Trump GLAZES XI As US Intel Says China Stronger Than Ever

Good morning, everybody.Happy Thursday.Have an amazing show for everybody today.What do we have, Krystal?

Indeed we do.We've got breaking news this morning on Trump's big trip to China.We've got statements from both him and President Xi, the competing readouts, what we can read into what, if anything, is coming out of this meeting.We're also going to take a look at what it all means for the war in Iran, which obviously very significant topic there as well.Another key inflation rating came in very hot as signs of trouble in the economy continue to mount.American test scores of American children at the third grade level have significantly fallen over the past decade.

Very troubling trend.We'll take a look at what is going on there.Maha is in shambles after Trump makes a corrupt deal with Big Tobacco that I'm kind of low key on the side of Big Tobacco.tobacco on this one, I think, Sagar, as well.

Yeah, we're all on the tobacco side.

We'll explain.

For this one.

Yeah, and it was very corrupt and disgusting, though, the way it was done.

It was a good outcome, bad way that it went down, but it is revealed.What you were saying about Maha is the most important thing is Maha has just taken L after L. Yeah, completely, completely irrelevant at this point.

And we've got a great guest on to talk about AI, who was a former aide to AOC and has really made developing some sort of a new AI consensus a major part of his thinking.And we're going to get him to react to this clip of Tucker Carlson versus Kevin O 'Leary on data centers that you guys are going to really enjoy.At least I really enjoyed it.

sitting down to dinner.And if anything comes from that, we will bring some of that to you.So here is Trump's first meeting with President Xi in the Hall of the People in China, where he gives himjust a real tongue bath.I think there's no other way to describe it.It's proper glazing here.

A true glazing here from Trump to President Xi.Let's take a listen.

You and I have known each other now for a long time.In fact, the longest relationship of our two countries that any president and president has had.And it's, to me, an honor.We've had a fantastic relationship.We've gotten along.When there were difficulties, we worked it out.

I would call you, and you would call me.And whenever we had a problem, people don't know.Whenever we had a problem, we worked it out very quickly.And we're going to have a fantastic future together.Such respect for China, the job you've done.You're a great leader.

I say it to everybody.You're a great leader.Sometimes people don't like me saying it, but I say it anyway because it's true.I only say the truth.And I just want to say, on behalf of all of the great delegation that we have, we have the greatest businessmen, the biggest and, I guess, the best in the world.We have amazing people, and they're all with me.

Every single one of them.We asked the top 30 in the world.Every single one of them said yes.And I didn't want the second or the third in the company.I wanted only the top.And they're here today to pay respects to you and to China.

And they look forward to trade and doing business and It's going to be totally reciprocal on our behalf.

Trump's opening statement there, a key theme of the show yesterday with Professor Pape and with Andy Brown over at Semaphore, was his wanting a deal.That's what a lot of this is about.Now, so far from the readouts, we haven't gotten anything very specific, but it's not an accident to have Jensen Wang, to have Elon Musk, to have the CEO of Goldman, the CEO of Citi, the CEO of Cargill, all of these people that are there.This is a trade mission.This is a 19th century trade mission.The oligarchs and the capitalists accompany the monarchs

trade mission.And more importantly, he needs some sort of economic win.Now, usually the way that this would work in a traditional administration is that for months leading up to this, American envoys would be in China and they'd be working out these memorandums of understanding.And then Trump and Xi go to the Forbidden City and they shake hands and they sign a piece of paper.That's not how this president operates.A lot of this is actually gonna be discussed face -to -face, vague, you know, oh, China has agreed to invest $3 ,000 trillion into our economy.

So it is a little bit of a wild card.But so far, the obsequiousness and the level of respect that Trump is offering to Xi, it's not just negotiation.He really does need a lot from him.He needs him to save his economic skin.He wants the stock market and all these other things to continue to go up.

And it's also becoming clear they really need them on Iran, is that there are multiple statements now from the Secretary of State and Donald Trump about how Iran, while they claim was not going to be a significant part of this, it absolutely is. percent.ways to enhance economic cooperation, expanding market access for U .S.businesses.This is going to be the best, basically, that Trump is able to get out of it, which is why he brought all of these oligarchs along with him.So it's, oh, Elon gets a deal and Gen Z gets a deal.

get out of it.language, because according to the Iranians, they say, hey, it is open from our perspective.You just have to follow our procedure.So the fact that language is left very vague does not mean there's an actual meeting of the minds over the Strait of Hormuz.She made clear China's opposition to the militarization of the Strait and Atoll.Xi expressed interest in purchasing more U .

