Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 573 ｜ Fact vs. Fiction on Ukraine & Russia ｜ Guest： Josh Hammer

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. This episode is brought to you by Good Ranchers,

00:00:06.460 better than organic chicken, craft beef. Sit right to your front door,

00:00:10.440 American meat delivered. Go to goodranchers.com slash Allie. 0.99

00:00:23.180 Okay, guys, as promised, we are going to try our best to separate fact from fiction.

00:00:29.780 When it comes to what is going on in Ukraine. Now, to be perfectly honest, I just want to set

00:00:36.640 pretty fair expectations. We're not going to be able to sift through every single theory,

00:00:43.920 every single story that we've seen circulating on social media, every photograph, every video that

00:00:51.600 has been shared. A lot of these things have been debunked. We would hear a story of Ukrainian

00:00:58.960 heroism and we share it because, of course, we want to show our support. It ends up not being

00:01:05.100 true or the facts are distorted in some way. It's really hard to know what to believe. I don't have

00:01:13.400 access to special knowledge or particularly special sources to be able to tell you exactly what is true

00:01:19.760 in every scenario and exactly what is not. We're going to do our best today with Josh Hammer. He has

00:01:27.160 been on the show before. I think, honestly, he is one of the most interesting and insightful

00:01:32.840 political commentators. He is the opinion editor for Newsweek. He was on just a few weeks ago and

00:01:39.380 he's got a lot of interesting things to say. We're going to learn a lot from him when it comes to

00:01:44.060 the political context, but also when it comes to the historical context. I mean, he really is just

00:01:48.860 a wealth of knowledge. I don't know how someone contains so much information in your head and is

00:01:54.480 just able to articulate it so clearly and in an easy way to understand, but he's going to do that

00:01:59.480 for us. But before we get into that conversation, I do just kind of want to validate all of the

00:02:05.000 different things that you may be hearing, all of the mixed messaging and the contradictory

00:02:09.120 narratives that are going on, especially, I would say, on the right. Now, on the left, there seems

00:02:14.960 to be a fairly unified narrative and perspective about what's going on. Now, I'm speaking as a

00:02:21.160 conservative, so maybe if you're on the left, you see it differently and you see, you know, competing

00:02:25.460 factions about, you know, who's right in this conflict. But really, I see mostly on the right kind of

00:02:33.360 argument. And the arguments are manifold. There are arguments about how involved the United States

00:02:40.620 should be, how much the United States should care. And then there's a conversation about potential

00:02:45.560 nefarious motives behind the people who are calling for war, who are acting like this is where

00:02:53.560 American values live and die in the survival of this Eastern European country. There are conversations

00:03:01.740 about Joe Biden's potentially corrupt dealings with Ukraine, Obama and Hillary Clinton's support of

00:03:09.460 regime change in Ukraine, or I should say political change in Ukraine all the way back in 2014.

00:03:16.060 There is a side of conservatism that says basically America and the European Union provoked Russia into

00:03:25.640 making the decisions that he is making now by using Ukraine kind of as a pawn. They're not necessarily

00:03:33.840 they're not defending what Putin is doing, but they were talking about the American provocation

00:03:39.360 aspect of this whole thing that it's kind of more complicated. And then, of course, you have people

00:03:46.120 who dismiss that as pro-Putin propaganda, which I don't think that's necessarily a fair description,

00:03:52.200 but they would disagree with kind of that theory that America really provoked this at all and would

00:03:58.240 simply say, look, Putin is an imperialistic monster. He is an erratic, unpredictable guy who just wants

00:04:07.780 power at all costs. And he is taking Ukraine because he thinks erroneously that it is his. And America

00:04:15.400 really didn't do anything to provoke this. The EU didn't do anything to provoke this. This is just Putin

00:04:21.020 being crazy. Now, what I would say is someone who is still trying to sift through all of these

00:04:26.320 different narratives and these messages and trying to figure out what is right, what is wrong, what is

00:04:33.200 true, what is false. I think a lot of these things can be true at the same time. And I won't go into

00:04:38.800 super detail right now because Josh is about to do that. But I think we can say unequivocally,

00:04:44.620 Putin is in the wrong, that he is wrong to do what he is doing, that the loss of life is absolutely

00:04:49.480 tragic and that he is an imperialistic madman monster, that he shouldn't be doing what he is

00:04:56.480 doing. Also, American foreign policy probably did play into this to some degree. That doesn't mean

00:05:02.820 that it's ultimately anyone's fault but Putin's. But I do think that we can have a conversation and

00:05:08.360 ask questions about how American foreign policy has possibly exacerbated what is going on right now.

00:05:14.920 We certainly have asked those questions in the past when it comes to, you know, when it comes to

00:05:19.960 different aspects of foreign policy, certainly in the Middle East. So I'm not really sure why we

00:05:24.340 can't be asking those questions now without being accused of being like a pro-Putin puppet or something

00:05:30.300 like that. Like that just seems entirely unintelligent and anti-intellectual. I think you could also point

00:05:36.520 out, as we will again in this conversation in detail, that sure, Ukraine is and has been for a long

00:05:42.380 time a very corrupt country. Now, I am seeing some people on the right saying that because Ukraine

00:05:49.460 is a corrupt country, that we shouldn't care what's going on. We shouldn't care what Russia is doing. 0.97

00:05:54.780 I don't think that's a good argument. There are a lot of corrupt countries out there. We can still

00:05:59.420 recognize that Russia, as a nefarious, dangerous power, not as powerful or as nefarious, or I shouldn't 0.57

00:06:07.820 say as nefarious, but as dangerous as China, but still like a dangerous power. We don't want them 1.00

00:06:12.880 to expand. So we don't want them to get more power. It doesn't really matter whether or not

00:06:16.860 Ukraine is corrupt. We still don't want a more powerful Russia, especially if they are allying 0.80

00:06:22.780 with someone like China. So I know there's a lot of different conversations. And then you've got this

00:06:27.500 whole theory about like bioweapons built by the United States over there in Ukraine. I have no

00:06:32.540 information that validates that theory. But I think you can still ask those questions and

00:06:38.620 independently say, still, even if some of those things are questions and things to explore,

00:06:44.000 which I think the truth is always worth exploring, we can still say without a doubt that what Putin is

00:06:49.000 doing is wrong. And yes, there are unfortunately some Putin apologists here in the United States.

00:06:54.340 I don't understand that. I really don't understand what's behind it. Maybe they see him as,

00:07:00.780 you know, an anti, you know, a mascot of anti-wokeness, which I think is like a really

00:07:06.820 lame reason to support someone. And then, of course, as I will ask Josh about, there is the

00:07:11.580 weird aspect that George Soros, who is behind so much devastation and destruction in the West,

00:07:19.640 especially in the United States, that he is supporting Ukraine. That doesn't mean that

00:07:24.960 supporting Ukraine is wrong. That's, you know, not a good argument. But I understand 0.77

00:07:28.240 why people are asking that question. Let me go through just a few stories, seven stories in

00:07:35.060 particular, that have been debunked, that started out saying this is something that happened in

00:07:41.260 Ukraine. And actually, this didn't happen. So one of the stories is the ghost of Kiev. And so early

00:07:49.720 on Friday, it was reported that a Ukrainian plane was patrolling the skies in Kiev. And the press called

00:08:00.320 the unnamed pilot the ghost of Kiev and claimed that he had downed six Russian jets in air-to-air

00:08:06.220 combat in less than two days. And that made him a fighter ace and one of the, you know, the fastest

00:08:14.520 people to earn that title. But the problem is there's actually no evidence that the ghost of

00:08:20.000 Kiev exists. So this is according to Newsweek. Neither side can confirm Russia has lost six

00:08:25.100 planes in total, let alone to one man inside a single day. And a video alleged to be the ghost

00:08:30.380 in combat shared by the Ukrainian armed forces is confirmed to actually be footage taken from a video

00:08:35.680 game. Nevertheless, he already has his own Wikipedia page. And so that's just one massive piece of

00:08:41.540 misinformation. And then there's another video that's circulating. Russian planes are flying over

00:08:47.460 Kiev. But it turns out that the video of the Russian planes flying over Kiev wasn't Kiev. It was

00:08:54.060 actually Moscow. And then you have this other video of Zelensky, the leader of Ukraine, visiting the

00:09:01.100 troops. But all of the photos and videos are almost a year old. So this is not something that's happening

00:09:07.860 right now, as people were saying on social media. The Luhansk power station explosion, people were

00:09:14.060 saying, oh, this is Russia bombing this power station, while the video circulating actually

00:09:20.620 shows a chemical plant exploding in China in 2015, fact checkers found. Then there was video footage

00:09:27.200 claiming to show Ukrainian ground forces downing Russian aircraft. It's actually from a video game.

00:09:32.400 Um, Russian warship, uh, there was this quote that was going around, like, Russian warship, go F

00:09:39.000 yourselves. And then there was, like, leaked audio, or so we thought, uh, showing the Ukrainian border

00:09:44.580 guards on Snake Island in the Black Sea communicating with a Russian warship. And they were told to

00:09:50.240 surrender by the, by the Russians. And that's why when, when they said that, and then all of the

00:09:56.440 Ukrainian guards were killed. That's what we were told. Well, actually, they are all still alive, and they are

00:10:02.080 unharmed back to the mainland. So, like, was that even real? What's really going on? Um, and then there

00:10:07.800 was another video that was shared, even by official Ukrainian accounts of drone footage, supposedly

00:10:12.640 showing the destruction of a column of Russian vehicles, um, by Ukrainian forces. But that was

00:10:18.340 actually footage of a Turkish drone strike in Syria from 2020. So that's just a few of the things going

00:10:24.560 on. There's a reason why on my social media, you have not seen me share really any footage or any

00:10:31.100 photos. And that's not because I don't want to, because I do think that there's a lot of heroism

00:10:35.780 that's going on right now in Ukraine. But that's because, like, I don't, I can't even, I can't tell

00:10:41.320 you what's true and what's not, because even official news sources and journalists are sharing this stuff,

00:10:46.220 and then they're having to go back and say, oh, actually, that wasn't true. So I don't want to be

00:10:53.380 a part of sharing that disinformation. And so I don't blame everyone who has shared things because

00:11:01.600 we just don't know. We want to support or we want to support. I understand there's a lot of

00:11:05.920 confusion out there, though. And I don't, I'm going to try my best not to add to the confusion while

00:11:11.600 even trying to kind of, like, validate all of the competing thoughts that you may have and answer a lot

00:11:17.140 of those questions, um, with Josh today. And then at the end of this, I know this is a long episode,

00:11:21.920 but I am just going to leave you with some, like, theological encouragement to remind you of even

00:11:27.880 while all of this is going on, like, what actually matters and what we have to remember. And I know

00:11:32.840 it's going to encourage you. So make sure you stick around for that. Josh, thank you so much for joining

00:11:40.240 us again. All right. I want you to help us separate fact from fiction, what's going on in Ukraine versus

00:11:47.940 Russia. The reason why I decided to have you on is because I saw your tweet thread kind of doing that

00:11:53.280 just in general terms. Um, there's a lot of information out there, probably a lot of

00:11:59.080 misinformation. And I have a ton of people asking me what is true? What is real? People are hearing

00:12:07.000 a thousand different things about Ukraine, about why Russia is actually invading Ukraine

00:12:11.800 and how we should be thinking about this, not just as Americans, but as conservatives.

