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
Summary
On today's episode of Relatable, host Alex Blumberg is joined by journalist Josh Hammer to discuss President Trump's first address to Congress. They also discuss the latest in the Ukraine-Russia conflict, as well as the heated exchange between Zelensky and Trump.
Transcript
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President Trump delivered his first address to Congress and the American people of this
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presidential term. We've got a lot of highlights and some lowlights to get to today with journalist
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Josh Hammer. We will also be breaking down the latest in the Ukraine-Russia conflict where
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America stands when it comes to that conflict, as well as interpreting that heated exchange
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between Zelensky, Vance, and Trump. What was really going on behind the scenes there that
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led to that moment that went viral? Josh has some fascinating insight and information for us today
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as he breaks it all down on today's episode of Relatable.
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Josh, thanks so much for taking the time to join us. Okay, Trump's speech last night. I just want
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to hear your initial thoughts. I thought he did great. I mean, look, it was long. I mean,
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it definitely was rambling at times, but that's kind of just who Trump is, right? I mean, I think
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back to his RNC acceptance speech in Milwaukee this past summer, which I think was the longest
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acceptance speech in the modern history of either political party's national convention. But Trump
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thrives, Ali, in this element. I mean, he's a showman. I mean, it's a guy whose literal claim
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to fame is The Apprentice on Fire. He's been a New York tabloid figure for the better part of a half
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century now. He loves the spectacle. He loves the show. He loves the glitz, the glamour, the lights,
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the this. And I thought he did great there. I mean, his agenda right now, when it comes to the
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core issues, is very popular. And he did a good job of emphasizing the issues that I think poll in
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his favor right now, issues like the economy, like immigration right now there. Look, the tariff
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conversation is starting to take over a little bit more. So we'll see exactly where that goes in
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the weeks ahead. But for now, when it comes to everything that Elon Musk and Dozier are doing,
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when it comes to the world stage and Ukraine, I think he's very much in lockstep with the
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sentiments of the American people. Democrats, by the way, I think did themselves absolutely no
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favors whatsoever last night, Ali, which I think you and I probably both knew was going to be the
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case going in. But it's one thing to know it going in. It's another thing than to kind of see it.
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Actually, it's an action there. They were wailing and they were flailing. They had nothing.
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They continue to be, I think, in just about the worst shape that I have ever seen that political
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party in. But as someone who wishes them, frankly, nothing but the worst, I'm pretty happy about that.
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Yeah. Let's look at some of the lowlights there. So the first was the removal of Democrat
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Representative Al Green. He is from Texas and he's made headlines for I don't know if this kind of
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behavior would be an accurate description for why he's made the news, but he makes the news for the
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things that he says, how out there he is. So he's this old man shaking his cane at the sky because
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of what Donald Trump is saying. Here's that one. Members are directed to uphold and maintain
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decorum in the House and to cease any further disruptions. That's your warning.
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Members are engaging in willful and continuing breach of decorum and the chair is prepared to
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direct the sergeant at arms to restore order to the joint session. Mr. Green, take your seat.
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Finding that members continue to engage in willful and concerted disruption of proper decorum,
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the chair. Now, this is probably an effective fundraising tactic. He probably raised some
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money by the end of the night there from his donors. However, it's not a good look for the
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Democrat Party in general. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, I think you nailed it. I mean,
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it's pure theater. He's doing it to raise coffers from the people that are addicted to MSNBC and are
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addicted to people like Rachel Maddow and just can't get enough of the left wing TBS Trump derangement
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syndrome stuff. But they look stupid. I mean, we should not mince words. I mean, they look like a
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bunch of juvenile, low IQ brats. I mean, this is, you know, if you want to respond intelligently to
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what's being said, you know, wait for the response there. You may maybe you come out with a
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house floor speech next day or kind of you write an op ed or something like that there. That's not
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the way to do it. I couldn't even hear what he was saying there. But I mean, you know, it kind of
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reminds me. There's no mandate. There's no mandate. No mandate. OK, so but I mean, like this whole thing
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of like the guy with the cane there. I mean, it reminds me of like that old Simpsons episode from
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many years ago where it's like old man staring at clouds like that whole thing there. I mean, like they
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just look patently silly. And again, for a party that is currently polling literally the worst
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for Gallup Quinnipiac polling, the Democratic Party's approval rating all across the country
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right now is roughly 33 percent. These tactics are surely not going to help them get on the better
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side of that number. Yeah. Some other demonstrations that we saw from them last night, they were holding
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up these little signs. I don't know if we have any full screens of the signs that they were holding
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up. If not, we can put them up. But these little signs that said like Elon steals or he's lying
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or protect Medicaid, you never hold up a sign because that's always going to be a meme template.
