Trump Reveals Details of Calls with France and Switzerland: "U.S. Is Keeping the Whole World Afloat"

What this episode is about

At the Davos summit, Trump humorously reflects on his calls with French President Emmanuel Macron and Swiss officials, discussing the potential for significant increases in prescription drug prices. He emphasizes the U.S.'s pivotal role in the global economy, stressing the leverage of tariffs in negotiations while showcasing his candid and theatrical approach to diplomacy.

Key takeaways

• Trump's candidness about negotiation tactics reveals the raw nature of global politics—like reality TV but with tariffs.
• The glasses moment: Trump highlighting Macron's outfit shows he knows how to steer the conversation beyond policy.
• Prescription drugs: a fight between countries, not just pharmacies. Trump’s populist approach may resonate with everyday Americans.
• Using tariffs as foreign policy is a bold move; it's like playing poker with nations, albeit with high stakes.
• If tariffs get struck down, Trump's negotiating power diminishes—this drama may unfold like a political soap opera.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Megyn Kelly (Guest) · 8 min speaking
• Donald Trump (Guest) · 4 min speaking
• Mort Halperin (Guest) · 1 min speaking
• Andy (Guest) · 1 min speaking
• Tom (Guest) · 1 min speaking
• Carl (Guest) · 1 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 6:00 – 9:00: Karen Keller Sutter
2. 12:00 – 13:24: Birch Gold Group

Notable quotes from "Trump Reveals Details of Calls with France and Switzerland: "U.S. Is Keeping the Whole World Afloat""

• Yeah. Karen Keller Sutter is out. Her term ended in December. Now there's a new guy. But there it is. I realized in that conversation that the United States is keeping the whole world afloat. I.

  about Karen Keller Sutter · at 7:31

• Means new financial goals like making sure your savings are secure and diversified. Will this be the year you decide to talk to somebody from Birch Gold Group? You know you've…

  about Birch Gold Group · at 12:11

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Karen Keller Sutter — Person · Referenced foreign official (Switzerland) in Trump anecdote · 1 mention · first at 7:31
  Identified by the speakers as the Swiss leader Trump describes in a tariff negotiation story (used to illustrate his tariff style).

Sponsors

• Birch Gold Group — Company · Sponsor · 1 mention · first at 12:17
  Promoted as a financial service for gold investment, offering a rebate for first-time buyers.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 So, here he is in these weird glasses at the at the Davos summit and many people were speculating why of course there's got to be a reason he wouldn't just wear those for his speech. So, it was one of those things that's kind of on the nose but well literally on the nose but that we had no explanation for. And Trump, God love him because truly any great TV producer and at heart that's what Trump is will mention the elephant in the room, right? I mean, just as a quick aside, when Anna Nicole Smith went to the US Supreme Court and I did my package for sup for Brett uh um Brett Hume's show, Special Report, I did not mention how stunning and transformed she looked. She had lost like 40 pounds. And he pulled me aside. He's like, "You've got to mention that." He's like, "That's what everybody's noticing. All the audience is looking at this new like even more stunning Anna Nicole Smith.

0:48 You didn't call attention to it like and and everyone's thinking it and like right behind their

0:52 frontal lobe. And it's your job as the reporter to say the thing and Trump says the thing. So here's here's Trump on Mcronone in ST 10.

1:01 So when I called up Emmanuel Mcronone, I watched him yesterday with those beautiful sunglasses. What the hell happened? And I like him. I actually like him. Hard to believe, isn't it? And I said, 'EMuel, you're going to have to lift the price of that pill to $20, maybe $30. Think of that. That's That means it's a doubling. A doubling of prescription drugs. Might be a tripling, might be a quadrupling. It's not easy. No, no, no, Donald. I will not do that. I said, "Yes, you will 100%." He said, "No, no, no. And if you don't, I'm putting a 25% tariff on everything that you sell into the United States and a 100% tariff on your wines and champagnes. No, no, Donald, I will do it. I will do it.

2:00 It took me on average 3 minutes a country saying the same thing. You will do it. They all said, no, no, no. I will not do it. You're asking me to double the cost of prescription. I said, "That's right. Because you've been screwing us for 30 years."

2:21 There he is. He's talking about prescription drugs and how he one of the hardest things that he had to negotiate was RFKJ just said this is the toughest thing of his first year was to to change the drug policy here to make us most favored nation with our drug companies and American drugs that were selling to France for $10 a bottle and were selling to Americans for $300 a bottle which Trump and RFKJ took on. And that's Trump giving us some of the backstory of how he handled it with the foreign leaders. Like, I'm sorry, but your price is going to go up and our price is going to go down. There's still going to be huge imbalance in your favor, but we're going to do something to make it a little bit more even. That is the shoot it into my veins stuff that could win Trump the midterms, notwithstanding these terrible numbers that we mentioned earlier, right? Like that's it right there.

