TRANSCRIPT: White House Tussle! Trump v. Zelensky – Prof John Mearsheimer

Joe Biden did everything he could to help the Ukrainians. And when Joe Biden left office, the Ukrainians were losing, and the Russians were on the march. And there’s no evidence that we have any way of altering the balance of power on the battlefield.

So you want to accept the reality that’s facing us and figure out where to go from there. And, basically, that leads you to the conclusion that it’s best from our point of view, and here I’m talking about the United States, and it’s best from Ukraine’s point of view to shut this war down. And if it goes on, what’s going to happen? More Ukrainians are going to get killed, and they’re going to lose more territory. Is that good? Not in my opinion. In my opinion, from both a moral and a strategic point of view, Trump is on the right track.

Trump’s Ultimatum and Potential Fallout

DANIEL DAVIS: One of the other quotes that came out of that meeting that’s beyond what we recorded right there was that Trump said, “We either make a deal or we’re out.” That’s what he told Zelensky. Apparently, they’re walking out the door. Let’s look for a moment at what is likely to be the fallout from this from the Trump administration.

Now they were looking for this minerals deal, you know, for some financial incentives or whatever. There was already a little bit of bad blood because Trump sent his treasury secretary there to visit to get a deal done and signed about a week or so ago. He came back empty handed. Trump didn’t like that. That’s when he called him a dictator without an election after that point, then he kind of calmed down. And then now this one here in your face in the Oval Office, what do you think Trump is likely to do next?

PROF JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Just very quickly, the mineral deal, the whole idea was initiated by Zelensky. And really what he wanted to do was allow the United States to make a lot of money from Ukrainian minerals, and the quid pro quo would be that the United States would continue to provide security for Ukraine. The fact is that the United States refused to tell Ukraine that it would continue to provide security for it, that it would continue to support it in its war with Russia. So the mineral deal went nowhere. And this is why Zelensky is so frustrated today in this press conference before the meeting. Zelensky has no solution.

The mineral deal didn’t work out the way he wanted. So what is he going to do? And he misbehaved, and we saw the end result. Now your question is where is this all going? My view is that it is likely that Trump will cut a deal with Putin. Trump and company surely know what the Russians want. They know what the Russian demands are, and it appears that they’re willing to meet those demands. Otherwise, Trump wouldn’t be saying that he had a really good conversation with Putin and that they understand each other and that he believes they can get a deal.

So I think the deal is going to happen. But the question is, what will the Europeans and what will the Ukrainians do? And that’s where the real resistance is likely to come from. And I think that Trump can coerce the Europeans to go along with the deal. The Ukrainians are much trickier. It could be that this set of fireworks that we just saw will actually help Trump because it will send a very clear signal to the Ukrainians that the Americans are playing hardball, and they better agree to the deal that he works out with Putin or else. So it could be that in the end, this will help Trump get the Ukrainians as well as the Europeans on board.

Trump’s Leverage with Europe and Ukraine

DANIEL DAVIS: I can certainly see that. At one of the press conferences or one of the meetings that Trump had yesterday, after the one with Starmer, he had said, you know, before, “Yes, I think we can get this over in a matter of weeks” when he was talking with Macron on Monday. And then it shifted kind of noticeably to me because he said, “Yeah. We can maybe get this done quick or maybe not at all.” So he was actually implying before this meeting happened, this is just last night, maybe there won’t be a deal at all. And his comment that he apparently made on the way out the door there was, “You either do it the way we want or we’re out.”

And so the question specifically now is, do you think Trump would actually say, alright. If you don’t do what I want, if the Europeans don’t do what I want, I am out. Genuinely, we’ll stop all of our support and you guys can figure it out. Do you think he would do that?

PROF JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Well, that threat alone will get the Europeans to go along. Right? In other words, he can tell the Europeans, “Listen. If you don’t sign on to this deal that I’ve just worked out to shut this war down, I’m out of Europe.” And the Europeans do not, under any circumstances, want the United States to exit Europe. So Trump has real coercive leverage there.

With regard to the Ukrainians, I mean, what does Trump do if he cuts a deal with Putin? And let’s just say the Europeans and the Ukrainians drag their feet. They won’t go along. The Europeans say they’re going to continue to support Ukraine, and Ukraine says it’s going to continue to fight the war. What do you do if you’re Trump? I would not be surprised if Trump just walked away from both Europe and from the Ukrainians and said, “Look. I cut a deal. It’s an excellent deal from Ukraine’s point of view. You’re not interested in the deal. You then figure out how you’re going to deal with the Russians. I’m out of here.”

