The MeidasTouch Podcast
Former State Dept and CIA Official Ned Price on Trump and Ukraine
21 Aug 2025
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Herr Budjettiminister, kuinka neuvottelut sujuivat? Kiteytän lopputuloksen kahteen sanaan. Suk C. Voitteko hieman tarkentaa? Suk C, sau, va, mono. Mitä nyt hiihtämiseen tarvitaan? Mutta mitä? Sitä, että toimittaja on hyvä ja suk C siitä Pudkesporttiin. Sieltä saa kaikki hiihtovermeet nyt liikuttavan halvalla. Pudkesport.fi.
Let's talk about the intelligence community's perspective on Donald Trump's disastrous meeting with Vladimir Putin and also Donald Trump's, I believe, disastrous meeting with our European allies as well. I mean, former CIA analyst, former CIA director John Brennan, former CIA analyst. are looking at this and saying, wow, Putin was able to manipulate Donald Trump hook, line, and sinker.
Putin was a former top KGB member. He knows how to develop sources, how to develop people, how to manipulate people. And some of the manipulation tactics just seem so obvious. Maybe others were a little less subtle. I don't know. They all seem pretty obvious. And Trump bought into all of them.
Chapter 2: What insights does Ned Price provide about Trump's relationship with Putin?
I parroting Putin's talking points. Trump was saying no ceasefire. Donald Trump was saying we need to redo all of our elections in the United States because Putin told me that the 2020 election was rigged. Putin told me we're hot as a pistol. Putin said the country's as hot as a pistol. Vladimir Putin said Putin runs Russia.
Russia's like the strongest country in the world, Donald Trump was saying. Putin turned Donald Trump into literally Putin's PR guy. And Trump came back. He's like Peskov. And he's been just saying Peskov's Putin's PR guy. And Trump's been just saying all the Putin talking points. It reminds me of this article from Foreign Policy that I read back in July. I've shared it with you all before.
When the threat is inside the White House, what CIA insiders make of the MAGA moles and toadies now in charge of U.S. national security, you go and you read it.
It's like, with Ratcliffe in charge, John Ratcliffe, who's a Trump lackey at the CIA, the MAGA warrior Kash Patel running the FBI, the conspiracy theorist Tulsi Gabbard overseeing national intelligence, and the Christian nationalist Pete Hegsip at the Pentagon, Trump has created the makings of a national security nightmare.
Quote, totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty, Hannah Arendt observed decades ago. I mean, that's so on point. Take a look at what John Brennan, former CIA director, turned MSNBC analyst. Here's what he had to say.
He's worried that Putin may have microchipped Donald, you know, the beast when Trump put Putin in here. Watch what he says. Let's play it.
So I think you could see on Putin's face, he felt very, very comfortable. And the fact that he was given a ride then in the presidential limousine, the beast, I certainly hope the Secret Service has swept that vehicle very well in terms of any type of small microchip that might have been put in the vehicle. But then in the press conference, Putin looked chipper.
He looked upbeat. Either chip or upbeat. He was laughing. His foreign intelligence, foreign advisor, rather, Sergei Lavrov, was wearing SSR, USSR shirt. Andrea Kendall Taylor, a former senior analyst at the CIA, just gave an interview with Foreign Policy magazine. Here's what she had to say. Let's play it.
Many people now see with the summit that the worst fears of the analytic community going into the summit now appear to be in play. So number one, it was just the pageantry that we talked about. So Putin was able to secure this meeting on US soil with the US leader.
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Chapter 3: How did intelligence officials view Trump's meetings with European allies?
in the B store take advantage of technological means to further their intelligence goals against the White House. I'm actually much less concerned about that. Number one, how much are you going to learn from listening to Donald Trump rabble in the beast? But number two, I think this, you know, more seriously, there's another tactic, I think, that
Putin was prioritizing here, and it's less about surveillance, and it's more about, as you heard from Rob Dannenberg, manipulation. That is really, as Rob was saying, the key skill that intelligence officers learn when they're going through their training, whether they're KGB, whether they're CIA, whether they're any other intelligence, worthy intelligence outfit officers. the world over.
And it's not about, you know, technology that will make you appear invisible or learning how to see through, you know, hidden eyeballs in the back of your head. I think there are lots of misconceptions about what intelligence tradecraft is. It is really the art and it is the art of, as Rob was saying, understanding someone, assessing someone, and then most importantly,
blending the false impression to your target that you care about him or her, that you're interested in what they're talking about, and that you're on the same team. And I fear that's exactly what President Putin did from the moment he got into the beast with Donald Trump. We heard about some of that, including from Trump himself. He said that Putin raised
Mail-in voting, he said that Putin complimented him on some of the greatest hits from the campaign trail and really endorsed some of what he'd been saying. Obviously, so much of that was about manipulation. But then I think yesterday, there was something really startling that hasn't gotten enough attention. President Trump was having a conversation with President Macron, and there was a hot mic.
And President Trump sort of leaned over and said to him, said to President Macron, I think Putin wants to make a deal. I think he wants to make a deal for me. Very clearly, Putin left Trump with the impression that, you know what? I like you. We can work together. Let's do this together. But he also left. And I think this is the most important point. President Trump left.
embracing not Ukraine's view, not Europe's shared view, but the Kremlin's view. If you remember, Ben, President Trump went into the summit on Friday saying, essentially, if there's not an immediate unconditional ceasefire, won't be happy. Moscow will face the severe consequences they were supposed to have faced the Friday before Trump's own self-imposed deadline.