00:12:18.100 There's skepticism about, um, the messages that are coming from the mainstream media that seem to

00:12:24.620 be coming from both Democrats and Republicans. Then you have George Soros tweeting out his support of

00:12:29.860 Ukraine. That has obviously made a lot of conservatives back up and say, hang on, are we missing something?

00:12:35.620 What's going on underneath all of this? So I know that's a lot, but just back us up a little bit,

00:12:42.520 at least from your perspective, what is really going on and why?

00:12:48.320 Sure. Yeah. So a lot to unpack there, obviously. So first of all, I don't claim any particular

00:12:52.960 expertise in being able to sift out what is fact and what is fiction from various kind of, you know,

00:12:58.920 like non-verified random Twitter accounts that I hadn't heard of until like a week or two ago.

00:13:03.120 Right. It's, it's, it's genuinely very hard. It's very hard to sit here in our living rooms,

00:13:08.180 half a world away and try to figure out what is actually going on. Certainly kind of, there's a

00:13:12.420 ton of Russian propaganda out there. There's also a lot of Ukrainian propaganda out there. I mean,

00:13:15.780 that part of the world is kind of infamous or pumping kind of propaganda and trying to get

00:13:19.280 messages out there in a ways that will kind of manipulate very easily duped and deceive Western

00:13:24.140 audiences. Like what? Like some of the, I know you said that you can't necessarily just

00:13:29.900 distinguish every piece of propaganda from reality that's been put out there, but just

00:13:35.460 some examples of what you're talking about, like what some of the maybe Ukrainian propaganda that

00:13:40.000 people have been duped by.

00:13:42.720 Sure. So I, I mean, I, I've seen any number of tweets, right. That talk about how like XYZ,

00:13:48.460 you know, Ukrainian made like a very, very courageous and heroic last stand against like encroaching Russian 1.00

00:13:53.280 tanks, encroaching Russian soldiers. I, I personally suspect most of that is probably true, 1.00

00:13:58.200 but I just, I genuinely don't know. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's literally

00:14:02.160 impossible to verify.

00:14:03.520 So that's what you're saying is that basically we just don't know. There's so, there are images

00:14:08.120 coming out from Russia. There are images that have come out saying, oh, this is a Ukrainian girl,

00:14:13.180 like yelling at a Russian soldier. And it ends up, of course, that's not true. It's not the right

00:14:18.200 time of year. That doesn't even look like Ukraine. There are a lot of stories of Ukrainian heroism,

00:14:23.740 like you said, that I'm sure probably true or rooted in some kind of fact, but then end up not

00:14:28.740 being true or they're actually videos from several years ago. So yeah, there's a lot going on. So if

00:14:34.340 we can't necessarily separate fact from fiction there, like, why is that? Like, why are there so

00:14:39.140 many mixed messages and propaganda videos and images circulating on social media in the first place?

00:14:47.180 So, I mean, Ali, do you know what it reminds me of? Obviously it kind of reminds me of the

00:14:50.700 invariable kind of Israel-Hamas conflicts, right? I mean, it's not a perfect analogy because there

00:14:58.640 there's a much more easily kind of morally correct and morally incorrect side here. It is a little

00:15:02.420 more nuanced. But there, similarly speaking, right? I mean, the Palestinians in particular

00:15:06.380 are noted experts at kind of playing Western media and easily duped Western audiences like a fiddle.

00:15:12.200 They've trot out all these images of their civilians who are, you know, who are being used by the

00:15:17.780 government or the terrorist groups of the case may be as human shields. So we're seeing a lot

00:15:22.320 of that there as well. And one kind of concrete example of actually what seems to be kind of pro-Ukrainian

00:15:26.720 propaganda, actually, is there was this one image that kind of went viral. It's a very, very kind of

00:15:31.920 somber image of what looks like a young boy and his younger sister. The girl's kind of holding a teddy

00:15:36.680 bear, kind of waving, like saluting the Ukrainian tanks as they roll by. And as I saw my buddy Raheem

00:15:42.060 Kasem pointing out, you know, Raheem pointed out this image was actually from like six years ago.

00:15:46.120 It was from like 2016. So it is very hard to kind of sift through here. But like, let's kind of try

00:15:51.940 to take it a little back and kind of go back to first principles, so to speak, here, which is what

00:15:55.580 I tried to do in that tweet thread that you're very kind to note. So look, at the end of the day,

00:16:01.020 like the fact that George Soros seems to be taking a side in favor of Zelensky doesn't actually mean

00:16:06.180 anything at all to me. I mean, that's not exactly much of a gotcha point. I mean, to take kind of like

00:16:10.160 one very concrete example, the very far left progressive chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission, 0.72

00:16:15.460 the FTC is a woman named Lina Khan, who I have no doubt whatsoever, if Lina Khan really had her

00:16:20.940 druthers, Ali, you and I would both be in a gulag. She probably hates you and I. That doesn't mean

00:16:25.520 that I probably don't. I probably still agree with her about the need to kind of bust up Amazon and 0.81

00:16:29.500 Google and antitrust grounds. And that's OK. So the fact that that George Soros is out there

00:16:34.540 talking about the need to defend Zelensky against Putin, that just it's a non sequitur. Honestly,

00:16:39.380 it's a it's an illogical point. It just doesn't actually resonate with me.

00:16:42.600 Well, I think I think the reason why people would bring that up is I agree with you just

00:16:47.340 because, you know, a bad person makes a point doesn't necessarily mean that the point is wrong.

00:16:53.500 That's absolutely true. But I think people would naturally, especially conservatives,

00:16:57.760 you see someone like George Soros, who is constantly trying to undermine democracy and

00:17:02.580 law and order and border policy here in the United States by the different campaigns that he funds and

00:17:08.260 the organizations that he funnels money into now stand for the sovereignty and self-determination

00:17:13.840 of a country. I'm not saying that alone means that people shouldn't be supporting Ukraine. Of course,

00:17:19.160 that's not the side that I'm on. I'm just saying I think that there is some justification,

00:17:23.640 some validity to people looking at that and saying, huh, why? Why would someone like George Soros,

00:17:29.000 who is so intent on undermining all of these values in the West,

00:17:33.420 why would he be supporting that in this Eastern European country? It seems a little bit weird.

00:17:38.580 And that's just one of the things that I've seen people point out to say,

00:17:41.480 is there something else going on here? What's up with this?

00:17:45.820 Yeah, no, totally. And I don't mind people obviously asking those questions. I mean,

00:17:49.380 look, I just got back from from Hungary, George Soros's home country about a week and a half ago. I

00:17:53.260 mean, George Soros is public enemy number one for Prime Minister Orban and the current Hungarian

00:17:57.760 government. And I certainly have no love whatsoever of George Soros, to put it mildly. I mean,

00:18:02.120 with all kind of the horrific kind of district attorneys he's putting up in Los Angeles,

00:18:05.900 San Francisco, New York City, these light on crime prosecutors. I mean, the man is fundamentally evil.

00:18:10.540 So I don't blame anyone whatsoever for kind of making an observation that it's a little odd.

00:18:15.260 I just don't think that it goes particularly far. But if we can kind of go back to first principles

00:18:20.240 here, look, let's remember who Vladimir Putin is. OK, Vladimir Putin kind of grew up during the Cold

00:18:25.460 War. He was working in East Berlin at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. He was

00:18:30.460 working for the KGB. He was literally a KGB operative. I mean, if you can kind of go back

00:18:34.880 to like, you know, the old kind of like from Russia with love, like James Bond films, James

00:18:38.480 Bond novels, Vladimir Putin is of that era. He is of kind of a Cold War mindset. And for time and time

00:18:45.120 again, over the past 15, 20 years, he has continuously lamented the fall of the Soviet Union

00:18:50.640 as one of the greatest tragedies, you know, in modern world history. And he makes common cause in

00:18:56.520 the sentiments, obviously, with these radical, progressive, far left nutjobs out at Berkeley and

00:19:01.640 other crazy college campuses who fly kind of the hammer and sickle communist flag, because that is

00:19:06.100 what Vladimir Putin believes in his heart. He also obviously I mean, I shouldn't need to say this to

00:19:11.360 you know, but like, let's just say it. The guy murders political enemies. I mean, like we saw what

00:19:15.840 he did when he poisoned Navalny. I mean, a Russian dissident who, if I recall correctly, was poisoned

00:19:20.400 actually in Germany itself. He is a profoundly corrupt guy. But at the same time, this is kind

00:19:25.880 of the point of my tweet thread, you know, Ukraine is not like a shining bastion of liberal democracy.

00:19:30.520 At the time of the 20 at the time of the 2014 revolution in Kiev, Ukraine was among kind of

00:19:36.680 like the bottom five countries as far as like ranked in terms of most corruption in the world. I think

00:19:41.380 some ranking, if I recall correctly, was actually it was the most corrupt country in the world at that

00:19:45.800 time. This is the country of Hunter Biden and Prisma. I mean, this is the country, you know,

00:19:49.440 that was that was at the center of President Trump's first, you know, farcical impeachment.

