Transcription
There are so many questions I have for you. Not least, you talk about other world leaders, you know, putting their heads up, sniffing the air, and realizing that America may not have their back anymore, and so they at least have to start talking to China. That said, and I am not in any way an expert on world leaders, but when I was looking through the rows of them, I couldn't identify very many of them. I mean obviously there was well and I also want to talk to you about the handshake the handshake where uh Modi clutched the hands of she and of Putin and they sort of had a weird almost sort of fraternity brother handshake. It was it was bizarre. So I want to I want to ask you about the symbolism of that. But who were some of the other world leaders? We know Kim Jong-un an was there but who else were there? Who were those people?
Well the the Iranians were there. a lot of the other countries that support them were there this by the way you know I don't think you know everything in Donald Trump's mind is is Trump ccentric everything in the world is not Trump ccentric you know the the the rise of these big emerging powers has been going on since I was in the Clinton administration in the '9s in fact I I led something called the big emerging markets initiative and then a couple years later a guy at Goldman Sachs came up with this idea called the bricks right which was Brazil Russia India, China and South Africa. And the bricks took this and they said, "Yeah, let's let's turn this into something which is now a group of of I think uh I don't know, it's maybe maybe 20 countries. Um and you know, they're saying the the world is not all about the US. It's not all transatlantic anymore. We have power." And of course, India and China alone are 40% of the world's population. and um and and and you've got to go through us to get things done. And this has been a an an effort that has appealed to Russia. It's appealed to India. It's appealed to Iran. It's appealed to the Brazilians who right now hate the United States because of Donald Trump and and his, you know, attacks on Brazil and his tariffs in order to uh support his, you know, mini me in Brazil. I or Bossara. Um but but at the center of it all, it's about the rise of China. Something that's been going on since 1979. Something that's actually gone on throughout history for all of history until the early part of the 19th century. China was the biggest economy in the world. India was the second biggest. We had the industrial revolution. they caught up and we are now moving back into an era where they are going to be in a much greater leadership position. So, you know, Trump may think it's all about him. Um, but it's it's not.
His response, however, is like a little high school kid who, you know, is just, you know, uh, uh, feeling isolated and is coming up with his own true social burn book like in Mean Girls. and and you know he like fires out you know I mean he says some of the most remarkable things you know like oh well China ought to realize that you know we were the ones who supported them when they faced an un very unfriendly foe you know meaning the Japanese I assume well I assume that referred to the end of the second world war right when he said that right well right I we supported them when the Japanese attacked them and so forth um uh but you know he said this other thing the other day, which is so Trumpian because, you know, every day he seems to search for um hyperbole that exceeds all hyperbole that has ever existed in history. And yesterday he said, which is a very Trumpian phrase in itself. Actually, you're you're picking up his habit. I'm channeling the channeling him. Uh but but we you know, he said if it weren't for the United States, everybody else in the world would be dead. And I just thought, "Oh my god." Oh, I missed that. I missed that. Did he truth social that? I think he said it in some uh in some press event, but it was like, "Oh, really?" But this is narcissist, you know? This is narcissist. It's like I the world is only me. It's only my perceptions of the world. And if I cease to exist, it ceases to exist. Uh which is why a declining Donald Trump the the guy you write about with the cankles and the thing on his hand and everything, why that's so dangerous for the world because the more he thinks he's on his way out, the less he cares about everybody else. And well, that's a great point. And also, he's so thin skinned. Imagine what he must have felt like. Um, and you sent me the clip, I think, from the Japan Times, which had the hot knife of Xi Jingping and Putin talking together about the possibility of having an organ transplant, which would mean they could live until they were 150. And I just thought, gosh, if you're Donald Trump and you're hearing, is everyone hanging out and having fun without me? That must have been what it felt like. He's already so alone. and he cuts such a lonely figure even when surrounded by his cabinet that we know hate him uh and hate each other and I I just thought gosh this is this is going to end badly.
