Firebrand - Matt Gaetz - Episode 31: How To End Putin's War – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz

In this episode, I discuss the growing feud between Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the Walt Disney Corporation, and an interview with Matthew Tiermond, a journalist who has been covering the Putin ambitions, Poland s take, and Ukraine s take for quite some time. It s going to really give you an insight into the key decision points that are driving the conflict there now, and that may ultimately lead to a resolution. We all know that media tycoons love war. It juices ratings. It attracts advertising dollars. Just take a look at CNN s numbers before this war. CNN s ratings went from an average of 633,000 viewers in January to 1.75 million average viewers last week. That s a 178% increase. Most businesses would do almost anything for a jump like that. Though I have not been, I have seen what really gets wrapped in the flag at the end of the day. It's our bravest patriots, not the TV generals or pundits. My compassion for Ukraine won t force my hand to hurt my own people. I make no apology for loving my neighbors more than Russia s. I m more concerned with America s borders than Ukraine s. And while Russian oil is indeed stained with blood, so is Venezuela s. Hardworking Americans shouldn t have to pay higher gas prices to support Maduro or Khomeini over Putin, especially since Putin and his military are getting the money either way. and Joe Biden s plan to replace Russian oil with Venezuelan or Iranian oil is needlessly foolish and would make Americans poorer and less safe. I m concerned about the relationships with Venezuela and Iran, and I don t know what they would do with the money they could do with it. And while I know that they could be a good friend to me, but I would love to help Venezuela. . I ll tell you what I would like to do with Venezuela s oil and Venezuela s resources. I ll let you know what I think of the money Venezuela could do to help me get a better grip on the situation. - I ll talk about that And I ll give you my thoughts on what I d like to you know, and how they could help Venezuela do it - and I ll do it, too, I ll help you get a little bit better than that. -- and so much more -- I ll be back in the next episode of the latest episode of The Weekly Standard with my reaction to the brewing feud between the two.

00:00:01.000 The embattled Congressman Matt Gaetz.

00:00:03.000 Matt Gaetz was one of the very few members in the entire Congress who bothered to stand up against permanent Washington on behalf of his constituents.

00:00:10.000 Matt Gaetz right now, he's a problem in the Democratic Party.

00:00:13.000 He could cause a lot of hiccups in passing applause.

00:00:16.000 So we're going to keep running those stories to keep hurting him.

00:00:20.000 If you stand for the flag and kneel in prayer, if you want to build America up and not burn her to the ground, then welcome, my fellow patriots!

00:00:29.000 You are in the right place!

00:00:30.000 This is the movement for you!

00:00:32.000 You ever watch this guy on television?

00:00:35.000 It's like a machine.

00:00:36.000 Matt Gaetz.

00:00:37.000 I'm a canceled man in some corners of the internet.

00:00:41.000 Many days I'm a marked man in Congress, a wanted man by the deep state.

00:00:45.000 They aren't really coming for me.

00:00:47.000 They're coming for you.

00:00:49.000 I'm just in the way.

00:00:54.000 We have a jam-packed show for you this week.

00:00:56.000 My reaction to the brewing feud between Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the Walt Disney Corporation.

00:01:03.000 Also, I'm going to have an interview with Matthew Tiermond.

00:01:05.000 He's a journalist who has been covering the Putin ambitions, Poland's take, Ukraine's take, America's for quite some time.

00:01:14.000 It's going to really give you an insight into the key decision points that are driving the conflict there now and that may ultimately lead to a resolution.

00:01:23.000 We all know that media tycoons love war.

00:01:26.000 It juices ratings.

00:01:27.000 It attracts advertising dollars.

00:01:30.000 Just take CNN, a propaganda network that was losing credibility by the hour, losing viewers by the moment.

00:01:37.000 Their CEO left under circumstances that maybe tell us we weren't getting the full story.

00:01:43.000 CNN went from an average of 633,000 viewers in January To 1.75 million average viewers last week.

00:01:54.000 That's a 178% increase.

00:01:56.000 Most businesses would do almost anything for a jump like that.

00:02:00.000 I mean, look, CNN's numbers before this war, I mean, their average daily numbers were lower than some episodes of this very podcast.

00:02:09.000 Now politicians, they love war too.

00:02:12.000 They can seem like they have access to more high-stakes information.

00:02:18.000 They can wrap themselves in the flag.

00:02:21.000 I know that war is hell.

00:02:22.000 Though I have not been, I have seen what really gets wrapped in the flag at the end of the day.

00:02:29.000 It's our bravest patriots, not the TV generals or pundits.

00:02:34.000 My fellow lawmakers in both parties are obsessed over 150,000 Russians moving on Ukraine.