00:19:53.820 So, I mean, can we pause? Can we pause there? Because there are people who don't necessarily

00:19:58.840 follow all this quite as closely as we do or you do, especially who may not even know exactly what

00:20:05.960 you're talking about when you're talking about corruption, when we go all the way back to 2014.

00:20:10.440 So when you say that you Ukraine is a corrupt country, what are you referencing?

00:20:16.160 Yeah, I mean, blatant cronyism, right, as far as kind of how government contracts are awarded.

00:20:21.760 I mean, like the mafia, frankly, the Ukrainian mafia actually is a very powerful force. It has

00:20:26.420 been ever since the fall of the Soviet Union, possibly going back even further than that.

00:20:30.260 Kind of the oil companies, the energy companies have a profoundly outsized influence on how the

00:20:35.060 government goes. And the other thing that I think the viewers should remember, and again,

00:20:38.520 I just got I just got back from Hungary, which is a bordering country of Ukraine about a week and a

00:20:41.740 half ago. I was actually also in Poland last year, which shares a border with Ukraine. The thing that

00:20:45.720 you have to remember about these former Soviet satellite states in Central and Eastern Europe

00:20:50.080 is that the fall of communism was not that long ago. I mean, I'm 33 years old. The Berlin Wall fell

00:20:56.620 the year that I was born in 1989 here. So these countries are all kind of struggling with fairly

00:21:02.100 new constitutions, even Hungary. You know, their constitution, I think, was, if I recall,

00:21:06.900 was written in 2011. The Ukrainian constitution was dramatically amended, if I recall, after the

00:21:11.840 revolution in 2014. But as recently as 2014, in the second term of the Obama administration, there

00:21:17.720 was a genuine kind of deposing of a previously duly elected prime minister or president, kind of the

00:21:24.560 imposition of a new government in Ukraine. And he was deposed because he because he refused to sign this

00:21:30.000 kind of pro-European cooperative agreement. He decided to kind of side with Russia. This is kind of like the

00:21:35.680 major issue, obviously, in post-Soviet Ukrainian politics, is whether Ukraine should kind of be

00:21:40.820 more under the sphere of influence of Russia or more under the sphere of influence of the European

00:21:45.420 Union and Europe in general. As it stands, Ukraine is neither in the EU nor in NATO. But ever since

00:21:52.320 kind of 2014, which Putin and the Russian government has always viewed as illegitimate, they have always

00:21:58.140 viewed what happened there and the transfer of power as a totally illegitimate farce.

00:22:02.300 Well, is it true that the United States was kind of behind that revolution because they wanted a more

00:22:09.820 EU-friendly leadership in Ukraine? Is that true? And is that part of Putin's beef or his alleged beef?

00:22:18.840 It's definitely part of his alleged beef. I don't claim any particular expertise to know the extent

00:22:23.880 to which the U.S. State Department or various U.S.-aligned NGOs were kind of on the ground in Kiev.

00:22:29.540 It definitely would not surprise me. I mean, again, this was the Obama administration, right?

00:22:33.640 I mean, during the Obama administration, the State Department and State Department-aligned NGOs were

00:22:37.960 trying to oust Bibi Netanyahu in Israel. I mean, we know that. I mean, like there were people very

00:22:42.520 close to Barack Obama and Joe Biden who were trying to oust Netanyahu in Israel. So it definitely would

00:22:48.460 not surprise me. But that definitely is part of Putin's narrative for sure, right? But, you know,

00:22:53.840 Zelensky himself, who obviously has emerged as something of kind of like a Western media icon,

00:22:58.140 and like, you know, let's give him credit here. I mean, like his line about like, I don't need a

00:23:02.660 ride out. I need ammunition. That's that's like Hallmark stuff. I mean, like that's like, you know,

00:23:08.120 silver screen Hollywood kind of stuff. So kudos to him. And that's no propaganda or spin. That seems

00:23:13.440 to be like just from the horse's mouth himself. So that's just awesome stuff, honestly. But when

00:23:17.600 Zelensky was running against Poroshenko, was that was the guy that he beat for the last in the last

00:23:22.880 Ukrainian election, Poroshenko tried to kind of paint Zelensky as kind of like a pro Putin,

00:23:27.720 pro Russia shill. It was kind of like a gotcha line, actually, in Ukrainian politics. So,

00:23:33.040 you know, Zelensky. Yeah. So Zelensky himself is kind of like an interesting character. I don't

00:23:36.940 think he's necessarily easily kind of in one camp or the other here. I think he basically just wants

00:23:41.960 what is what is best for Ukraine. Yeah, that's interesting, because a lot of people I've heard

00:23:47.160 say that he was actually elected because he was anti-Russia, also because he was anti-corruption,

00:23:52.960 obviously his background, which I've tried. I've seen some people on the right. And we'll talk about

00:23:58.120 this in a section in a second, because there's this strange faction of the right who I actually

00:24:02.680 do think is defending Putin. Some people are saying, oh, no, those people on the right don't exist.

00:24:08.000 No, I've seen them like I've seen them on social media. I've seen them in the comments.

00:24:11.320 And there are like this faction, I would say, is trying to say, well, Ukraine is corrupt, which

00:24:17.160 we've acknowledged. That's true. And have even tried to go so far as to say that, you know,

00:24:22.540 Putin's actions are in alignment with American interests. So we need to be OK with it. And then

00:24:26.960 they've also tried to undermine Zelensky by saying, well, he's an actor. His background is an actor

00:24:31.700 in his background. You know, he was a comedian and his political party is is named after, you know,

00:24:37.820 the party and the fictional show that he starred in, which, of course, is true. I don't think that's

00:24:42.760 a good point to try to undermine what he's doing. But then I've also seen people on the other side

00:24:50.660 say, well, no, he was this anti-corruption, anti-Russia valiant candidate. And that's why we

00:24:57.980 need to support him. Well, neither side seems to be completely accurate in trying to make their case

00:25:04.920 that we should support Ukraine. I'm not saying we shouldn't support Ukraine, but I don't know.

00:25:08.860 It just seems like both sides are getting this wrong in different ways.

00:25:13.680 Totally. And that's the that's the frustration. I mean, like I have sensed that frustration. I mean,

00:25:17.480 look, the the dichotomy that large swaths of the mainstream media and I guess what we would refer

00:25:24.280 to as kind of our our right liberal friends, so to speak, I mean, the David French's of the world.

00:25:28.860 I mean, like the portrayal that we have seen time and time again from everyone from The New York Times

00:25:33.640 to kind of David French's Twitter feed and whatnot has been this kind of stark dichotomy

00:25:37.900 between like, you know, revanchist Russian imperialism, the likes of which we haven't

00:25:43.240 seen since the Cold War days on the one hand, versus kind of the fate of Western liberal democracy

00:25:48.620 on the other hand. I mean, you know, these same people like to say that this is the same thing

00:25:51.980 as Hitler going into Poland in September 1939. But at the same time, the people that are saying

00:25:57.180 that this is like Hitler going into Poland are also saying, oh, don't worry, we're not talking

00:26:00.740 about sending in armed forces. Well, pick one. I mean, you can't have it both ways. I mean,

00:26:05.080 if this is literally the same thing as Hitler going into Poland, then yeah, you're right. We 0.99

00:26:09.980 rather we really should be kind of rallying up the Western countries to send in the military

00:26:14.420 battalions to push back against that. So they're being very logical, inconsistent, even even on their

00:26:19.460 own terms there. At the end of the day, Ukraine is not like a first order kind of stalwart American

00:26:25.940 ally, the likes of which kind of like Poland, for example, has become in the post-Cold War

00:26:30.280 era. It's just not that way, right? But our closest allies in the region, Poland's a good

00:26:38.300 example there, but a lot of our other countries in the region, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia,

00:26:42.820 the countries that were also like formerly kind of Soviet satellite states, they strongly would

00:26:48.720 prefer that Ukraine stay out of Putin's sphere of influence as Belarus, for example, which is,

00:26:55.720 you know, is on Poland's eastern border and Ukraine's northern border. Belarus is under the

00:27:00.420 dictatorship of Lukashenko. It is technically a quote unquote independent country, but it's really

00:27:04.940 independent in name only. It is a pure kind of Russian puppet state. It looks like now the

00:27:09.200 Belarusians are going to send are going to help Putin send in troops into Kiev. So for understandable 0.90

00:27:14.740 historical reasons, our closest allies in the region, kind of like the Poles, do not want 1.00

00:27:19.240 Ukraine to become the next Belarus. So I think that does militate in favor of U.S. support for 0.93

00:27:25.960 Ukraine. Again, the question is how we do so and what the means of doing so are.

00:27:30.980 And do you think the strategy that has been taken so far by this administration has been

00:27:37.700 effective? Yes, there have been sanctions, but obviously the glaring carve out has been the

00:27:43.460 energy industry in Russia. They can still sell oil anywhere in the world, basically. And so to me,

00:27:52.540 it seems like the increase in price in oil is actually kind of paying for their invasion,

00:27:57.780 paying for the war. To me, in my opinion, it doesn't seem like the sanctions are really that

00:28:04.400 effective, but I won't pretend to know what the best strategy is. What's your opinion?