Well, it's gonna it's gonna end badly for sure. But but you know, he he must listen to this stuff even as he is in these like in the press event he had yesterday to talk about the non-event of moving space command from Colorado to Total non-event. Total non-event. But he just he's desperate for attention. But even during it, he said four times, "Well, I'm still alive, you know, and it's like this to prove it to himself." What? what? You're still alive? And and so they're going to live to 150 and he's like having to prove he's still alive and he's he's he's also saying, you know, he's doing this weird stuff. I don't know, you may have a theory about it, but where he's going, uh I I'm trying to get into heaven. I want to legacy building, right? Is that legacy building? Cuz he thinks he thinks he's going to die and he doesn't want to go to hell for all eternity. I think he's like, "No, no. I I'm that I got to start thinking about the next chapter here. It's sad. It's It's really really sad. Meanwhile, you know, it's such a great metaphor because the Chinese and the Russians and the all these other people, they're like, "We have modern." They were talking about biotech, right? They were they were and Putin, who's a little obsessed with this, has invested like a billion dollars into biotech and he's trying to, you know, stay fit and whatever. and she is also they're investing a ton into this but it's also saying we have a future and and Donald Trump who's all about bringing not just the world about Donald Trump but to his values which are sort of mored in the 18th and 19th century he's he wants to go backwards they want to go forwards he's dying they want to live forever he's got less and less power they have more and more power it's the contrast that you know as in the middle of this is huge. It's true.
Although we might now think after the hot mic that Putin was investing all that money cuz he just wants to live until 150. Cuz as much as Donald Trump thinks the world about Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin may think that the world is actually about him and Xi Jingping may think the world is about is about them. I guess the Can we talk about the parade for a moment? Because as you said, it it was beautifully choreographed. I couldn't help thinking, well, first of all, I couldn't help thinking about how Donald Trump had reamed out Pete Hager because his big beautiful birthday parade turned out to be such a disappointment and people sitting with Trump were yawning. Sitting with him were yawning because by this point they really didn't care. Um, and the and the army, what Donald Trump, I think, doesn't realize is the army, you know, is run by consultants now and they want to be friendly and smiling. They want people to go into the army for a career path, not sort of look intimidating and be goostepping around uh the park in in DC. Um but I did think also that all the machinery looked fantastically new and shiny and all the uniforms did too. And you thought, well, this isn't a country that's actually been to war for a long, long time, unlike American the American army, which has been dispatching soldiers right, left, and center since the Second World War. I mean, I don't think China has been to war since Korea. Right.
Well, yeah. And that, you know, China has never been, despite, you know, everybody's terror about China, it's never been kind of the big imperial power. It's never really tried to project its force. it's always really focused on um uh defending and maintaining control over the area that it sees as as China. Um and so one of the things that's happening in China which is new under Xihinping is really kind of embracing the idea of being a worldleading power uh and trying to shape the global community in a more Chinese direction. I don't personally think this means they want to conquer the planet, but the contrast was really striking. I mean, I I don't know if you remember from the the Trump Hegs Seth embarrassment of a parade in June, but you know, they had a guy from I don't know the drone corps or something in his baggy fatigues walking down uh the street in Washington holding a little drone over his head like like you know it was picture was like it was like flying a little model plane and and then you know the Chinese yesterday had these giant and advanced drones and massive uh seagoing drones that to destroy these 60 foot long ones, right, that go under the water. Yeah. Yeah. And and you know, they they have a lot of techn Now there's going to be a whole bunch of people in Washington are like, well, the Chinese don't really have this and they don't really have that. They are way ahead of wherever they were. They're in the middle of the single biggest ramping up of nuclear power that we've seen since since the US and and Russia were in a arms race in the 50s and 60s. That they they are planning to try to get to a thousand nuclear warheads. They're still way way behind the US and Russia on that, but uh they've they've built now I think two ocean uh two uh uh uh aircraft carriers. They didn't have that before. They're building a bluewater navy. They didn't have that before. Uh and she's message, you can't bully us. You can't intimidate us. Uh and I think that message came through loud and clear. Meanwhile, you know, the United States is run by, you know, this desiccated old felon sex trafficker, racist, and he's got his military being run by a drunken frat boy idiot who can't even organize a parade. It's it's sad. It is a bit sad, isn't it? I mean, it's hard not to laugh at it. And it's hard not to laugh at it in terms of just the personalities involved and the way that Trump appears to be regularly maneuvered or regularly outmaneuvered, I should say, by this access uh axis of of upheaval.