Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - March 05, 2025


Ep 1151 ｜ What REALLY Went Down Between Zelenskyy v. Trump & Democrats’ Embarrassing Show ｜ Guest： Josh Hammer


Episode Stats

Length

1 hour and 1 minute

Words per Minute

191.3544

Word Count

11,856

Sentence Count

746


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.900 President Trump delivered his first address to Congress and the American people of this
00:00:05.400 presidential term. We've got a lot of highlights and some lowlights to get to today with journalist
00:00:09.980 Josh Hammer. We will also be breaking down the latest in the Ukraine-Russia conflict where
00:00:16.020 America stands when it comes to that conflict, as well as interpreting that heated exchange
00:00:21.940 between Zelensky, Vance, and Trump. What was really going on behind the scenes there that
00:00:28.380 led to that moment that went viral? Josh has some fascinating insight and information for us today
00:00:35.040 as he breaks it all down on today's episode of Relatable.
00:00:48.940 Josh, thanks so much for taking the time to join us. Okay, Trump's speech last night. I just want
00:00:53.880 to hear your initial thoughts. I thought he did great. I mean, look, it was long. I mean,
00:00:59.940 it definitely was rambling at times, but that's kind of just who Trump is, right? I mean, I think
00:01:04.740 back to his RNC acceptance speech in Milwaukee this past summer, which I think was the longest
00:01:09.040 acceptance speech in the modern history of either political party's national convention. But Trump
00:01:15.120 thrives, Ali, in this element. I mean, he's a showman. I mean, it's a guy whose literal claim
00:01:20.300 to fame is The Apprentice on Fire. He's been a New York tabloid figure for the better part of a half
00:01:25.520 century now. He loves the spectacle. He loves the show. He loves the glitz, the glamour, the lights,
00:01:30.980 the this. And I thought he did great there. I mean, his agenda right now, when it comes to the
00:01:36.280 core issues, is very popular. And he did a good job of emphasizing the issues that I think poll in
00:01:40.880 his favor right now, issues like the economy, like immigration right now there. Look, the tariff
00:01:45.520 conversation is starting to take over a little bit more. So we'll see exactly where that goes in
00:01:51.000 the weeks ahead. But for now, when it comes to everything that Elon Musk and Dozier are doing,
00:01:54.900 when it comes to the world stage and Ukraine, I think he's very much in lockstep with the
00:02:00.300 sentiments of the American people. Democrats, by the way, I think did themselves absolutely no
00:02:04.340 favors whatsoever last night, Ali, which I think you and I probably both knew was going to be the
00:02:08.980 case going in. But it's one thing to know it going in. It's another thing than to kind of see it.
00:02:12.760 Actually, it's an action there. They were wailing and they were flailing. They had nothing.
00:02:17.280 They continue to be, I think, in just about the worst shape that I have ever seen that political
00:02:21.080 party in. But as someone who wishes them, frankly, nothing but the worst, I'm pretty happy about that.
00:02:24.960 Yeah. Let's look at some of the lowlights there. So the first was the removal of Democrat
00:02:29.880 Representative Al Green. He is from Texas and he's made headlines for I don't know if this kind of
00:02:36.980 behavior would be an accurate description for why he's made the news, but he makes the news for the
00:02:42.320 things that he says, how out there he is. So he's this old man shaking his cane at the sky because
00:02:49.060 of what Donald Trump is saying. Here's that one. Members are directed to uphold and maintain
00:02:58.800 decorum in the House and to cease any further disruptions. That's your warning.
00:03:03.760 Members are engaging in willful and continuing breach of decorum and the chair is prepared to
00:03:14.600 direct the sergeant at arms to restore order to the joint session. Mr. Green, take your seat.
00:03:20.820 Take your seat, sir. Take your seat.
00:03:27.300 Finding that members continue to engage in willful and concerted disruption of proper decorum,
00:03:32.280 the chair. Now, this is probably an effective fundraising tactic. He probably raised some
00:03:46.400 money by the end of the night there from his donors. However, it's not a good look for the
00:03:51.480 Democrat Party in general. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, I think you nailed it. I mean,
00:03:56.660 it's pure theater. He's doing it to raise coffers from the people that are addicted to MSNBC and are
00:04:02.160 addicted to people like Rachel Maddow and just can't get enough of the left wing TBS Trump derangement
00:04:08.160 syndrome stuff. But they look stupid. I mean, we should not mince words. I mean, they look like a
00:04:12.660 bunch of juvenile, low IQ brats. I mean, this is, you know, if you want to respond intelligently to
00:04:17.940 what's being said, you know, wait for the response there. You may maybe you come out with a
00:04:21.380 house floor speech next day or kind of you write an op ed or something like that there. That's not
00:04:26.020 the way to do it. I couldn't even hear what he was saying there. But I mean, you know, it kind of
00:04:29.960 reminds me. There's no mandate. There's no mandate. No mandate. OK, so but I mean, like this whole thing
00:04:35.280 of like the guy with the cane there. I mean, it reminds me of like that old Simpsons episode from
00:04:39.800 many years ago where it's like old man staring at clouds like that whole thing there. I mean, like they
00:04:45.140 just look patently silly. And again, for a party that is currently polling literally the worst
00:04:50.300 for Gallup Quinnipiac polling, the Democratic Party's approval rating all across the country
00:04:54.420 right now is roughly 33 percent. These tactics are surely not going to help them get on the better
00:04:59.140 side of that number. Yeah. Some other demonstrations that we saw from them last night, they were holding
00:05:05.080 up these little signs. I don't know if we have any full screens of the signs that they were holding
00:05:09.240 up. If not, we can put them up. But these little signs that said like Elon steals or he's lying
00:05:15.760 or protect Medicaid, you never hold up a sign because that's always going to be a meme template.
00:05:22.220 And that's exactly what happened. People took that immediately, made fun of them, wrote different
00:05:26.920 things on the sign as they should because they're asking for it. They look like in the kindest terms
00:05:31.660 possible, huge dorks. And we've talked about this shift on the show before that it is, I would say,
00:05:37.220 cooler, maybe not than ever, but maybe since the 1980s to identify as a conservative and a Republican.
00:05:43.260 And you're just kind of embarrassed to be a Democrat or progressive right now, which is great. But they
00:05:48.500 just added fuel to the fire last night. It was horrible branding. Yeah, look, your point's very
00:05:55.760 well taken on kind of the cultural dynamic shift is something that I've been talking a lot about over
00:06:00.300 the past four or five, six months as well. I mean, after 2008, Barack Obama really brought in a massive
00:06:06.560 sea change in American culture, for better or for worse. I would obviously argue for worse. But he was a
00:06:12.140 cultural totem. I mean, he became kind of a cultural figure. We had, I think, back in 2008,
00:06:16.760 the hope, the hope and change stuff, the colors there that, you know, you fast forward now into
00:06:21.500 the year 2025. And it's like, it's totally switched. I mean, the young people based on the polling
00:06:26.820 there, I'm not saying that they're coming out in 90, 10 in favor of MAGA and favor Republicans there.
