Our very own Jack Posobiec was an international traveling political superstar last week. Jack tells us what it was like traveling with two of the most senior members of the Trump administration, Pete Hegseth and Scott Besson.
00:00:02.640If they want to get you, they'll get you.
00:00:05.020DNSA specifically targets the communications of everyone.
00:00:08.940They're collecting your communications.
00:00:19.660Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another edition of Thought Prime Thursday.
00:00:25.300This is Jack Posobiec coming to you from a little bit of an undisclosed location, but I am here in Washington, D.C., where Kash Patel was just named and confirmed as your next FBI director at CPAC Week.
00:04:07.800We called it the Night Train to Kiev that people can go see at Human Events Daily, on podcasts, wherever.
00:04:12.120And we can actually show you what it's like traveling to Kiev in wartime, being there with the secretary, having these discussions.
00:04:21.020And then, of course, the world leaders losing their minds that President Trump would conduct himself with this direct diplomacy in ways that we haven't seen really since the 19th century in many ways.
00:04:32.120But, again, just an absolute honor and a big responsibility, of course, to go there and also tell the story in an accurate way and give all of our viewers the ability to be there as well.
00:04:42.960So, Jack, what did it feel like in Ukraine?
00:04:48.260Is it like, does it feel like business as usual?
00:04:53.180I'm actually really curious about this because I think that the press coverage of Ukraine, the conflict with Russia, the war with Russia, has been pretty abysmal.
00:05:02.460Like, I don't see a lot of on-the-ground, like, vibe checks.
00:05:06.560I don't see a lot of the reporting you would actually see normally or you'd expect to see.
00:05:12.680And I think there's probably some really obvious reasons why we can get into that.
00:05:15.920But, like, what did it actually feel like?
00:05:17.160This is me just like an organic question.
00:05:25.160So Kiev, of course, itself is away from the far front line, so pretty several hours away.
00:05:31.440But actually, as we were there at the same time, as an understanding of the seriousness of the war, there was actually a missile strike that hit Kiev the very morning that we arrived in the city.
00:05:44.240It was one of those ones that kind of got deflected.
00:05:46.940And so the shrapnel and different pieces of the missiles that were coming down, I don't know what the intended target was, but they hit some residential areas.
00:05:53.520And, in fact, we visited a hospital that had been hit back last summer.
00:05:57.680So, I mean, this is a really, this is a real war.
00:06:00.080This is something where people have been normal, because it's been normalized, right?
00:06:04.480It's been three years now, in a sense, but people are used to now living on a regular basis with air raid sirens, with missile strikes coming down, with having to see the first responders and fire trucks and ambulances racing all hours of the night to respond to one of these things to hopefully get people out.
00:06:23.880If there are civilians that are wrapped up in any of this, which, of course, does unfortunately happen.
00:06:31.320And by the way, for the average person, it seemed like, you know, the air raid sirens go off and they're nonplussed by it because they're almost used to it after three years.
00:06:39.860But, Andrew, we go to the Hilton in Kiev, so the Hilton downtown Kiev, and we're only there for an hour.
00:06:47.220They say, get off the train, go shower, shave, get your suit on, because, you know, we're going to the prime minister and then the ministry of finance and then finally president.
00:06:56.860And so we go in, and as we're, you know, just sort of doing the registration and checking in, there's a little piece of paper there.
00:07:04.900And, you know, usually they would say, like, oh, this is what time breakfast is served or whatever, and they had a very nice breakfast, actually, continental breakfast.
00:07:10.800And then there was also a little map on it that said, oh, in case of air raid, our closest bunker is right across the street, so just located there.
00:07:20.240So when the air raid siren goes off, don't worry, just file down here, you'll see everyone, we'll go across the street, we'll hide out in the bunker there until it's over.
00:07:28.740And they were just kind of walking through this as if it was part of the normal chatting process.
00:07:32.900Like, yeah, the gym's open this time to this time, the breakfast is this time to this time, and this is where the air raid bunker is across the street if you should use it during your stay.
00:07:41.160So it's kind of surreal in the sense where there's almost like an eerie normalcy to it over there.
00:07:47.240But as a guy who doesn't live there, it's like, wait, what do you mean the air raid?