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And that's exactly what happened. People took that immediately, made fun of them, wrote different
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things on the sign as they should because they're asking for it. They look like in the kindest terms
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possible, huge dorks. And we've talked about this shift on the show before that it is, I would say,
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cooler, maybe not than ever, but maybe since the 1980s to identify as a conservative and a Republican.
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And you're just kind of embarrassed to be a Democrat or progressive right now, which is great. But they
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just added fuel to the fire last night. It was horrible branding. Yeah, look, your point's very
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well taken on kind of the cultural dynamic shift is something that I've been talking a lot about over
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the past four or five, six months as well. I mean, after 2008, Barack Obama really brought in a massive
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sea change in American culture, for better or for worse. I would obviously argue for worse. But he was a
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cultural totem. I mean, he became kind of a cultural figure. We had, I think, back in 2008,
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the hope, the hope and change stuff, the colors there that, you know, you fast forward now into
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the year 2025. And it's like, it's totally switched. I mean, the young people based on the polling
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there, I'm not saying that they're coming out in 90, 10 in favor of MAGA and favor Republicans there.
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But the young, you know, Gen Z, 18 to 29 demographic alley, the most recent exit polling,
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basically a toss up demographic there. I mean, Donald Trump MAGA has become kind of cool in a
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countercultural center. You see football players doing the Trump dance in the end zone. People are
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doing it on TV now. It's kind of become kind of the modern manifestation of the old 2008 Barack Obama
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hope and change. I didn't necessarily have that on my bingo card, to be honest with you. But kudos to
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Donald Trump, kudos to his campaign and all of the above for actually effectuating this cultural shift
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there. And again, if Democrats think that these sorts of things, these petty, low ball gutter kind of
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antics are possibly going to do anything to bring them back into the favor, to curry them any kind
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of favor whatsoever, with young people, or frankly, with older people, even for that matter to there,
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this is this is the party, frankly, in the midst, Ali, of a crippling identity crisis. From my vantage
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point, what the Democrats have to do is they basically have to make a decision one way or the
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other. Yeah, are we actually going to keep the post 2008 post Barack Obama woke identity politics
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this coalition, this coalition of aggrieved interests, as I've called it for this identitarian
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kind of, you know, look at the whole American people and slice it and dice it up there? What
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kind of niche issue can I do to kind of appeal to this voter, this voter, this voter there?
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You have to decide, Democrats, whether you want to stick with that or abandon it, because the
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American people spoke with a very loud and clarion voice in the 2024 election this past November.
