Libby Emmons joins me to discuss the announcement by Saudi Arabia that they brokered the deal that led to the release of an American woman who had been held hostage for over a year in exchange for a Russian intelligence agent.
00:00:00.000So Saudi Arabia just announced that they actually brokered the U.S. and Russia negotiations for the Brittany Griner deal.
00:00:09.840We're going to go through everything that's involved with this. So stay tuned.
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00:01:08.620So, as I've said before, this negotiation was between the U.S. government and Russia.
00:01:26.720And that's how we were able to secure Brittany's Brittany's release. And I won't have I don't have anything further to share on that.
00:01:36.320So there was there were U.S. officials on the on the background call this morning thanking the Emiratis, for example, but there was no explicit mention of MBS on the role you played.
00:01:46.880I mean, is the administration still extending their gratitude or thank you to again, the only countries that negotiated this deal were the United States and Russia.
00:01:58.080And there was no mediation involved. We are grateful for the UAE, as the president mentioned, as I am mentioning now, for facilitating the use of their territory for the exchange to take place.
00:02:11.820We are also grateful to other countries, including Saudi Arabia, that released the issue of our wrongfully detained Americans with Russian government that raised that issue.
00:02:21.760But again, I don't have anything more to say. But when it comes to her release, it was between the U.S. government and Russia.
00:02:28.400We should. And I am in the process when when the House and Senate gets back, they're going to have to there's going to be some consequences for what they've done with Russia.
00:02:40.540What kind of consequences? Menendez says suspend all arms sales. Is that something you'd consider?
00:02:44.800I'm not going to get into what I'd consider and what I'm having in mind, but there will be there will be consequences.
00:02:51.580Well, well, well, ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard.
00:02:55.700Today's edition of Human Events Daily powered by Turning Point USA.
00:02:58.520Today is December 8th, 2022. Anno Domine.
00:03:03.040Today, you just heard there. You just heard.
00:03:05.900The Biden administration claiming that Saudi Arabia had nothing to do with the release of Brittany Griner in exchange for the merchant of death, the merchant of death himself, Victor Blau, Victor Bout, who, who, by the way, you know, the world's second largest arms dealer after the United States, because you want to talk about merchant of death.
00:03:30.220If you want to talk about who's funding terrorist groups, who's funding insurgent elements, who's conducted regime changes all around the world, you might want to take a drive down to Langley and you might want to pick up the phone and call Barack Obama.
00:03:45.900You might want to talk to the Biden family. You want to talk to the Clintons.
00:03:48.580We can have a whole discussion of who's funded what groups over the years.
00:03:52.300You can talk to Ronald Reagan about that, too.
00:03:54.040Let's be a little bit bipartisan with this, but we really have to get into this discussion.
00:03:58.540And so that's why joining me today as co-host for the show is Libby Emmons.
00:04:02.920She is back from her. She was she was on sabbatical.
00:04:05.860She was gone. She was totally not working.
00:04:07.840Libby was at a at a very, very hush, hush, very secret closed door meeting in Washington, D.C.
00:04:58.100On that chum, it seems to be all over the place.
00:05:00.960We had Saudi Arabia, the UAE coming out with a statement this morning talking about how they were happy to be involved in brokering this arrangement.
00:05:10.120And then we have the White House, of course, coming out and denying it.
00:05:12.980And this also is, you know, a week after a little more than a week after the Biden administration backed immunity for the Saudi prince in the death of Jamal Khashoggi.
00:05:24.840So there's been an awful lot going on here with regard to the Biden administration's negotiations with Saudi Arabia all over the place, including in the lead up to the midterm elections when the administration asked Saudi Arabia to pump more oil.
00:05:40.660And Saudi Arabia said, no, absolutely.
00:05:48.180I like I like the fun over a barrel of oil, perhaps.
00:05:52.480No, that's obviously what's going on here.
00:05:55.120So at first we were looking at this as a because here's what we do.
00:05:59.780OK, on Human Events Daily, one thing that we do that a lot of other shows aren't going to give you is that we interpret everything that happens geopolitically through the lens of great power politics.
00:06:11.200So we're not going to give you the moralizing of, oh, my gosh, how could you?
00:06:45.880I'm not here to play that game because people are not listening to this show for the one on one on one level take.
00:06:52.340We're going to talk about what's actually going on behind the scenes.
00:06:55.100And I think this Saudi announcement is a pretty good indication that there were to your point, Libby, there were some barrels involved in this deal.
00:07:05.560Yeah, I think I think that's about right.
00:07:09.360And I do think it's important to look at look at all of these things through the lens of power and which power benefits from what moves that are being made on an international scale.
00:07:19.980Well, we have so many people coming at us, you know, with these moral pronouncements about how, you know, we're talking about the Griner story as well.
00:07:30.360And, you know, there's all of these moral pronouncements, assuming that the United States is always on the values high ground and we are not.
00:07:38.320And I think it would behoove us to take a look at our position and perhaps restructure what we mean by values in terms of what is best for the United States and what does that mean?