00:02:41.000 It's about the exact same number of illegal aliens that move into our country every month.

00:02:48.000 I'm more concerned with America's borders than Ukraine's. 0.89

00:02:52.000 It's increasingly a lonely place to be, but I make no apology for loving my neighbors more than Russia's.

00:03:00.000 America is a friend to liberty everywhere, but a custodian only of our own. 0.85

00:03:07.000 And Joe Biden's plan to replace Russian oil with Venezuelan or Iranian oil is needlessly foolish.

00:03:14.000 It would make Americans poorer and less safe.

00:03:18.000 My compassion for Ukrainians won't force my hand to hurt my own people.

00:03:25.000 Biden hates American energy so much he would openly create more energy production in Venezuela and Iran before Colorado and North Dakota.

00:03:34.000 America last, for sure. 0.92

00:03:36.000 And while Russian oil is indeed stained with blood, so is Iran's, so is Venezuela's.

00:03:42.000 Hard-working Americans shouldn't have to pay higher gas prices to support Maduro or Khomeini over Putin, especially since Putin and his military are going to get the money either way.

00:03:54.000 Don't just take my word for it.

00:03:55.000 General Richardson leads SouthCom.

00:03:58.000 She testified in the House Armed Services Committee this week that American energy payments to Venezuela would likely result in Venezuela buying arms from, you guessed it, Russia.

00:04:11.000 Which Russian capabilities are you most concerned about?

00:04:14.000 I'm concerned about the relationships that they have with Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba.

00:04:20.000 Capabilities, not relationships.

00:04:21.000 Capabilities would be the aircraft, the tanks, the air defense systems that they try to help Venezuela maintain in Venezuela that's close to our homeland.

00:04:32.000 And so if Russia wanted to marshal all of their South American capabilities to do as much damage to the United States as they possibly could, what would they do? 0.55

00:04:41.000 I think that they would provide parts to these capabilities that are in Venezuela.

00:04:47.000 As we know, the deputy foreign minister probably about three or four weeks ago talked about not taking off the table about increasing infrastructure capacity within the region.

00:04:59.000 Right now, the Biden administration is working to potentially purchase oil from Venezuela.

00:05:05.000 If Venezuela saw a mass infusion of cash, what do you assess they would do with the money?

00:05:12.000 I don't know what Venezuela would do with the money, but...

00:05:16.000 That's concerning, right?

00:05:17.000 If we're making policy choices that could move a lot of resources into Venezuela, if your biggest worry about Venezuela is Russian military cooperation, isn't it possible that if Venezuela all of a sudden ended up with a lot more cash, that they would use it to buy Russian military equipment?

00:05:35.000 They could.

00:05:36.000 They also have quite a big humanitarian crisis on their hands as well.

00:05:40.000 Yes.

00:05:40.000 Humanitarian issues have never really been as important to Maduro as military activity, right?

00:05:46.000 That is true.

00:05:48.000 In the same hearing, Congressman Austin Scott of Georgia gave an ominous preview about how the circumstances in Russia could destabilize food supply and thus governments themselves.

00:06:02.000 Twelve months from now, I think we're going to be talking about the issue of hunger and the disruption of democracies in the Western Hemisphere because of the lack of food supply.

00:06:14.000 This is a direct result of Russia's incursion into the Ukraine.

00:06:18.000 It is going to come from the loss of the ability to put fertilizer on a lot of crops around the world.

00:06:26.000 My understanding is that Russians have now said they're going to withhold fertilizer from the rest of the world, including Countries like Brazil, who produce a tremendous amount of food supply.

00:06:36.000 Russia and Ukraine are responsible for about 12% of the calorie supply inside the United States, is my understanding.

00:06:43.000 If the Ukrainians are not able to plant their crops over the next couple of months, and it certainly does not look like they will be able to, there's going to be a tremendous disruption in the food supply.

00:06:51.000 And if the fertilizer is not able to come out of the Black Sea region, and it does not look like it's going to be able to, there's going to be a significant reduction in The global food supply.

00:07:03.000 Russia is a revisionist power run by a gangster government which steals from its own people, rapes the environment, and deposits its ill-gotten gains through its oligarchs in Swiss bank accounts and mansions in the Hamptons. 0.90

00:07:17.000 Russia wants to redraw the map of Europe. 0.80

00:07:20.000 In these and other dastardly endeavors, it's not alone.

00:07:22.000 There are many other gangster governments throughout the world, and many sit atop natural resources we require.

00:07:30.000 There are few good guys in Eastern Europe.

00:07:33.000 Ukraine is the third most corrupt country in the world, the most corrupt country in Europe.

00:07:38.000 Everyone is working for an angle, and none of them are thinking of America first, nor apparently are our own policy leaders.