00:06:31.120 But the young, you know, Gen Z, 18 to 29 demographic alley, the most recent exit polling,
00:06:36.780 basically a toss up demographic there. I mean, Donald Trump MAGA has become kind of cool in a
00:06:41.600 countercultural center. You see football players doing the Trump dance in the end zone. People are
00:06:45.780 doing it on TV now. It's kind of become kind of the modern manifestation of the old 2008 Barack Obama
00:06:51.780 hope and change. I didn't necessarily have that on my bingo card, to be honest with you. But kudos to
00:06:55.880 Donald Trump, kudos to his campaign and all of the above for actually effectuating this cultural shift
00:07:00.980 there. And again, if Democrats think that these sorts of things, these petty, low ball gutter kind of
00:07:07.780 antics are possibly going to do anything to bring them back into the favor, to curry them any kind
00:07:12.660 of favor whatsoever, with young people, or frankly, with older people, even for that matter to there,
00:07:17.680 this is this is the party, frankly, in the midst, Ali, of a crippling identity crisis. From my vantage
00:07:23.400 point, what the Democrats have to do is they basically have to make a decision one way or the
00:07:26.700 other. Yeah, are we actually going to keep the post 2008 post Barack Obama woke identity politics
00:07:32.780 this coalition, this coalition of aggrieved interests, as I've called it for this identitarian
00:07:37.580 kind of, you know, look at the whole American people and slice it and dice it up there? What
00:07:42.620 kind of niche issue can I do to kind of appeal to this voter, this voter, this voter there?
00:07:46.640 You have to decide, Democrats, whether you want to stick with that or abandon it, because the
00:07:50.100 American people spoke with a very loud and clarion voice in the 2024 election this past November.
00:07:55.080 They don't want any of that. They're not interested in this identity politics, appeasing the
00:07:59.060 transgender lobby, appeasing the illegal alien lobby, this lobby, that lobby there. They just
00:08:03.500 want common sense policies that are in the American national interest. So Donald Trump continues, I
00:08:08.520 think, to kind of score lots of points in American people and the Democrats continue to find themselves
00:08:12.480 in the long sides of this debilitating identity crisis. And Trump last night, he called it a common
00:08:17.600 sense revolution. And you're absolutely right that that is what Democrats are actually opposing is common
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00:09:38.040 The women in the Democrat Party last night, a lot of them were wearing pink. I don't know if they all
00:09:48.520 received the mass text planning that because it seemed like some of them weren't, but they were
00:09:52.200 wearing pink, I guess, to represent that they're defending women. But as I've said many times, when
00:09:57.100 they talk about women's rights or defending women, they're only talking about abortion. They're only
00:10:01.460 talking about being able to kill their daughters inside the womb. They're not talking about, for example,
00:10:06.100 Peyton McNabb, who, of course, is the volleyball player who in high school she's been on this show
00:10:10.740 was pummeled in the head by a male pretending to be a girl on the opposite team by a volleyball
00:10:16.800 suffered brain damage. She was there last night. I thought this was a very sweet moment that she
00:10:22.200 that she was honored there. And no Democrats stood up. No Democrats stood up because all of the Democrats
00:10:29.040 in the Senate had just blocked that bill that would have protected girls and women in sports. And so
00:10:34.880 you're right. They have a choice. They could simply not be insane. They could simply say,
00:10:40.520 you know what, we're going back to being the party of the working class. We're going back to being the
00:10:45.500 party of caring about wages and about industry and about the practical needs and desires that people
00:10:54.700 actually have. But they can't. They want to be that. They want to focus on tariffs because they think
00:10:59.740 that that's probably a winning issue. But they can't let go of the trans stuff. They can't let
00:11:04.380 go of the insanity. And again, like you, I only wish the Democrat Party the worst. So I'm not
00:11:09.100 complaining. It's just a strange choice. Yeah, I mean, it's a choice that definitely goes against
00:11:15.360 self-interest. I mean, I think what I see when I look at the current state of their party, Ali,
00:11:21.020 you have this massive, massive chasm between the Democratic elites and the mainstream American
00:11:26.920 people. Obviously, that is the chasm that Donald Trump and this coalition of the common sense
00:11:31.020 that this coalition massively exploited in the election this November. But I think even looking
00:11:35.960 just on the Democratic side of the ledger, just focusing within the intra-Democratic Party dynamics,
00:11:41.380 you actually have a pretty large chasm there as well between Democratic elites and many,
00:11:48.020 perhaps even most, rank-and-file Democratic voters. I'm not actually sure that the median
00:11:52.920 Democratic voter at this point would support things such as a biologically male volleyball
00:11:58.060 player who is just pounding a volleyball into the face. I mean, maybe, maybe not. It's probably
00:12:03.360 close to a jump ball, probably close to a 50-50 proposition, which itself is terrible, by the way.
00:12:08.020 But the point is that the Democratic elites, New York Times, MSNBC, all these types there,
00:12:12.880 they're all lined up ducks in a row for all of that stuff. And they will never, never,
00:12:16.440 never let it go. So when you have kind of the ruling class within the Democratic Party,
00:12:21.640 the professoriate, the academics, the New York Times journalists, people like that there,
00:12:26.440 you know, good luck institutional DNC establishment possibly trying to kind of
00:12:30.960 move the rudder of the ship towards a place of relative sanity, not absolute, but relative sanity,
00:12:36.400 when you have the elites and the opinion makers who just refuse to countenance the possibility
00:12:40.620 that there is anything remotely wrong whatsoever. I think, I think back to this clip that was on
00:12:46.080 The View, I think it was like a day or two after the election. It was on, it was on Thursday there.
00:12:50.400 And one of the ladies on The View, it might've been Joy Behar, I can't remember who it was,
00:12:54.000 was just having an absolute meltdown over the fact that Kamala Harris had lost two days prior.
00:12:58.080 And she basically said there, you know, is there any reason whatsoever that Kamala Harris lost,
00:13:02.780 other than the fact that this is a racist and misogynist country? And that actually got even
00:13:06.080 Alyssa Farah on The View to basically, basically say, you know, what are you talking about there?
00:13:10.140 There's actually more. And you know, when you've actually alienated Alyssa Farah,
00:13:12.760 then you know, you've really gone too far there. But that's, but that's the kind of sentiment that
00:13:16.340 the democratic elites, I think it's pervasive, perhaps even outright ubiquitous is that Kamala
00:13:20.900 actually only lost because the American people are a bunch of troglodyte Bible thumping bigots who,
00:13:26.760 who hate black people, Indian people, whatever Kamala Harris wants to call herself. They hate women.
00:13:31.640 They, they, they hate this category. They hate this category. And unless until they're able to move past
00:13:36.580 that, they're not going to be relevant again. They're just not.