DANIEL DAVIS: He had even implied that he might be willing to do that before, and I had argued that he has some precedents for this when he walked away from the deal that he had with Kim Jong Un in Vietnam in, I think, in 2018 or 2019. So he has done that on high stakes before, but I think it was going to be a lot more difficult until this meeting. And I think now that the door is much more open that he could actually take that course of action.

PROF JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Well, you want to understand two things. One is that Trump is deadly serious about putting an end to this war, improving relations with Putin and with the Russians more generally. Number two, you do not want to underestimate the amount of contempt that Trump has for the Europeans. And you also don’t want to underestimate how anxious he is to greatly reduce, if not eliminate, our commitment to Europe. He basically thinks that NATO belongs in a museum, that it’s not useful anymore. So if he had a serious opportunity to pull the United States out of Europe or at least American troops out of Europe, he might just jump at it.

Russia’s Demands and Position

DANIEL DAVIS: Well and so we’ll certainly see how it’s going to happen. Gary, do we still have the Jack Keane sound? We do we have that one?

[JACK KEANE CLIP]: I think it remains to be seen if Putin is really going to negotiate, and that means be willing to make some compromise. He’s already come in with a hard line position at the negotiations that took place yesterday where they said they want more territory than what they’re occupying. He wants Ukraine to demilitarize. He wants them to have an election so he can undermine that election successfully as he’s done very much in the past and hopefully get a stooge in there that he can influence and control. He wants Ukraine to go down to eighty-five thousand troops only and only be able to fire a missile forty kilometers, twenty-five, thirty miles, in other words. So those are very hard line positions. It remains to be seen how much progress we’re going to make here. But Putin has got major military problems and personnel problems coming in 2025. There’s a lot more pressure inside on Putin than what is recognized publicly.

DANIEL DAVIS: Now that was just hours ago. That was before the explosion in the Oval Office. But it’s interesting because the first half of that, he lays out what apparently Russia has said just yesterday, articulating more of what their requirements are, not just the four administrative borders of the oblasts, but also demilitarization, like, genuinely down to eighty-five thousand people and some other limitations as well. They seem pretty adamant on that, but then he pivots over to say that, actually, it’s Russia that’s in trouble.

Is Russia in Trouble?

PROF JOHN MEARSHEIMER: No. Just a couple points here, Danny. One on the demilitarization point. You want to remember that the demilitarization issue was one of the issues that was discussed in the Istanbul agreement or Istanbul negotiations back in March-April 2022.

So this is not new. And I believe that the Ukrainians had accepted the fact that they would have to demilitarize to the point where they did not present an offensive threat to Russia. So that issue is an old one. It’s certainly still on the table, and the Russians are not going to compromise on that issue. There are three big issues here.

One is that Ukraine has to be a genuinely neutral state. It can’t be in NATO. There can be no western security guarantees, which basically add up to de facto membership in NATO. Ukraine has to be neutral.

That’s point number one. Point two is that the west and Ukraine have to accept the fact that Russia has annexed those four oblasts plus Crimea. That’s nonnegotiable. And then you have the demilitarization point, which is nonnegotiable. There may be some minor changes on whether they can have 85,000 troops or 90,000 troops. Who knows? But that’s just minutiae.

The fact is that the Russians have a handful of demands that are nonnegotiable. They have made that clear since June 14, 2024 when those demands were clearly laid out by Putin.

Now General Keane’s basic argument is that we can get the Russians to bend because we’re in the driver’s seat, and it’s them, the Russians who are in trouble. This is delusional. The Russians are in the driver’s seat. The Ukrainians are in desperate straits. And we are fed up with this war, and we want to walk away from it.

So Putin is the one who has all the leverage. And I think that Trump must understand very clearly what the Russian demands are, the main demands that I just described, and that he must have conveyed to the Russians that we will accept those demands. Otherwise, there’s no point in Trump continuing to negotiate with Putin and continuing to talk as if we can cut a deal. So I think you’re going to get the deal that Putin has basically articulated on June 14th and on a number of other occasions moving forward.

What If Zelensky Doesn’t Agree?