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They don't want any of that. They're not interested in this identity politics, appeasing the
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transgender lobby, appeasing the illegal alien lobby, this lobby, that lobby there. They just
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want common sense policies that are in the American national interest. So Donald Trump continues, I
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think, to kind of score lots of points in American people and the Democrats continue to find themselves
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in the long sides of this debilitating identity crisis. And Trump last night, he called it a common
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sense revolution. And you're absolutely right that that is what Democrats are actually opposing is common
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The women in the Democrat Party last night, a lot of them were wearing pink. I don't know if they all
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received the mass text planning that because it seemed like some of them weren't, but they were
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wearing pink, I guess, to represent that they're defending women. But as I've said many times, when
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they talk about women's rights or defending women, they're only talking about abortion. They're only
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talking about being able to kill their daughters inside the womb. They're not talking about, for example,
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Peyton McNabb, who, of course, is the volleyball player who in high school she's been on this show
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was pummeled in the head by a male pretending to be a girl on the opposite team by a volleyball
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suffered brain damage. She was there last night. I thought this was a very sweet moment that she
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that she was honored there. And no Democrats stood up. No Democrats stood up because all of the Democrats
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in the Senate had just blocked that bill that would have protected girls and women in sports. And so
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you're right. They have a choice. They could simply not be insane. They could simply say,
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you know what, we're going back to being the party of the working class. We're going back to being the
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party of caring about wages and about industry and about the practical needs and desires that people
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actually have. But they can't. They want to be that. They want to focus on tariffs because they think
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that that's probably a winning issue. But they can't let go of the trans stuff. They can't let
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go of the insanity. And again, like you, I only wish the Democrat Party the worst. So I'm not
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complaining. It's just a strange choice. Yeah, I mean, it's a choice that definitely goes against
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self-interest. I mean, I think what I see when I look at the current state of their party, Ali,
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you have this massive, massive chasm between the Democratic elites and the mainstream American
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people. Obviously, that is the chasm that Donald Trump and this coalition of the common sense
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that this coalition massively exploited in the election this November. But I think even looking
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just on the Democratic side of the ledger, just focusing within the intra-Democratic Party dynamics,
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you actually have a pretty large chasm there as well between Democratic elites and many,
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perhaps even most, rank-and-file Democratic voters. I'm not actually sure that the median
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Democratic voter at this point would support things such as a biologically male volleyball
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player who is just pounding a volleyball into the face. I mean, maybe, maybe not. It's probably
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close to a jump ball, probably close to a 50-50 proposition, which itself is terrible, by the way.
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But the point is that the Democratic elites, New York Times, MSNBC, all these types there,
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they're all lined up ducks in a row for all of that stuff. And they will never, never,
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never let it go. So when you have kind of the ruling class within the Democratic Party,
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the professoriate, the academics, the New York Times journalists, people like that there,
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you know, good luck institutional DNC establishment possibly trying to kind of
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move the rudder of the ship towards a place of relative sanity, not absolute, but relative sanity,
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when you have the elites and the opinion makers who just refuse to countenance the possibility
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that there is anything remotely wrong whatsoever. I think, I think back to this clip that was on
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The View, I think it was like a day or two after the election. It was on, it was on Thursday there.
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And one of the ladies on The View, it might've been Joy Behar, I can't remember who it was,
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was just having an absolute meltdown over the fact that Kamala Harris had lost two days prior.
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And she basically said there, you know, is there any reason whatsoever that Kamala Harris lost,
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other than the fact that this is a racist and misogynist country? And that actually got even
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Alyssa Farah on The View to basically, basically say, you know, what are you talking about there?
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There's actually more. And you know, when you've actually alienated Alyssa Farah,
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then you know, you've really gone too far there. But that's, but that's the kind of sentiment that
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the democratic elites, I think it's pervasive, perhaps even outright ubiquitous is that Kamala
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actually only lost because the American people are a bunch of troglodyte Bible thumping bigots who,
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who hate black people, Indian people, whatever Kamala Harris wants to call herself. They hate women.
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They, they, they hate this category. They hate this category. And unless until they're able to move past
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that, they're not going to be relevant again. They're just not.
