Aug. 15, 2025

Trump Meets Putin in Alaska While Taylor Swift Breaks the Internet

Show Notes
Transcript

Donald Trump is heading to Alaska for his first sit-down with Vladimir Putin since 2018, pitching himself as a diplomatic wedding planner while promising peace talks with Zelensky. Meanwhile, Trump mobilizes the National Guard for “community beautification” patrols in D.C.—because nothing says law and order like soldiers with leaf blowers. And in the culture wars, Taylor Swift’s appearance on Travis Kelce’s podcast breaks YouTube, leaving Trump fuming about podcast ratings.

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Kalaroga Shark media from Alaska, where there's a pretty decent

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chance we give the state away today. This is bald.

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That's right. Let's trade some territories and let's hit this.

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I'm Patrick Guttfield and Donald Trump is heading here to

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Alaska for a meeting with Vladimir Putin, and he's already

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talking tough about how Putin is not going to mess

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around with me, and by me he means Trump Putin

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would totally mess around with me. This will be Trump's

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first face to face meeting with Putin since twenty eighteen,

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and Trump says the main goal is to set up

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talks between Putin and Ukrainian President Zelenski. He told Fox

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News Radio he already has three locations in mind for

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a potential Putin Zelenski meeting. Trump's basically turned into a

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diplomatic wedding planner. I'm thinking maybe somewhere romantic, maybe somewhere

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with good lighting for the cameras. The White House says

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the talks will include a one on one meeting, a

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bilateral lunch with both delegations, and a press conference, so

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it's the full diplomatic treatment. Trump and Putin sharing Borsche

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and discussing world peace over lunch. What could possibly go wrong?

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Trump also floated the idea of inviting European leaders to

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participate in a second meeting. So now he's planning a

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whole diplomatic convention. We'll get Putin, will get Zelenski, maybe

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throw in some European leaders, make it a real party. Meanwhile,

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Putin praised Trump's sincere efforts toward ending the war in Ukraine,

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telling Kremlin officials that the US is making quite energetic

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and sincere efforts to stop the fighting. Putin calling Trump's

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efforts sincere is either genuine diplomatic progress or the most

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backhanded compliment in international relations history. Trump confidently declared that

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he thinks both leaders will make peace. That's quite the

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prediction from someone who hasn't actually sat down with them yet.

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But this is Trump. We're talking about the man who

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thinks he can solve decades old conflicts with a good

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lunch meeting and some stern talking to So we get

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Trump versus Putin and Alaska, with the fate of Ukraine

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hanging in the balance. Either this will be a historic

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diplomatic breakthrough, or we'll get some very awkward press conference moments,

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knowing Trump probably both, and I figure there's a decent

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chance we wake up Saturday to find out there are

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only forty nine states now. Trump has now fully mobilized

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all eight hundred National Guard troops for his takeover of

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policing in Washington, d C. According to the Pentagon, the

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troops will work in shifts of one hundred to two

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hundred soldiers helping with community safety, patrols and beautification duties.

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That's right, we're using military personnel for landscaping. Now. Nothing

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says law and order quite like having soldiers pick up

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litter and maybe plant some petunias. I'm picturing National Guard

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members with leaf blowers and hedge trimmers, because apparently that's

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what passes for federal law enforcement these days. Ji Gone

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says the troops are unarmed and will be less visible

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than the federal agent's Trump has already deployed in the city,

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so we have invisible, unarmed soldiers doing community beautification. At

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this point, Trump has basically turned the National Guard into

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the world's most expensive grounds crew. Here's the thing. Trump

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keeps claiming that crime rates in DC are out of control,

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even though they've actually fallen sharply in recent years, But

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why let facts get in the way of a good

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military deployment. The city's getting safer, so obviously we need

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more troops in case someone tries to hold a midterm election.

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Taylor Swift appeared on boyfriend Travis Kelcey's New Heights podcast

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with his brother Jason, and the internet basically exploded. One

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point three million people were watching live in the first

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hour alone on YouTube, nearly double the eight hundred thousand

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who tuned in for Trump's Joe Rogan appearance last October.

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The podcast was so popular that Swift's fans literally crashed

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YouTube at the one hour forty four minute mark. Now

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Trump's probably looking at these numbers, thinking I had the

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most watched podcast appearance ever, and now Taylor Swift comes

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along and breaks the Internet in real time. You know,

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he's somewhere drafting a truth social post about how his

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Rogan interview was actually much better. The ratings were tremendous,

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and nobody talks about how he invented the three hour

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podcast format. He's probably calling someone right now saying, get

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me on that New Heights show. I'll talk football. I

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know football. I invented the forward pass. Trump's probably taking

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notes thinking maybe I should date a pop star, completely

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missing the point that you can't just manufacture this kind

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of cultural phenomenon, though knowing Trump, he's already planning his

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own podcast called truth Heights or something equally on brand.

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Portions of today's show were made with the help of

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AI release the Epstein Files You Can Word