Evening Edition: How President-elect Trump Will Deal With Putin
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I'm Madison Allworth. I'm Juan Williams. I'm Liz Klayman. And this is the Fox News Rundown.

Thursday, November 14th, 2024. I'm Eben Brown. A new Trump administration begins in mere months, and no one is watching more closely than Russia's Vladimir Putin. How ready is the former president? And how ready is Russia? They absolutely cannot read President Trump. Unpredictability is the worst thing to deal with. This is the Fox News Rundown Evening Edition.

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President Trump will return to the White House in January following his landslide election victory, a victory he achieved in the midst of global chaos under the purview of the outgoing Biden-Harris administration, where conflict looms in Southeast Asia, is destabilizing the Middle East and has ravaged Ukraine.

President Trump's critics in the Democratic Party have complained he's too easily manipulated by the likes of Russian President Vladimir Putin, though the president-elect is quick to remind those critics that during his last turn in the White House, Russia didn't attempt any further invading or confiscating of Ukrainian territory. Putin has always maintained that it matters not who occupies the American presidency, that he doesn't pay attention to U.S. elections.

But having dealt previously with President Trump, it doesn't seem likely Putin would not be heavily interested. Malarkey actually is a very accurate technical term for this. Rebecca Koffler is the author of Putin's playbook, and she spent a career as an analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency. Yes, Vladimir Putin very much cares about U.S. policy so much that...

that the Russian media, as well as Russian intelligence, they watch minute by minute everything that is going on in our country. They have watched every single debate. They watched, obviously, the elections. They are watching every single person that Trump has selected. And previously, they watched both Kamala Harris's debates

debates and rallies, as well as President Trump's. How do we know this? We know this because if you go on the Russian state media, which is almost exclusively controlled by the Russian state, by the Kremlin, and ultimately,

by Vladimir Putin himself, I very often learn what's going on in our information domain by monitoring the Russian media.

Within minutes, even if something that, let's say, I didn't read in U.S. media, I come across it in the Russian media, and then I double-check. Literally within minutes, when something happens, which is translated as the Russian National Gazette, which is pretty much the mouthpiece of the Kremlin,

It's TASS, you know, everyone knows what TASS is, right? The Soviet propaganda machine, Interfax, all of them. And now, Commerzant, they have wall-to-wall communication.

And they are very invested in what's going on in our country. Why is that? Because Russia views the United States as its top security threat. And it goes back decades, back to Soviet days and the Cold War. Every strategic planning document, the national security strategy, the foreign policy document, the military doctrine, all

officially codified. Those are the Russian documents that I'm quoting, officially codified the United States and NATO as top security threat. And of course, they are interested who is going to become our commander in chief because it's going to be very different from them, whether it's Kamala or whether it's Teflon Don. Let's talk about what Vladimir Putin is probably going to have to do

contend with, especially come January. Donald Trump has made the campaign promise that he will get the Ukraine war ended, finished. And I think he even said 24 hours. Sometimes President Trump is known for a little bit of fanfare and exaggeration, but I think he's quite serious about aiming for this 24 hour deadline to get this war stopped.

Does Vladimir Putin want to stop this war in Ukraine? I think no matter why you think we're in Ukraine or, you know, dealing with Ukraine or not dealing with Ukraine, certainly no one likes to see the fact that this war has been going on for the better part of three years and that so many people have been killed. The number could be in the millions. But, you know, I think there are a lot of people that are sitting there waiting to see if Donald Trump can actually get the at least get the fighting stopped.

What, what happens next? Exactly. So, uh,

Black man Putin absolutely does want to end this war. The question is, on what terms? Black man Putin wants to end it on Russia's terms. And he articulated those very clearly. And one of his top requirements is no NATO membership for Ukraine. And Russia keeps 20% of the territory it has annexed. Okay.

The question is, will Donald Trump go for that? And for the Russians, Donald Trump is the worst person to negotiate with. Why is that?

The Russian intelligence services, they do psychological, physiological profiles of all top leaders and especially U.S. leaders. Well, they have concluded, the Russian spy services, and they do very, very thorough analysis, that President Trump is unpredictable, unlike Kamala Harris, who is

They have a sense to be vapid and intelligent and incompetent, which means that they can manipulate her quite successfully. With Trump, it's impossible to do because Trump actually what he does is he flips Putin's playbook.

on Putin. What do I mean by that? You said that President Trump sometimes exaggerates things and does it for fanfare. It's not exactly that, Eben. That is the same tradecraft that intelligence officers, the spies basically, like Putin and like the KGB use to recruit their target.

And one of them is intimidation and manipulation and to convince the target that you're stronger than him, that you can overpower him. And that's just one of the tactics. And we could go into some other ones if you're interested in. And Trump does it very naturally. He is a very successful businessman. He is a talented negotiator.

He has people skills. And so basically what Putin was a KGB operative, right? In Eastern Germany, recruiting spies. And that is the tradecraft, right? He prides himself on being able and I quote, working with people.

Right. So it's not just intimidation, but it is also convincing the person that they have something in common. And so Trump.

does both. Remember that how everybody was mad at Trump that he never like calls Putin, you know, a war monk or whatever Joe Biden, you know, or bloody dictator or whatever. Like, but all that does, like when the establishment folks do that, it shows to Putin that

he can unbalance them because they get like out of control calling him this name. Well, Trump is the opposite. Trump shows him respect. He never called him anything bad because

He wants to predispose Putin to trust him because trust is key. So I want to read to you a quote from some declassified stuff that Putin said. Actually, in 2001, he shared his tactics, how he manipulates Putin.