S.oil and both agreed Iran can never have a nuclear weapon.No mention, you note there, of Taiwan.Nick Schifrin, who's a foreign affairs and defense correspondent for NewsHour, pointed out some of the differences between U .S.and China's readout.

So China's readout does include a stark warning over Taiwan, as I just mentioned, U .S.readout doesn't mention Taiwan whatsoever, emphasizes business, saying China will buy more agricultural products.And the two sides discussed ways to enhance economic cooperation, mentions cooperation over fentanyl, and says Xi made clear China's opposition to the militarization of the strait.Those were not the things that were emphasized in the Chinese readout.But the most key difference here is on Taiwan, where Xi really wanted to push the U .

S.on our position with regards to potentially defending Taiwan and arming Taiwan, wanted us to dial that back.He's in a position of strength right now.We are in an incredible position of weakness, thanks to Donald Trump, and especially thanks to his foolish war with Iran.So, you know, the best Trump could do is just not say anything about it whatsoever.But bottom line thus far is because of the weak position that we come in with, there doesn't appear to be a lot that is going to come out of this.

And it's also worth remembering, Sagar, this meeting was supposed to happen a while back.And it got postponed because of the disastrous war in Iran.I think Trump originally thought the war with Iran would be over in a couple of days.He could come flying into Beijing, you know, saying, look, we we did this with Venezuela.We did with Iran.Yeah, we're great conquerors.

We have all these natural resources now on our side.We can do what we want around the globe.Instead, this is, you know, he's having to come in with his tail between his legs, basically humiliated and with the whole world having seen what was going on.that the cupboard's bare, you know, having seen the wizard behind the curtain, because we do not have the ability to project power that most of the world thought that we did and have been completely checkmated with regards to Iran.

Right.And it's not just us saying this, it's the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as well.But let's also take a very close listen to something that was put out by Xi Jinping from his official translation, a warning about the Thucydides trap.Let's take a listen.

The whole world is watching our meeting.Currently, transformation not seen in a century is accelerating across the globe and the international situation is fluid and turbulent.The world has come to a new crossroads.Can China and the United States overcome the Thucydides trap and create a new paradigm of major country relations?Can we meet global challenges together and provide more stability for the world?

Trump's like, oh yes.

Trump nodding his head, there is the best part, oh yes.

Yes, the Thucydides Trap, I remember reading about that.I thought deeply about this topic.For those of you who don't know, the Thucydides Trap, I think we had a whole unit on it back in graduate school.It's Graham Allison.It stems back to the war between Athens and Sparta, and the idea was that Athens was the established commercial power and Sparta, the rising war state, and that eventually culminated in a war which weakened both powers, and that's the trap.The trap, the idea that war was inevitable between the two states, and that made it so that a war that was actually bad for both powers ended up becoming the trap itself.

This has actually long kind of been part of Chinese strategic thinking and something they emphasize a lot.I also remember this.The Chinese are the master, not of doublespeak per se, but when they say things like, we oppose militarization of the Straits of Hormuz.There's two military powers in the Straits of Hormuz.There's a blockade of the Straits of Hormuz and Iran.So you may read that as, oh, well, they oppose Iranian.

They're like, no, no, no, no, no.That's not what we said.What we said is we oppose militarization in the Straits of Hormuz.They also, they love this language where they'll call it like mutual respect.Well, mutual respect means we don't tell you what to do.You don't tell us what to do.

It's not as relevant now under the Trump administration.Nobody's finger wagging over human rights in China.That's like very 1990s coded.these days, effectively what it means.is they'll say things like, well, you need to have mutual respect in spheres of influence.Well, what does that mean?

It's like, well, spheres of influence includes the whole South China Sea, right?And it's like, that means an acceptance of the Nine -Dash Line or South Korea and Japan.In the same way, when we'll say things about the Monroe Doctrine or something like that, they have their own policy, right?So you just have to read between the lines.I actually thought the most unambiguous red lines came from the Chinese embassy.three up here on the screen.

