s that they used to have a lot more territory and Ukraine pushed them back.

Now, the way I would interpret that is that Russia didn't have the force to hold the territory that they captured. And maybe some of it wasn't terribly strategic. So they may have said, "Well, we got all this territory. We'll keep the strategic stuff. We'll let them see if they can get back the non-strategic stuff." So probably there's a strategic versus non-strategic element in that. But it's generally easier to conquer some territory temporarily than it is to hold it for years. So anyway, that's interesting.

Putin is, as I like to say, he's a real good propagandist and I like to look at his work. Now if you can find it in your brain to not say I'm a Putin lover, I'm going to talk about what he's doing right in persuasion. Can you all handle that? I know 90% of you can handle it because you've been around my content for a while. It doesn't mean I love Putin. Okay? If I say he did something right or something that's smart for Russia, doesn't mean I love Putin. It just means he made a good play and maybe it's worth looking at. Maybe you learned something.

So Putin said there were three things he wanted to say about the war, specifically about Europe's involvement in the Ukraine Russia war. And Putin said that about Europe, they were obsessed with this idea of delivering a strategic defeat to Russia. Is that true? Do you think Europe was obsessed with the idea of delivering a strategic defeat? Or is it just something they wanted? Because who doesn't want to win? Well, this one rings a little bit true. Again, I'm not taking sides with Putin. I'm just talking about the propaganda game and when he does it well and when he doesn't. This is a good job because I don't know that this is the truest thing he's ever said, but it does match what I've seen in the news. So it's true-ish. It's in the realm of true stuff. I mean, it doesn't seem like the most important point in the world, but all given that it rings a little bit true. And it did look like they were somehow obsessed with spending all this money. You know, if you spent so much money and all these people have died, you're kind of going to want to say, "But it worked, right?" So maybe the way I would put it is it's not so much they needed Russia to lose, but they had put so much of their own reputation and treasure into making a difference that it's really hard to say, "Oh well, yeah, it's kind of embarrassing, but we wasted I don't know a hundred billion dollars on absolutely nothing." So it might be more to do with the Europeans can't take a loss when they put this much into it. So it could be that. So that would be roughly what Putin said, but I'm just saying it differently.

He said number two, instead of helping the current American administration and Trump who actually wants to negotiate a settlement. Oh, see what he's doing. So Putin is saying that Trump wants to negotiate a settlement and Europe doesn't. See what he's doing there? He's dividing the allies. So there's already a little bit of division going on between what Europe wants and what America wants. And America apparently is trying to negotiate a deal and then kind of coerce Europe into saying yes. And Putin's just very gently putting a wedge between them so that that difference is a little bit more stark. Trump wants to end the war. Europe does not want to end the war. Now, is that true? It's probably not exactly true. You know, there must be Europeans who do want to end the war, etc. But it sounds right. Right. So propaganda wise, nice play. Again, if you're just joining, I'm not taking Putin's side. I'm just looking at the gameplay, you know, who's making a good play and who isn't making a good play.

And he says, Putin says of Europe, they're the ones who walked away from serious negotiations earlier, and now they're trying to sabotage Trump's efforts as well. Does that ring true? Do you feel that Europe is trying to sabotage Trump's efforts? Well, probably they're going to ask for things that they know. Well, let me say number three. This is what Putin said before I say it in my words. I'll say it in his words. He said they, meaning Europe again, Europe have no genuine peace proposal of their own. Okay, is that right? I think that's true. Right. That Europe has not proposed a serious peace proposal. I don't remember seeing one, but that would be a good point. Again, I'm not backing Putin. I'm just saying, you know, anytime he says something that is true that bolsters his persuasion, and I think that sounds true. And so he says what they really support is continuing the war.

Now, this one's a little harder to sell. Why would Europe want to continue a war? Why would anyone want to continue a war? Unless you were the one under attack. Now, if you were the one under attack, you might want to continue it to get back what you lost, etc. But they're not Ukraine. So what is it that Europe wants?