00:28:09.040 So sanctions to this day are still debated, right, among like international relations types,

00:28:16.800 foreign policy types. No one really actually knows to this day precisely how effective they

00:28:20.760 are. It did seem during the Trump administration, when Trump kind of had the maximum pressure

00:28:25.300 campaign on the Iranian regime, when they were basically sanctioning the crap out of the Iranian

00:28:29.740 central bank and all kind of the oil assets there, it really did cripple the Iranian economy quite

00:28:34.720 badly. And it did seem like Iran was in a very weak position, ready to come to the negotiating table

00:28:39.260 with respect to the nuclear program. Obviously, you know, this administration has kind of lost all

00:28:43.840 that and flipped it on its head. So there was at least some kind of evidence that sanctions do work

00:28:47.800 for Russia in particular, which, you know, much like Ukraine is still kind of a largely oligarchic state,

00:28:54.180 is dominated again by kind of oil and natural gas interests. He's fabulously, extraordinarily wealthy

00:28:59.840 billionaires. They, you know, once you kind of get sanctions that hit the oligarchs bottom line,

00:29:05.960 and we've seen that with the SWIFT sanctions, we've seen that with terms of some specific

00:29:10.040 targeting of Russian aligned banks. Right before we came on the air alley, I actually saw that even

00:29:15.940 Switzerland, which is kind of like the most famously neutral country in all of Europe,

00:29:20.120 apparently Switzerland is starting to kind of sanction various kind of Russian banking and oil

00:29:24.500 assets. So once the oligarchs in Putin's inner orbit start to get hit, once they can no longer go to

00:29:31.340 their nice Mediterranean vacations in Greece or Italy or the south of France or anything that they can't

00:29:35.820 enjoy their nice Bordeaux and Nice, that's when I think the pressure is going to start to ratchet up

00:29:39.800 on Putin a little bit here. And, you know, he'll be faced with kind of a stark choice at that point,

00:29:43.880 right? He can basically try to get a quick ceasefire agreement, kind of like declare victory and get the

00:29:49.440 heck out of there. Or he can double down and just start ransacking cities and massacring civilians.

00:29:55.700 I do not think he would choose the latter, but he's a bit of a madman. So it's very difficult to

00:30:02.120 know. It's kind of hard to know exactly what his endgame is at this precise moment. But I do predict

00:30:07.200 this will be over within the next week, week and a half. I think there'll probably be some sort of new

00:30:11.500 ceasefire agreement would be my best prediction. Do you think that Biden's energy policy hasn't

00:30:19.180 enabled and exacerbated this to a degree? Obviously, it's not the driving force behind it.

00:30:24.760 But he has made decisions that have made us dependent on Russian oil from the very beginning

00:30:30.300 of his presidency, obviously stopping federal sales of oil, shutting down Keystone Pipeline XL.

00:30:37.980 And he could I mean, he could turn on the spigot tomorrow. And he has chosen not to do that,

00:30:44.440 I guess, in the name of climate change. What effect do you think that that has had?

00:30:48.020 Yes, we have a really nice op ed actually at Newsweek today where I'm the opinion editor.

00:30:53.800 We have a nice op ed from Bobby Jindal, the former governor of Louisiana on this precise topic. So

00:30:57.740 I would encourage your viewers and listeners to go check it out. But your point is absolutely sound,

00:31:01.180 of course. I mean, look, I think it was literally on the first day of his presidency that Joe Biden

00:31:05.220 canceled the Keystone XL pipeline, right? I mean, he couldn't even wait. He couldn't even wait until

00:31:08.880 day two to do that, if I recall. And at the same time, of course, last July, Joe Biden teamed up

00:31:14.980 with Angela Merkel, who at the time was still the leader of Germany to kind of, you know, bestow a

00:31:19.620 blessing upon the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which is this 764 mile pipeline underneath the Baltic Sea

00:31:26.500 connecting Russia to Germany. And what that does is that allows Russia to basically become the 0.89

00:31:32.940 mother's milk off of which the European continent can feed. And we've seen the tragic ramifications of

00:31:39.380 that play out literally just over the past seven months. I mean, it seemed like the weeks building

00:31:44.020 up to kind of Putin's ultimate decision to invade Ukraine. You know, every news cycle was like,

00:31:49.300 when's he going to do it? When's he going to do it? I mean, it's kind of dragged on forever,

00:31:52.140 right? And Germany was waffling all along. Germany could not figure out which side it was on because

00:31:58.000 you know what? I mean, it's January, it's February, it's cold. It's cold in Germany and the Germans in 1.00

00:32:03.160 Berlin and Hamburg and Stuttgart or whatever, they need their homes furnished and they need like kind of

00:32:07.340 their energy on and where are they getting that energy from? Well, they're getting it from Russia.

00:32:11.020 So energy is kind of inherently a tool of international relations and a tool of diplomacy.

00:32:17.840 For the modern state of Russia, you know, Russia during the Soviet days, obviously it was a command 0.95

00:32:24.680 control style, fundamentally authoritarian economy. It was not exactly prolific in a lot of ways, but

00:32:29.840 they still managed to succeed in certain industries. In the post-Berlin Wall, post-Soviet era,

00:32:35.960 the Russian economy, it's basically a petro state, honestly. I mean, it is basically kind of like a

00:32:40.900 Saudi or Gulf style petro state that is almost entirely reliant upon energy. They have a few other

00:32:47.220 industries. Russian steel is still like a decent sized factor on the global stage, but it is fundamentally

00:32:53.180 an energy economy. And the way to combat Russia and the way to deter Putin's hegemony has always been

00:32:59.580 through the means of getting American liquefied natural gas and oil exports out there. So yes,

00:33:06.520 getting the Keystone pipeline back in order, getting drilling back on U.S. oil and gas lands,

00:33:11.140 getting those permits back on, basically fracking. Once again, in Western lands, we have kind of ceased

00:33:16.080 doing. And finally, yes, stopping this freaking Nord Stream 2 pipeline and working with Germany to

00:33:22.380 kind of put a halt on that once and for all, that would be the most effective way of pushing back

00:33:27.000 against Putin. I would say even more so than kind of hard military assets, honestly.

00:33:31.400 And Ted Cruz and Republicans in the Senate, I think it was back in January, tried to sanction the

00:33:36.660 Nord Stream pipeline. And their version was independent of whether or not Russia actually

00:33:42.440 invaded Ukraine. They wanted the sanctions, whereas the Democrats version of the sanction said, well,

00:33:47.460 if if Democrat or if Russia invades Ukraine, then we'll do the sanctions. And it was actually,

00:33:55.000 I'm pretty sure, Joe Biden, who was calling out the Democrat senators to said, hey, hey, make sure

00:33:59.480 that you that you guys don't go with Ted Cruz's with the Republicans version of the sanctions.

00:34:05.820 So he actually fought against the sanctions for the Nord Stream pipeline. Is that correct?

00:34:10.420 Just a couple months ago or last month.

00:34:14.020 Yeah, no, I think that's correct. I look, someone owes Ted Cruz a huge, a huge apology.

00:34:17.500 OK, I mean, I mean, no, it's never going to happen because and Ted knows it will never happen

00:34:23.960 because Ted is Ted and he blazes his own trail, as he always has. But someone in theory owes him

00:34:28.680 a huge apology. You know, I was in I was in Poland last year. Last May, I actually got to

00:34:34.140 interview the prime minister, Matusz Morawiecki, in Warsaw. And he was a fairly kind of how should I say

00:34:41.600 this? He kind of hedged a little bit more than I thought because he knew that I was a sympathetic

00:34:45.280 interviewer. He's a conservative guy, but he hedged a little more. I would say the one area where he

00:34:49.560 hedged the least and he kind of like really put it out there in very forceful terms was on Nord Stream

00:34:54.840 2. He was adamant about the fact that the Biden administration totally screwed Poland, totally

00:35:00.380 screwed our central and eastern European allies when it comes to Nord Stream 2 pipeline. It was it was

00:35:05.320 a total capitulation to Russia. It was a total capitulation to Germany. And frankly, from a geopolitical 0.53

00:35:11.620 level, what's going on here is, you know, Trump, who kind of, you know, I think naturally kind of

00:35:16.480 like the nationalist populist movement, which is kind of pro-Brexit. It was kind of Eurosceptical,

00:35:20.340 was skeptical of the entire European Union enterprise. He naturally kind of found his

00:35:24.260 allies there and kind of those those more conservative former Soviet states in central

00:35:28.240 and eastern Europe. But what's going on at geopolitical level is then Biden gets into office

00:35:32.440 and he loves the European Union because he loves globalism. He loves transnationalism. So he loves

00:35:36.900 Brussels. He loves Berlin. He hates those kind of nasty, icky countries in like Poland and Hungary 1.00

00:35:41.460 for example. Right. So that's what's going on here at kind of a macro level. And I really felt that when I was

00:35:46.260 interviewing Prime Minister Morbierski in Warsaw last May. And it's been nice to see the Germans

00:35:52.180 kind of sort of go back. It seemed like they're now they're finally trying to kind of slowly kind of

00:35:57.880 ease out of the Nord Stream 2 mess that they have gotten themselves into. They're starting to pump more

00:36:02.200 money back into the military. By the way, Trump was totally right on that, too, by the way. Right.

00:36:05.800 About how about how our NATO allies in Europe have to bulk up their their military

00:36:09.280 commitments. He was totally prescient and correct on that. That's the video that's kind of circulating

00:36:13.760 on Twitter where Trump is saying, look, it's not fair that you are asking us to pay this money to

00:36:18.960 defend you against Russia, but you are paying Russia billions of dollars for your oil. It just doesn't

00:36:24.800 make sense. That's the video you're kind of referring to, correct? Yeah, definitely. I mean,

00:36:29.260 like it is it is hypocritical beyond words for Germany to be so reliant upon Russian energy and so

00:36:36.300 reliant upon America for its kind of security military umbrella. I mean, pick one. I mean,

00:36:41.340 like you you literally cannot have both ways. Right. It is it is talking on both sides of your

00:36:45.440 mouth. It is it is blatant duplicity. So and look, kind of the other thing that's going on here,

00:36:51.780 which I kind of mentioned in my tweet thread, too, is that I think kind of in the American conscience

00:36:56.920 for for numerous reasons, Europe kind of plays an outsized role. Right. I mean, I think like wealthy

00:37:01.640 Americans like to vacation in Europe, they like to go to like the south of France and Spain and Italy

00:37:06.420 and Greece and all that stuff. Right. Obviously, as recently as kind of World War Two and the Cold

00:37:10.820 War, Europe was kind of ground zero for kind of American foreign policy and international relations.

00:37:15.360 But what's going on here at kind of a higher level is that the European theater is simply not

00:37:21.880 going to be as relevant for American foreign policy and really geopolitics in general, I would say,

00:37:27.740 over the next century than I think the Far East is. We are kind of in the we are kind of in the midst

00:37:32.860 of kind of an epic kind of shift of power from Europe to the Far East, with China obviously being

00:37:38.700 kind of ground zero of that. And, you know, it's kind of like a low hanging fruit point to say that

00:37:43.640 I think is nonetheless correct, which is why I said it in that tweet thread you mentioned.