00:07:47.000 Driving Asia's largest energy producer into the arms of Asia's largest energy consumer would create a Russia-China alliance that would endanger Americans far more than Russia's brutal belligerence. 0.74

00:08:00.000 And Ukraine, we already see more and more that Russia and China are working together to our peril. 0.92

00:08:06.000 And China is our pacing challenge, not Russia.

00:08:09.000 I agree with Director Burns of CIA. We should not have had NATO expansion up to Russia's borders.

00:08:17.000 It isn't America first to make promises to foreigners we can't and won't really defend. 0.97

00:08:23.000 It either creates this weird security welfare state and lures the well-meaning into a false sense of comfort.

00:08:31.000 You see, banning Russian energy imports asks poor and middle-class Americans to shoulder the burdens of Washington's policy blunders.

00:08:40.000 And it's unfair.

00:08:42.000 We can help Ukraine without hurting ourselves.

00:08:46.000 Russia isn't Iran or Cuba.

00:08:49.000 They're a nuclear power.

00:08:50.000 And these sanctions likely increase the possibility of nuclear war.

00:08:55.000 My neighbors will go fight that war just as they would fight any war, just as they always have, and just as they always will.

00:09:04.000 But far better solutions are available.

00:09:06.000 We can hunt down the assets of Putin and his oligarch cronies, wherever they may be, and sell those assets off and hold the funds in abeyance until such a point as the Russian people actually force their government to behave.

00:09:20.000 We can disrupt Russian espionage in the West with the latest technology, tools which the Russians and Chinese are deploying against us to hurt Americans. 0.99

00:09:31.000 It amazes me that we are more interested in kicking Russia out of Ukraine than, say, our own neighborhood, South America, the Caribbean, where their influence continues to grow and where their actions are malign.

00:09:45.000 We can increase American investment in the rare earths that are designed to build the future and ensure that we have the battery capability to not necessarily need so much Russian oil long-term, but we can make the decisions now to enhance those investments.

00:10:01.000 Sadly, sanctions, the strategy we're using, they rarely play out as their architects' hope.

00:10:07.000 They mostly enrich the elites in bad countries and harm the vulnerable.

00:10:11.000 I haven't seen Maduro losing any weight over the sanctions in Venezuela, and if sanctions worked as intended, Cuba would be a Caribbean Garden of Eden. 0.75

00:10:19.000 Not the hellhole it is today.

00:10:23.000 Washington keeps reaching for yesterday's tools to solve this challenge.

00:10:29.000 But what do you expect?

00:10:30.000 Ancient politicians don't have to think of the long-term consequences of their actions.

00:10:35.000 Putin is 69. Biden is 79. McConnell is 80. Pelosi is 81. We are seeing in real time the dangers of a world ruled by a gerontocracy.

00:10:48.000 The Soviet Union collapsed because its very old leaders were unable to think beyond the present.

00:10:53.000 Let's hope the same thing does not happen in America.

00:10:59.000 Matthew Tiermund is a Polish-American journalist.

00:11:03.000 He writes and thinks a lot about how leaders in Europe are reacting to America's politics and global politics.

00:11:09.000 He joins us now.

00:11:11.000 Matthew, you have been on the border of Poland and Ukraine within the last several days.

00:11:15.000 You're going back.

00:11:17.000 I'm going to get into your prognosis about how this is going to end in a moment.

00:11:21.000 But first, just kind of give us a scene regarding what's happening.

00:11:25.000 Sure.

00:11:26.000 Well, you know, I think that both sides can agree without dispute that Russia invaded Ukraine.

00:11:32.000 I hope that that's at least, you know, a single point of fact that all can agree on.

00:11:36.000 All the reasonings behind that, obviously, there's a lot more that's disputed and a lot of politics that finds its way into this conversation.

00:11:45.000 But Russia has invaded.

00:11:47.000 They'd already controlled two breakaway regions in the east and Crimea, which was isolated.

00:11:53.000 And I believe that's the main motive that Putin made this invasion, especially at this moment, with Western weakness and fecklessness, both out of the EU, the US and DC, obviously, and NATO, because he needs a Crimean land bridge.

00:12:08.000 Right now, the destabilization that has occurred post that invasion is he's gone deeper into the country beyond those regions, and he's surrounding cities, blockading them.

00:12:18.000 And he's trying to do this to get Pawn concession pieces that he can trade later to secure the territorial gains that are firmly his, and the realpolitik is, they are firmly his. 0.93

00:12:31.000 There's a good chunk of Ukraine that no matter how this outcome, how this plays out, will be Russian territory, even if Putin gets a bullet to the back of the head in coming weeks for whatever reason.