This was released ahead of Trump's visit from the US or the Chinese embassy here in the United States.And they put out this graphic.The four red lines in China -US relations, they must not be challenged.Number one, the Taiwan question.Now remember, when they say the Taiwan question, what they mean is that their reunification is the policy, the actual one -China policy.Number two, democracy and human rights, which means don't tell us what to do with Uyghurs, with Hong Kong, or anything else.

That's just how it is.Keep your mouth shut.and political systems.So I asked a friend, effectively, and he's like a Chinese, U .S.kind of analyst, and what he said is that paths and political systems kind of links with democracy and human rights as in, There should be no criticism of lack of democracy or of, basically, like, do not - Don't push us towards being a liberal democracy.

Right.Don't try to push us towards a liberal democracy.It kind of gets to that mutual respect.We have our system.You have your system.Let's just keep it how it is.

We're not going to tell you what to do.We're not going to tell us what to do.And then China's development, right?Similar.It's one of those where you shouldn't be messing with their internal affairs and the ability of them to conduct commerce.I believe, and this is what he said when reading between the lines, is that they are still very upset over many of the sanctions on Chinese companies.

And remember, if you read between the lines of all of these things, it's about mutual respect, it's also about Taiwan, but the second or the tertiary really, thing that they really want is they're salivating at the entrance of the U .S.consumer market for their goods which they're not currently able to sell here, which is autos.So that was a big, big thing that they've been trying to get into U .S.markets now for some time.

I think you put all those together and you could see very clearly what they want out of the summit, what Trump wants.I just think generally, it's like you said, considering the position of the United States, we're really distracted because of what happened here with Iran.And it's just created like such a disaster for them in the ability to, it gives it such a disaster on the part of the United States to meet them at a time of such incredible weakness.Like I'm trying to think of a previous historic peril.I really can't.I mean, Maybe the only one would be some bilateral negotiations between the US and the Soviet Union at the height of the Vietnam War.

That's really the last time that something of this level of consequence is happening in Iran.And I know something's not popping off every day, but look, the price of oil is where it's at, and the defeat has happened strategically.It's over at this point.Now, you may have to invade, or there may be some sort of escalation, or maybe even some sort of a deal, but no matter which way you cut it, like from the day one of the war to where we ended up some 30 whatever days later, later with the announcement of the ceasefire, you can't say that it didn't fail.It is complete and total failure.Absolutely.

I mean, you've got neocon extraordinaire Bob Kagan out there saying it's the worst defeat for the U .S.in its history, you know?

See, I think Vietnam was worse.You think so?I do.Because from the U .S.perspective, not to get too bogged down, but it really ripped the country apart.

Like, you know, we had the draft.It rewrote the way that we had all of our military power.Fifty thousand Americans were killed.It also Also, it was a sucking of all of the, any of the potential promise of what the post -Civil Rights era kind of could have been.Yeah.All the money that was wasted, the dividends that were being wrought from the post -World War II era, which all could have been spent to make the 1970s actually a great period.

It was bad.It really was.

what we already have.I would say that his argument has merit simply because as of this, it really is sort of a nail in the coffin of the U .S.empire and is changing the global world order.Whereas Vietnam, obviously, was a disaster for the U .S.

, but at the end of the day, we did win the Cold War.You know, it did fundamentally, completely shift the dynamics of the global world order.Yes, it exposed weaknesses and vulnerabilities, but again, you know, ultimately, we were successful in destroying the Soviet Union and coming out on top there.Whereas with this, you know, we're already this very clearly declining empire.And we just showed our ass.You know, we just really revealed to the world how weak we are, that even with a, you know, middle -income power like Iran, that we could not succeed on the most basic level.

We could not achieve literally any of our goals there.And, you know, and our ally Israel also is exposed here, too.So it's I think there is merit to the argument because of that.

But I don't reject it whatsoever.In fact, if I look at it from a Chinese perspective, they're going to care much more about what happened with Iran because of all of the naval power.In a sense, you know, it's almost like parse.You know, it's like you're almost like parsing two disastrous things in and of itself.They're both horrific defeats for the U .S.

I actually think this is fascinating.Let's put A9 up here on the screen from the Joint Chiefs of Staff.A new intelligence report from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs says that China has gained a major edge on the U .S.amid the Iran war.Confidential U .

S.intelligence analysis details how China is exploiting the war to maximize advantage over the U .S.in military, economic, diplomatic, and other fields.The assessment produced this week for the chairman has raised alarm within the Pentagon about the geopolitical cost of Washington's standoffby the intelligence directorate.