00:37:47.020 A lot of this ultimately does end up being a distraction from the real thread, which is China,

00:37:52.920 China, China, China. I mean, I mean, like when I was in Budapest a week and a half ago,

00:37:56.740 a local Hungarian media person said to me, you know, from an American perspective,

00:38:00.020 what are your top five foreign policy concerns? Well, I said, number one is China. Number two is

00:38:04.080 China. Number three is China. I mean, you get the point here. Yeah. And it's it's true that Xi Jinping

00:38:09.000 is kind of licking his chops looking out of Taiwan as we kind of, you know, twiddle our thumbs in

00:38:13.320 Ukraine. But at the same time, if we were to kind of send like a few kind of like perfunctory boots on

00:38:19.540 the ground there and just like lose Ukraine anyway, that would only embolden Xi anymore. So the point is we

00:38:24.880 we have to pick our battles at this point. We are no we are kind of past the unipolar moment. We are

00:38:29.740 no longer the world world's sole and exclusive superpower. And that time and energy is much

00:38:34.920 better spent, I think, overall in the grand scheme of things, deterring China, then deterring kind of 0.79

00:38:39.680 the 11th or 12th biggest economy in the world, a borderline failed petro state like Russia is. 0.94

00:38:45.820 Well, I'm wondering how this whole thing between Russia and Ukraine actually benefits China,

00:38:51.120 because we've already seen for a while before this this conflict, the kind of alliance forming

00:38:57.400 between Russia and China. And there are all kinds of complicated conversations going on on Twitter

00:39:03.880 about the U.S. dollar and the end of reliance on the U.S. dollar that has something to do

00:39:10.100 with China's currency in Russia and all of that. And we don't have to get into the weeds on that.

00:39:15.160 The point I think that people are making is that, look, you're seeing an alliance form that could

00:39:20.840 very well become the world's superpower in a variety of ways. How do you think this conflict

00:39:26.740 possibly plays into China's plans? So, look, I mean, right now, kind of the I think the fact that

00:39:37.520 Russia has not been able to kind of capture Kiev as quickly as Putin and his Politburo,

00:39:43.160 his oligarchs probably thought possible, probably bolsters Taiwan. I mean, if I were if I were

00:39:49.520 Taiwan, I would look at that and I would feel overall a little better. The Taiwanese military

00:39:54.920 is no joke to the extent that I'm that I'm aware of kind of like the specific assets. They have

00:40:00.180 higher order, high intensity assets than the Ukrainian military does. You know, the Chinese 1.00

00:40:06.460 military is very much on the rise. But the Russian military, you know, going back to the Cold War

00:40:11.000 days has a lot of kind of institutional knowledge, a lot of a lot of hard assets that have still

00:40:15.840 survived. So the slowness with which Putin has been able to actually kind of take over Ukraine

00:40:22.000 and Kiev in particular, I think should give the Taiwanese people some hope. At the same time

00:40:27.300 here, you know, I mean, it's hard for Xi Jinping, I think, not to look at the very slow, you know,

00:40:34.560 plotting a long way with which the US and Western Europe has kind of tried to push back against

00:40:40.780 Putin. And he must obviously be pretty happy about that. And China and Russia, as you just noted over

00:40:47.100 the past couple of years, have started to kind of openly talk about kind of the formation of a new

00:40:51.080 world order. They're at this point basically openly allying in Iran. They're both kind of friends

00:40:56.120 of the Iranian regime. I think they're probably coordinating in Syria with Bashar al-Assad to an extent as

00:41:01.800 well. The kind of interesting thing, I think, for American international relations,

00:41:07.220 it kind of towards the end of the Cold War, you know, President Nixon was actually quite adept at

00:41:11.700 this, believe it or not. President Nixon was actually, he understood that Russia and China,

00:41:17.360 they are such big countries and they share a massive border there, that to the extent that the

00:41:22.500 United States can actually try to play them against one another to any extent possible, whether it's on

00:41:27.460 economic interests, diplomatic interests, kind of mutually aligned international interests, I mean,

00:41:32.140 whatever. To the extent that we can kind of get them to be anything less than buddies, basically,

00:41:36.700 that's a good thing. And I really worry that we have forgotten that lesson here and we are kind of

00:41:42.440 witnessing the emergence of kind of this great Eurasian continent power. The Chinese economy is so

00:41:49.140 much more powerful than the Russian economy at this point and the military is very much on the rise.

00:41:52.820 But we should not want Russia and China to get super, super, super cozy. If we can, 0.53

00:41:58.800 at a bare minimum, find a new way to try to kind of play them against one another, try to find some

00:42:03.500 kind of micro issues that would be a wedge to separate them, that is what I would encourage our

00:42:08.420 diplomatic forces to try to do. I don't know how optimistic I am about our foreign policy experts

00:42:20.880 and elites in the administration doing that. They don't seem to kind of have the same intuition that

00:42:27.600 we think would be obvious. I mean, we've seen that in several different ways, but especially in this

00:42:32.540 conflict. And I'm curious what, well, there's a couple questions I want to ask. I'm trying to decide

00:42:39.620 which direction I want to go. If I want to back up really quickly, then move forward. I think I'll do

00:42:43.480 that. So let me back up really quickly to something that kind of seems irrelevant, but it'll circle back to

00:42:48.360 what we're talking about right now. And that is, you mentioned Burisma and you mentioned

00:42:53.680 Joe Biden. A lot of people, whether it's legitimate or not, are saying that maybe there's some

00:42:59.980 nefarious reasons here why Joe Biden and his administration are so adamant about defending

00:43:06.160 what seems like to some people, almost a random Eastern European country, which I think you've

00:43:11.180 already explained. It's definitely not random. Like there are certainly strategic reasons to

00:43:15.460 protecting it. But they talk about Hunter Biden's involvement and all of that. Can you first

00:43:21.920 explain what exactly is Burisma and that whole scandal for people who don't understand? How does

00:43:28.200 Trump's impeachment and that, you know, infamous phone call play into that? And do you think that

00:43:33.820 has any impact on what's going on right now? So it's very weird, right? I mean, it is very odd,

00:43:42.140 if nothing else, that the country and the president, Vladimir Zelensky, who was obviously at the focal

00:43:48.500 point, who was at ground zero of the first Trump impeachment back in 2019, is now kind of in the

00:43:53.980 headlines again, right? And, you know, the Burisma scandal, basically, I mean, Hunter Biden, you know,

00:43:59.100 I mean, like, you know, a very troubled man, to put a mildly, Hunter Biden was doing business

00:44:03.440 with Burisma that he was clearly not qualified to do. He has no particular expertise, no background

00:44:08.460 whatsoever in energy and oil and natural gas, let alone kind of Eastern European oil and natural

00:44:13.800 gas in particular. And I don't remember what his exact title was with Burisma. I think he might

00:44:18.020 have been like on the advisory board or on the board in general or something. But I think he was

00:44:21.600 cashing out to the tune of like $50,000 a month or something egregious, egregious like that. And

00:44:26.900 it ended up being basically that Burisma, which I have no doubt because of the corrupt nature of 1.00

00:44:31.980 Ukraine, it has is very close to certain kind of government governmental interests. It basically

00:44:36.480 amounted that Burisma just basically wanted close access, right, to the then kind of Obama-Biden

00:44:40.880 White House. And that's kind of how it works in Ukraine. I mean, again, these post-Soviet countries

00:44:46.760 in Central and Eastern Europe, and like Ukraine, Belarus, maybe more so than anywhere else,

00:44:51.880 honestly, maybe Moldova, I guess as well. Moldova, Belarus, Ukraine, these are less developed

00:44:57.160 countries. They simply like do not have kind of the economies or kind of the infrastructure,

00:45:01.640 kind of like the basic kind of first world way of life, for lack of a better way of putting it,

00:45:05.820 than even some kind of the other Central European countries do. So it is very curious that the

00:45:12.100 same kind of, you know, as recently as eight years ago in 2014, the number one most corrupt country in

00:45:18.060 the world on some rankings, it's very curious that that country is ground zero of an impeachment

00:45:23.340 involving kind of the former vice president, current president's son. And now he, I mean, I have not

00:45:29.480 fully put the pieces together. I'm not sure anyone has, but I have had much the same thoughts that

00:45:33.460 you have had, Ali. It seems entirely plausible to me that there is something big out there with

00:45:39.220 respect to the Biden family's involvement in Ukraine that we just don't know yet. Maybe some

00:45:43.800 kind of enterprising young investigative journalist will be able to kind of put it all together a

00:45:48.160 little better than I can and reveal something for us in the next six to 12 months or so. But I think

00:45:53.500 it's worth flagging, if nothing else, because it seems entirely plausible to me, for sure.

00:45:57.780 Yeah, it does just kind of seem strange. So obviously, for people who don't remember,

00:46:02.320 Trump was accused of the quid pro quo by allegedly, you know, telling the Ukrainian president, hey,

00:46:09.980 you know, we'll release these arms sales, right? Like, we'll allow these arms sales to you if you

00:46:15.380 kind of investigate the corruption that went on with Joe Biden's son, Hunter, correct?

00:46:21.800 And that's what he was impeached over. And then but really, I mean, there's also the odd part that

00:46:29.420 you alluded to that there could have been a quid pro quo while Joe Biden was vice president,

00:46:36.360 because didn't he order the firing of the prosecutor that was looking into the corruption

00:46:41.880 of Hunter Biden's dealings with Burisma?

00:46:45.540 Absolutely. Yeah, he absolutely did request that. Yes.

00:46:47.920 Yeah. So there's just there's a lot going on here. And maybe that is like you said,

00:46:51.660 maybe it's totally separate from what is happening here. And I still think we can absolutely

00:46:56.320 look at this situation and say, OK, well, Russia is in the wrong period. It doesn't even matter 0.88

00:47:00.920 what happened. Then we can figure that out later. Absolutely. But I do think, like you said,

00:47:07.460 it's interesting to think about. And I think a lot of people have legitimate cause for concern

00:47:11.920 when they're trying to put these puzzle pieces together.

