WATCH: Why Trump apologized to Putin

We just finished talking with Ruth Ben-Ghiat — and 5,111 Ink and Lucid readers — about the world-changing meeting in the Oval Office last Friday and much more.

We talked about:

• Some new language from Trump that Ruth noticed in the Oval Office meeting that reeks of his being compromised

• The end of the “Free World” and the new incarnation America the meeting seemed to soft launch

• How the USAID and other cuts dovetail with a Kremlin agenda of reducing the American footprint in the world

• Elon Musk’s DOGE rampage as the grift that keeps on giving, as captured by a surreal new photograph this week

• Whether the Democratic Party even knows it has a problem

• Why it’s so important to refuse the story of your powerlessness, even as you find ways to take care of yourself and yours

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And some programming notes: More Lives!

We hope you can join us tomorrow, Tuesday, March 4, at 11:00 a.m. Eastern when we’ll be speaking with California Congressman Ro Khanna, and on Thursday, March 6, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern we’re back with messaging guru Anat Shenker-Osorio. We hope to see you there!

To join and watch, download the Substack app (click on the button below) and turn on notifications — you’ll get an alert that we’re live and you can watch from your iOS or Android mobile device. And if you haven’t already, subscribe to The Ink to access full videos of past conversations and to join the chat during our live events.

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