3:16 People love that stuff. I think hearing how he's fighting for us, France gets screwed, not Iowa. Thoughts?

3:24 Um, Megan, you're a lawyer, so what I want to know what you think of this because when I w I watched that tariff part very carefully today, and he I there I had two reactions. They're opposite. One is he said that the president of uh head of Switzerland, I don't know if it's a president or a prime minister.

3:41 Well, I'll get to that. I have the Switzer Yeah. He said, you know, okay. She kept saying, "But we're a small country." and he was so irritated by her, he raised her tariff from 30% to 39% just because he was pissed off. And I thought, okay, if I'm on the if I'm on the Supreme Court, he's just giving me permission to say he can't raise tariffs. But then as he went on, you realize

4:02 he's using tariffs. It's not an econ it's he's conducting foreign policy there and in a very direct way. And you know, the Supreme Court is reluctant to interfere with the president's right to do foreign policy. So I was wondering which of those you thought would be more would the Supreme Court notice would they notice those those two sort of opposite?

4:22 So I don't think they're going to notice he's made that argument. They've 100% they've made the argument before the Supreme Court which for the listening audience they are deciding whether Trump single-handedly manipulating tariffs is is constitutional or whether this is something he needs congressional approval on. Um they they made the argument that he he's using them as a foreign policy tool which is uniquely the function of the executive. I I'm sorry to tell you I think Trump's tariff regime is going to get struck down. I do not think he has any real hope of the Supreme Court upholding it. I hope I'm wrong, but uh the argument did not go well for the government and uh I do not think Trump's tariff power is going to last much longer. And the real question in my mind is what does that mean for all the tariffs he's already negotiated,

5:06 manipulated? you know, like like the Supreme Court, nine justices aren't going to get involved in

5:13 figuring that out. Well, and that was so I don't know what happened. That was one of his arguments to the court, too, is like, well, they have to stay in place because we've already done it and if we if we have to undo all this stuff, it's going to be a disaster. And so it's not

5:25 well maybe Cong maybe not a great position. Maybe Congress will do its job and and get back involved in a way that uh they should be in the poly polyiana over here on on third base.

5:37 We have all kinds on our show. Okay. I love that about you guys. Um we do have the Switzerland soundbite which I mean it might have been my favorite soundbite of the of the whole thing. like the story. It was like an aside. He decided to tell us about his his dealings with uh the no longer prime minister of Switzerland. She just left in December. Uh now there's a new guy there. But here's listen to this.

6:02 So they come in, they sell their watches, no tariffs, no nothing. They walk away. They make 41 billion dollars on just us. So I said, "No, we can't do that." So but I brought it up to 30%. And the I guess prime minister I don't think president I think prime minister called a woman and she was very repetitive. She said no no no you cannot do that 30%. You cannot do that we are a small small country. I said yeah but you have a big big deficit. You may be small but you have a bigger deficit than big countries. He said no no no please you cannot do it. kept saying the same thing over and over. We are a small country. I said, "But you're a big country in terms of" and she just rubbed me the wrong way. I'll be honest with you. And I said, "All right, thank you, ma'am.

6:59 Appreciate it. Do not do this. Thank you very much, ma'am." And I made it 39%. And then all hell really broke out and I reduced it because I don't want to hurt people. I don't want to hurt them. I realized with that I don't know I was so because she was so aggressive and I realized in that conversation that the United States is keeping the whole world afloat.

7:27 There it is. By the way, I guess it's the president, not the prime minister. Yeah. Karen Keller Sutter is out. Her term ended in December. Now there's a new guy. But there it is. I realized in that conversation that the United States is keeping the whole world afloat. I I mean, if you could sum up the whole speech in one line, I think that's it. Like he's done. The freeloading days are over and we want something now. And the price that he's asking for at the moment, I mean, you talked about other we talked about other prices he exacted like, yo, France, you're going to have to pay a bit more for these medications so that we pay a little less. and um you're so dumb to rely on all this like wind farm energy and why don't you get more self-sufficient so then you wouldn't be so dependent on Russia Germany but what he's really saying is I want Greenland and I I kind of want it now and that leads me to the unexpected

