Anne Applebaum

And I think it's... I've talked to a lot of people.

I can't find an exact precedent in American history before where something this high stakes and at this high level and involving the security of so many millions of people and so many other countries was being conducted by essentially business people whose main interest was business deals.

Isn't this...

Yes.

I mean, I suppose the shock for the outside world, and as you know, I live part of the time in Europe.

I have a Polish husband who's involved in all this stuff as well.

He's the Polish foreign minister.

And I'm continually hearing from...

not just polls, but from British friends, from German friends, I'm continually hearing this kind of shock and surprise that even this, I mean, I guess everybody got used to the idea that American politics are corrupt or there are elements of corruption in our system, but that even at this level, that it would be that corrupt remains surprising to other people.

Maybe it's not really surprising to us anymore.

But yeah, I think you're, you know, it is an extension of other decisions.

I mean, we're talking in a week when, at the same time, speaking of foreign policy, Trump is also working himself up, or maybe members of his administration are working themselves up to have some kind of conflict with Venezuela on the grounds that it's a narco-terrorist state.

And at the meantime, exactly in the same week, they've pardoned a former president of Honduras who was in jail on cocaine charges, apparently because maybe he has business dealings with some people who are around Trump or close to Trump.

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.