Trump to meet with Netanyahu and Zelenskyy

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
Support for this show comes from Anthropic, the team behind Claude. A two-person fabrication shop in St. Louis is finding new ways to create using Claude. BLA Studios founders Joe Bacchus and Leif Armintrout first used Claude to translate when a used machine arrived with a German-only manual. Now, they're using Claude to build a welding arm from scratch and create a program that reduces wasted steel. Read BLA's story at claude.com/blastudios.

**Dasha Burns** (0:34)
Today on The Playbook Podcast, Senator Lindsey Graham's funeral is going to become a scene for world history books as power players from across the country and around the globe gather to remember the South Carolina Senator here in Washington. That includes Ukrainian President Zelenskyy and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who are both also going to be meeting with the President at a critical time for both of their respective countries. Meanwhile, President Trump loyalist Laura Loomer has changed her tune about Ukraine, but not about some of her fellow conservative influencers. And one more major character is coming to town this week, Sam Altman, as the fate of AI policy in the administration is still to be determined. Hello, I'm Dasha Burns.

**Alex Kanjitano** (1:21)
And I'm Alex Kanjitano. It's Tuesday, July 28th.

**Dasha Burns** (1:27)
Alex, so much going on this week in Washington.

**Alex Kanjitano** (1:32)
It's going to be quite a scene on Wisconsin Ave outside the National Cathedral with influential people all day today.

**Dasha Burns** (1:38)
Yeah, I mean, I meant it when I said it, that this is going to be historic and in many ways, really appropriate for a senator that had such an outsize impact. We mentioned it yesterday on the podcast, but leaders from around the world are going to be convening. It feels like this is really going to be the thing everyone is talking about here in Washington.
That's right.

**Alex Kanjitano** (2:01)
It does feel like that. Senator Graham was such a staple of the Senate. He died so unexpectedly, and his funeral is really bringing together some really prominent world leaders in town to honor him, and of course, fellow senators, former politicians, the likes, and a lot of his old friends, from his decade serving in Washington.

**Dasha Burns** (2:22)
It's also pretty appropriate actually thinking about Lindsey Graham and his passion for foreign policy and the way that he wanted to see the US play on the world stage, that you are going to have these two world leaders, Zelenskyy and Netanyahu, in town, both to honor him, but also to have some high stakes meetings with President Trump, and of course, Lindsey Graham was a key player in the president's relationship with both of these men. Now, they don't have Graham there with them or on their side. Let's talk about each of these meetings first. Let's talk about Netanyahu, because this is the first face-to-face that he's going to have with President Trump since the war with Iran began. It's a meeting that the prime minister has been wanting for quite some time.
Earlier in the Trump administration in 2025, Netanyahu was at the White House quite frequently. That's changed a little bit. Of course, we've heard Vice President JD Vance come out, be a lot more critical. Much of the mago wing of the party has been a lot more openly critical of Israel in recent months, especially since the war began. How do you see the stakes, the tensions, and what's going to play out here?

**Alex Kanjitano** (3:34)
Yeah, that's right. The last time Trump and Netanyahu met face-to-face was in February. At the time, the president predicted that the war would last four to five weeks. That was nearly five months ago. We're at a point that tensions are really high. Netanyahu helped Trump launch the initial attacks. He could bear a lot of the blame if Iran doesn't return to the negotiating table. It also comes at a time that we have a break in strikes right now. That was implemented over the weekend. So after the US had launched nearly two weeks of daily strikes against Iran, we're at a point that they want to turn towards diplomacy. We're also at a point that the president has become increasingly frustrated out.
The thing is that they've so far resisted, like Lebanon, like Gaza, like other parts of the.
So, seems like the president has the upper hand here as Netanyahu goes into a challenging meeting for him.

**Dasha Burns** (4:57)
But see, this is why I think Netanyahu has been so eager to get in-person FaceTime with Trump, because there's nothing quite like that. They can communicate from afar, they can communicate via their proxies, they can communicate via the media, but there is nothing like actually sitting down one-on-one with Trump in the Oval and Netanyahu and Trump have had a long relationship, and it has at times been fraught, but Netanyahu really knows how to speak Trump in a lot of ways, and I think that's why he's been so eager to actually come here and have this conversation, because I think in his mind, he can get the train back on the tracks if he just has that time with POTUS. But it is a very different backdrop than the last time we met, and so that's going to be fascinating to watch. The other thing that's changed is the president's tune on Ukraine. And actually, when we're looking at the dynamics between these two leaders and the president, I actually think BB is in a tougher spot than he was the last time they met. I think Zelenskyy is actually in a better spot than the last time they met. We'll talk about Laura Loomer here in a second, but there has been a shift in how the president, even how the vice president talk about Ukraine, are much more favorable to Zelenskyy than I think we've heard throughout the course of this Trump administration.