So Putin goes on. He says, "What they really support is continuing the war." Okay, here's where it loses me. What is Putin's argument for why Europe would want to continue a war in Europe? If I were in Europe, the last thing I would want is to continue a war with Russia, even winning the war in quotes, winning seems like that would be super dangerous because they're a nuclear power. And what do they do if they get desperate? You know, do you have to win the war but just barely win it so they don't want to nuke you. I mean, it's all dangerous stuff.

And then Putin says of Europe, whenever they claim to be offering improvements, he puts it in quotes, or modifications to Trump's plan, it's transparent. They're deliberately inserting conditions that they know Russia will never agree to. Huh. But doesn't Russia do that too? Has not Russia inserted requirements that Europe and the US would never agree to? But maybe they've pulled back on some of them because they had I guess the US peace proposal was like 28 points but now it's got down to 20. I don't know which ones fell away but I imagine they were the impractical ones that nobody would ever agree to. I imagine, don't know that for sure.

Anyway, the thing that Putin leaves out from his analysis is when Europe says they're afraid that if Putin gets what he wants out of Ukraine, he'll just keep trying to get stuff. So if he wins in Ukraine, will that embolden him to try to take a piece out of I don't know, Poland? Because one of the arguments we've heard a lot is if you don't stop him, it's going to be a Hitler situation. You know, it's always a Hitler situation, but if you don't stop him, he'll try to get more of Europe because why would he stop? If it works, it works. So you keep doing what works, right? I don't know.

I'm not 100% sure that Putin thinks he could take any other countries, but I'm not sure that he doesn't think it. So that's the part he leaves out. I think Europe has a reasonably coherent opinion that if you don't stop him here, he will be emboldened to take another bite out of something you don't want him to bite. Either the rest of Ukraine or like I said Poland or maybe the Baltics or something. So there is an argument that if you don't stop him here, he'll keep going. And how do you know? We're not mind readers. Can you tell if he would keep going? What do you think? Show me in the comments.

All right, we're just going to do some mind reading here. None of us know what Putin is thinking or what he'll do or how long he'll live or anything else. We don't know. But what do you think? Do you think that if he succeeded in gobbling up as much of Ukraine as he already has that once he's digested that and he's got these drone making factories and he's ramped up his war economy so it's really humming around and he doesn't have a gigantic mutiny yet. You don't think he'd maybe take a little nibble, just a little nibble out of one of those other countries? Or do you really think this is solely about protecting ethnic Russians? Do you believe that?

Well, he's got a little bit of a Maduro problem, which is there's a belief that nobody has ever kept a deal. Just people don't keep deals. Maduro's allegedly made five deals he didn't keep. Putin allegedly has made some number of deals he didn't keep. The United States has made a number of deals with other countries that we didn't keep. Now, I'm not the historian expert, so I can't name what those things are, but I think that's true, right? Would you agree it's true that even the United States has unfortunately promised things that we didn't fulfill, right? So deals are kind of sketchy just in general. People keep the deals when it's in their interest to do so. They don't keep the deals when it's not in their interest and maybe they shouldn't, right?

So I feel like the biggest worry is sort of unaddressed and I wonder how Witkoff and Jared Kushner are handling that. They're not handling it by not mentioning it, which is what Putin did. So we'll see.

Meanwhile, the Trump envoys are in Moscow now meeting with Putin and his gang. Breitbart News is reporting, John Hayward. But what's different about this meeting? I guess Witkoff has been to Moscow and done a lot of footwork there, but this is the first time that Jared Kushner is in the room negotiating with Putin with Witkoff.

Now, here's what's interesting. Do you know what Jared Kushner has working for him? Does anybody know his secret sauce? Because he got the Abraham Accords done. Nobody saw that coming. What is the secret sauce that Jared Kushner has that nobody else has? He read my book Win Bigly. He literally read the book on persuasion before he did the Abraham Accords, which s