Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome back staff writer at The New Yorker, her most recent book, The Divider, co-authored with her husband, Peter Baker. It's Susan Glasser, of course. Hey, Susan, how you doing? Hey, Tim. Great to be with you. Good to be with you, too. We've got so, I mean, there's just so much happening.
One thing I have not covered this week because of the various scheduling demands is the secret deal that is being drafted between Steve Witkoff and his counterparties in Russia. This is an Axios story. The Trump administration has been secretly working in consultation with Russia to draft a new plan to end the war in Ukraine. A top Russian official told Axios he's optimistic about the plan.
It's not clear how Ukraine and its European backers will feel about it. Wyckoff replied to that tweet publicly on his personal Twitter and said he must have got this from Kay. This, I assume, was meant to be a DM saying that this story came from Dmitriev, Kirill Dmitriev, the Russian envoy. Seems like a shit show, but I'm wondering what you make of it.
Well, I think we can say we actually do know what Ukraine and Europe will think of it. And the answer is they don't think much of it. It's not funny. In fact, you know, Russia's attacks this week have been particularly pernicious, aimed at the civilian population, including in Western Ukraine, civilians sleeping in their beds, going about their business.
This proposal seems to be not that dissimilar, literally from Russia's 2022 proposal. quote unquote, peace proposal, which was essentially a series of unilateral demands. I mean, by itemizing the peace plan and making it 28 points, it doesn't make it any more of a viable peace plan.
What it does appear is essentially that the United States, at least one faction of the United States government, Stephen Witkoff, is willing to act as an agent for conveying Russian demands and conditions for the end of the war to Ukraine. I don't see this right now
as being a serious or viable proposal for Ukraine, because any leader of Ukraine, including Vladimir Zelensky, but any other elected leader of Ukraine would no longer be able to be the leader of Ukraine if they agreed to these conditions, which essentially would compromise the sovereignty and the future independence of the country.
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Chapter 2: What secret deal is being drafted between Steve Witkoff and Russia?
You know, there's been so much going on domestically, we haven't covered it for a little bit. The status on the ground has seemingly changed a little bit as far as, you know, Russia becoming more aggressive offensively than they had maybe the last time we checked in. Does that sound right to you?
Well, I mean, Russia has had a deliberate strategy, by the way, in violation of all principles of the laws of international warfare of targeting Russia. Ukraine's civilian population with long-range missile and drone strikes, and in particular targeting Ukraine's civilian infrastructure, and that means heating and electricity. We're just headed into the winter.
It's going to be a brutal and terrible winter. winter on the ground in Ukraine. And, you know, one of Putin's strategies here is to maximally increase the suffering on the population of Ukraine in order to force things on his term, in part, Tim, because actually the strategy of going on a fence in a more conventional way has not been very successful for Putin.
It has come at enormous cost in manpower, in the strength of his military, which has been decimated on the ground in Ukraine. Basically, they fought on the offensive all summer long to gain minimal, minimal support.
In fact, I was really struck by a statistic cited by The Times in its story today about this Witkoff-Dmitriyev peace proposal that suggested a Ukrainian think tank has come up with a number of four years, which is how long they say it would take for Russia to...
to fight at the current rate and gain territory at the current rate to get just this additional portion of the Donbass that Steve Witkoff wants Ukraine to give away to Russia, even though Russia doesn't control it right now. Four years just to get a part of one country. Right.
You know, Western Ukraine and civilian populations in the country and also Ukraine itself has been striking increasingly at targets inside of Russia using its domestically manufactured drones and other long range weapons.
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Chapter 3: How is the Trump administration involved in the Ukraine peace proposal?
You mentioned the sanctions bill that's been percolating around Congress for a while now. It's been that they've had the votes, many Republican senators at least saying that they would be for a sanctions bill for Russia just hasn't been brought up.
You know, John Thune, presumably not wanting to get the ire of Donald Trump and Marco Rubio, I think would be the only obvious reason why the sanction bill has not has not come up in the Senate. I'm interested to talk about that in the context of the other big news of this week, which was the Trump capitulation on Epstein, right?
For the first time, Trump was made to bow down by someone in his own party. In this case, it was Massey, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Lauren Boebert. Truly, and you and I have, how many times have you, it's usually been you interviewing me or Sarah or somebody in this case, which is like, when will the Republicans, you know, actually be able to stand up and fight to him? Many have tried, but
Tomorrow's guest tried. He's no longer in Congress anymore. You know, like Trump has always won anytime he's been challenged inside the party and he's lost externally. But within the Republican Party, he's always won. This Epstein discharge petition is the first really major instance of someone challenging Trump.
Trump going at them and he brought Lauren Bowden into the situation room and having him be defeated. I do wonder if that makes some of now I think that John Thune probably has less of a base of support and then Marjorie Taylor Greene. So there are certainly some differences. But I do wonder if those cracks start to lead to other things such as this becoming maybe more possible. I don't know.
What do you make of that?
Was that the whiff of a little, you know, possibly irrational exuberance?
It was definitely irrational. I don't know if it was exuberant. It was a whiff of irrational hope.
No, look, I actually did. I want to ask you because I feel like you're a keener observer of the, you know, sort of the former limbs, you know, still maybe echo for you. You know, my my take is definitely it was a huge embarrassment for Trump.
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Chapter 4: What are the implications of the proposed peace plan for Ukraine?