00:47:14.020 Yeah, no, totally. I mean, that's absolutely correct. I mean, look, again,

00:47:18.180 Ukraine is it is a difficult country because it is it is very corrupt. It is I guess it is more 1.00

00:47:27.820 lowercase d democratic than Russia. That's offering off of a very low baseline here. But look,

00:47:34.040 at the same time, you know, I mean, people will accuse what I'm about to say is being kind of

00:47:39.000 quote unquote pro Putin. I think I have demonstrably shown that I'm not.

00:47:42.160 But I think I think I think Russia has understandable grievances with respect to the 0.72

00:47:47.320 fact that that the EU and the United States in particular has not taken Ukraine's ascension to

00:47:53.080 NATO off the table. There is there's no compelling reason why Ukraine needs to be a part of NATO.

00:47:59.280 I mean, kind of already they're kind of Poland, Hungary, you know, our various kind of

00:48:03.040 Central Eastern European allies. Why would Russia care? Why would Russia care if Ukraine is part of

00:48:07.260 NATO? I mean, they would view it as basically I look, I mean, again, like Putin, he's a KGB guy,

00:48:15.640 OK? I mean, he's he's an old world actor and the Russian people will be better when he is dead and 1.00

00:48:20.220 gone. OK, I mean, I can say that again if I need to to kind of show my not pro not pro Putin bona

00:48:25.740 fetus. But the point is Russia, for various reasons, I mean, again, it's only like the 11th 0.90

00:48:31.160 or 12th largest economy in the world. It's an aging, decrepit, failed oligarchic petro state.

00:48:36.440 But it is it doesn't have it like one seventh or one eighth of the world's landmass is a

00:48:41.620 gargantuan state. It has a it has a nuclear arsenal. And therefore, it still matters to this

00:48:46.480 day, whether we like it or not. And we have to be kind of prudent about how American statesmanship

00:48:50.780 and diplomacy kind of affects it. And again, Ukraine, for for various reasons, not only are

00:48:56.040 they not part of NATO, but they're not part of the European Union as well. And they're not part

00:48:59.020 of the European Union for reasons that are as simple as what I just said, which is they do not

00:49:03.280 live up to European standards when it comes to kind of, you know, transitional democracy,

00:49:09.020 transition of power, anti-corruption measures, things of that nature. Ukraine, Ukraine is not 0.54

00:49:14.600 Switzerland. I mean, Ukraine is not Austria. Ukraine is is not even again like Poland by that measure 0.51

00:49:20.200 there. So there's really no particular reason why Ukraine should be a part of NATO. I thought

00:49:26.680 Senator Josh Hawley was totally right to make that point a couple weeks ago where he basically

00:49:29.940 just said, like, let's make sure that Ukraine is not in NATO. And again, that doesn't mean that

00:49:35.020 Ukraine cannot work with the West. After the revolution in 2014, they signed this big agreement

00:49:40.280 with the European Union called I don't remember the exact titles of the European Union Ukraine

00:49:43.760 Association Agreement to basically encourage kind of like trade diplomatic relations. So there are various

00:49:49.000 kind of less official means. But look, NATO in particular, obviously, because of Article 5 of

00:49:55.340 NATO entails like a very, very serious kind of use of force requirement when any country whatsoever

00:50:02.320 feels that it is invaded. The the bigger points here on NATO, which is kind of the point that very

00:50:07.320 few seem to be making, is legitimately whether or not it's still necessary. I mean, kind of the

00:50:12.580 NATO was an organization formed with the purpose of bankrupting and destroying the Communist

00:50:18.400 Soviet Union. Well, that purpose was achieved 30 years ago. So query the extent to which NATO is

00:50:24.740 legitimately still needed. This is kind of what I think Trump kind of intuited was that a lot of

00:50:29.380 these kind of transnational organizations, whether it's the UN, the EU, NATO, the time for kind of

00:50:34.080 globalism and transnationalism is kind of on the way down and U.S. diplomacy should really return to

00:50:39.420 kind of bilateral treaties or maybe smaller multilateral treaties, kind of like the Abraham Accords

00:50:44.360 in the Middle East. That is what kind of U.S. diplomacy should look like. The time to kind of

00:50:48.780 expand a gargantuan kind of relic of the Cold War like NATO. The time is just not right for that.

00:50:54.180 I think the era for that is fundamentally over. And Putin is threatening. Well, he's kind of

00:51:00.260 threatening nuclear war. He said it's on the table. What do you make of that?

00:51:03.640 Look, he's I think Putin is a madman. OK, I mean, like I do not think that he necessarily is someone

00:51:12.060 who fully has his wits about him. I, you know, I disagree with President Trump's comment that he is

00:51:17.640 that Putin is a is a genius for this. I look, I mean, I mean, I mean, to an extent, he's like an evil

00:51:24.900 genius, I guess. But I think that he's that he's more crazy than genius. And I honestly like at this

00:51:31.340 very moment that we're talking with every day that this siege of Kiev goes on without kind of a

00:51:35.580 capture of the city. Again, I think kind of Putin's inner circle, these multibillionaire oligarchs

00:51:40.960 are just going to get more and more and more pissed off at him because their assets are going to get

00:51:44.540 more and more seized and not be able to make their banking transfers or not be able to kind of travel

00:51:48.540 throughout Europe, go their vacations. So with each day that this goes on, the internal pressure on

00:51:54.100 Russia is going to, I think, escalate and escalate further there. But with respect to Putin in

00:51:59.220 particular, again, the guy just he literally has said in no uncertain terms that he views the

00:52:06.080 dissolution of the Soviet Union as one of the greatest tragedies of history. If he had his 0.98

00:52:09.760 druthers, he would take all of the former kind of Soviet satellite states, Moldova, Belarus, Kazakhstan,

00:52:16.080 Turkmenistan, Armenia, all of them, and kind of put them back into kind of greater Russia. And I think 1.00

00:52:20.740 he I think he would view that as kind of the capstone of his legacy, honestly.

00:52:23.800 Yeah, wow. So how nervous do you think the average American should be about what's going on? I mean,

00:52:33.660 I know that you said, which I completely agree that China is our main threat. But we also talked about 1.00

00:52:39.380 how potentially, either indirectly or directly, this benefits China and is a threat to the West. So just

00:52:46.520 for the average American that's living their life, should they continue to really pay attention to

00:52:51.160 what's going on there? Or are you kind of like, you know what, we've got bigger fish to fry a lot

00:52:57.280 closer to home right now. Let's keep our eyes here.

00:53:02.560 So I think the latter is definitely where I come down overall. Look, America is not a good place

00:53:08.280 right now. Okay. I mean, like, I really don't need to be the one to kind of be like the doomsayer here

00:53:13.780 or the or the Jared Myatt or the, you know, the prophecy, the prophet of lamentation or anything.

00:53:17.840 But we're really not in a great place. I mean, like, we hate each other more than ever on the

00:53:21.800 domestic front, obviously. You know, we look terrible on the global stage. Our economy is

00:53:28.100 kind of is tanking. We have 40 year high inflation. We have supply chain crises. We are we are totally

00:53:33.560 dependent on our arch geopolitical foe, China, when it comes to kind of basic supply chain,

00:53:38.620 industrial manufactured goods, when it comes to semiconductors, and even kind of militarily

00:53:43.020 sensitive equipment there. Russia matters, basically, insofar as the fact that it still

00:53:48.580 has a large nuclear arsenal. Again, that is not kind of the world's most sophisticated nuclear

00:53:53.220 arsenal, because a lot of it kind of goes back to the Cold War. But it is a large nuclear arsenal,

00:53:58.080 nonetheless. And for that very, very simple and straightforward reason, Russia will always be 0.96

00:54:03.380 a factor for as long as it had kind of has that nuclear equipment. At the same time here, kind of the,

00:54:08.700 the, the upshot, I think the biggest thing that Americans are going to have to get comfortable

00:54:14.080 with, is that the post World War Two, and in particular, kind of post Cold War era, like the,

00:54:19.880 like the kind of 20, 25, 30, maybe 30 year era, basically my lifetime, I guess, where America was

00:54:26.020 the sole and exclusive superpower, where we were operating and not come a multipolar world, but a

00:54:31.100 unipolar world, where the US was the sole and unambiguous kind of great power kind of roaming the

00:54:37.560 seas, our naval ships are kind of securing free trade in the high waters in the Pacific Atlantic.

00:54:42.500 You know, we were kind of the ones that were mediating on these great international treaties,

00:54:45.820 the WTO, that kind of stuff. They, that moment, the unipolar moment is over. It is over. And we

00:54:53.360 just have to kind of accept that and become comfortable with that. And that does not necessarily

00:54:57.640 mean that America is going to lose a great war to China. I obviously pray every day that that does not

00:55:03.260 happen. But we're going to have to get more comfortable with the fact that at a time where we are

00:55:07.420 declining so much at home, where we have failed to kind of keep and maintain our military kind of

00:55:13.080 policies or military spending, our hard kind of naval assets, we're going to get, we're going to

00:55:17.900 have to kind of get reacquainted with the notion of great power competition on the world stage,

00:55:23.240 where China at a bare minimum is already a great power. Certainly the prospect of kind of a China 1.00

00:55:29.080 Russia alliance would be a formidable great power. And we're going to have to get more comfortable

00:55:33.980 kind of sharing various spheres of influence. But the notion that America in the year 2022,

00:55:39.200 with all that we are facing on the home front, can necessarily throw resources, whether it's kind

00:55:44.600 of the Middle East or Eastern Europe or Taiwan, or just throw resources all over the world to kind

00:55:49.860 of secure and defend kind of our idiosyncratic conception of Western liberal democracy.

00:55:54.640 The point is that era is over. We just, we have to focus more on getting our house together right

00:55:59.780 now. And we have to pick and choose our battles abroad much more strategically.