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Mm hmm. There were a few more moments that were really supposed to be nonpartisan last night. One
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of them was honoring this young woman, 15 year old Elliston Berry. She was the victim of an AI deep
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fake that depicted her in some kind of like pornographic AI generated video. Terrible. Melania
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Trump is really championing what's called the take it down act, which makes it illegal to make this kind
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of content, which I think is absolutely good. It's also so interesting that an almost 80 year old
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president really seems to be on the cutting edge of a lot of the technological issues that we're
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facing today, even when it comes to trying to get the law to catch up to those things. But again,
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Democrats, no applause for Elliston Berry or no even attempt to honor her or honor what was going on
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there. And then of course, when we looked at illegal immigration, this is where Republicans are very
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popular, especially the president. They honored, for example, Lakin Riley, who was murdered in Athens,
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Georgia, Athens, Georgia, Jocelyn Nungere. Also, no applause from the Democrats. And I don't think
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Trump really cared about their approval. I thought it was sad to see that even just from a PR branding
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perspective, they couldn't manage to, you know, muster any kind of courage or enthusiasm or just
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respect for these victims. But he or Trump just ended up kind of eviscerating them with what I
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thought was a very sassy quip. Here's thought three. The media and our friends in the Democrat Party
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kept saying we needed new legislation. We must have legislation to secure the border. But it turned
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out that all we really needed was a new president. I mean, just his expression after of the sassy and
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the leaning over and the looking around, as many have said, he could have been a comedian. His timing,
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his expressions are perfect. But I mean, this is a sad and very serious truth that the deaths of these
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young women, Jocelyn and Lakin, were deliberate policy choices by the Biden administration. They
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were not inevitable. They didn't just happen. They were deliberate policy choices. And now that's
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changed. Yeah. What about that poor woman who was literally burnt to death in the subway car in New
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York City? I mean, exact same situation there. I mean, a legal alien who was previously deported
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there, who came back into the country there. You know, on the illegal immigration issue, Ali,
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for many years now, for basically as long as I've been in this business,
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the left just loves making the talking point about compassion. They love trying to turn the
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tables on you and say, oh, my God, you know, this person just stumbled here, not of his or her own
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volition there. You know, maybe they're a so-called dreamer. They were born to the parents of illegal
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aliens here and so forth there. Where is your compassion there? You know, don't you love your
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neighbor as yourself? You know, as it says in the good book there. And I guess I guess I turn around
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there and I say, where is your compassion for the victims of the crime? Where is your compassion for
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for people like Lake and Riley, like her family there, like this poor woman in New York City,
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tragically burned to death by an illegal alien for literally no reason whatsoever other than pure
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sadism. I mean, I cannot identify any other reason other than just this pure sadistic tendency from this
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illegal alien there. But this happens all across the country tragically on a daily basis, or at least it
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was happening on a daily basis until more or less January 20th, about a month and a half ago or so
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there. This is an issue, as you pointed out, that the American people overwhelmingly agree with the
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Republican Party on, overwhelmingly agree with Donald Trump on. But it's also interesting, Ali, insofar as
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the following is the serum there. To me, the illegal immigration issue, to me, which is an issue I've
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tracked for a long time because I feel very strongly about it personally, it's an issue where you've
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actually seen a massive shift in the polling. So for instance, around the time that I was in law school,
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maybe a little over a decade ago or so, 2013, 2014 or so, I remember looking at polling that
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suggested that only 30 to 35 percent, more or less, give or take, of the Americans at that time
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actually supported something that we today would call mass deportation, basically this policy aim of
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deporting all the illegal aliens here. You look at that polling today in the era of Donald Trump,
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in the era of MAGA, America First and so forth there, that polling has almost doubled. It's currently in
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the low 60s, the percent of Americans who support the Tom Homan mass deportation operation. And my
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take on that, Ali, is that this is a great example of kind of the two-way street of politics and
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culture. So I think back to the famous Andrew Breitbart line, where he famously said many years
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ago that politics is downstream of culture. And my response to that has always been that Andrew
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Breitbart, who was a legend, of course, he actually only had it half right here, that that culture is
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also downstream politics the other way around. We're now living in basically a decade since
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Donald Trump came down that gilded escalator at Trump Tower in 2015. I think to conclude that
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Donald Trump's rhetoric, his aggressive, I would say righteous stance on this issue, his policy
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initiatives, the people that he surrounds himself with, the way that he has generally shaped his
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party, the GOP at large on this issue there, to say that politics and all of that more generally
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has not had an effect on the culture when it comes to this issue, I think would just be
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a mistaken conclusion as well there. So that's another takeaway that I have on this there.
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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
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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.
00:19:15.800
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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
00:25:45.460
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
00:33:09.380
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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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
00:39:53.380
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?
00:40:08.480
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.
00:40:24.660
We will see. Maybe something cheaper than, yeah.
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.
00:42:50.660
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.
01:00:18.720
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.