00:12:41.000 There are regions that will be gone from Ukraine and part of Russia.

00:12:45.000 So already the Eurasian geopolitical chessboard has changed incontrovertibly.

00:12:51.000 Do you think they get that in Brussels?

00:12:53.000 Do you think there's an appreciation that for this war to end, there is going to be a redrawing in the map of Europe?

00:13:00.000 Or is there an impression that Putin can be put back in his original box?

00:13:05.000 I think they do get that because, for all intents and purposes, for the last eight years since 2014, when Putin took these breakaway republics and Donbass and Luhansk, And Crimea.

00:13:16.000 There's limited will or fight to re-litigate that.

00:13:20.000 There was a referendum held in Crimea after Ukrainians were pushed out and the Russian side won an overwhelming mandate because there were no Ukrainians to vote against it.

00:13:30.000 Many of them went to Mariupol, a city between Russia and Crimea that is now under siege because that's an important part of the chessboard for him to connect all of these taken regions.

00:13:40.000 But the Luhansk and Donbass, a huge city, Donetsk, They've controlled that with little green men, his mercenaries, his supplied fighting force on the ground there for eight years. 0.66

00:13:49.000 There haven't been many Ukrainians there.

00:13:51.000 They fled.

00:13:51.000 There was already a Ukrainian refugee crisis in 14 and 15, where 2 million Ukrainians went to Poland, another million or so scattered to other parts of central Europe.

00:14:00.000 Obviously, the current refugee crisis dwarfs that.

00:14:04.000 You know, estimates are that's about 4 million, and probably if this persists, there'll be another 4 million.

00:14:09.000 And that's the largest migration of people out of one region in Europe into others, especially Poland, but it will have impact across the European Union and the entire continent based on the scale of it.

00:14:20.000 And how are leaders in Warsaw thinking about this refugee crisis?

00:14:24.000 Well, the first part of the puzzle for them is to manage the people coming across.

00:14:30.000 Just something as simple as that.

00:14:32.000 And it's not simple.

00:14:33.000 This is the most organized, I think, any time in modern history that there's been a refugee crisis of this scale.

00:14:39.000 And it's been this organized.

00:14:41.000 If you look back just a few years to the migrant crisis, economic migrants from the Third World, North Africa, the Middle East, Syria, and a dozen Third World countries that were Fleeing into Europe across the Mediterranean via a destabilized Libya, going to Italy, going to Hungary and trying to get to Germany and France.

00:14:58.000 That was incredibly disorganized.

00:15:00.000 It was also mostly able-bodied young men.

00:15:03.000 Versus here, you have women and children. 0.98

00:15:05.000 I was at the border and it is women and children.

00:15:07.000 Men are mandated between the ages of 18 and 60 to remain in Ukraine under a martial law like diktat to keep them defending their homeland.

00:15:16.000 They don't need much push on this.

00:15:17.000 To give you an example, in Warsaw, all these eastern Ukrainians that I was Talking about that, we're pushed out of Donbass in the East.

00:15:23.000 They all went to Poland, big cities, became Uber drivers, worked in restaurants.

00:15:27.000 And for instance, an Uber, you'd be able to get an Uber driven by Ukrainian for next to nothing. 1.00

00:15:32.000 Supply went up and price went way down.

00:15:35.000 And when I got to Warsaw a couple of weeks ago, you couldn't find a Ukrainian Uber driver.

00:15:39.000 And an Uber, instead of taking less than a minute, took 10 to 15 minutes and cost three times the price because the Ukrainians were Who came to Poland five, seven years ago, all went back to Ukraine to defend their homeland, which is kind of interesting. 1.00

00:15:50.000 You don't see that very often.

00:15:52.000 So it's women and children coming through. 0.98

00:15:54.000 A lot of men escort them to the border, and then they go back to the cities and to the regions where there's fighting, and they join the fight.

00:16:01.000 So how's it going to end, Matthew?

00:16:03.000 How's it going to end?

00:16:04.000 Some say we're headed for a six- to eight-month insurgency here after these cities are leveled.

00:16:11.000 You think that there could be a resolution quicker?

00:16:14.000 Yeah, I think it's going to be quicker.

00:16:15.000 I don't think Putin's military is up to this.

00:16:17.000 They expected to roll over these cities.

00:16:19.000 In two or three days, take the regions they wanted with ease, surround Kiev to put pressure on the political class, possibly kill a few leading politicians, and then have all of the upper hand in negotiating their withdrawal.

00:16:31.000 Now they're kind of quagmired.

00:16:33.000 50% of their hardware capacity is stuck in mud.

00:16:37.000 It doesn't work.

00:16:38.000 I mean, this is, I don't know, for the viewers who've seen Chernobyl, this is the kind of military advice he was getting in a communist system.