00:13:38.660 Mm hmm. There were a few more moments that were really supposed to be nonpartisan last night. One
00:13:44.760 of them was honoring this young woman, 15 year old Elliston Berry. She was the victim of an AI deep
00:13:52.060 fake that depicted her in some kind of like pornographic AI generated video. Terrible. Melania
00:13:58.300 Trump is really championing what's called the take it down act, which makes it illegal to make this kind
00:14:03.560 of content, which I think is absolutely good. It's also so interesting that an almost 80 year old
00:14:08.360 president really seems to be on the cutting edge of a lot of the technological issues that we're
00:14:14.800 facing today, even when it comes to trying to get the law to catch up to those things. But again,
00:14:20.080 Democrats, no applause for Elliston Berry or no even attempt to honor her or honor what was going on
00:14:28.420 there. And then of course, when we looked at illegal immigration, this is where Republicans are very
00:14:32.920 popular, especially the president. They honored, for example, Lakin Riley, who was murdered in Athens,
00:14:39.640 Georgia, Athens, Georgia, Jocelyn Nungere. Also, no applause from the Democrats. And I don't think
00:14:47.120 Trump really cared about their approval. I thought it was sad to see that even just from a PR branding
00:14:53.700 perspective, they couldn't manage to, you know, muster any kind of courage or enthusiasm or just
00:15:00.260 respect for these victims. But he or Trump just ended up kind of eviscerating them with what I
00:15:09.520 thought was a very sassy quip. Here's thought three. The media and our friends in the Democrat Party
00:15:17.400 kept saying we needed new legislation. We must have legislation to secure the border. But it turned
00:15:23.800 out that all we really needed was a new president. I mean, just his expression after of the sassy and
00:15:36.880 the leaning over and the looking around, as many have said, he could have been a comedian. His timing,
00:15:41.560 his expressions are perfect. But I mean, this is a sad and very serious truth that the deaths of these
00:15:47.140 young women, Jocelyn and Lakin, were deliberate policy choices by the Biden administration. They
00:15:51.940 were not inevitable. They didn't just happen. They were deliberate policy choices. And now that's
00:15:57.760 changed. Yeah. What about that poor woman who was literally burnt to death in the subway car in New
00:16:03.560 York City? I mean, exact same situation there. I mean, a legal alien who was previously deported
00:16:07.620 there, who came back into the country there. You know, on the illegal immigration issue, Ali,
00:16:12.660 for many years now, for basically as long as I've been in this business,
00:16:15.600 the left just loves making the talking point about compassion. They love trying to turn the
00:16:20.520 tables on you and say, oh, my God, you know, this person just stumbled here, not of his or her own
00:16:26.780 volition there. You know, maybe they're a so-called dreamer. They were born to the parents of illegal
00:16:31.060 aliens here and so forth there. Where is your compassion there? You know, don't you love your
00:16:34.840 neighbor as yourself? You know, as it says in the good book there. And I guess I guess I turn around
00:16:39.400 there and I say, where is your compassion for the victims of the crime? Where is your compassion for
00:16:45.360 for people like Lake and Riley, like her family there, like this poor woman in New York City,
00:16:49.900 tragically burned to death by an illegal alien for literally no reason whatsoever other than pure
00:16:55.740 sadism. I mean, I cannot identify any other reason other than just this pure sadistic tendency from this
00:17:01.760 illegal alien there. But this happens all across the country tragically on a daily basis, or at least it
00:17:06.660 was happening on a daily basis until more or less January 20th, about a month and a half ago or so
00:17:11.720 there. This is an issue, as you pointed out, that the American people overwhelmingly agree with the
00:17:16.940 Republican Party on, overwhelmingly agree with Donald Trump on. But it's also interesting, Ali, insofar as
00:17:21.980 the following is the serum there. To me, the illegal immigration issue, to me, which is an issue I've
00:17:25.660 tracked for a long time because I feel very strongly about it personally, it's an issue where you've
00:17:29.740 actually seen a massive shift in the polling. So for instance, around the time that I was in law school,
00:17:34.460 maybe a little over a decade ago or so, 2013, 2014 or so, I remember looking at polling that
00:17:39.400 suggested that only 30 to 35 percent, more or less, give or take, of the Americans at that time
00:17:44.480 actually supported something that we today would call mass deportation, basically this policy aim of
00:17:49.680 deporting all the illegal aliens here. You look at that polling today in the era of Donald Trump,
00:17:54.420 in the era of MAGA, America First and so forth there, that polling has almost doubled. It's currently in
00:17:59.440 the low 60s, the percent of Americans who support the Tom Homan mass deportation operation. And my
00:18:05.660 take on that, Ali, is that this is a great example of kind of the two-way street of politics and
00:18:10.980 culture. So I think back to the famous Andrew Breitbart line, where he famously said many years
00:18:14.720 ago that politics is downstream of culture. And my response to that has always been that Andrew
00:18:19.340 Breitbart, who was a legend, of course, he actually only had it half right here, that that culture is
00:18:23.880 also downstream politics the other way around. We're now living in basically a decade since
00:18:29.260 Donald Trump came down that gilded escalator at Trump Tower in 2015. I think to conclude that
00:18:34.840 Donald Trump's rhetoric, his aggressive, I would say righteous stance on this issue, his policy
00:18:41.760 initiatives, the people that he surrounds himself with, the way that he has generally shaped his
00:18:45.680 party, the GOP at large on this issue there, to say that politics and all of that more generally
00:18:50.940 has not had an effect on the culture when it comes to this issue, I think would just be
00:18:55.140 a mistaken conclusion as well there. So that's another takeaway that I have on this there.
00:18:59.840 But whether it's politics, culture, or some combination thereof, yet again, Democrats find
00:19:03.940 themselves wholly on the wrong side of another issue. It's another issue where they are woefully
00:19:07.640 out of touch, and it is yet another issue that they're going to have to scramble to get on the
00:19:11.420 correct side of in order to regain any sense of relative sanity with the American people.
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00:20:59.440 They follow that formula that you described of ignoring the actual victims of the crimes and
00:21:09.320 reserving their compassion for the perpetrator of the crime on everything, whether it is abortion,
00:21:15.460 whether it's transgenderism, whether it's immigration, whether it's crime, like, you know,
00:21:20.800 social justice, what they would call social justice. In abortion, it's the woman who is
00:21:25.740 exclusively the victim. It is the man pretending to be a girl that's exclusively the victim.
00:21:30.720 It is the illegal immigrant that's the victim. It's the imprisoned person that's the victim. And
00:21:35.420 they want to ignore the people on the other side of the moral equation. And I think at least when it
00:21:39.700 comes to immigration and gender, and hopefully abortion too, but at least on immigration and gender,
00:21:45.600 you've got enough people on both sides of the aisle, voters anyway, that see the other side of that
00:21:51.900 moral equation because Democrats basically what they are demonstrating right now, at least this
00:21:57.140 is what's implied by their behavior last night, that your stance is that we should not deport illegal
00:22:02.520 immigrants who have committed murder. We should not deport illegal rapists. Like that's the position
00:22:07.780 of the Democrat party. You would think that they would at least be able to say, okay, maybe I disagree
00:22:12.180 with Trump on some immigration policy, but on this, we can all get behind this. We can all get behind
00:22:17.860 that Lake and Riley should still be alive. We should all get behind trying to protect our daughters.
00:22:22.460 They could not even do that. They can't not be insane. They can't. So really, I don't think it
00:22:28.420 matters what Trump does with tariffs. I mean, of course, people really care about their pocketbook
00:22:33.060 and all of that. And if Democrats were smart, they would leverage that as a tool. They absolutely
00:22:37.120 could. I just don't think to your point earlier that they can let go of the insane stuff.
00:22:42.040 They can't. I mean, because these structural incentives, again, are not necessarily pointing
00:22:48.680 them towards doing so. When you have this chasm that I described between their elites,
00:22:53.780 who to this day are still kind of the Obama-esque elites, the people that are enthralled to the
00:22:58.860 broader woke DEI agenda, this identitarian, let's divvy up the masses and kind of give all these various
00:23:04.800 aggrieved interest groups what they want. We'll give the illegal aliens their amnesty. We'll give the
00:23:09.260 transgender lobby their chemical castration, general mutilation. We'll give the Hamas lobby
00:23:14.600 whatever these little kapia-clad jihadis want there. But I mean, that's the sentiment of the
00:23:19.240 democratic elite. But again, I actually do not think it's necessarily the sentiment of the democratic
00:23:23.780 rank and file, who disproportionately still are oftentimes comprised of these kind of blue-collar
00:23:29.640 working-class voters. I mean, Donald Trump has done yeoman's work in cutting into that demographic
00:23:34.720 for sure now for multiple elections in a row. But I just continue to think that unless and until
00:23:40.760 the democratic party's institution finds some way to try to pull their elites. And you see some people
00:23:47.940 who are democrat-aligned trying to communicate the message, right? Jimmy Carvel has at various times
00:23:53.700 told his party in no uncertain terms, you know, the woke crap is over. Jimmy Carvel is not a great
00:23:58.140 example because he also has a debilitating case of Trump derangement syndrome. But you see some people
00:24:04.420 that are trying to speak out there. But they're just totally drowned out by the masses there. And
00:24:08.140 again, you know, I wish them nothing but the worst, frankly. I hope that they never win another election
00:24:12.980 in my lifetime. So I'm not exactly crying myself to sleep over this there. But you know, you would
00:24:17.420 think at some point that the the will to survive as a political party in America's two-party system
00:24:22.840 would take over. And we simply have not seen that yet. Maybe at some point we will, but it's probably
00:24:26.960 going to take a while, honestly. Yeah, here are two more, two more moments that I thought were
00:24:31.200 really sweet, good on Trump's side. Democrats obviously didn't clap for them. And then we'll
00:24:35.720 move on to some other things. But this was probably the sweetest moment of the night. And this was to
00:24:43.440 honor 13-year-old DJ Daniel. He was diagnosed with brain cancer, given five months to live six years
00:24:49.340 ago. Praise God, he's still here. His dream was to be in law enforcement. During his speech, President
00:24:54.140 Trump made him an honorary member of the Secret Service. Here's up for.