So he said that working with people entails the ability to communicate with a wide range of individuals from journalists and scientists to politicians and rank and file citizens. It is important, Putin said, to establish a dialogue and activate the best in your partner. You want to achieve results, you must respect your partner

acknowledge that he is better than you in some way. You must make him your ally, make him feel that there's something that unites you, that you have a common cause.

Well, now think about how President Trump does things, right? He sometimes, you know, paves the roadmap, so to speak, you know, to the, let's say, the North Korean dictator or the Xi Jinping. You know, he invited Xi Jinping to Mar-a-Lago, right? And then now he's promising to slap tariffs on China.

Same with the North Korean dictator. You know, first he butters him up, then he calls him a rocket man, like he tries to unbalance him. Same with Putin, right? So basically what Trump does is he gives a taste of his own medicine to Putin and he flips his playbook on him. And that's the Russians are just so frustrated because they absolutely cannot read President Trump. Unpredictability.

is the worst thing to deal with because now they've done all of these profiling, right? The Russian intelligence, they think they know everything to the point like when they meet with the leader, it's not just, it's all senior leaders, right? When you meet, let's say with Lavrov, the foreign minister, right?

He would be chatting with you and he would mention literally or would bring, let's say, a gift of your wife's favorite perfume. That's the level of detail they do their homework. Well, they can't pull that one on Trump because he he will do it exactly to them the same thing that they do to him.

We're speaking with retired defense intelligence analyst Rebecca Koffler. She is also the author of Putin's Playbook and a podcaster in her own right. And we are talking about exactly why Vladimir Putin and his upper echelon are very closely watching President-elect Trump. On the Fox News Rundown Evening Edition, please like and subscribe. We'll have more straight ahead.

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It's an interesting contrast that you bring up, and I know that this is the theme of your recent posting on Fox News dot com. But so many of the detractors of President Trump here in the United States have said this this man does Putin's bidding. This man is easily manipulated by Putin by by by instant flattery. But in the same vein, they have a

tried to extol the virtues or extol the accomplishments of President Biden or even Kamala Harris, Vice President Harris.

Yet we've been on the tangential side of this war with Ukraine. We've spent billions of dollars. And to what end? We haven't seen any real results. Yes, the Ukrainians have made an incursion. They've held some of this territory. But the fighting hasn't stopped. The killing hasn't stopped. And like I've said earlier, it's been three years. So I think, again, we'll come back to what I asked you earlier. I think the big question is, is

Can this war get stopped? I think that's really ultimately what everyone wants to know. So the war will get stopped probably in not in exactly 24 hours, but my assessment is probably within three months.

Right. There's definitely some concessions will be made to Putin just because the reality on the ground is such is that Russia is winning the war. In fact, Russia won the war or Ukraine lost the war before it even started because of the vast disparity in combat potential and combat potential includes weapon systems,

military forces, military industrial complex and defense economics. There's a reason why the Pentagon itself considers Russia a near peer competitor. Right. Ukraine is massively outmanned and outgunned. Russia has three times more people to throw into the meat grinder. And I have other pieces where I described all that.

This is what these people who claim that they hold Ukraine's interests at heart and who blame President Trump for, they basically think that Trump is going to give away the store. These people are simply incompetent and they don't understand how Putin thinks and they don't understand how geopolitics works. It is on those people's watch.

Obama's watch and Bill Clinton's watch and George W. Bush's watch and, of course, Biden-Harris' watch that Putin invaded Crimea during Obama. During Biden-Harris, he invaded the rest of Ukraine. And during Clinton and during George W. Bush,

Putin has built up a massive military industrial complex at the very same time that we were decreasing our combat potential, whether it is by slashing our defense budget or like, you know, paying massive amounts towards NATO when NATO members themselves didn't pitch in for their defense or

or by forcing this stupid idiotic woke ideology on our

military forces and on our intelligence officers, intelligence community. And Putin knows all that, right? And he knows right now that the United States, and I will quote to you, there's something called the National, the Commission on National Defense Strategy that has done an assessment of U.S. military capability and

it has concluded that the u.s right now cannot possibly win a war with russia or china

Because we have depleted our weapon arsenal, including in Ukraine. So to the point where in our military industrial complex, unlike Russia's, Putin transitioned his economy on a wartime footing seven years prior to invading Ukraine. Our military industrial capacity is insufficient right now to replenish our arsenal. And some of these weapons systems take five to eight

to 18 years to rebuild. And Putin knows, of course, that. So Donald Trump has inherited, and yes, he's gonna use all of his skills and talents in negotiating tactics, right? But Putin is also not a fool. So it's gonna be who's gonna outplay whom, who's gonna intimidate whom. My assessment is Trump is gonna outplay Putin. He's gonna get the best deal for Ukraine than anyone would have ever gotten. It's gonna be a perfect deal,

No, but not because of Trump, but because of the situation that he inherited. Rebecca Koffler, you've spent a whole career at the Defense Intelligence Agency. You are a podcaster and a writer and the author, certainly, of Putin's playbook, which is being updated for podcasting.

a new publication this coming March. Thank you so much for being with us on the Fox News Rundown Evening Edition. Absolutely. I'm so happy to be here with you and your audience. Stay tuned.

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