00:16:45.000 You just tell the autocrat what he wants to hear, otherwise you're going to the gulag.

00:16:48.000 Before, now many will go to the gulag for the failure of this operation.

00:16:52.000 He's going to see further destabilization.

00:16:54.000 When you're recruiting Syrians and Central African Republic citizens to come and fight for you, you're not winning. 1.00

00:17:02.000 And so he does not have much wherewithal to continue this for that much longer.

00:17:06.000 If you see right now, there are two aggressive moves he's going to make.

00:17:09.000 There's one he made about two, three days ago when he started Coming from Belarus in the north with his vassal state, Lukashenko, the head of Belarus, he sent troops in and they went after a small city called Lutsk, which is very close to the NATO and Poland peripheral border.

00:17:24.000 That is an act of aggression of symbolism, of saying we're getting close to your border.

00:17:28.000 But the two big moves he has to make now, one is he's now bringing his navy into play to shell Odessa, which is The third largest city after Kharkiv, Kiev, Kharkiv, and Odessa.

00:17:39.000 And in Odessa, it's a very Ukrainian city.

00:17:42.000 They will defend it.

00:17:43.000 He won't get it, but it is strategically important because it's right next to Moldova, which would be his hope for a revanchist next move.

00:17:50.000 I don't think he'll be able to make that move.

00:17:52.000 Originally, I think he thought he could and get up against the Romanian NATO peripheral border, which is a much weaker one than the Polish one, given that the amount of military spend Poland has has put into upgrading their defense and offensive systems last ten years.

00:18:05.000 By that theory, then, Odessa becomes the key city to deprive Putin of a Black Sea strategy.

00:18:13.000 Because if you look at how he wants to connect these areas of eastern Ukraine that he's recognized as independent republics to Crimea and then down toward Moldova, it would seem that the Odessa front is one of the most critical in the next, you know, 72 hours.

00:18:29.000 Yeah, no, it's important if he can get it, it strengthens his position.

00:18:33.000 I don't think he can.

00:18:34.000 He can probably shell the city pretty well and put it in a defensive posture.

00:18:38.000 But ultimately, what he needs and what he wants, and this is where it's going to be, shock and awe, is Mariupol.

00:18:43.000 Mariupol is the 10th largest city.

00:18:45.000 It's halfway between the entry point to the Crimean Peninsula and where the Russian border starts on the Don River, Rostov-on-Don being the city.

00:18:53.000 And a lot of the Ukrainian Crimeans fled there when he took over Crimea itself.

00:18:59.000 And they went to Mariupol.

00:19:00.000 So they're holding out really well.

00:19:02.000 He needs the city to fall.

00:19:03.000 And I think because of the desperation of his weakened military state, at this point, he is going to need to go full Grozny. 0.99

00:19:11.000 Grozny was the capital of Chechnya that he absolutely leveled 10, 12 years ago when Chechnya was threatening to assert its independence and become a breakaway state within Russia.

00:19:22.000 And he violently quelled that, killed tens of thousands. 0.96

00:19:25.000 And now Chechnya is a lapdog. 0.96

00:19:28.000 He's got his puppet installed there and he uses Chechen mercenaries even in Ukraine. 0.93

00:19:33.000 They were some of the more savage fighters that he was using to go after the politicians in Kiev.

00:19:38.000 The Ukrainian government smoked them, which was kind of interesting to see how quick that happened.

00:19:42.000 But Mariupol, he's going to shell it like Grozny is my guess, because this is his whole reason for doing this right now is to create this Crimean land bridge. 0.71

00:19:50.000 Crimea is a peninsula, but it might as well be an island.

00:19:53.000 And he's had to feed it and supply it for eight years by waterway.

00:19:58.000 He needs an overland route.

00:20:00.000 All the rest of the regions that he has control of are lost leaders.

00:20:03.000 Now they redraw the maps.

00:20:04.000 He has to pay those pensioners pensions.

00:20:06.000 And that's not something he's economically even before these sanctions.

00:20:09.000 Able to do.

00:20:10.000 He had a very good chaotic situation there where he supplied them with weaponry to defend the contact line and maintain control.

00:20:17.000 But Mariupol is the absolute key.

00:20:19.000 It is why he did this whole exercise and this is why this moment was now the weak West.

00:20:25.000 And he went shock and awe, trying to get to Kiev, trying to take over as much of the country as he could to negotiate that firm settlement that he'd maintain, this Crimean land bridge.

00:20:34.000 So it's going to get ugly in Maripole.

00:20:35.000 Today, they're the first corridor, humanitarian corridor, where they let 20,000 people out.

00:20:40.000 But this is a city of half a million.