And I'll walk away in two minutes if I don't hear that. And then lo and behold, a couple hours later, the two men appear on stage together. President Trump has fully embraced President Putin's vision of a so-called peace deal. There was nothing to be heard or found of a ceasefire deal. And he was saying things like, it's up to President Zelensky now to make peace.
So President Putin was absolutely successful. He was most successful in the skills that he learned in the KGB.
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Chapter 4: What concerns arise from Trump's statements during the Putin summit?
soil, by fetting him with this arrival ceremony that is not even reserved for our closest allies. Can you think of the last time? Has there ever been a time where there's been a B-2 flyover for any country, let alone one of our closest allies?
And with with that arrival ceremony, with the setup, as you said, President Trump undid so much of what dozens of countries around the world have worked for several years to put in place this political isolation, diplomatic isolation with sanctions imposed. and other forms of economic pressure, this economic isolation. And then you have the optics of it all.
What President Putin has coveted, especially since President Obama called Russia a, quote unquote, regional power in the waning days of his second term, is nothing more than to stand on the same plane as the U.S. president, to stand side by side, to be seen as an equal. And in some ways, President Trump didn't make President Putin come off as an equal. He made him come off as a superior.
Again, the pageantry, allowing him to speak first during the press conference, allowing him to set the rules for the press conference where they didn't take questions. President Putin got everything he wanted optically. He got everything he wanted in terms of the imagery.
But again, I am most concerned that he got everything he wanted substantively because he left Anchorage with President Trump firmly in his camp. Even after a day of engagement with the Europeans yesterday at the White House, President Trump hasn't moved off that Russian position. He continues to advocate for it to this very hour.
That's why I always tell our audience here, let's take away the noise and focus on the facts. So in Alaska, was a ceasefire achieved? Because that's what everybody said the goal was. That's what Trump said the goal was. The answer is no. So then as you start looking at, well, what happened with Europe?
did putin agree to a trilateral meeting with zielinski and trump well that didn't happen um did putin agree to these article 5 like guarantees is what the trump regime is saying and then that's being parroted by the media trump says putin agreed to article 5 guarantees where with either a nato force or european soldiers in ukraine
And Russia's out there saying pretty clearly in their media, no, we've never said that. We're not doing that. And they've never agreed to the ceasefire, as I said before. So I guess in some ways, too, it's concerning because I feel our media is complicit in continuing this Trump said, but not letting us know how dire it was. Because I want to get your take on it.
To me, the European meeting, from an American standpoint and our geopolitical interests, How could it be viewed as anything but like one of the biggest failures ever?
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Chapter 5: How has Trump's approach shifted the U.S. stance on Ukraine?
My fear is that President Putin is, again, just playing for time. And his apparent rejection of a trilateral meeting, to me, is a data point. It's not dispositive, but it is a data point. that he doesn't intend to meet with President Zelensky, that he is willing to stand up President Zelensky, but he didn't want to also, at the same time, stand up President Trump.
And so by disaggregating them and potentially suggesting, you know, maybe Volodymyr and I will get together first. And if that goes well, we'll bring you into it. That's just his stall tactic. And I would actually be surprised if a meeting between Ukraine and Russia at the leader level materializes over the coming weeks.
And even Russian media is starting to say the issue was broached as to whether there could be more senior level contacts. It's very, very noncommittal. And I don't think that's a very good sign. So I think the task that's between Russia and Ukraine, if there's a trilateral following that, great. I think that will be to certainly Ukraine's benefit and to Europe's benefit.
But I think the real task between the United States and Europe and Ukraine over the short term is to work out these security guarantees and what exactly that looks like, what the United States is going to contribute.
here again is a concern because the security guarantees in in one sense that's actually the easy easier part of the equation uh we are really negotiating between and among our allies and partners ukraine europe um and others russia shouldn't get a veto over what security guarantees ukraine gets but um here too the trump administration might see otherwise tragically the real difficult question comes with the idea of land and territory
And on one level, you can guarantee a really terrible deal and that will just be tantamount to surrender. If you're guaranteeing Russia's permanent possession of 20 or 20 plus percent of Ukrainian territory, along with no NATO, along with no military, along with potentially a changing government, that guarantee isn't worth anything and it's not something we should be pushing for.
So really the territorial question is going to be the more difficult one. I think over the longer term, Ben, I think Europe, despite the happy face they put on, and I should say the vast majority of these European leaders see President Trump as a Bulgarian. They go there and they stroke his ego because they know they have to. They're holding their noses. They don't like him.
They don't like what he stands for, but they've seen the alternative and they don't want the alternative. So I think they are wise to the fact that they are going to have to become more independent.
I think they are wise to the fact that to the extent that Ukraine will continue to need security assistance into the future, it's going to depend on purchases from, not contributions from, United States to Ukraine. And I think above all of that, there are going to be certain European leaders, I think President Macron, chief among them,
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Chapter 6: What are the implications of Trump's meeting with European leaders?
And he talked about building like a real estate deal, which to me...
gave the green light right there to netanyahu you know and by the way we're seeing what five if you look in tel aviv right now and this isn't getting covered by our corporate news there are major protests in israel right now against what netanyahu was doing um right now there and that gets nowhere you and i could talk you and i could talk about this stuff for forever i think we hit all the we'll come back soon we'll talk about the rest of the world thanks ned we appreciate you thanks ben
Thank you. Ned Price, everybody. I was about to speak with Ned for the entire day and maybe longer, so we'll let him go. And subscribe.
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