Now here’s where it could get sticky. Let’s say that Trump has and/or will now agree to all of those points and say, as far as the United States is concerned, all of those points are effective. But if Zelensky doesn’t go along with it, because he has to order the demobilization to get down from somewhere between 800,000 and a million they have right now, depending on who you believe, down to one-tenth of that or less than one-tenth of that, would be a pretty big move that I don’t know that he could survive politically and maybe not in any way. How does he do that? And what happens if Zelensky doesn’t agree to what Trump agrees?

DANIEL DAVIS: Well, as we talked about before, Trump seems to be saying that if Zelenskyy doesn’t agree, if he’s going to cause trouble and make the agreement unworkable, then Trump is going to pull us out. We’re out of there, and he’s going to leave it to Zelensky to deal with the Russians on his own or maybe with the Europeans. And I think the belief is that the Ukrainians will quickly realize and the Europeans will quickly realize that they’re no match for the Russians, and it’s time to cut a deal. And if they don’t, then Ukraine is going to be further destroyed.

PROF JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Yeah. I think that’s pretty clear that that’s—I mean, we talked about that last year when we were in New York. We said that was already the case, and it was just a matter of playing it out on the battlefield. And now it seems that they’re intent on making that have to play out.

European Reactions

DANIEL DAVIS: But I want to shift real quick to in terms of how this is viewed. I asked you about how Trump may have viewed it and what he may do next. Let’s look over at the Europeans.

So you just had Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron who, representing basically Europe and the big powers over there. They both just made probably private appeals to Trump to do a little more than he was wanting to. How do you think they’re viewing it now? Because I gotta think that in Paris and London, they’re probably not too happy about these images that just happened.

PROF JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Well, I think they understand, Danny, that there’s no way they’re going to convince Trump to change course on Ukraine. It’s gotta be clear to them that the die is cast on that particular issue. I think what they’re principally worried about, and it explains why they were so diplomatic, is they don’t want to make relations between the United States and Europe any worse than they already are because they don’t want the United States to leave Europe. They don’t want NATO to go away.

So I think what Macron, Starmer, and other Europeans are doing is being very nice to President Trump and telling him that they will make certain concessions here and there. And this is the Europeans talking about making certain concessions on trade and issues like that so they can stay in the good graces of President Trump and keep the American pacifier over their head.

But on the issue of Ukraine, I mean, they surely understand at this point in time that Trump has decided where he’s headed, and they’re not going to turn that train around.

DANIEL DAVIS: Yeah. It seems to me that they—it was hard for them to change this mentality that for three years. And I think they were hoping that maybe they could nudge Trump in some directions here to just kind of keep something going on. But I think that, ultimately, they’re going to be focused on what’s good for them beyond this war, and I think that is to keep Trump engaged with them with NATO and going forward.

So if they have to make a choice, I don’t think it’s going to be Kyiv that they’re going to be siding with. I think it’s pretty clear.

PROF JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Yeah. I think that’s a good way to put it. They’re looking beyond Ukraine. I like your language, and that’s effectively what I was saying. And I think the interesting question was the previous question that you raised is what are we going to do if Ukraine doesn’t cooperate? And you were also pointing out that even if Zelensky wanted to cooperate, it may be very difficult for him to do that given the politics inside of Ukraine. But the real wild card here, when all is said and done, I think, is Ukraine.

DANIEL DAVIS: Well, that’s, I think, an understatement. Definitely, they are a really wild card today in every sense of the word.

Putin’s Response to the New Administration

But you mentioned about people looking beyond the war, not just in Europe and the United States, but it’s also in Russia. This is a comment, again, from earlier today, a video that was released, apparently, a speech that Putin gave to the FSB. And in it, he addressed the issues he saw with the United States. And this was obviously a lot more calm than the other explosion we saw, but it’s also more hopeful and looking beyond with the United States.

Putin said: “You see, we all see how rapidly the world is changing, how the global situation is evolving. In this regard, I would like to note that the initial contacts with the new American administration inspire a certain degree of hope. There is a mutual willingness to work towards restoring interstate relations and gradually addressing the enormous accumulation of systemic and strategic problems in the global architecture. It was precisely these problems that, at one time, provoked both the Ukrainian crisis and other regional crises. It is important that our current partners are demonstrating pragmatism, a realistic view of things, and are abandoning many stereotypes, so-called rules, and the messianic ideological cliches of their predecessors.”