00:20:42.000 We don't know how many people are there, but you've got to figure it's 300,000, 400,000 still.

00:20:46.000 So what are the contours of the deal then that you think would bring this to an end?

00:20:51.000 A referendum in Donbass, so the two breakaway republics, Donbass and Luhans, which have no Ukrainians, it's all Russian, so much like Crimea, he'd win that referendum for full ascension into the Russian state.

00:21:03.000 The Crimean land bridge, and we'll see what the will of the world is depending on how violent he has to get in destroying the city to take over this territory. 0.91

00:21:13.000 But that is the number one most imperative for him.

00:21:15.000 And then He will also want some guarantee of no NATO ascension for Ukraine, which is a far cry from where it was 20 years ago.

00:21:22.000 20 years ago, he was saying if Ukraine wants to join NATO, that's going to be a decision for Ukraine, NATO, the EU, and all those powers that be.

00:21:30.000 It doesn't have anything to do with me.

00:21:32.000 In 2004, with the start of the color revolutions, that changed.

00:21:35.000 And he cannot have Ukraine ascend to the EU. Not that I think that is a realistic Well, we heard that from no less than Zelensky.

00:21:50.000 Quite recently, Zelensky came out and said, look, it is not as if we are, you know, in a position to be accepted into NATO right now.

00:21:57.000 And we already have seen Germany and the Netherlands object to any EU membership.

00:22:02.000 And so I guess the question would be, what is Ukraine giving up other than the obvious territory that you just described?

00:22:08.000 But what do they give up geopolitically In a deal like that?

00:22:12.000 Well, they certainly, you know, we've already been, and there is a fair argument that the right makes, that we were moving into what Putin declared was his near abroad, and he drew his lines in the sand, and unlike Obama, he stood by them.

00:22:26.000 Our movement with NATO. Kamala Harris at the Munich...

00:22:29.000 Wait a second, wait a second, Matthew.

00:22:30.000 Does that mean that NATO expansion in the Baltics was a bad idea?

00:22:35.000 No, I think that they were much more well equipped to join NATO because of their governments, because of their commitments to collective defense.

00:22:44.000 Estonia was paying the 2% back when there was only the UK, the US, Poland, Greece and Estonia.

00:22:52.000 Now Lithuania and Latvia have been paying into the collective defense.

00:22:55.000 They are more into the Scandinavian sphere.

00:22:59.000 Ukraine is the ultimate buffer because geography is destiny. 1.00

00:23:02.000 And there's no mountains.

00:23:03.000 There is a flat plain, the Eurasian plain, that puts Russia at incredible risk for hundreds of years.

00:23:10.000 It's why these regions have been disputed.

00:23:12.000 But Ukraine will certainly be giving up a lot of territory, economic potency.

00:23:18.000 I mean, it's going to need a Marshall Plan.

00:23:20.000 Cities are absolutely leveled.

00:23:22.000 It's the farming sector, which is a huge, huge economic driver for the whole region and supplies wheat to much of the third world.

00:23:31.000 That is all going to be offline.

00:23:32.000 There'll be no planting of grain this season.

00:23:35.000 That's going to throw the regional economics and global food supply into disarray. 0.96

00:23:40.000 Ukraine is going to be a much weaker state.

00:23:42.000 The governance is still very, let's say, early stage democracy.

00:23:48.000 The legislature is much more democratically elected, but a lot of the attacks On Zelensky and the people around Zelensky are accurate. 1.00

00:23:55.000 Ukraine, the governance structure was so corrupt.

00:23:58.000 There's a reason why it was ground zero for Hunter Biden's activity, which Schweitzer and I did a lot of work on, and many other globalist left-wing elite laundering money through Ukraine.

00:24:07.000 And the ability for that to continue to occur in the weakened post-Ukrainian state is probably going to be a lot less so, which, you know, maybe that's a good thing.

00:24:17.000 How these deals come together will obviously be a feature of what happens over the next several days on the ground.

00:24:24.000 One of the big, I think, moments of buffoonery for the Biden administration involved Poland and these MiGs. 1.00

00:24:30.000 From my standpoint, there would have been a willing receiver of those MiGs in Ukraine. 1.00

00:24:35.000 There would have been a willing provider in Poland. 0.75

00:24:38.000 But when Jake Sullivan went on the Sunday shows and ran his mouth about it, when we got our, in the South, we'd say we got Our ass up over our elbows a little bit.

00:24:50.000 What would be the perspective on how all this played out in Warsaw, do you think? 0.99

00:24:55.000 Well, their asses are certainly chapped. 1.00

00:24:59.000 There was a lot of miscommunication, and I personally think that these levels of miscommunication are a feature, not a bug. 0.99

00:25:07.000 These are supposedly the greatest geopolitical strategists we have, who have advanced fellowships from Johns Hopkins and SAIS and the Atlantic Council.