00:56:04.120 And I think that's the problem, the direction that we have to head in, which in my opinion,

00:56:07.440 is toward a healthy nationalism is the exact opposite direction that our elite in this

00:56:13.240 administration want to go in. Because I mean, they're beholden to powers that I think are greater

00:56:18.960 than the powers in the United States or the people of the United States. I mean, we won't get into all

00:56:23.100 the world economic forum, build back better, great reset conversation right now. But there certainly

00:56:29.040 is a move in that class towards globalism. I mean, that is the play. And I do think as awful as this

00:56:37.660 conflict, this war, this invasion is between Russia and Ukraine, I do hope that people realize that the 0.74

00:56:43.780 only way out of this mess is to move back from reliance on, like you said, our greatest foreign enemies 0.95

00:56:53.220 and back onto reliance on ourselves, self-reliance. Now, whether or not that's going to happen as far

00:56:59.860 as the people that lead us, I'm not sure. But I do think that now more than ever, nationalism,

00:57:07.120 localization really are the only options as a people. And the only way to solve any of this mess,

00:57:16.340 at least for the United States, Russia and China are going to continue what they're going to do.

00:57:21.940 They're imperialistic powers that, you know, have their eyes on a particular prize. I'm not saying

00:57:27.300 that we shouldn't be involved at all as Americans, but I just I agree with you. We've got a lot of

00:57:32.580 issues here, a lot of distractions, a lot of stupid. I love the culture wars. That's what I talk about.

00:57:38.380 But I spend a lot of my time talking about things that, quite frankly, aren't distracting other

00:57:44.020 countries like a woman being a woman, whether or not a man should compete against women in college.

00:57:49.020 So we've just got we've got a lot of issues basically here that I think weaken us. And I

00:57:53.300 agree with you on that. And I think that puts us at a strategic disadvantage, even if we are still

00:57:57.500 the most powerful economy in the world. Yeah, no, I agree with you, Ali, certainly. I think you and

00:58:03.400 I see eye to eye on this. The one kind of area of policy that I'll I allude to this briefly,

00:58:08.100 but the one that I'll kind of really kind of put an emphasis on. So there are two. Well,

00:58:12.600 there are more than two, but there are two things that stand out as far as kind of non-military ways

00:58:17.780 to kind of make America more secure, to kind of like deter our enemies through kind of economic

00:58:23.000 diplomacy or geo-strategic diplomacy. The first that we've talked about a little bit is energy,

00:58:28.000 obviously. OK, that's Keystone XL. That's North Stream 2. America is so incredibly blessed

00:58:34.700 to be sitting on the incredible oil and natural gas reserves that it is, whether it's in Texas,

00:58:40.380 Oklahoma, Wyoming, whether it's obviously up in Alaska with the Arctic, you know, wildlife

00:58:45.760 and national refuge. So much of what we are doing here has to get back on the table as far as just

00:58:51.540 drilling again. I mean, just fracking again and getting our own energy house back in order.

00:58:55.760 But the other kind of bucket of policy, we have to start making things in America again. OK,

00:59:00.740 we really do. Again, back in kind of the era of globalism, back when people thought that China

00:59:06.640 could be like a player among the nations when free trade was kind of rampant there,

00:59:11.420 we were very short sighted insofar as we thought that kind of the Francis Fukuyama hypothesis that

00:59:16.420 the world is kind of converging towards democracy. We really kind of took that and we kind of drank it

00:59:21.980 like mother's milk. And what that meant was that we were kind of comfortable offshoring

00:59:25.820 manufacturing, even very kind of technologically militarily sensitive manufacturing, like semiconductors

00:59:31.360 and chips over two countries that we thought that we wrongly expected would head towards

00:59:37.140 democracy, kind of like China. And we were wrong with that. I mean, our elites were just fundamentally 0.56

00:59:42.300 misguided and wrong about that. So we have to do whatever we possibly can to bring some supply chains

00:59:49.080 back home, especially obviously these very kind of militarily sensitive supply chains like

00:59:53.420 semiconductors. So the time is now. I mean, and whatever options need to be on the table, whether it's strategic

00:59:59.340 tariffs or subsidies or all sorts of things that maybe kind of like the most absolutist doctrine or

01:00:03.980 free marketeers might hate. I'm a free market guy myself, but those particular things have to

01:00:09.960 necessarily be channeled through the means of the national interest. And the national interest now in

01:00:15.260 the year 2022 means that we have to start bringing some critical supply chains back home to disentangling

01:00:21.460 from China basically at any and all cost to make the American heartland and our manufacturing base more

01:00:26.940 secure. That is a much, I think, easier thing to do than to necessarily try to kind of police

01:00:32.540 the high seas and kind of defend liberal democracy on the beaches of Taiwan, for instance.

01:00:37.360 And now we see and maybe people will wake up to this, that manufacturing really is a national

01:00:42.720 security issue. They're not two separate issues. They really are inextricably intertwined. So I think

01:00:47.820 you're absolutely right about that. There are apparently peace talks going or talks anyway going on right

01:00:53.680 now between Ukraine and Russia. So just to end, how do you think that's going to conclude today,

01:01:01.080 tomorrow, for the rest of the week?

01:01:05.000 So I predict one week from now, this will all be over. That's my actual prediction. I could totally

01:01:10.560 be wrong about that, obviously. I mean, if Putin decides to double down and start blowing up apartment

01:01:14.460 buildings and massacring civilians, then I will follow my sword. I mean, he is crazier than I would have

01:01:20.080 ever thought, if that's what he actually kind of does next. But I do not predict that that will

01:01:24.400 happen. I think that there will be some sort of ceasefire agreement here. You might see kind of like

01:01:28.940 a, you know, a redrawing of the maps to an extent, you know, the Donbass, certain parts of kind of

01:01:34.080 eastern Ukraine. I mean, what Putin really wants, I think, above all, he really wants a land bridge to

01:01:39.280 Crimea. You know, he took over Crimea in 2014, right, during the Obama administration. So he really wants

01:01:44.480 kind of a land mass that kind of joins some of these ethnic Russian parts of far eastern Ukraine,

01:01:50.640 the Donbass region in particular. He wants a land mass that kind of connects that to Crimea.

01:01:55.560 So I expect the most likely scenario that I would guess will be some sort of ceasefire agreement,

01:02:01.480 whereby Putin can effectively annex those parts, and we take NATO membership for Ukraine off the table.

01:02:08.000 If that is what happens, and if Zelensky stays in power, if we do not get kind of a Belarus-style

01:02:15.680 Putin puppet in Kiev, I personally would take that. I think that is a perfectly fine and adequate deal 0.98

01:02:23.480 for the West to take. The question, obviously, is, is that enough for Putin? And I don't know. I mean,

01:02:29.780 it's hard to guess, obviously. I mean, honestly, from my perspective, he just got incredibly greedy

01:02:34.380 here from my perspective. He could have gotten that. I mean, he could have easily just stopped

01:02:38.840 after the Donbass region. He didn't have to go all the way to Kiev. But again, he has these delusions

01:02:44.280 of grandeur. I mean, the guy, again, he's a cold warrior at heart who believes in kind of greater

01:02:49.560 Russia. And I think his ideological fantasies have kind of, you know, interacted with pure greed

01:02:56.020 to lead him to try to mount this kind of Game of Thrones-style invasion of Kiev.

01:03:00.400 So we'll see what happens. But I guess I predict, this is a tough prediction, but I do predict that

01:03:07.980 he will not start massacring civilians, which means that we will probably get a ceasefire

01:03:12.500 roughly along the lines of what I just described.

01:03:15.960 Wow. Well, we'll see. We'll see. There's obviously a lot that could unfold. There were a lot of

01:03:21.480 predictions that, you know, all of us made a week ago about what we thought was going to happen.

01:03:25.660 And as you said, I think he's kind of proven himself to be a madman, a little bit of an

01:03:30.420 unpredictable person. So we'll see. Obviously, praying for peace, we all do. It really doesn't

01:03:36.860 matter the sins of either country when it's civilians, when it's innocent people that are

01:03:41.360 dying. It's just a lose-lose situation. So thank you. Thank you for your insight. I really appreciate

01:03:47.960 you taking the time to come on. Anytime, Allie. Have a great day. Thank you.

01:03:55.080 All right, guys. I told you that I would leave you on an encouraging note. And so I am going to do

01:04:01.720 that. Now, I could spend a whole hour doing this, and maybe we will, because a lot of you guys have

01:04:05.540 been asking me for just an exclusively theological episode. And so I'm going to do that this week.

01:04:11.180 Maybe I'll do a Most Misused, if you're interested in that, or I just will take a break from the news.

01:04:16.020 But it's important for me to cover everything that's going on, because, I mean, these are real

01:04:20.260 people that are being affected. And of course, we care about people. If you guys follow Girl Defined,

01:04:28.800 specifically Bethany of Girl Defined, she's been sharing that one of her sisters, Elisa, is in

01:04:36.060 Ukraine with her Ukrainian husband. We don't have a lot of details about where they are now,

01:04:40.680 but they've been driving for days, trying to find safety, a place of refuge, and I think cross 0.97

01:04:47.380 into another country. Here's the real kicker, not just that these are people that we have,

01:04:52.460 you know, just a little, just a few degrees of separation from. And obviously, Elisa is American,

01:04:58.960 but also, she is 39 weeks pregnant at this point. So she could literally give birth at any time.

01:05:06.980 And from Instagram and the updates we've been receiving there, she hasn't gotten a lot of sleep.

01:05:14.380 Obviously, this is a very stressful situation. I mean, and she's a first-time mom. So just imagine

01:05:20.100 what she's going through right now. It's also been an incredible testimony watching their faith

01:05:25.980 and seeing just kind of the peace and the joy and the steadfastness that she has demonstrated on

01:05:31.480 social media as she's been trying to update people. And also, the kindness of Christians that she

01:05:38.920 has experienced in Ukraine and elsewhere, the connections that she has with the global church,

01:05:46.960 it's really just been amazing to watch. It shows what the body of Christ really is supposed to be.

01:05:52.600 That's what we do as Christians. We run into trouble. We run into stress. We run into danger.

01:05:59.660 For the sake of vulnerable people, especially for the sake of our brothers and sisters in Christ,

01:06:05.360 because that's what God did for us through Christ. He ran into pain. He ran into death.