00:07:51.260You know, obviously it's very jarring as well.
00:07:55.120I mean, that kind of reminds me of, like, my experiences in Israel, by the way, where it was just like, you know, people kind of with this imminent threat of, you know, missiles landing somewhere near them and rockets flying over their heads.
00:08:09.060So I think the human experience is that you kind of normalize these things and you learn to live with them.
00:08:18.260And I think that on this note, Jack, that some of our audience could misconstrue our sort of, like, anti-continuing the war stance, you know, as being anti-Ukraine.
00:08:43.580I mean, Blake, you could probably summarize better than any of us.
00:08:48.420But the – you know, J.D. Vance had this five-point breakdown of why the tone out of this administration is – it could feel anti-Ukraine, but it's not.
00:09:01.880There was a line that – I said this to – I forget if it was Politico or one of the interviews that I gave recently.
00:09:08.560And they said, well, who do you think is winning the war?
00:09:13.020And they want you to put you in this box where you say Ukraine versus Russia, Ukraine versus Russia, Ukraine versus Russia.
00:09:17.780And I'm like, look, look, first of all, as an American, I want America to win.
00:09:22.020But as a human being, I said, look, I want the people to win and I want the oligarchs to lose on both sides, on any side.
00:09:31.200That's what they don't understand about populist nationalists.
00:09:34.400Populist nationalists want people in any country to be free from war, to be free from being maimed and killed and blown up and destroyed.
00:09:43.080This is the second time – the second visit that I've made there during the war started three years ago.
00:09:48.620The first time was in May of 2022, just a couple of weeks after it began, a couple months, I guess.
00:09:52.740But they don't want to hear that perspective because they want to have this sort of like Marvel movie version of reality where it's, you know, it's good guys and bad guys, good versus evil.
00:10:03.940And, you know, play up to those that like 14-year-old version of events as if you are a 14-year-old, I mean, as opposed to looking at the reality on the ground and saying, look, you know, this stuff is academic for us as Americans.
00:10:15.780You know, we get to root for our favorite team like, you know, you're watching the Super Bowl or something or, you know, USA Canada is going to be tonight.
00:10:22.540And, of course, we're rooting for the team.
00:10:23.820But in a hockey game or a football game, you know, there aren't people blown to bits and coming home in body bags.
00:10:30.740So, no, it's not like rooting on a sports team at all.
00:10:33.420It's the real war and total war is the realest thing that can possibly happen in a society.
00:10:38.760And it's something where it should be avoided at all costs, if at all possible.
00:10:44.240And that's obviously what President Trump and J.D. Vance were elected to do and that's what they're doing.
00:10:49.820Yeah, I mean, I just remember like Trump's town hall with Caitlin Collins was like one of the first big events of the last campaign.
00:10:59.400And she pressed him on the Ukrainian conflict and said, and he said, I just want the killing to stop.
00:11:32.920By the way, two Christian nations, right?
00:11:35.740To the Christians out there, do you really want to see another war where Christians are getting blown up, where Christians are being killed?
00:11:43.120And, you know, at the end of the day, people want to sit there and say what they want about it.
00:11:47.240They use this phrase in the military all the time.
00:11:50.500And they say, look, you know, you've got your plans.
00:12:04.800And in the real world, you can't just do whatever you want.
00:12:07.720And if you're at the park and you see a bear that's sleeping and you go up and start poking him and the bear attacks you, you can't turn around and say, oh, well, I didn't attack the bear.
00:12:19.960And, unfortunately, we can't change reality.
00:12:23.660So the best we can do is manage our perceptions of reality, manage our expectations of reality, and live in the world as it is that we're given.
00:46:00.500I can say that as a woman and as someone who's very grateful my husband doesn't have a man bun.
00:46:05.440But Justin Baldoni's team released an entire website that he put up basically all of his communication with Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds.
00:46:16.260But the trial is not until next March.
00:46:18.800But I think it was yesterday or on Monday,
00:46:21.760Blake Lively actually added her kids to her complaint and said that her kids are experiencing emotional harm because of Justin Baldoni as well.
00:46:32.680I don't know if any of those people are.
00:50:37.000I'm going to produce some of the most beautiful works of art in the form of a statue for men like Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Jackie, Jackie Robinson.