00:24:59.640 DJ has been sworn in as an honorary law enforcement officer, actually a number of times. Peace. The police
00:25:08.220 love him. The police departments love him. And tonight, DJ, we're going to do you the biggest honor of them
00:25:14.860 all. I am asking our new Secret Service director, Sean Curran, to officially make you an agent of the
00:25:23.180 United States Secret Service.
00:25:45.460 I mean, that's just a really precious moment. I think while he was invited there, his brain cancer
00:25:50.100 was caused by some kind of environmental toxin that I guess the Trump administration is going
00:25:55.300 to try to go after, I think that's maybe the connection. Regardless, it was a really sweet
00:25:59.880 moment that I think everyone should be willing to rally behind and say, yes, let's support this person
00:26:05.660 because he's human, because he's a child. Apparently, people had a hard time doing that.
00:26:12.740 Yeah. And again, what does it say about the party that thinks of itself as the party of humanity,
00:26:18.360 the party of compassion, the party of moral decency, the party of uprightness, right? I mean,
00:26:24.920 what does it say that they can't, you know, be bothered to get off their rear end and applaud a
00:26:31.560 13-year-old who is surviving, praise God, indeed, an assessment of terminal brain cancer and given this
00:26:40.260 word there. But, you know, it also kind of just speaks to Trump's, his total mastery of moments like
00:26:45.740 this, right? I mean, we've seen any number of these moments in his previous State of the Union
00:26:50.320 addresses. I know this was technically not State of the Union address, but basically the same thing.
00:26:54.080 I think back to Rush Limbaugh, I think that was in the final year of Donald Trump's presidency in
00:26:58.180 2020 there. And, you know, Rush, we all knew had deeply ailing health there. But, you know,
00:27:03.340 watching that expression on Rush's face and just how deeply touched he was by getting the Medal of
00:27:09.000 Honor there, right there in that setting there, that was one of those moments that will last with me
00:27:12.880 a very, very long time. The Democrats definitely did not get off their rear ends to applaud Rush
00:27:17.140 Limbaugh then. But surely you would think that maybe a little bit more would have gone off to
00:27:21.500 applaud this 13-year-old boy there who was having his dream realized for an international television
00:27:26.020 audience. But again, partisan politics, Ali, really just continues to be the name of the game and
00:27:30.860 continues to drive the agenda for the Democrats at this point. Unfortunately for them, they just
00:27:35.080 continue to drive themselves further and further off a cliff into this abyss of just total and complete
00:27:39.420 irrelevance. Yeah. OK, here is my favorite line from the night. Stop five.
00:27:44.260 And now I want Congress to pass a bill permanently banning and criminalizing sex changes on children
00:27:51.280 and forever ending the lie that any child is trapped in the wrong body. This is a big lie.
00:27:58.520 And our message to every child in America is that you are perfect exactly the way God made you.
00:28:17.360 If you cannot clap for that line, that to every child you are perfect exactly the way God made you,
00:28:25.200 I assume that you believe that you are not, that you should tell a child you are not perfect the
00:28:31.960 way God made you. Something is wrong with you. We believe this really weird paranormal idea that
00:28:38.660 you can be born in the wrong body, that the real you is trapped inside the wrong body. Like how freaky
00:28:44.640 would that be to tell a child and to place that burden of confusion and chaos on a young child's mind
00:28:50.220 without even their ability to understand what you're saying. Trump is saying something very
00:28:55.380 clear. Democrats lack of applause means, again, there are four illegal aliens staying here after
00:29:01.220 they have raped and murdered women and they are for mutilating the bodies of children who have been
00:29:06.440 told that they're trapped in the wrong body. Those are the stances of the current Democrat Party,
00:29:10.740 I'm assuming. You know, Ali, what I was thinking about when I was watching this last evening,
00:29:16.360 actually, was I, I, my mind kind of went in a, in a slightly different, but nonetheless very related
00:29:21.780 direction, which was, I thought about the following before the rise of the transgender lobby and the
00:29:27.240 transgender interest group on the left, you had the homosexual lobby and the homosexual interest
00:29:32.000 group there. And last I checked, if I, if I think back to the whole same sex marriage debate and the
00:29:37.020 general kind of decades long fights over homosexuality, you know, the less big argument on that particular
00:29:43.200 issue was that you were born this way. I mean, that, that you were just born this way that had
00:29:48.060 nothing to do necessarily with nurture or your environment, the way you were raised there.
00:29:51.680 You know, Lady Gaga had that song born this way, which is literally about this. So, I mean,
00:29:57.760 how do you square that circle? I mean, I literally don't understand there. If you're objecting to what
00:30:02.620 Trump is saying on transgender, you know, gender affirmation, euphemistic grounds, if you're doing
00:30:08.940 that, you know, what do you say to the Lady Gaga born this way crowd? I mean, I mean, I genuinely
00:30:13.240 do not understand how you can square this circle. There is kind of this irreconcilable tension. I
00:30:17.580 think that exists between these warring transgender and homosexual identitarian groups on the left
00:30:22.980 there. I mean, honestly, that's kind of the whole problem with wokeism and this whole identity
00:30:26.820 politics coalition. Right. I mean, I think back to Linda Sarsour and that you don't really hear
00:30:30.860 about very often anymore. You know, she was leading the, she was leading the women's march back in the
00:30:35.300 early days of the Trump administration. On the other hand, you know, Linda Sarsour is also a
00:30:39.980 Sharia supremacist. I mean, who had various tweets over the years lauding how Sharia law is so
00:30:45.000 favorable for people who are delinquent on their credit card debts. I mean, you know, maybe we
00:30:49.360 should look at what Sharia law says about, oh, I don't know, women, about how women should be treated
00:30:53.900 in a society there. Right. So, I mean, like none of this makes any sense. I mean, their entire,
00:30:57.540 their entire wokeism DED, I think, is totally predicated on all sorts of intellectually
00:31:02.540 irreconcilable and morally irreconcilable internal tensions there. And it's ultimately a reminder.
00:31:07.980 And this is kind of the point that Donald Trump was powerfully making there. It's a reminder.
00:31:12.240 And Ali, I actually argue this pretty forthrightly in my book that comes out in two weeks,
00:31:16.520 Israel and Civilization, the Fate of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West,
00:31:19.980 be able to preorder. So the book, just real quick, it's really not just about the state of Israel.
00:31:24.720 It's really more broadly about the Judeo-Christian West and the biblical inheritance there and so forth
00:31:29.260 there. And one of the things that I argue repeatedly in the book is that Genesis 127,
00:31:33.980 in Hebrew, we would say, but Selim Elkim, in Catholic, that's Imago Dei, this notion that
00:31:38.000 God made man in his image, male and female, he created them. I argue in the book that that is the,
00:31:42.100 that Ali, that is the single overarching ethical imperative for all of Western civilization,
00:31:47.560 that that really is kind of the singular ideal that it kind of all comes back through there.
