special military operation in quotation marks.
- [73:54]
When he launched it. And he considered to his people, I've achieved the goals that I set out to cost us more. But we, plus, I think he does want a kind of.
- [74:06]
Not, not a, not a neutral Ukraine, but a Ukraine that, that can't lean hard militarily against Russia. He doesn't want Ukraine as a forward bulwark of NATO, either in name or in fact. And I think that's a lot of what this fight is still.
- [74:24]
Mark Halperin
About. There's very few people, really, in my view none, who understand what's happening and why better than David. David, so grateful to you for making time to join us. Thank.
- [74:33]
David Ignatius
You. Thanks, Mark. Always good to talk to.
- [74:35]
Mark Halperin
You. All right, that's it for today's episode. Thank you for watching. We're going to be back Thursday with another show, a little bit of talk of 2028 in store for you anytime you want. You can watch us on YouTube or listen to us as a podcast. Subscribe everywhere. Recommend the program. We want more nexters. Grateful to you for being part of it. And I will see you on Thursday. And if you stay with us and let your friends know, this is the one place you can be to always know what's coming.
- [75:02]
Joe Flint
Next.
- [75:02]
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