Well, howdy there, Internet, people, it's bell again.

So today, we're going to talk about Trump's envoy advising the Kremlin.

A transcript of a phone call published by Bloomberg reportedly showed Trump envoy Steve Whitkoff

coaching Russian counterparts on how to get a good

reaction from Trump. That's a polite way of saying it. Some have described it as Trump's

envoy telling the Russians how to manipulate Trump. So far, the White House has not disputed the

transcript. The reporting says the transcript is of an

October 14th call between Steve Whitkoff and Putin's foreign policy advisor, Yuri Ushikov.

Whitkoff said, quote, here's what I think would be amazing. Maybe he says to President Trump, you know, Steve and Yuri discussed a very similar 20-point

plan to peace, and that could be something that we think might move the needle a little

bit.

We're open to those sorts of things.

He reportedly advised them to congratulate Trump on his peacemaking skills,

and quote, from that, it's going to be a really good call. Reminder, Whitkoff works for the U.S.

And is at least in theory supposed to represent the president, who is, in theory, supposed to represent

the interests of the United States, not competitor nations. One might be forgiven for taking

that to be, this is how you butter up the old man to get what you want. This definitely provides an explanation

as to why the deal appeared to have Russia's fingerprints all over it. It's worth noting that

some of the foreign policy experts we talked to said this wasn't ideal, but that sometimes, when parties are intractable, their advisors take

things a bit too far in trying to grease the wheels of a meeting. It was described as,

quote, out of line and insulting to Trump, but not criminal. But that's from one of our more pragmatic foreign policy experts.

Republican Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska was not as kind or forgiving.

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