00:31:52.320 And ultimately, you kind of believe in that, Ali, or you don't. But when you don't believe in that,
00:31:56.480 it starts to get really, really, really dark very, very quickly there. And that's kind of
00:32:00.940 where the modern Democratic Party has found itself. Totally. I totally agree. Gosh,
00:32:04.760 we recite Genesis 127 probably more than any other verse on this show. Okay, one last thing about this
00:32:11.240 before we get into Ukraine, because I had a lot of, you know, Democrats in my DM. I actually had a
00:32:16.360 woman this morning who told me and I actually thought this was a little endearing. She said,
00:32:20.380 look, I know I have a huge case of TDS. So she acknowledged, she said, I've got a huge case
00:32:26.560 of Trump derangement syndrome. But Trump started all of this partisanship. It is Republicans who
00:32:33.040 are the ones who are divisive. They're the ones who are disrespectful. Democrats are just responding
00:32:36.960 to that. So I went back to Biden's 2022 State of the Union, because I thought that I could remember
00:32:44.840 them clapping when it was appropriate for them to clap. And so just to show you that really,
00:32:51.020 there is a difference when it comes to just this kind of behavior and strategy for Republicans and
00:32:56.180 Democrats. Here's saw eight. We should all agree the answer is not to defund the police. It's to fund the
00:33:03.540 police. Fund them. Fund them.
00:33:09.380 That's what you do when the president says something that is undeniable, that everyone
00:33:20.940 agrees with, that Republicans agree with. The only time that Democrats that I saw applauded last night
00:33:27.080 is when he mentioned a foreign country. And that is donating bill or, you know, donating, giving whatever
00:33:31.760 billions of dollars to Ukraine. At no other time did Democrats applaud for things that were completely
00:33:37.560 nonpartisan. That's the only thing it seems like Democrats can get behind. So as we shift into the
00:33:42.920 Ukraine conversation, tell me what is their thinking? What is Democrat strategy there when
00:33:48.500 they are thinking, apparently, this is the only thing we can get on board with. This is the only
00:33:53.360 thing that excites us. Some Democrats immediately whipped out their Ukraine flag, waving it at that
00:33:58.940 moment, not the American flag, the Ukraine flag. What the heck is going on there?
00:34:02.960 So I have a lot of thoughts on this. I thought about this a lot over the past few years,
00:34:08.640 because it's been literally three years now since Putin invaded Ukraine. And we've had a lot of time
00:34:12.820 to think about this. So first of all, Ali, I mean, you know, I'm 36 years old. I think we're
00:34:17.460 roughly the same age. Maybe I have a couple years on you. But you know, growing up, I mean,
00:34:21.380 the Democrats were still kind of on the tail end of being an anti-war party. I mean, they, you know,
00:34:26.380 going back to 1960s, they were the party of the Vietnam War protests there and whatnot there.
00:34:30.380 You know, it got a little complicated in the 90s. I mean, Bill Clinton, you know,
00:34:33.420 had some wars over in Southeastern Europe, Bosnia, Serbia, around there. But they were
00:34:38.180 still more or less the war skeptical party. So the question then arises, why have Democrats found
00:34:44.140 the one war that I have ever lived through my lifetime that they are not merely gung-ho about,
00:34:50.320 but they are zealous about? They are extraordinarily zealous about waving and flying the blue and yellow
00:34:56.860 flag of Ukraine there about this notion that the United States and Europe and the West has to pour
00:35:02.120 every single final penny of taxpayer dollars into this one war. And the conclusion that I have
00:35:08.460 reached, that I've been saying for the past couple of years, is that I think that this is actually
00:35:12.320 psychologically downstream of a crossfire hurricane. And what I mean by that is the Russia collusion
00:35:18.100 delusion, Russiagate, and that whole hoax back from 2016. This whole fusion GPS, Hillary Clinton,
00:35:23.980 launder dossier, basically implying that Michael Cohen went to Prague and Donald Trump is a Putin
00:35:28.900 agent there. I mean, Democrats for years and years, really for the entirety of his first presidency,
00:35:34.400 and some of them still peddle this, they actually think that he is a Manchurian candidate, that he
00:35:38.240 is a genuine pawn of the Kremlin, which I think is very curious, right? Because it's interesting to
00:35:44.940 know that Vladimir Putin has a tendency to invade Ukraine when Democrats are presidents. He invaded
00:35:49.840 Crimea in eastern Ukraine in 2014, back when Barack Obama was president. He did the same thing in the
00:35:54.820 Donbass region in eastern Ukraine in 2022. Donald Trump, lest we forget, actually, in 2017, gave one
00:36:00.540 of the best speeches of his presidency in Warsaw, Poland, where he physically turned eastward to face
00:36:05.160 Moscow and gave kind of a very Reaganite speech, you know, we're not going to abandon our central and
00:36:09.440 eastern European allies there. So this notion that Trump is a Putin puppet is simply not borne out
00:36:13.800 by history, but they actually do think it. And I think, Ali, that psychologically, if I'm trying
00:36:19.660 to do the whole kind of Freudian, Jungian analysis thing, that actually is my best guess as to where
00:36:26.020 they are coming from when it comes to this particular conflict, because they do not feel the same way,
00:36:30.400 suffice it to say, about Israel's defensive war against Hamas and Hezbollah and Iranian proxy war
00:36:36.300 generally. They certainly do not feel the same way when pretty much any other American ally that I can
00:36:41.360 think of is under threat anywhere around the world. So there's something that is specific about this
00:36:46.260 one issue that really, really, really grinds their gears. I think it's mostly Russiagate. The other
00:36:51.640 thing that I guess I'll just throw out there is that there was a revolution in Ukraine in 2014,
00:36:55.680 the Maidan revolution. And I think it's just simply empirically accurate to note that around that time
00:37:01.320 and afterward, a lot of liberal NGO money, Clinton Foundation, those sorts of organizations
00:37:07.080 started pumping a lot of money into Ukraine. It's not a coincidence that a lot of the Hunter
00:37:12.540 Biden drama, Ali, is in Ukraine. I mean, that's where he was on the board of Burisma there. That's
00:37:16.900 not a coincidence. The Democratic elites, a lot of people there in kind of left-wing NGO circles more
00:37:22.680 generally, started pumping a lot of money and getting a lot of money out of Ukraine specifically
00:37:26.840 around the time of about a decade, decade and a half ago or so. So there's a lot of financial
00:37:31.460 pecuniary interest, at least for some there as well. But I think overall, if I had to kind of
00:37:35.940 paint with a broad brush, I continue to think that Russiagate is actually driving a lot of this
00:37:39.280 narrative basically a decade later, which is really quite crazy.
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00:39:04.320 Okay, let's talk about the interaction. I actually had a lot of conservatives and a lot of people who
00:39:11.060 voted for Trump saying they did not like how Trump and Vance treated Zelensky when he was in the White
00:39:20.200 House. I completely disagreed with that. But for those who don't know exactly what happened, last
00:39:25.520 Friday, Ukrainian President Vladimir Vance visited the White House for what was supposed to be the
00:39:29.440 signing of a mineral deal between the U.S. and Ukraine as part of the ongoing discussions aimed
00:39:34.140 at negotiating peace with Russia. However, the meeting ended in fiery exchanges between Trump fans
00:39:39.480 and Zelensky. And this is what caused such an uproar on X. You really had a lot of people on both
00:39:44.760 sides of the aisle landing in different places. But here's one of the sassy exchanges that occurred
00:39:49.820 in SOT6.
00:39:52.700 Second question.
00:39:53.380 Second question for President Zelensky. Do you ever, why don't you wear a suit?
00:39:58.640 Why don't you wear a suit? You're at the highest level in this country's office and you refuse to
00:40:03.880 wear a suit. Just want to see if you, do you own a suit?