So he’s—and he said this in other forms as well—that they seem to be encouraged. Lavrov has said similar things that they’re encouraged that there is a willingness to discuss things with the American side because they’re looking at things that are bigger. And I wonder if you can talk a little bit about one of them, especially, is the new START treaty expires in less than a year now. And, apparently, that’s on Trump’s radar or something that he wants to get done.

So the war has to get solved in an amicable way with Russia at any rate if he wants that to continue on. How important do you think that aspect is to Trump?

Trump’s Broader Strategic Interests

PROF JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Well, I think that Trump has interests that go beyond Ukraine. I think Trump understands that there are a number of other security problems in Eastern Europe that need to be shut down. And that’s why Trump is interested in this whole issue of crafting some sort of security architecture that covers Eastern Europe as well as all of Europe, if possible.

I think both Trump and Putin want to put an end to the trouble that’s been taking place in Europe in recent years, and that requires an overarching security architecture. I also think that Trump is interested in pivoting to Asia. I think that Trump has his gun sights on China. I think he’s interested in containing China. And I think to do that, he understands that you want to pivot out of Europe to pivot toward East Asia.

I also think he understands pushing the Chinese and the Russians together, or to put it in slightly different terms, pushing the Russians into the arms of the Chinese by continuing this Ukraine war doesn’t make any sense at all. So I think he has a lot of different reasons for wanting to end the Ukraine war.

Now you raised the issue of arms control and another START agreement. I think Trump is basically interested in an arms control agreement. But I think arms control moving forward is going to be an extremely thorny issue.

And the reason is that we now live in a world where there are three great powers instead of two great powers. You and I are old enough to remember the Cold War and the great difficulty the United States and the Soviet Union had crafting arms control agreements when there were only two great powers in the system, the United States and the Soviet Union. Well, now you have three great powers, the Chinese, the Russians, and the Americans. And if you’re going to craft meaningful arms control agreements, dealing with things like strategic nuclear weapons or intermediate range nuclear weapons, it’s going to have to be done with all three powers, and that’s going to be very difficult to get agreement with all three. So I think arms control is going to have a very rocky future.

DANIEL DAVIS: Yeah. But at least Trump is focused on that. Gary just signaled me. This is something that apparently Trump just published on his Truth Social. He said: “We had a very meaningful meeting in the White House today. Much was learned that could never be understood without conversations under such fire and pressure. It’s amazing what comes out through emotion, and I have determined that President Zelensky is not ready for peace if America is involved because he feels our involvement gives him a big advantage in negotiations. I don’t want advantage. I want peace. He disrespected the United States of America and its cherished Oval Office. He can come back when he is ready for peace.”

Wow. That’s a pretty salty comment there. It sounds like he got booed. I guess there weren’t any more conversations behind the scenes even when the cameras left.

Trump vs. Biden on War and Peace

PROF JOHN MEARSHEIMER: You know, it’s very interesting, Danny, but the difference between Biden and Trump is just so stark. First of all, Trump is a much more forceful leader than Biden was. But furthermore, Biden was a warmonger, and Trump, for all his flaws, is not a warmonger. He’s interested in shutting the war in Ukraine down, and he’s not interested in starting any more wars.

He’s actually made that quite clear with regard to Iran, where the Israelis would really like us to take out the big stick and pound Iran. And he doesn’t want a war with Iran, and he wants to shut this war down. So you have this rather unusual situation where it’s Donald Trump who’s talking about peace. He’s a peace president, and it was Joe Biden who was the war president.

And Zelensky and Biden were birds of a feather. And the problem that Zelensky faces is that he now is dealing with a partner, and I use that word loosely, in President Trump who has a fundamentally different view on the whole issue of war versus peace. And what Trump wants to do is come up with a peaceful agreement that he argues, I think, quite correctly, Trump I’m talking about here, will work to Zelensky’s advantage or to Ukraine’s advantage.

It’s funny, but I think both you and I agree that what Zelensky wants is not good for Ukraine. What Trump wants is good for Ukraine.

DANIEL DAVIS: One hundred percent agree. Yeah. That’s what a crazy world this is with all that. And, you know, I would wonder if—and I’d like your—obviously, you don’t have anything to base this on other than just your instincts.