01:06:11.320 He ran into our trouble. He didn't have to, but he did because of his love for us. And we are called

01:06:16.760 to love other people and to love our fellow Christians as Christ loved the church and as Christ loves us.

01:06:24.000 And obviously, that means self-sacrifice. And we've seen that through Elisa's story and her husband's

01:06:28.920 story. So pray for them, please. Pray for their safety. Pray for their protection. Pray for a

01:06:35.180 smooth, miraculously, just smooth and easy birth. Pray for a healthy baby girl. Just pray that the

01:06:42.280 Lord would be with them. And not just with them, but everyone who is suffering right now in Ukraine.

01:06:47.660 And there's a lot of suffering in the world. So certainly, we can pray not only for the people in

01:06:53.080 Ukraine, but everyone who is suffering from violence and oppression and tyranny and persecution and all

01:06:58.700 of that. But look, we don't have the capacity, the ability to know everything that's going on in the

01:07:04.680 world, to be able to feel everyone's pain as empathetic and compassionate as we might be, as we

01:07:10.520 want to be. We are finite human beings. And we simply cannot carry the weight of the world. We were

01:07:17.140 not made to carry the weight of the world. There are goods and there are bads to social media and our

01:07:21.560 24-hour news cycle. We have access to other people's suffering so we can pray for them. We

01:07:26.620 can financially support them. We can help them with connections, whatever is needed for them. And

01:07:31.740 that's wonderful. That also helps us connect to the global church. It helps us see how blessed we are

01:07:37.500 here in the United States and be grateful for that and to use the means that we have to help other

01:07:41.880 people. So all of that is a great benefit to social media and the access that we have to images of

01:07:48.260 suffering around the world. One detriment to that is that we feel that we have to know everything

01:07:54.920 and care about everything and everyone all at once. And we even feel and hear and see this pressure

01:08:01.980 that if we don't say the right thing, do the right thing, say enough, show enough emotion and enough

01:08:07.400 care about every single issue going on in the world, that it's because we're heartless, that it's because

01:08:12.020 we're on the wrong side of history or we are pro the enemy or whatever it is. And that's not fair

01:08:18.400 either. The fact of the matter is, I mean, as the title of my book says, is that we are not enough.

01:08:24.260 Like we're not enough to carry the weight of the world and God actually made us insufficient in that

01:08:29.800 way. But we do have a large capacity. It's simply not infinite. But the large capacity to care and to

01:08:37.800 help that we have, we have to simply pour out how God is calling us to pour out. So while we can

01:08:44.300 acknowledge the suffering that's happening around the world, and I think that we all have enough

01:08:48.300 capacity to pray for those people, the fact of the matter is, is that God right now is calling you

01:08:54.060 to the next right thing. He's calling you to where you are. Now, maybe God is calling you

01:09:01.300 to travel abroad, to be a missionary. Maybe God is calling you to some big step, to take some huge

01:09:08.500 leap of faith that you didn't think was possible, to start some organization, to give away everything

01:09:13.980 that you have, to, like I said, travel across the world. Maybe that's true. Or maybe he is calling you

01:09:20.620 to simply do the next simple thing that to the world looks really basic, looks really small, looks

01:09:25.900 really insignificant or unsubstantial. But to God actually matters. I'm talking about changing a

01:09:33.920 diaper. I'm talking about cleaning dishes. I'm talking about having a conversation with a friend.

01:09:38.380 I'm talking about sharing the gospel with someone that you know. I'm talking about praying or reading

01:09:45.600 your Bible or doing a really good job in whatever work project that you have or studying in an excellent

01:09:52.160 way for the test that you have tomorrow. You have tasks that are right in front of you that are not

01:09:57.620 arbitrary. They're not purposeless. God did not place you where he did accidentally. You are not in the

01:10:04.600 country or city that you're in at the time that you are in it for accidental or meaningless reasons.

01:10:17.360 God purposely puts you on the tiny speck of eternity on which he placed you and the tiny plot of earth

01:10:24.220 on which he placed you in order to make the spheres that you occupy better for his glory and the good

01:10:29.920 of other people. That's what you're called to do. Sometimes we are called to do that through big

01:10:34.460 leaps of faith and we pray for wisdom and discernment and direction. But even if that's the case,

01:10:39.880 even if God is calling you to something that seems really big or really public or

01:10:43.700 really scary, really risky, still your next responsibility is simply to do the next small

01:10:50.980 thing, the next right thing in faith with excellence and for the glory of God. And so, yes, we care about

01:10:57.820 the suffering that's going on in the world. We do what we can to help the people that God has placed

01:11:01.720 on our hearts. But our task is not to simply be anxious, to not be scrolling through social media

01:11:09.060 every five seconds and to be weighed down by the weight of the world constantly. That can actually

01:11:14.640 lead to disobedience. That can actually be a trap set by Satan to take us out of our present moment,

01:11:21.400 to steal our gratitude, to steal the joy and the contentment to which Christians are incontrovertibly 1.00

01:11:28.240 and arguably called and to make us anxious and worried. And we are specifically called so many

01:11:36.940 times throughout scripture by Jesus himself, like in Matthew 10, not to be worried and not to be

01:11:42.720 anxious and not to fear, but in everything with thanksgiving, as Philippians 4 tells us, to pray to

01:11:50.500 God, to give him our burdens, to give him our cares, and to allow the peace of Christ to rule in our

01:11:56.800 hearts, the peace that passes understanding. I think I mixed a few scriptures there, but we are

01:12:01.740 called to that biblically. So we care, but we don't allow our care to turn into burdening anxiety.

01:12:09.420 We have to do the next right thing that's in front of us, and we can't allow what's going on in the

01:12:14.140 world to steal our joy because we remember that God is completely sovereign over all of it.

01:12:20.980 Nothing throws him off. Nothing scares him. Nothing gets him up off his throne to see what's going on.

01:12:26.340 He's not surprised or taken aback or thrown off or shocked by anything that's going on. He is

01:12:32.380 completely and totally in control. Yes, things violate his moral will every day and that people

01:12:38.100 sin and disobey him and things displease him and anger him, but nothing can violate his grand

01:12:43.640 sovereign will. He works all things together for the good of those who love him. That's what Romans

01:12:48.840 8.28 tells us. As R.C. Sproul says, there's not a maverick molecule in all of the universe.

01:12:54.960 Nothing, nothing can surpass or circumvent God's sovereign will. Yes, he even uses evil, even though

01:13:05.060 he would never author evil or tempt people to evil, but he will use the evil of dictators to bring

01:13:11.280 himself glory, and he will declare victory once and for all. That's our hope. That's why we can do

01:13:17.260 the next right thing in faith with excellence and enjoy. That's why. Because we know that Christ will

01:13:24.120 claim ultimate victory because God is totally in control and not even a hair can fall from our

01:13:30.160 heads apart from the Father's will. Not even a sparrow falls from the sky. A sparrow that's sold

01:13:35.480 for a penny can fall from the sky apart from the Father's will. So you think that anything's going to

01:13:39.260 happen to you apart from God's will, who he loves so much more than a sparrow or the lilies of the field?

01:13:44.260 Of course not. So we trust him, knowing that absolutely nothing can happen to us, that God

01:13:50.100 does not specifically will, and we do the next right thing that he is calling us to. Let me read you a

01:13:55.400 couple passages of scripture just to bring this home. Daniel 2.20-22. Daniel answered and said,

01:14:02.840 Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, to whom belong wisdom and might. He changes times and

01:14:07.900 seasons. He removes kings and sets up kings. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who

01:14:13.380 have understanding. He reveals deep and hidden things. He knows what is in the darkness and the

01:14:18.540 light dwells with him. There is no secret to God. And then let me read you part of my favorite psalm,

01:14:26.220 and that is Psalm 37. Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.

01:14:32.680 Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. We did a most misused on

01:14:37.440 that once. Commit your way to the Lord. Trust in him and he will act. He will bring forth your

01:14:42.200 righteousness as the light and your justice as the noon day. In just a little while, the wicked will

01:14:48.460 be no more. Though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there. The wicked plots against the

01:14:54.400 righteous and gnashes his teeth at him. But the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he sees that his day

01:14:59.380 is coming. There is no dictator. There is no evil policy. There is no one at the World Economic Forum.

01:15:06.180 There is no great reset. That is a match for God and his strength and his plans. There's just not.

01:15:13.360 Now, I'm going to finish with a quote from C.S. Lewis about the nuclear age, the atomic bomb.

01:15:24.340 And I've posted this. I've posted this quote several times because I love it so much because I think it

01:15:32.260 speaks to really every age that we have. And it's just a great reminder that while we look at this

01:15:38.480 and we say, well, it's the end times. It's got to be the end times. Nothing has ever been this bad.

01:15:42.940 Maybe it is the end times, but things have been this bad in different ways. So let me read you this

01:15:47.880 and then we'll finally be done with this mega long episode. All right. He says,

01:15:52.660 in one way, we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. How are we to live then in an atomic

01:15:58.520 age? Well, I am tempted to reply. Why? As you would have lived in the 16th century when the plague

01:16:04.220 visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from 0.59

01:16:08.760 Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night. Or indeed, as you are already living in an

01:16:13.540 age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway

01:16:18.520 accidents, an age of motor accidents. In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the

01:16:24.380 novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already

01:16:29.940 sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented. And quite a high percentage of us were

01:16:35.480 going to die in unpleasant ways. This is the first point to be made. And the first action to be taken

01:16:42.380 is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb,

01:16:47.180 let that bomb, when it finds us, when it comes, find us doing sensible and human things,

01:16:52.740 praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis,

01:16:58.460 chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts, not huddled together like frightened sheep

01:17:02.820 and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies. Even a microbe can do that, but they need

01:17:08.060 not dominate our minds. So let that be our mentality. Christians will be known by their love,

01:17:15.460 but we are also known by our courage. So be courageous in an age of chaos and confusion and

01:17:23.880 absolute cowardice. That's our call for today. All right, we'll be back here tomorrow. See you guys then.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - February 28, 2022

Ep 573 ｜ Fact vs. Fiction on Ukraine & Russia ｜ Guest： Josh Hammer

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