Anne Applebaum

So it looks more and more like the main motivations for everything, you're right, not just foreign policy, are to do with the business interests of people in the entourage.

I would be amazed if you couldn't do it.

I don't even know if you need special connections.

I mean, you know, you need to make a donation to the East Wing or you need to buy into the president's cryptocurrency fund.

I mean, there are lots of ways to do it.

And you can buy into the cryptocurrency fund anonymously.

You can do it anonymously.

you know, as an anonymous shell company.

And so, actually, nobody would have to know except the people who run that fund, which, by the way, includes Zach Witkoff, who is Steve Witkoff's son.

I'm not even sure you have to be an insider.

I don't know if you have to be a MAGA Republican.

I don't think anything ideological is required.

I think it's really just money.

I am not sure because I don't know of an exact historical parallel to what we are living through.

Very often when you have this kind of corruption takeover system, it results in some kind of collapse or disaster or war.

And it's usually after the collapse or disaster or war that you have the moment of reckoning when people say, that was too much.

We need to change our system.

We need to change our constitution.

You know, we need bigger, deeper changes to prevent this from happening again.

And of course, I don't wish something like that to happen.