00:40:07.040 Yeah, you have problems.
00:40:08.480 A lot of Americans have problems with you not respecting the country in the office.
00:40:11.120 I don't have such, I will wear a costume after this war will finish.
00:40:16.640 Okay.
00:40:17.240 Yes. Maybe, what?
00:40:19.400 Maybe something like yours, yes.
00:40:21.860 Maybe something better, I don't know.
00:40:24.660 We will see. Maybe something cheaper than, yeah.
00:40:28.260 Thank you.
00:40:28.780 Thank you.
00:40:29.500 Thank you.
00:40:30.620 Okay, so this was apparently a sticking point. That wasn't Trump or Vance. But earlier in the
00:40:35.240 day, Trump had said something when he met him. Oh, look, he dressed up for us, which was
00:40:39.520 sarcastic. And I think Vance might have even noted that it was a sign of disrespect. Zelensky
00:40:45.040 says that he has his reasons for that, that, you know, he's waiting until the war ended. And then
00:40:51.760 they discussed more. After 40 minutes of discussion in the Oval Office, the meeting turned sour when
00:40:55.840 Zelensky complained that the United States had not done more to help his country since 2014,
00:41:02.100 when, as you mentioned, Russia invaded Crimea for four years in the United States of America.
00:41:08.620 This is what Vance said. We had a president who stood up at news conferences and talked
00:41:12.140 about Vladimir Putin, and then Putin invaded Ukraine and destroyed a significant chunk of the
00:41:18.220 country. The path to peace and the path to prosperity is maybe engaging in diplomacy. And then
00:41:25.040 Zelensky said, what kind of diplomacy, JD, are you speaking about? Which I take as aggressive.
00:41:31.080 And later, Zelensky was reprimanded by Trump and Vance. Here's thought seven.
00:41:36.600 During the war, everybody has problems, even you, but you have nice ocean and don't feel now,
00:41:43.560 but you will feel it in the future. God bless. You don't know that. God bless. God bless. You
00:41:48.960 will not have war. Don't tell us what we're going to feel. We're trying to solve a problem. Don't tell
00:41:53.900 us what we're going to feel. I'm not telling you. Because you're in no position to dictate that.
00:41:58.000 Remember this. You're in no position to dictate what we're going to feel. We're going to feel
00:42:04.500 very good. We're going to feel very good and very strong. You're right now not in a very
00:42:10.760 good position. You're gambling with the lives of millions of people. You're gambling with
00:42:15.660 World War III. You're gambling with World War III. And what you're doing is very disrespectful
00:42:22.660 to the country, this country. It's back to you. Far more than a lot of people said they should
00:42:29.420 have. Have you said thank you once? A lot of times. No. Even today. Even today. You went to
00:42:35.520 Pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition in October. Offer some words of appreciation for
00:42:41.100 the United States of America and the president who's trying to save your country.
00:42:47.660 Okay. Your thoughts.
00:42:50.660 Ali, I don't think that Donald Trump and J.D. Vance did anything wrong whatsoever. In fact,
00:42:55.440 if you go back and actually watch the whole tape, which I would encourage the viewers to do,
00:42:59.380 what you'll see is for roughly the first half hour of this 50 to 55 minute interaction before the
00:43:05.720 whole thing blows up and Zelensky basically self-deports. Prior to that, for the first half
00:43:10.220 hour, it's Trump himself who repeatedly is trying to steer the conversation back towards a place of
00:43:16.800 mutual productiveness. Let's try to get this mineral rights sharing arrangement done. Let's try to get
00:43:22.260 the framework to ultimately bring in Russia and Putin there and try to end this horrific conflict
00:43:27.100 there. And it is Zelensky who decides to basically try to renegotiate the previously largely agreed to
00:43:33.820 this mineral rights deal in real time by trying to change the terms and say that economic security
00:43:38.800 in the form of this mineral deal is not good enough, but we actually need, you know, NATO
00:43:42.540 alliance style, hard military physical security, which Trump has made very, very, very clear that
00:43:48.740 he's not going to get that. And reasonably so. I think that Donald Trump is correct to not offer
00:43:53.320 that there. But what Zelensky should have obviously realized is that a mineral rights deal is actually
00:43:57.700 pretty good to put the United States economically invested in the health and prosperity of Ukraine
00:44:02.140 gives them a direct stake there. I mean, this should be exactly what he wants there.
00:44:06.440 So that leads us to the obvious question, which is the subject of my newsletter out today,
00:44:11.400 the Josh Hammer Report for Newsweek, which is what the heck was he thinking? I mean, like literally,
00:44:14.780 what actually was he thinking there? And my best guess, and it came out afterwards that he met with
00:44:20.300 Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who, like a lot of these Senate Democrats, is a massive,
00:44:24.800 massive booster of the Ukraine cause there. I think that these Senate Democrats basically falsely
00:44:30.120 buttered up his ego and said, don't worry about Mr. Trump. Don't worry about Vance. Don't worry
00:44:34.940 about these guys there. Your support remains strong. Your support remains bipartisan. So go up
00:44:38.840 there and stand up because the United States Senate with us and, you know, Mitch McConnell and some of
00:44:43.720 these kind of old guard Republicans, we have your back. We have your back. So don't worry about what
00:44:48.720 Donald Trump's going to say there. And, you know, talk about the worst possible advice that he ever
00:44:52.380 could have been given there. But the other thing as well here, you know, Ali, there's this old saying
00:44:56.780 or this old principle known as Hanlon's razor, which basically says, don't attribute to malice,
00:45:01.220 which can be described by stupidity. I happen to think that Vladimir Zelensky is just not a
00:45:05.480 particularly serious person. He's not someone who has a particularly clear understanding of
00:45:10.340 geopolitics in general. He definitely does not have a clear understanding of internal American
00:45:14.260 political dynamics, as evidenced by the fact that as J.D. Vance properly brought up in that clip,
00:45:18.860 he literally campaigned on the campaign trail at a munitions factory in Pennsylvania with Kamala Harris.
00:45:23.020 What the heck was he thinking? Like literally throwing in his lot with one party over the other,
00:45:28.420 not a good thing for any ally of the United States to ever do there. So he's not a particularly sharp
00:45:33.180 guy. I mean, he literally was a comedian there doing stupid jokes on local television prior to
00:45:38.500 his ascendance to national prominence there. So I don't know ultimately exactly how we can recover
00:45:45.800 from this. I mean, surprise, surprise. Now he's basically trying to walk it back and say that I'm
00:45:49.300 ready to come negotiate there. But I mean, to me, it's like, dude, like you were literally just there
00:45:53.680 on Friday. I mean, you had the whole world watching you there. You could have been a statesman.
00:45:58.520 And what Donald Trump and J.D. Vance doing, and I'll make this final point, is I think that they are
00:46:03.440 actually and I'm not a Ukrainian citizen. I don't live there. But from my vantage point, I think that
00:46:08.020 Donald Trump and J.D. Vance are actually at this point looking out for the future of Ukraine more than
00:46:12.560 Vladimir Zelensky is. The death toll, the carnage, the utter wreckage in Ukraine has been catastrophic.
