t at the table then even if you try to force them to accept it they're going to find partners in Europe to disagree and they're going to push back and they're going to drag their feet and they're first going to say yes but then later they'll say no. It just won't get done. So you can't, you'll never get a deal if you don't have the Ukrainians at the table. So that's one way you'll never get a deal.

The other way you'll never get a deal is to put the Ukrainians at the table because they're going to ask, we know Zelensky anyway will ask for something that's a non-starter. And I don't think he's negotiating. I think he just needs things that are impossible and could never happen. So the two ways that you'll never get a deal is if Ukraine is involved in the negotiating or Ukraine is not involved in the negotiating. And those are the only two conditions. So there are only two ways to go and neither of them could possibly work even on paper. Like if I simply describe to you the situation you'd say oh well that wouldn't work either way. And that's where we are.

So unless Trump has some plan for let's say trading out Zelensky or blackmailing him or bribing him or threatening him, I don't see how this could ever work. Now Putin is quoted, we don't know if it's a real quote but quoted as saying that the negotiations would be long and very difficult. So Putin's not seeing anything happening quickly. It could be that we're just dealing with Trump's usual optimism. He's just trying to will it into existence, which he can do. You know he has that ability to will something into existence that you thought was impossible. So I hate to be in a situation where I would bet against Trump being able to make a deal because it feels like later you just feel dumb. Like what was I thinking? You know why did I think he couldn't make a deal? But I'm going to say that unless something big changes, a very big variable, I don't know which one, but unless some big variable changes there's nothing there that looks like it could be a deal. As long as Ukraine is involved or Ukraine is not involved, the two situations that can't work. Anyway, that's my take.

So you've heard this before but I guess it's confirmed that Bill Maher is going to go to a meeting with President Trump at the White House. Kid Rock, who knows both of them, set it up. Now I saw a bunch of people saying it's a big mistake because you're just giving Bill Maher attention and nothing good can come of it. And I disagree. I disagree. There was definitely a time when it would have been a bad idea. But if you watch Bill Maher's show, even the most recent one on Friday, he's very much trying to find a common sense high ground. And it looks like a real, to me it looks like a real attempt to find a common sense high ground.

So he mentions if you ask him, and he said it even on Friday, Maher did, he can list several things that Democrats did that are just stupid and couldn't possibly ever help them win a race. So that's progress. It seems to me that Bill Maher's primary disagreement with Trump are based on something personal from their past. And then there's always the he's going to steal your democracy, the weird stuff, the things that he hasn't done but you imagine he might do in the future. Now some of it's based on things you imagine he did in the past.

So if you imagine that January 6 was an insurrection, well I don't know if you can be helped. Because if you start from that point of view you're starting with fake news. Do you know what the fake news never did? Have you ever seen all the interviews with the protesters to ask them why they were there? No you haven't. Never. Just think about the dog not barking. So there were thousands of people involved, thousands of people charged with a crime. And every bit of that except for the violent stuff that nobody supports, every bit of that was based on what they were thinking when they did it.

If the January 6 people were thinking oh I want to overthrow the country and even though Trump lo