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Their exclusive Black Friday, Cyber Monday deal is their best of the year, so order now before it ends. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. It's interesting. I want to come back to the Epstein thing, but just while we're on this point on the approval rating, because I was looking at this yesterday, too.
If you look at the various issues, really the only issues where people approve of him on now are the border and Israel-Palestine, Israel-Gaza ceasefire. In some ways, that's interesting because it's instructive on how Donald Trump has gotten out of focus on the things that could help his political standing.
Because he is obsessed with that personally, and he wanted the Peace Prize, and he also kind of fancies himself a dealmaker, and it is something he's getting positive feedback on, right? And so I think that kind of does tie to the secret Russia negotiations and how he's focused on that. It ties to having MBS, which I want to get to next, at the White House.
And it ties to what is the domestic priority right now, the escalation of ICE, which we're going to get to, right? So the things... that he has good ratings on are the things that they're really doubling and tripling down on.
The problem is if you're that far underwater in the economy and people are that unhappy about all this other stuff, at the end of the day, being above water on the Israel-Gaza dispute is not a path to political power here. It might be for Bibi.
You're absolutely right. People do not vote on foreign policy and ask any member of Congress whether they want 2026 to be a foreign policy election. And, you know, you know the answer to that. A couple of thoughts. First of all, it does underscore that Donald Trump is not on the ballot in 2026, and he tends not to care all that much about things that don't you know, directly concern him.
And he's perfectly happy to cut loose Republican members of Congress if it doesn't fit with what he wants to do at the moment. But it kind of underscores his impending lame duck status in that sense. And there's a reason that second term presidents like to focus on foreign policy. They like to focus on legacy building.
Donald Trump, he's been out there musing about how he's not going to get into heaven and who can get me into the pearly gates. So this is a guy, he's not raising the east wing of the White House and building himself a grand white marble palace in the sky if he didn't have a focus right now on his legacy in America. all gold capital letters.
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Chapter 5: How is Trump's negotiation style affecting U.S. foreign policy?
about MBS's role in the heinous murder of Khashoggi. Things happened, Trump said. And then he goes on to have the state dinner with the masters of the universe all fetting this horrible dictator. What do you make of that?
Yeah, you pretty, you summed it up. I mean, you know, a lot of people didn't like this gentleman. And the one other thing- The gentleman being Khashoggi was what he said.
The gentleman being Khashoggi. Because that's a gentleman I don't like.
Yeah, exactly. And in fact, defending MBS, his attack on- Mary Bruce, the ABC News journalist who so calmly and professionally handled that awful situation. But I'm glad you actually brought up the dinner and the master of the universe, because I've just been thinking, like, I know there have been a lot of, call them iconic moments over the last nine months that really sort of distill that.
the second term Trump. But for me, I think I am going to remember the one-two punch of the lavishing. I mean, what other word is there for it than, you know, I mean, practically like just an onscreen, you know, embrace of
I thought you were going somewhere a little bit more prurient than embrace.
I was. I was. And I stopped myself. I used that line on my husband.
I'm not going to use it on your podcast. On the Bulwark podcast, it's probably better received than in your home. We won't embarrass Theo.
That would be terrible. You know, so this revolting scene of full-on embrace of a murderous autocrat in service of what appears to be, you know, personal business interests as much as national interests in the Oval Office, attacking a journalist in the most crude terms and threatening to withdraw ABC News' license.
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Chapter 6: What recent developments have occurred regarding Trump and Epstein?
Yeah. And look, I mean, we're also in a world where nine months in, you know, maybe you and I are not stunned by the series of worst case scenarios that are playing out before us. But I think a lot of people are and they're feeling the pain of the Trump economy and, you know, a sense of I'll do anything, you know, to show my my concern about this moment. And, you
you know, I think that is part of the moment, right? Look at those election results. I know it seems like an eon ago, but it wasn't even a month ago. You know, people really wanted to show up. They really wanted to show up. What can I do? I get that everywhere. I'm sure you get that everywhere. You know, what can I as an individual do? So that definitely meets the moment. But I don't know.
We're going to Vice President Cheney's funeral right now. And I feel like to me, it'll be interesting to see. And I think Vice President Harris will be there. Vice President Gore, who you mentioned, will be there. Biden will be there. George W. Bush will be there. But just listing those names, it's not names of the moment in many ways. It's, you know, a portal to the past. Right.
Yeah, I suspect will be an interesting thing to watch. I suspect that there will be significantly more Democratic elected officials there than Republicans.
I don't think I, yeah, I'd be shocked if there's many Republicans there at all, frankly, which is remarkable when you consider who we're talking about here.
Not to compare myself to Dick Cheney. We're different in many different ways. I'm going to endorse that. But it is reminiscent of my book. I was in D.C. for my book launch party. And it was like there were more people from Pete Buttigieg's campaign at my book launch in D.C. than there were from any job. All of the jobs I had had actually in my life in politics combined.
There were a couple of brave soldiers, friends who showed up, but very few. So, you know, that's kind of how things are in politics, you know.
Things change. You know, the center cannot hold. Things fall apart.
Susan Glasser, I always appreciate your time and wisdom. We'll see you up at the cathedral. Everybody else will be back here tomorrow with another edition of the podcast. I'm going to see geese tonight in New York. I need to cleanse the palate after Dick Cheney. So luckily we've got a guest who's going to be able to carry me if I'm moving a little slow. Susan, thanks so much.
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