Trump Moves to Fund Putin’s War While Betraying Ukraine (ft. Sarah Longwell)

About this episode

Jessica Tarlov is joined by The Bulwark’s Sarah Longwell, host of the Focus Group podcast, and NYT bestselling author of How to Eat an Elephant: One Voter at a Time — for a wide-ranging conversation 22 days before the midterms. They open with Ukraine and Russia, where Trump is claiming there is now an “energy ceasefire” — even as senators from both parties call on him to reverse plans to temporarily lift sanctions on Russian diesel. Sarah breaks down the current state of the Ukraine war, whether Trump really thought a Putin energy deal would go over well domestically, and what Trump’s weekend comments that Ukraine needs a new president mean for the relationship with Kyiv and America’s allies. Sarah also talks about how all of this information means an opportunity for Democrats, and whether they can capitalize on it in the midterms. Elon Musk is running a misinformation operation at home. Election officials in Colorado and Washington have warned about misleading texts from Musk’s America PAC asking voters to confirm “ballot requests” they never made. The PAC also runs VoteSafe.org, a registration site that collects and may share users’ personal information. And Musk amplified a