What Caught My Eye (no. 39)
Some interesting articles and podcasts that caught my eye this week
Here’s this week’s edition of articles I thought worth reading and sharing. Don’t hesitate to recommend your own reads; I may include some as well.
Noah Shachtman, The Real Reason Trump Is Fawning Over Saudi Arabia’s Ruler, New York Times, November 22, 2025. A long-time national security reporter argues that Donald Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” policy towards oil and gas isn’t about freeing the United States from foreign dependence but is designed to mimic the policies of petrostates like Saudi Arabia and wield control of these resources as weapons against others.
Witkoff Advised Russia on How to Pitch Ukraine Plan to Trump, Bloomberg, November 25, 2025. This week’s biggest scoop—leaked transcripts of calls between Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy adviser, and Steve Witkoff and Kirill Dmitriev about US-Russian negotiations to end the Ukraine war. The transcript showed Witkoff instructing Ushakov how Putin should approach Trump and helped explain the origin of the 28-point plan, which Dmitriev told Ushakov was Russia’s but the US could make its own.
Aaron Gregg and Frederica Cocco, The ‘S&P 493’ reveals a very different U.S. economy, Washington Post, November 24, 2025. The S&P index has ridden to new heights on the strength of tech stocks, notably the big 7. But what about the other 493 stocks? There growth has lagged. The most striking graph of this deeply analyzed piece is this:
Roger Cohen, ‘Imperial” Israel in the New Middle East, New York Times, 26 November 2025. The long-time Times foreign correspondent takes a deep dive into how Israel has sought to expand its influence in new and disturbing ways. Lebanon is a striking example of this new influence, where Israel has acted with impunity to exert its control in a sovereign neighbor with little debate.
Jonathan Czin, How Xi Played Trump, Foreign Affairs, November 25, 2025. A former CIA analyst, now at the Brookings Institution, takes a deep look at how China’s president has outmaneuvered President Trump by playing the dealmaking game with more skill and patients than the man who claims to have perfected the art of the deal. “The White House now risks finding itself in the worst of all possible worlds, with a confused China policy that ensures friction but lacks a disciplined approach to competition, a negotiating partner in Beijing that has conceded little while steering Trump back to the status quo ante, and a year of theatrics that has produced no tangible gain for the United States.”
Simon Schuster and Missy Ryan, Why Trump Pushed for Peace—Again, The Atlantic, November 26, 2025. It’s been hard to follow all the ups and downs of the negotiations between the United States, Russia, Ukraine, and Europeans on how to end the war. Two veteran correspondents have gone back to trace the story of how we got there in detail. If you read only one article on the whole saga, this is the one.
Drew Hinshaw, Benoit Faucon, Rebecca Ballhaus, Thomas Grove, and Joe Parkinson, Make Money Not War: Trump’s Real Plan for Peace in Ukraine, Wall Street Journal, November 28, 2025. Trump’s singular approach to peacemaking has been to make sure American business stands to gain—whether in rebuilding Gaza, constructing a highway in Armenia, or gaining access to Ukrainian resources. But as a Journal team of reporters discovered, nowhere has this effort gone further than in negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, with Russia has tried to use access to its resources as an incentive for the United States to take its side in the conflict.
Finally, in case you missed it here are links to some of the things I did and wrote this week.
I spent much of the week commenting on the ups and downs of negotiations with Russia and Ukraine on the war. I spoke to CNN, ABC News, Bloomberg TV, Times Radio, NPR, The World, CNN International and The 11th Hour on MSNOW about the talks in Geneva between the US, Ukraine, and European officials. I also spoke about the leaked transcript of Steve Witkoff’s call with a Russian official with CNN, the Sensemaker podcast, and ABC News.
Happy reading, watching, and listening!