00:46:20.280 The media focuses on the death toll, whether real or Hamas fabricated in Gaza. But even if we go with
00:46:26.940 the totally fake Hamas numbers, which again are totally fake, but let's even stick with for the
00:46:31.300 sake of arguing, let's go with those. The actual death toll in Ukraine is still orders and orders
00:46:35.820 of magnitude, you know, 10, 20 times higher than that. This country has been devastated, utterly
00:46:40.720 devastated. An entire generation or two of Ukrainians has either fled, they've been conscripted,
00:46:45.560 they've died, they've suffered grievous injuries there. You know, young women need husbands and
00:46:50.140 the husbands are nowhere to be found there. It's going to take Ukraine a half century or more,
00:46:54.960 maybe even more than that, to possibly recover from this. So if your mentality is that despite all
00:47:00.380 what I just said, you're still going to go to recover every possible square inch of territory,
00:47:05.500 I genuinely question whether or not you as a leader of your country actually have your country
00:47:10.460 best interest at heart as a statesman. I think the clear answer is that no, he does not,
00:47:14.700 in which case he should promptly resign and get an adult in the room who can actually get his peace
00:47:18.100 deal. Yeah, I mean, it's pretty simple. You're losing the war. You're losing the war. And millions
00:47:24.160 of your people are dying. And it seems to me that Trump and Vance want to figure out a way to stop that.
00:47:30.240 And the media and Democrats, Ben Stiller, and all of these celebrities, and a lot of people,
00:47:36.480 even in my DMs, are reducing this to this idea, which you call the World War II theory of history
00:47:42.700 of every conflict, comparing it to the Nazis versus the good guys. That if you oppose the side in any
00:47:51.060 conflict that progressives say that you have to oppose, or if you don't align exactly with the
00:47:55.780 exact same enthusiasm and the exact same black and white perspective of a conflict that Democrats
00:48:02.480 have, then you are on the side of the Nazis. But this isn't World War II. It's not exactly the same.
00:48:08.460 We're not dealing with the same exact two sides and the same exact issues. And there may be
00:48:13.280 disagreements on how much we should support Ukraine in all of that. But it's not the same. And that
00:48:20.060 actually makes it seem to me like Democrats don't actually care about this issue, that it's not
00:48:24.700 actually sincere, that it's just a cudgel. It's just a way, again, to reduce Donald Trump to
00:48:30.100 Hitler, which is offensive in itself. Yeah, I'm happy you brought up my line about the World War
00:48:36.160 II theory of history. I mean, I was responding to this column that Brett Stevens wrote in the
00:48:40.360 New York Times. Brett Stevens, who is nominally on the right, he's kind of an old school and
00:48:44.320 neoconservative pundit. And, you know, I mean, he's basically just comparing Putin to Hitler and
00:48:49.040 saying that we're appeasing just like Neville Chamberlain. I mean, you know, Ali, there was this talking
00:48:53.520 point. The left for a long time was talking about Harry Potter at some point. I can't remember when
00:48:57.880 it was. And we on the right kind of turned to them and said, guys, read another book. And my response
00:49:03.020 to like the World War II theory of history, people that compare each and every conflict around the
00:49:07.020 world to World War II is like, guys, can you study a different conflict maybe? I mean, there are other
00:49:12.200 wars in human history going back literally to biblical times. Not every war actually is exactly the
00:49:17.940 same. By the way, there actually are some wars in the modern age which do fit this stark moral
00:49:22.920 dichotomy of World War II. I would submit to you that Israel's righteous defensive wars against
00:49:27.040 jihadism fit that paradigm quite nicely, actually. But the Russia-Ukraine war is one instance of a war
00:49:32.820 that actually is a little bit murky. Now, is Vladimir Putin a bad guy? Yeah, he sure as heck is. He's a
00:49:37.320 very bad guy. He supports interests all across the world that are hostile to the United States. He was
00:49:42.640 friendly with Bashar al-Assad. He's friendly with North Korea, China, Iran, you name it. He's friendly
00:49:46.540 with all the worst guys there. Did he start this war? You betcha. He was the one who physically
00:49:50.480 invaded Ukraine. Now, it's a little more complicated. I think the West could have done a lot to preclude
00:49:54.600 that. But it's still true that Putin actually was the one who initiated hostilities there. And he
00:49:58.200 is ultimately morally to blame for that which we have gotten there. But is Ukraine kind of this
00:50:03.460 bastion of liberal democracy that I think the neoliberals and the neoconservatives alike would
00:50:08.340 like to portray it as? No. No, it's absolutely not. In fact, according to some metrics, Ukraine is one
00:50:15.120 of the most corrupt countries in the world in terms of public corruption there. They do not necessarily
00:50:19.560 have free and fair elections there. It is not an American, Canada, Australia style Western
00:50:26.420 democracy. It is a fledgling, fledgling state that has mightily struggled ever since the fall of
00:50:31.840 communism and the fall of the Berlin Wall back in 1989 there. And this actually is a conflict that
00:50:38.440 is a little more nuanced than this stark World War II moral dichotomy view. Again, I'm not saying that
00:50:43.660 Russia is a good actor. I'm just saying that Ukraine maybe is not necessarily like the greatest
00:50:48.200 things in sliced bread or anything like that. But more importantly, Ali, my personal foreign policy,
00:50:52.880 I'm a hardheaded realist here. I look at every conflict around the world and I say, what is the
00:50:56.940 American national interest in this particular conflict? To me, that is the sole and exclusive
00:51:01.320 thing that we ought to look at in every conflict around the world. So for instance, when it comes to
00:51:06.500 the Israel-Hamas conflict, I think that militates in a very different direction actually than the
00:51:11.060 Ukraine-Russia conflict. So you go back to October 7th and dozens of Americans were killed or taken hostage.
00:51:16.060 In fact, October 7th, and to an extent the situation in Gaza today, is actually the largest
00:51:20.600 American hostage crisis since Tehran in 1979, the infamous Jimmy Carter hostage crisis there.
00:51:26.720 Hamas obviously is a U.S.-recognized foreign terrorist organization and on and on and on there.
00:51:30.660 So it seems to me that there is a pretty clear national interest in supporting our ally to just
00:51:34.360 take care of business in Gaza, which Donald Trump seems, thank God, to totally understand and
00:51:39.280 agree with there. But in Russia and Ukraine there, let's look there. I mean, what exactly is the
00:51:44.220 American national interest in exactly how the Donbass region border in eastern Ukraine
00:51:49.040 is divvied up? We're talking here about these towns along this border. By the way,
00:51:52.840 this border, which has shifted hands hundreds, thousands of times over the course of the past
00:51:57.080 two millennia there. These are not exactly strong historically defined borders. But what exactly is
00:52:01.920 the interest in drawing the border one way to incorporate some ethnically, linguistically split
00:52:07.000 50-50 Russia-Ukrainian towns on one side of the border versus the other there? I would submit to you
00:52:11.600 that there really is not a clear and compelling national interest for the United States one way
00:52:15.480 or the other. Now, if Vladimir Putin decides to start marching in on Warsaw, Poland, a NATO country
00:52:20.460 there, OK, slightly different conversation. I'm willing to have that conversation for sure. But
00:52:24.840 Ukraine is not in NATO. Ukraine does not trigger Article 5 NATO treaty obligations to kind of send in
00:52:31.160 the 101st airborne to start bombing Russians. Should we get out of NATO? Do you think we should get out
00:52:38.200 of NATO like Donald Trump has suggested? I'm very open to that conversation. I'm not entirely sure that
00:52:43.040 like that today is necessarily the best day to having that there. I happen to be deeply skeptical of these
00:52:47.320 transnational organizations in general, the UN, NATO, the World Trade Organization there. I mean, I'm a
00:52:53.620 nationalist. You know, I think that sovereignty is best held when the American people wield it and the American
00:52:58.800 Congress wield it there. So I'm deeply skeptical of transnationalism. NATO, it's worth pointing out,
00:53:03.800 I mean, NATO quite literally outlived its usefulness in 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell or at least in
00:53:10.300 1991 when the Russian Federation emerged from the ashes of the Soviet Union. So at this point, I think
00:53:15.040 it's totally fair to ask what purpose does NATO serve? At the barest of bare minimums, I think it's
00:53:21.040 crazy, frankly, in retrospect, that Eastern European Baltic states like Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, I mean,
00:53:27.040 why were ever of these countries in consideration for ascension to NATO in the first place there? If memory
00:53:32.260 serves, there was a vote in the Senate maybe about two years ago, year and a half, two years ago or so, when it
00:53:36.080 comes to Finland and Sweden. I mean, why in the world we would be adding new countries to NATO at this point
00:53:41.380 makes no sense whatsoever to me. Ukraine obviously fits in that. So at a bare minimum, we should not be adding new
00:53:47.520 countries. But yeah, I'm definitely open to the conversation about actually winding down the entire thing in its
00:53:52.240 entirety. America's geopolitical challenge this century is rolling back the Chinese Communist Party. China,
00:53:58.460 China, China, China. That is our challenge of century. To the extent that NATO is a distraction
00:54:02.220 from that, then it probably should ultimately be wound down. Maybe not today, but at some point.