But Trump talking in that Truth Social there about, you know, emotional issues. Obviously, he’s a very emotional character. It seems to me that if I were the Russian side, I would want to take this opportunity to say, hey. How about we just agree right now? Here’s how this is going to end, and we’ll just get it off the table now. We don’t have to mess around with it anymore. Do you think they’ll try and take advantage of this?

PROF JOHN MEARSHEIMER: No. I don’t think the Russians have to do anything but just sit back and wait till the Trump administration comes to them, and then hopefully, they can cut a deal quickly and that it doesn’t get dragged out. That’s what concerns me.

The Aftermath of the Trump-Zelensky Meeting

PROF JOHN MEARSHEIMER: I worry that the Ukrainians may be able to drag this out, in which case it would work to their disadvantage because they would just lose more territory and more people would get killed. I mean, this actually may work to cause Trump to call the Kremlin very quickly and to shut this one down as quickly as possible. You can tell a plausible story about how that happens. But I think the Russians are just sitting back and enjoying watching this. My text messages have been blowing up from sources who are connected to the Russian side. So I’ve just seen some of the headlines, and that’s definitely happening there.

DANIEL DAVIS: One last section here I want to ask you about in terms of reaction. Let’s take a look at the viewpoint of the Ukrainian military. So they’ve already been fighting a losing battle. They’ve already had their morale going down because they see they’re just fighting over where the end is going to be. Is it going to be here? Is it going to be there?

Now they’re going to see this. I’m sure this is going to spread like wildfire on their Telegram channels and other social media down to the troop level. What do you think they’re going to think if they see their president blowing up at the United States and perhaps causing him to withdraw his head? And basically what Trump said in that Truth Social just a second ago is that he’s almost like saying, “Hey, you’re on your own already.”

Are they going to keep fighting if Trump does pull out and it is Zelensky on his own?

PROF JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Well, you could tell two different stories. One is that they will see this, which they obviously will. The whole world will see this, and they’ll feel good about what Zelensky did. They’ll think that Zelensky stood up for Ukraine, and he stood up to Trump. And when Trump tried to browbeat him, Zelensky fired right back. So I think some people will feel that way. Maybe many will feel that way. We’re talking here about many Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines.

But on the other hand, one would think that they would understand—here again, we’re talking about the Ukrainian soldiers—that this means that the United States is through with Ukraine. And at some point, it’s going to cut off the flow of military aid, and that means Ukraine is doomed. And then the logic that you were spinning out begins to kick in, and that’s to say this is all hopeless.

I thought for a long time that once it became clear that Trump was bailing on Ukraine, that he was not going to continue to act like Joe Biden towards Ukraine, that that would have significant psychological effects on the frontline forces. I used to say to myself, how could it be otherwise? You’re losing with American support. You’re suffering great casualties, and now the Americans are bailing on you. What’s the point of continuing the fight?

And then in that scenario, you could imagine the Ukrainian army beginning to crumble. So this could contribute to that for sure. But I do think that what will happen here initially is that many Ukrainians will feel good about the fact that Zelensky has played the role of the tough guy with Trump.

DANIEL DAVIS: I guess only time will tell on that. Well, listen. I really appreciate you coming on today on this breaking story. Couldn’t have had it timed any better for our show here than it happened right before we had you on. So I really appreciate that very much. Thank you for coming on today.

PROF JOHN MEARSHEIMER: It’s my pleasure, Danny. Let me just conclude by saying this is all just terribly sad to see what’s happened to Ukraine and to think that it all could have been avoided had we not tried to bring Ukraine into NATO.

DANIEL DAVIS: Indeed. Indeed. We lament that as well. And listen, I know a lot of the folks that we’ve been watching the counter here that joined us after the beginning, you may not have seen all the fireworks. So we’re going to end the show by replaying that video one more time so you can see exactly what happened.

The Trump-Zelensky Oval Office Exchange

ZELENSKY: He broken the ceasefire. He killed our people, and he didn’t exchange prisoners.

TRUMP: Destruction of your country. But if you—

ZELENSKY: Mister president, mister president—

TRUMP: With respect, I think it’s disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office and try to litigate this in front of the American media. Right now, you guys are going around and forcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems. You should be thanking the president for trying to bring it into this—

ZELENSKY: I not been to Ukraine that you say what problems we have. I have been to—

TRUMP: I’ve actually watched and seen the stories, and I know what happens is you bring people, you bring them on a propaganda tour, mister president. Do you disagree that you’ve had problems bringing people into your military? And do you think that it’s respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to prevent the destruction of your country?