00:07:48.900And what are we willing to sacrifice in order to, you know, gain what the U.S. needs?
00:07:55.880I think these are important questions.
00:07:57.860Well, and not only that, it just has to be said that this isn't just and we're going to we're actually going to continue this discussion after the break, because this is also about the petrodollar.
00:08:06.240Remember, what do the Saudis, the Chinese and the Russians hold in their hands?
00:08:11.320Not just oil, but also the power of the use of the U.S. dollar.
00:08:15.180And don't think for a second that Xi Jinping's massive meeting in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, was with a huge military show of force, was not done as a message to Washington.
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00:09:27.800We're here with Libby Emmons of the Post Millennial interpreting through the lens of great power politics this deal that was, by the way, constructed between the Biden administration, the Saudis, and the Russians.
00:09:42.900And I'll tell you something right now.
00:09:44.580This is more than just oil because oil is only one layer of it.
00:09:52.000The petrodollar is the fact – because I keep hearing people every time I bring this up, and I know there's some people in the audience that know very well what it is.
00:09:59.260But there's other people who don't realize the system, the world financial system, and that's why we have to go through it and explain what's going on here.
00:10:05.480Because the Saudis hold the value of the U.S. dollar in their own hands.
00:10:12.200That's why the fact that they're making overtures to the Chinese Communist Party while sitting down, right, sitting down – Xi Jinping is in Riyadh right now as the Saudis are making this statement.
00:10:26.820They know that they could tank the U.S. dollar overnight if they announce that they're going to be taking all of the world's oil sales off of the U.S. dollar or all of their oil sales, their sales too.
00:10:41.860Because they're the number one supplier to China.
00:10:44.200They are one of the number one suppliers to Europe.
00:10:47.960They're all over the place in terms of oil shipments.
00:10:50.960And we, of course, are trying to get them to pump more of this – and I say we, I mean the Biden administration here – because they refuse to allow domestic production.
00:11:01.020But the point is they could tank the U.S. dollar overnight if they wanted to, and they know it.
00:11:08.420So then Russia comes in and Russia gets their arms dealer back at a time when the United States is shipping millions of small arms to Eastern Europe.
00:11:22.920They're flooding the Eastern European market with small arms right now.
00:11:27.420The world's biggest arms dealer after the CIA gets released.
00:11:32.420He's known specifically for operating in that area in the post-Soviet years.
00:11:36.880Now there's a huge new glut of these weapons on the market.
00:11:42.760The Russians, of course, want him back so they can plug him in to the next phase of their plans in Ukraine.
00:11:50.160And they distracted all of you by getting you to talk about a WNBA basketball player rather than focus on what's actually going on on the world stage.
00:12:04.260It's sort of terrifying the amount of power that these other countries hold over our ability to, you know, feed ourselves and heat our homes and get antibiotics for our children and all sorts of other things.
00:12:16.420We really opened ourselves up to a lot of vulnerability globally.
00:12:22.440And I think that in a lot of ways, it's time to bring manufacturing back home.
00:12:27.540It's time to become energy independent.
00:12:30.260Again, there's no reason we shouldn't be.
00:12:33.500There's no reason to give in to these green lobbyists who, you know, their technology isn't even that effective.
00:12:42.940So, yeah, and I think as we look at this and we look at this prisoner swap and it's all playing on everybody's heartstrings and everyone's glad that one prisoner is home and other people are angry that a veteran is left overseas to rot in a Russian prison.
00:12:58.500You know, it's very easy to overlook the machinations that are happening behind the scenes, and it's really important to pull that out and to understand what's going on.
00:13:13.060We're sending weapons to Ukraine, and we also sell weapons to Saudi Arabia, and then they turn around and sell them to the Russians.
00:13:20.700Yeah, I mean, the world arms market, it's best looked at as a competition between the U.S., Russia, now China's getting in on it, and North Korea's too, actually.
00:13:32.840So, like, if you're a country, by the way, if you're some small African nation, you can't afford American or Russian equipment, then you go to Chinese, and if you still can't afford that, then you're going with the North Korean stuff, is basically how it goes.
00:13:45.000Nobody wants the made-in-North Korea army, you know, the made-in-North Korea AK-47s.
00:13:52.200But one question I guess you could say is, does this open the door possibly for U.S. negotiations, further negotiations with Russia?
00:14:01.140Because another thing that we do talk about here is de-escalation vis-a-vis this two-front world, the Meersheimer warning, okay?
00:14:09.080And I don't think anybody other than human events has really talked about the Meersheimer warning and the importance of it, the fact that we are facing a potential two-front global conflict.
00:14:19.640If we continue escalating, number one, our proxy war with Russia that we are currently in, a hot proxy war with Russia, and then number two, continue escalating with China, which, as I've said for 15 years, is that we are on a collision course with China.
00:14:34.860And I have not seen anyone other than Donald Trump try to de-escalate things there and actually call for peace and understand that you need to decouple our economies in order to de-escalate things there.
00:14:45.780Because we are the ones that are building up the Chinese war machine, us, and who do you think they're going to target it at?
