Hello, I'm Adam Wren.

And I'm Dasha Burns. It is Monday, August 18th.

And this is the Playbook podcast.

Happy Monday, Adam.

Happy Monday, Dasha. Thanks so much for joining.

Let's get right to what's driving the day today. Today, we have yet another

massive meeting taking place with huge geopolitical implications. Whereas on Friday, the biggest

story in politics was a summit in Alaska between President Donald Trump and Russian President

Vladimir Putin.

Today, the biggest story is Ukrainian President Volodomir Zelensky's arrival in Washington to meet with President Trump.

Joining him here in D.C. to help press his case is a collection of some of the most high-profile

European heads of states, among them European Commissioner President

Ursula von Der Leyen, French President Emmanuel Macron, British PM Kirstarmer, German Chancellor

Frederick Merz, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, Italian Prime Minister Georggio Maloney, and NATO Secretary General Mark Rut.

Dasha, a number of these folks have gone out of their way to both praise Trump and build

relationships with him. I'm thinking of, in particular, Kier Starrmer and also Finnish President

Alexander Stubb. And the NATO secretary, Mark Gruta,

they've all figured out the Trump whisperer tone that they need to use to try to get him on

their side. Yeah, I'm fascinated by that. What do you make of the news sort of breaking after

the Putin-Trump summit that all of these folks were coming

to Washington's sort of Avengers style.

Avengers style is right.

...