00:25:15.000 So they know that these levels of communication, if you do not hold your word, if you miscommunicate, misdirect, it creates ripple effects that are very adverse.

00:25:25.000 I think that they were happy to weaken Poland, much like they would be Hungary if Hungary was in a similar position, because just frankly, they don't like this government.

00:25:33.000 It's a conservative government.

00:25:34.000 So if it was a Donald Tusk-led government, the former head of state who was the head of the European Union as well after he was turfed out of Polish politics, then they would have been probably a lot more pliant working hand in hand, hand in glove, and would have gone through and followed through with their word.

00:25:51.000 This was a...

00:25:53.000 Really ludicrous leaving Poland hanging, and I know Poland's not happy about it.

00:25:57.000 Polish Prime Minister Morawiewski is in Kiev today with Kaczynski, the head of the party in DPM, with the prime minister.

00:26:03.000 But it could have been done, right, Matthew?

00:26:05.000 It could have been done.

00:26:06.000 It was just that so much discussion about it publicly created risks that Poland wasn't willing to shoulder in terms of potential retaliation.

00:26:16.000 And, you know, I can understand the frustration.

00:26:18.000 Poland was not going to be the direct giver for the simple reason that being on the NATO peripheral border and within cannon fire of Russian forces in Ukraine, they did not want to be the sort of escalating tipping point.

00:26:31.000 And the US doing it has a lot more optical commitment.

00:26:38.000 I think it was escalatory, but it would have been a lot safer a move where Putin would have had to think about what his next move was versus just making Poland the target of his next sort of breach of state.

00:26:51.000 So Poland was justly apprehensive.

00:26:53.000 They thought they had guidance from the U.S. that we came out with a really good workaround.

00:26:57.000 And then the U.S. bailed.

00:26:59.000 You know, the reports say that Biden just said it would be too escalatory.

00:27:02.000 Well, that kind of ship sailed.

00:27:03.000 They probably shouldn't have went out and started selling this idea publicly, you know, and then pull the plug on it.

00:27:09.000 I think that just made everyone continually look more feckless.

00:27:12.000 Final question.

00:27:14.000 One of the things that Donald Trump maintained in his relationship with Vladimir Putin was strategic ambiguity.

00:27:20.000 Not always forecasting every move, not always describing every specific feature of every red line.

00:27:28.000 Do you think that strategic ambiguity is going to have to be part of the new matrix of our dynamic with Vladimir Putin and Russia?

00:27:38.000 Yeah, I mean, it should be in theory, but we're not dealing with those who are playing 4D chess and are good negotiators.

00:27:44.000 These people have political agendas.

00:27:46.000 You know, right now, the White House is probably more concerned about how do they get the Iran deal back online?

00:27:50.000 And maybe they'll come to an agreement with Putin over that.

00:27:53.000 So that way we'll have multiple allies, including our NATO allies, weakened from the outcome.

00:27:58.000 This is not a strong U.S. This is not Reagan.

00:28:00.000 This is not Trump.

00:28:01.000 I mean, Trump, as you know, we widely saw and I've been hearing the story for a while, is he said, you know, you invade Ukraine on my watch and, you know, Moscow is not going to be around for much longer.

00:28:09.000 And as he said, even if it was five percent, 10 percent taken seriously, that, as you call strategic ambiguity, was enough.

00:28:16.000 You know, Teddy Roosevelt, speak softly and carry a big stick.

00:28:19.000 Well, Trump speak loudly and he might have a really big stick.

00:28:22.000 That's right.

00:28:23.000 At least tweet meanly when necessary.

00:28:25.000 Matthew, where can people follow up on your reporting as you go back into the region and continue to get these very important insights?

00:28:34.000 So just right now, Getter and just all the different conversations I'm having with, you know, good-looking guys like you.

00:28:39.000 So Matthew Terramont, T-Y-R-M-A-N-D, on Getter.

00:28:43.000 Twitter is just so dead.

00:28:44.000 It's just, what's the point?

00:28:45.000 And just all social media.

00:28:47.000 You know, when they kicked Trump at MTG off, it just wasn't any fun anymore.

00:28:50.000 I'm with you.

00:28:51.000 My wife likes Get Her Better, too. 0.99

00:28:53.000 And listen to her.

00:28:55.000 She is one of the best things about you.

00:28:57.000 If not the best.

00:28:58.000 Thanks for joining me on Firebrand, Matthew.

00:29:00.000 Thanks for your insights.

00:29:01.000 Look forward to your continued updates.