8:22 hero of the week Mort Halperin you guys may or may not have heard him you know the last name and his son happens to be a very famous journalist by the name of Mark who has his own podcast uh called Next Up with Mark Halpern and it's on the MK Media podcast network and Mark had his dad Mort on his show last week and his dad I think is 92 and at first I like you I'm like why is he putting his dad on to talk about the foreign policy issues of of the day? Well, it turns out his dad is a pretty famous foreign policy expert who worked for the Johnson, the Nixon, and the Clinton administrations, actually in government roles, um, I think both at Pentagon and at state, if I'm not mistaken, and knows a thing or two about foreign policy and in particular NATO in our history with NATO and the United States role in NATO. We played this on AM update the other day. Listen to Morton Halperin on the Greenland issue.

9:24 At the end of the day, our alternative is not to use military force. Our alternative is to leave NATO. And our position has always been, we will tell you what we need to remain in the alliance, and you will tell us whether you're prepared to do that. And if you're not, we won't be able to stay in the alliance. That's perfectly reasonable.

9:45 Perfectly reasonable. And this is obviously a Democrat. He's connected with open society. Like he's he's this is not a right-leaning guy. And he went through on Mark's show some of the examples like at the beginning of NATO, the US wanted the Germans to rearm and the rest of Europe did not want that at all given what they just been through in World War II. They did not want it. They were forced to agree to it. The US said we'll only do NATO uh the formation of it if we're allowed to put nuclear weapons in Europe. The Europeans didn't want nuclear weapons in Europe. We said you will agree or we're not doing it.

10:15 They they did it. He had multiple examples of where we as the big dog of NATO said, "We understand you don't want it. We don't give a It's happening because we're the most important member of NATO." So that plus the Don Row doctrine make me say, "I get it." And Trump is out there like, "You're a bunch of freeloaders. This is what we want. Stop complaining and just give it to me." So do we think it will happen? Okay, we've fleshed out some of the arguments for and against. Do we think it's gonna happen as a result of today or Trump in general? Tom,

10:51 do do I think that we are going to purchase Greenland? We get Greenland. Yeah. I do not think that that is going to happen. I would probably peg it at like a 20% chance, which is not nothing, but I think the odds are still in in against

11:07 I take the the opposite. I'll take the 80% chance. By the time Trump leaves office, we as I say, we have Greenland. It's a territory. It's not going to be a state. Nobody wants them to have voting rights as Americans. What do you say, Carl?

11:18 I think it's going to blow up on our face and Greenland's going to end up as an independent country with a government that resembles Mom Donny's cabinet in New York City.

11:28 Oh, good God. Oh. Oh, man. Okay, Andy. Uh, well, I will say that uh uh Mort Halpern is a is a very prominent foreign policy expert and um uh it's great that he's he's still with us. I'm glad to hear that and I'm glad that he's still talking. Um, I would say I would say it's a bigger chance today than it was yesterday. Um, I think that I'd give it about a 33 and a3% chance. I think it's a one.

11:58 Okay. And three. I I actually think that some sort of, you know, there's some sort of agreement somewhere between statehood and uh where we are now that we end up. A new year means new financial goals like making sure your savings are secure and diversified. Will this be the year you decide to talk to somebody from Birch Gold Group? You know you've been thinking about it. They use an educated approach with a deep understanding of macroeconomics. There are forces pushing the dollar lower right now and gold higher, which is why they believe every American should own physical gold. So, until January 30th, if you are a first-time gold buyer, Birch Gold is offering a rebate of up to $10,000 on qualifying purchases. To claim eligibility and start the process, just text MK to the number 989898.

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Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Trump Reveals Details of Calls with France and Switzerland: "U.S. Is Keeping the Whole World Afloat""?

Megyn Kelly (Guest), Donald Trump (Guest), Mort Halperin (Guest), Andy (Guest), Tom (Guest), Carl (Guest).

What is "Trump Reveals Details of Calls with France and Switzerland: "U.S. Is Keeping the Whole World Afloat"" about?

At the Davos summit, Trump humorously reflects on his calls with French President Emmanuel Macron and Swiss officials, discussing the potential for significant increases in prescription drug prices. He emphasizes the U.S.'s pivotal role in the global economy, stressing the leverage of tariffs in negotiations while showcasing his candid and theatrical approach to diplomacy.

What is mentioned in this Megyn Kelly episode?

2 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Karen Keller Sutter. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Trump Reveals Details of Calls with France and Switzerland: "U.S. Is Keeping the Whole World Afloat""?

The episode runs 13 min; the transcript is about 2,490 words in 28 timestamped sections.

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