The report uses what's used as a dime framework, looking at diplomatic, international, military, and economic power.Officials asked about the finding, talked about the anonymity.piles of munitions that would be critical in any standoff with China over the fate of Taiwan.The Iran conflict, which has resulted in the damage or destruction of U .S.military hardware, has allowed Beijing to observe how the U .

S.fights wars and learn how to plan its own future operations.And Beijing has now incorporated popular criticisms of the war into its public messaging, labeling the conflict illegal.China has long sought to undermine the image of the U .S.as a responsible steward.

of the US real space international order.I don't think they had needed to seek anything.Whatever that for that it views the Iran as a conflict is emblematic of Washington's cavalier approach to military hostility.So look, none of this is groundbreaking.If you watch the show, you've heard it every single day since the war began, but still For a Pentagon assessment like that to make its way up to the chairman, to eventually be presented, at least technically it's supposed to be presented in some form to the President of the United States, Someday in the future, we'll have our own Pentagon Papers.I'm sure they're gonna cover this shit up, but 10 years from now, we can go and we can read.

I cannot wait until there's an actual declassification or leak for any potential Ellsberg out there.Please contact me about what those assessments in the middle of the war are.Can you imagine?10 days in, they're gonna be like, we have not been able to accomplish our strategic objectives.We've been hit at all of these bases.We've run out of this number of munitions.

China is doing this, this, and this.into my out of my previous point about.Vietnam.It is so stunning to see it all happen.And I know it sounds hyperbolic, but this is the greatest disaster of my lifetime.And Iraq, I never thought we could potentially you know, do something worse than that.

And to a lot of people who are watching, they're going to say, that's ridiculous.This has only been happening for 74 days.Only 13 Americans died.I hear you.But at the end of the day, That was a conflict which did not rewrite the actual ability of the United States to project power.We did defeat Saddam.

We did occupy the country.Yes, the insurgency and all of that was bad and exposed a lot of problems about the military.In this case, we're talking about the highest, the high -tech weapons of all time, the full force of the United States Navy, the full force of the U .S.Air Force, and 70 % of Iranian ballistic missiles still survive.I mean, nobody thought that was possible.

Ask me on February 27th, I would say there's no way that that's possible, right?

Most people would not say, and yet - And that's based on what's being leaked to our press from our own intelligence community.And the Iranians are asserting, actually, we're basically how we were when we started, and we've been able to, during this period, restock, resupply.But there's no doubt, I mean, all this stuff, oh, they're completely military obliterated on day one is just utter and complete bullshit.

I don't know.I mean, I just, you know, when I assess it, oh, it's such a grand, like, strategic level, if you were to think about that.Like, the meeting of these two superpowers, the defeat, really, that we've suffered, the inability to change the regime from the air.We knew that that was gonna happen.But at the very least, we thought we would be able to militarily wipe them out.Didn't happen.

It just did not happen.The drone threat, the asymmetry of these high -tech weapon systems, the lack of our defense industrial base, the inability of our sanctions to properly be able to cripple this country.I mean, look, if we would be doing this now.for so long, all the warning signs were there.The munitions problem, I've been talking about it literally for years, about whenever it came to Ukraine.Remember the Russia sanctions debate that we often had here on the show?

I was like, hey, this is gonna be a real problem if we ever get into a conflict with China, because they're able to look and to study all what's happening.They did, they've been able to prove themselves.And then really, the more meta point is we spent, vaporized, probably $50 billion.so far.Take a look at that country.It's doing pretty well.

And it's one of those where this is not, you know, I don't feel good saying this, but it's just unambiguous.Like the quality of life there from 10 years ago is not even comparable to the quality of life increase there, not even comparable to any alleged S &P 500 gains that have happened here.If anything, it's gotten worse.I think it's gotten worse.I think it's gotten worse.

scores falling off.I mean, that's part of it, right?It is.It's part of a trend of, you know, in previous generations, you could buy a house.You can't buy a house.In previous generations, you can afford health care.

You can't afford health care anymore.You know, in previous generations, kids were reading when they were in third grade.Now, not so much.It's On every metric, you just see this backward slide.And the stock market for most people is irrelevant.I mean, if anything, it's a slap in the face, another reminder that, yeah, the rich are getting richer, and you're getting screwed, and your kids' prospects are being robbed every single day.