00:29:06.000 For quite some time in the state of Florida, if the Walt Disney Corporation opposed a piece of legislation in the state capitol, it was deemed to have a fatal rodent problem and it was unlikely to become law.

00:29:19.000 Disney had enormous power in Florida legislative politics, in part because they employed an army of lobbyists to dole out millions of dollars in political donations.

00:29:29.000 I'm talking about millions of dollars.

00:29:32.000 And in exchange, they expected favorable treatment from lawmakers, maybe a little more than their fair share.

00:29:39.000 The lobbyists were there to enforce the implicit deal.

00:29:42.000 I mean, look at what Florida did to bend over backwards for Disney over the years.

00:29:46.000 Florida created a state agency out of nothing, largely to subsidize Disney's vast marketing budget through an entity called Visit Florida.

00:29:54.000 It's quite literally corporate welfare.

00:29:58.000 Florida created an entire municipality, a city, just to give infrastructure grants to Disney directly on Disney property.

00:30:08.000 Want to know why Florida doesn't have stronger laws against illegal immigration?

00:30:11.000 Disney supports illegal immigration.

00:30:13.000 They love that it's downward pressure on wages.

00:30:16.000 Florida's premises liability laws have basically been written by Disney for 20 years.

00:30:22.000 But everything is going to change now.

00:30:26.000 For the better.

00:30:27.000 Disney CEO Bob Chappick says Disney will pause all political donations in Florida.

00:30:32.000 This is great news for Floridians.

00:30:34.000 Disney will no longer have outsized political power more than regular folks.

00:30:39.000 The Disney CEO explained the basis for this decision in a memo to co-workers.

00:30:45.000 You needed me to be a stronger ally in the fight for equal rights, and I let you down.

00:30:51.000 I am sorry.

00:30:54.000 He should know that things don't usually work out for those who grovel at the feet of the Woketopians. 1.00

00:31:00.000 But apparently, this Disney CEO is taking it personally that Florida passed legislation to keep schooling about schooling.

00:31:09.000 They call it the don't say gay bill, but that's a misnomer.

00:31:13.000 It's really just legislation that keeps instructors within the guardrails of academic instruction.

00:31:19.000 At a time when Americans are falling behind the rest of the world in math and science, you'd think we'd want to focus more on those things.

00:31:26.000 Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is a supporter of this legislation.

00:31:29.000 He replied to Disney with this statement.

00:31:32.000 And when you have companies that have made a fortune off being family friendly and catering to families and young kids, they should understand that parents of young kids do not want this injected into their kids kindergarten classroom.

00:31:48.000 They do not want their first graders to go and be told that they can choose an opposite gender.

00:31:54.000 That is not appropriate for those kids.

00:31:56.000 And so if you're family friendly, understand The parents who are actually raising families want to have their rights respected.

00:32:04.000 And I also think that if you have companies like a Disney that are going to say and criticize parents' rights, they're going to criticize the fact that we don't want transgenderism in kindergarten and first grade classrooms. 0.92

00:32:17.000 And so in Florida, our policy is going to be based on the best interest of Florida citizens, not on the musing of world cooperation.

00:32:29.000 DeSantis is right.

00:32:30.000 As part of his penance to the Woketopian gods, Disney is donating $5 million to the Human Rights Campaign. 0.95

00:32:38.000 They say it's to be used for LGBTQ plus purposes.

00:32:43.000 Here's the thing.

00:32:45.000 Disney doesn't give a damn about human rights, so long as they can make a profit.

00:32:50.000 This is the credit slide for the filming of their hit movie, Mulan.

00:32:54.000 They literally thanked the publicity department of the Chinese Communist Party in Xinjiang, as well as the Turpan Municipality Public Security Bureau.

00:33:03.000 Xinjiang is where Uyghur Muslims are interned in concentration camps, beaten, tortured, forced into labor camps.

00:33:14.000 Disney has no problem praising, thanking, and associating with the Chinese Communist Party.

00:33:20.000 But their association with Florida leaders like Ron DeSantis who stand up for parents?

00:33:25.000 Well, that is just a bridge too far for Disney.

00:33:30.000 Spare me.

00:33:32.000 Disney used to be a source of great pride for my state.

00:33:36.000 Imagination's Fountainhead.

00:33:38.000 Now, they're just far too much like many of the Fortune 100 businesses in America.

00:33:45.000 Woke and unrecognizable.

00:33:48.000 Now California Governor Gavin Newsom has noticed this kerfluffle.

00:33:52.000 He's called on Disney to divest in Florida and move investments to California.

00:33:59.000 Maybe California and Disney deserve each other.

Firebrand - Matt Gaetz - March 17, 2022

Episode 31: How To End Putin's War – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz

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