ZELENSKY: A lot of questions. Let’s start from the beginning. First of all, during the war, everybody has problems. Even you, but you have nice ocean. I don’t feel now, but you will feel it in the future. God bless.

TRUMP: You don’t know that. God bless. You’re not blessed. You don’t know that. Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel. We’re trying to solve a problem. Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel.

ZELENSKY: I’m not telling you because you’re no position to dictate that.

TRUMP: Remember this. You’re no position to dictate what we’re going to feel. We’re going to feel very—We’re going to feel very good and very—

ZELENSKY: You’re right now not in a very good position. You’ve allowed yourself to be in a very bad position, and he’s happy to be right about. From the very beginning of the war—

TRUMP: You’re not in a good position. You don’t have the cards right now. With us, you start having cards. Right now, you don’t have to play cards.

ZELENSKY: You’re with the lives of millions of people. You’re gambling with World War III. You’re gambling with World War III. And what you’re doing is very disrespectful to the country, this country, that’s back to you far more than a lot of people said they should have. Have you said thank you once in this entire meeting? This entire meeting, have you said thank you? You went to Pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition in October, offer some words of appreciation for the United States of America and the President who’s trying to save your country.

ZELENSKY: Please, you think that if you will speak very loudly about the war, you can—

TRUMP: He’s not speaking loudly. He’s not speaking loudly. Your country is in big trouble. I ask?

TRUMP: Wait a minute. No, no. You’ve done a lot of talking. Your country is in big trouble.

ZELENSKY: I know.

TRUMP: You’re not winning. You’re not winning this. You have a damn good chance of coming out okay because of us.

ZELENSKY: Mr. President, we are seeing in our country staying strong from the very beginning of the war. We’ve been alone, and we are thankful. I said thanks in this cabinet.

TRUMP: You a bill around this cabinet. We gave you a stupid president three fifty billion dollars. We gave you military equipment, and you met a break, but they had to use our military equipment. If you didn’t have our military equipment, this war would have been over in two weeks. In three days, I heard it from Putin. Three days, is something in two—

ZELENSKY: Of course, yes.

TRUMP: It’s going to be a very hard thing to do business like this. I can tell you. Said a little bit of excitement to American people. Except that there are disagreements, and let’s go litigate those disagreements rather than trying to fight it out in the American media when you’re wrong. We know that you’re wrong.

ZELENSKY: But you see, I think it’s good for the American people to see what’s going on. I think it’s very important.

TRUMP: That’s why I kept this going so long. You have to be thankful. You don’t have the cards. You’re buried there. You’re people are dying. You’re running low on soldiers. Don’t play—You’re running low on soldiers. It would be a damn good thing. Then you tell us, I don’t want to cease fire. I don’t want to cease fire. I want to go, and I want this. Look, you could get a cease fire right now, I tell you, you take it so the bullets stop flying and you meant stop getting—

ZELENSKY: Of course, we want to stop the war.

TRUMP: You’re saying you don’t want to—said to you, want a ceasefire. We guarantee it. Because you’ll get a ceasefire faster than any greater.

ZELENSKY: Ask our people about ceasefire, what they think.

TRUMP: Wasn’t with me. Wasn’t with me. That was with guy named Biden who was not a smart person. That was with Obama. It was your president. Excuse me. That was with Obama who gave you sheets, and I gave you javelins. Yeah. I gave you the javelins to take out all those tanks. Obama gave you sheets. In fact, the statement is Obama gave sheets and Trump gave javelins. You gotta be more thankful because let me tell you, you don’t have the cards. With us, you have the cards. But without us, you don’t have any cards. It’s going to be a tough deal to make because the attitudes have to—

DANIEL DAVIS: That just sums it up there again. And sorry if I can just show that Truth Social comment one more time from Trump. Just leave you with that. Gary, if you could throw that up there bigger, I actually can’t read it.

I said I don’t want advantage. I want peace. I thought that was one important thing that Professor Mearsheimer said there at the end that Trump is actually a peace president. He actually means it. He doesn’t want advantage. He doesn’t want war, and the previous guy did.

So, anyway, we appreciate you guys sticking with us in the late coverage of this. We’re going to probably do this more later on. We’re going to have some additional information. Just watch your channel there for us, and we’ll pop up later. But we’ll see you next time on Daniel Davis Deep Dive.

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