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00:55:14.400 Let's tie a bow on this Zelensky conversation. It seems like Trump won. All these people saying
00:55:25.060 this was embarrassing. This was horrible diplomacy. First of all, I think that a lot of people are used
00:55:29.800 to kind of like the fake, feminine, uncontroversial, unconfrontational, anti-confrontational
00:55:37.020 diplomacy that we've seen, at least displayed when the cameras are on from past administrations. And so
00:55:42.980 they're just uncomfortable with this kind of direct talk. Again, I saw nothing wrong with it. I didn't
00:55:49.260 see it as disrespectful. I saw it as men talking about a very important life or death issue. And
00:55:55.500 also I saw some people saying, yeah, this is what happens when you take money from people. When you
00:55:59.440 take money from people, you are put in a position where whether you feel it or not, you've got to be
00:56:04.300 the grateful one. You've got to be the respectful one because the person lending you the money, giving you
00:56:09.600 the money is in the position of power. But Zelensky issued a statement on X to apologize and return
00:56:16.680 to the negotiating table. I'm with you. I think he kind of blew his chance there. Crazy that he just
00:56:22.340 blew up that opportunity. But my team and I stand ready to work under President Trump's strong,
00:56:27.000 strong leadership to get a peace that lasts. We do really value how much America has done
00:56:31.440 to help Ukraine maintain its sovereignty and independence. Our meeting in Washington at the
00:56:36.260 White House on Friday did not go the way it was supposed to. It is regrettable that it happened
00:56:39.980 this way. It is time to make things right. We would like future cooperation and communication
00:56:44.560 to be constructive. You know, President Trump kind of echoed those sentiments, obviously not
00:56:49.000 apologizing in any way, but saying we still want peace, too. We're still ready to sign a deal. We want
00:56:55.640 to move forward as well. Would you say that Trump decidedly won this round or is it yet to be seen?
00:57:00.420 I mean, Ali, I'm not sure that anyone won or lost. I mean, I think that the country of Ukraine lost
00:57:09.240 because they were failed by their leader who should have gone in there and agreed to this deal that was
00:57:13.840 in the Ukrainian national interest to agree to this mineral rights deal there. So, you know, I prefer to
00:57:19.820 think of it as a loss for Ukraine. Is it a victory for Trump advance? I mean, I guess if you want to do
00:57:26.540 kind of the, you know, the victor-loser dichotomy, then sure there. But I mean, ultimately, no one's
00:57:31.460 a winner here because, you know, the winning solution is that this terrible war ends. The
00:57:36.440 winning solution is that America finds some way to give Ukraine some security absent a NATO-style
00:57:42.260 physical security commitment. That was the whole purpose of this mineral rights deal. Ultimately,
00:57:46.060 I think victory and winning looks like Ukraine and Russia both coming to the negotiating table,
00:57:50.540 finding some way to redraw the map in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine and Crimea to
00:57:55.240 basically allow all parties to go home to their domestic audiences and say that we got a decent
00:58:00.040 deal there. That's what victory looks like. You know, I'm not sure that what happened on Friday
00:58:04.000 is necessarily a victory. I do think that Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, maybe J.D. Vance above all,
00:58:09.340 who has been kind of a critic of Ukraine ever since his Ohio Senate campaign, I think that they're
00:58:13.320 absolutely vindicated because Zelensky behaved, frankly, like a clown, like a totally unserious politician,
00:58:19.420 like an ignoramus, a buffoon, someone who just has no business whatsoever trying to make peace,
00:58:24.320 which, again, leads me to my conclusion that he really ought to resign. He ought to step down
00:58:27.880 post-haste for the sake of his own country, for the sake of peace there. So to that extent, yes,
00:58:32.180 I do think that Trump and especially probably J.D. Vance come out of this looking quite good. But
00:58:37.060 ultimately, Ali, victory for Ukraine, victory for the United States, victory, frankly, for the world,
00:58:42.000 if I can even go that abstract, I think looks like a durable, lasting peace between Russia and Ukraine.
00:58:49.080 Yeah. Well, we absolutely have to have you back on in a couple of weeks when your book comes out to talk
00:58:53.380 more about what's going on in Israel. As much as I would love to get your thoughts on some things
00:58:58.580 right now where, you know, I know that you've got to go. We're short on time. But tell everyone
00:59:02.320 the title of your book, where they can preorder, and we'll definitely talk more about it when it
00:59:07.180 actually comes out. Yeah, thanks so much, Ali. Can't wait for that. So the book is titled Israel
00:59:11.940 and Civilization, the Fate of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West. You can preorder it now on
00:59:17.360 Amazon, Barnes & Noble, wherever you get your book preorders. And, you know, just real quick,
00:59:21.880 as I said, Ali, the book is not just about the state of Israel and U.S.-Israel relations. That's
00:59:26.440 in there. I mean, I have multiple chapters on that. But this audience, I think, will really,
00:59:30.520 really appreciate it because it's really a book more broadly about the Bible. I basically argue
00:59:35.240 that Western civilization begins with God's revelation to Moses and the Israelites there
00:59:39.400 standing at Mount Sinai, and that all of that which we call Western civilization today is ultimately
00:59:44.920 downstream of our biblical inheritance. And the book ultimately, Ali, calls for a Jewish-Christian
00:59:49.400 nationalist alliance to ward off the three hegemonic forces that we face, which are,
00:59:54.080 in no particular order, wokeism, Islamism, and global neoliberalism. So there's a lot packed in
00:59:58.800 there, but Israel and Civilization is the title of the book. You can preorder it today.
01:00:03.180 Okay. If you can send me a book before our next interview, I would love to make sure that I can
01:00:08.320 make all my notes on it before we talk. Thank you so much, Josh. I really appreciate your time.
01:00:12.120 Thank you so much, Ali.
01:00:18.720 Okay. I just want to take a quick break to remind you guys about Share the Arrows. We are so pumped.
01:00:23.220 October 11th, Dallas, Texas. We are having Grammy Award-winning artist Francesca Battistelli back
01:00:29.040 to lead worship. It was incredible last year. It's going to be even more amazing this year.
01:00:33.260 We're in an even bigger venue that's still going to feel so intimate as we have the voices of
01:00:42.640 believers just singing together in worship to God and hearing the sound teaching from incredible Bible
01:00:50.680 teachers, incredible speakers. We will be dropping our speaker lineup very soon. Go ahead and snag your
01:00:57.520 ticket. There are a limited number of seats and we want to pack out the stadium as much as we can,
01:01:04.700 but we still have seven months, which means we will probably get to the point of packing out that
01:01:09.120 stadium, which means you need to go ahead and get your tickets, book your flights, book your hotels,
01:01:14.360 all of that good stuff. If you go to share the arrows.com, you can find all of the information
01:01:20.080 there. I'm so excited for this women's conference, y'all. It's going to be so good. Share the arrows.com.
01:01:27.520 Thank you.