00:14:52.160Now, people say, oh, they would never do that because, you know, because we're their consumers, that we're their market.
00:15:00.320But my point is, it's not going to start with an attack on the United States.
00:15:05.280Don't get me wrong, I love John Milius, but the Red Dawn scenario would be very hard to work because you're just not going to get a massive army from China or Russia, for that matter, into Mexico without us noticing, right?
00:15:25.820I mean, yeah, I think that's much more likely to kick off something.
00:15:28.600Yeah, and I also think that it's important to look at it, you know, when we talk about potential peace negotiations with Russia over the Ukraine situation.
00:15:38.440You know, we really have to realize that in this case, from my view anyway, we're coming at this from a much weaker position.
00:15:46.260We already capitulate to what they want.
00:15:48.640So by the time we get to the table, our position is already lesser than it would have been had we not capitulated in the first place.
00:15:55.480There's no value in going to the table and saying, hey, I made some, you know, I made some considerations for your side.
00:16:04.400So now make considerations for my side, because by then you've already given up more than you maybe would have had to give up at the negotiating table anyway.
00:16:14.500And you're certainly already behind the game there.
00:16:17.040So I do think that, you know, this prisoner swap is is gives us a position of weakness.
00:16:23.760And, you know, that's really too bad that we played it that way.
00:16:27.680The real question, I guess the real question is, how would Captain Sisko handle this one?
00:16:32.480Would Captain Sisko just go in there guns blazing and say, no, we're not going to take that for an answer.
00:18:02.660It was getting absolutely crazy, violent, chaotic.
00:18:06.920The crime was rising all throughout the 90s.
00:18:09.660We got out towards the end of the 90s, moved a couple of miles away.
00:18:14.500And, you know, Libby, you and I are both from the Northeast in terms of the country.
00:18:20.560And when we look at what's going on, these social trends, these cultural trends, it's what I want people to understand is that's in the suburbs.
00:18:54.120I think that schools really took a downturn when they started implementing ideas of relativism across the board, saying that every idea, every moral framework is equivalent to any other moral framework.
00:19:09.780That any religion is absolutely equivalent to any other, that not having a religion is equivalent.
00:19:14.840And we teach kids that whatever they desire is what is correct.
00:19:19.580We teach them that the only thing that matters is making money in the world.
00:19:24.940We teach them, you know, we try and teach them to be manageable as opposed to be thinkers and doers and people who invent things.
00:19:33.540So we're doing our kids a disservice and they are paying us back by turning into crazy people with absolutely no direction or understanding about the difference between right and wrong.
00:19:45.240We've seen in recent reports out from Project Veritas just yesterday, a private school in Chicago.
00:19:50.780I mean, this is not even localized to necessarily public schools, but a private school in Chicago had a dean that brought in an LGBTQ health person to literally teach the children about queer sex.
00:20:07.320He is quoted as discussing, saying that there were discussions with the students about the difference between spit and lube, about dildos and butt plugs.
00:20:17.400So this stuff is going on in schools. In public schools, we have a lot of fights.
00:20:22.620My son comes home from school and tells me that his teacher kept his class late after the bell a couple of times.
00:20:28.860You know, this happens periodically because there's fights in the hall and the teacher doesn't want to release the kids into the hall where there's fights going on.
00:20:39.100Yesterday we had a bunch of cupcakes and I said, hey, do you want to take a cupcake in for lunch dessert at school today just as a special thing?
00:20:46.180And he said, no, it's probably just going to get stolen.
00:20:50.100You know, it's madness in these schools.
00:20:53.260They're not educating our kids properly.
00:20:55.700They're not teaching them the difference between right and wrong in large part because the teachers and the administrators don't know the difference between right and wrong.
00:21:03.500They think teaching them really inappropriate things is progressive and good.
00:21:08.280Relativism, what you're saying there is with relativism, the idea that all ideas are equal and all ideas are good is that you actually lose standards.
00:21:59.160Well, yeah, there are two pieces of that.
00:22:01.060You know, if there is any religion that the world hates, then surely that one is probably the right one.
00:22:10.080That also, I actually believe that, and something I've gotten to understand more as I've gotten older,
00:22:16.760is that things that are considered sinful are also bad for you, are also negative.
00:22:22.460They also negatively impact your life.
00:22:24.540So not only should you not do them because of the moral baseline, but the moral baseline is there because of natural law and because of natural morality that follows through with it.
00:22:36.620And so when we're, you can say, oh, well, oh, that just comes from some old book.
00:22:51.700And when you look at it, too, my son and I were recently talking about, some people in his school were saying that you're fatphobic, you know, if you're telling people to eat healthy.
00:23:02.440And we've seen this from school districts coming out with, you're fatphobic if you tell people to eat healthy.
00:23:08.180And I was talking to my son, you know, about what the seven deadly sins are, and gluttony is on that list.
00:23:40.600And so when I hear pride parade, that conflicts with my Catholic upbringing because, no, wait, you guys said pride is one of the greatest sins out there.