Ep 588 ｜ What the Media Won't Tell You About Ukraine & Zelenskyy ｜ Guest： Pedro Gonzalez
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Summary
Pedro Gonzalez is the Associate Editor of Chronicles Magazine. He does not describe himself as a journalist, and you will hear him say why we are talking about Ukraine. Pedro has been very courageous in asking some questions that are deemed controversial, that you are not allowed to ask unless you want to be accused of being a Putin puppet. And yet, he is asking these questions. He s going to talk to us about the history of Ukraine, and about the crimes that go on in Ukraine.
Transcript
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Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Thursday. This episode is brought to you by our friends
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at Good Ranchers, American meat delivered right to your front door. That's goodranchers.com
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slash Allie, goodranchers.com slash Allie. Okay, today we are having a fascinating conversation
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with Pedro Gonzalez. He is the associate editor of Chronicles Magazine. He is a writer. He does
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not describe himself as a journalist and you will hear him say why. We are talking about Ukraine.
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Pedro has been very courageous in asking some questions that are deemed controversial,
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that you are not allowed to ask unless you want to be accused by the mainstream media of being a
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Putin puppet. And yet he's asking these questions. He's going to talk to us about the history of
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Ukraine. He's going to talk to us about Zelensky. We're going to talk about some things that a lot
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of people just don't want to talk about, don't want to mention, don't want to dig into, because as we
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will discuss, you're only supposed to have one position when it comes to Ukraine and you cannot
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question the popular narrative or else you are unpatriotic. Now, as we've mentioned before,
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doesn't that line sound very familiar? If you're not for lockdowns, if you're not for Black Lives Matter
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burning down and looting cities, if you are not for kids having, you know, mandatory vaccines and
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masks when they're two years old, then it's because you want people to die, because you hate America.
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If you don't think that young kids should be chemically castrated in the state of Texas,
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if you don't think that teachers should be talking to five-year-olds about gender switching,
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it's because you want these people to die. It's because you're a horrible person. And that's the same
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kind of line that we are hearing when it comes to Ukraine. If you ask any questions at all about
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our involvement or the level of our involvement, you are accused of not caring about the Ukrainian
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people and of being pro-Putin. Of course, that's ridiculous. So we're just going to buck that
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narrative because, quite frankly, I don't believe that. I think, as we discussed either last week or
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a couple weeks ago, that you can hold common sense and compassion in your brain at the same time.
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We should be able to do that as thoughtful people, especially as Christians, right? We should be
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able to say that what's happening in Ukraine to the Ukrainian people who are caught in the
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crossfire here, that's really bad. We talked also about how there's always been a human trafficking
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problem in Ukraine. Of course, there's a problem throughout the world, but especially in Ukraine,
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it's kind of a hotbed for it. Human trafficking, not just in the sense of sex trafficking, but also
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in the human trafficking of the corrupt surrogacy industry that is there. And so Ukraine has been a
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hotbed of a corruption for a long time. If you just search on whatever your search engine is,
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Ukraine, corruption, New York Times, you will come up with a lot of articles detailing this.
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And so it's really nonsensical and it's really worrisome that we are supposed to now be
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unconditionally lionizing the leadership of a country that we've known for a long time
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is not actually pro-democracy. So we can understand that while also still saying, wow,
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we have so much compassion and so much sympathy for the Ukrainian people and also a lot of sympathy
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for the Russian people who are not a part of this invasion and are also suffering because of
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sanctions that are actually hurting them and hurting us and not actually hurting the Putin regime.
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So let's be a little bit more thoughtful than what the mainstream media is telling us that we can be.
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Let's ask the questions that we are not allowed to ask because we are under an obligation as people,
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as Christians, to try to find the truth. And I'm not saying that like we're going to come up with
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everything that is objectively true in this conversation, but we're asking, we're going
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into the territory that we are being told right now you're not supposed to go into. So I think you
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are going to find this conversation with Pedro very interesting and very enlightening. At the very
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least, it'll give you food for thought. And it should make us wonder what is actually in
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Americans' interest. That's what we're supposed to be thinking about. That's what the leadership of
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any country is supposed to be thinking. What is in the interest of my people? Not the intelligence
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bureaucracy, not the military industrial complex, not just the leadership, not the bureaucracy in the
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country, but what is in the best interest of our people? And unfortunately, we've seen in a variety
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of ways time and time again that the people who lead this country, mostly unelected bureaucrats
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in a variety of agencies, don't really care about what is in the best interest of the American people.
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So knowing that and seeing that throughout the years, that should make us a little bit curious,
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if not entirely cynical, about what we hear from the media about anything, including when it comes to
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Russia and Ukraine. So we know Putin is a wicked dictator. We know that the Ukrainian people are
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suffering. We understand those things. Let's hold those things in our head while also asking some
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interesting questions. Can we do that? I think that we can. I think that we can. And Pedro is going to
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help us. So before we have that conversation with Pedro Gonzalez, just going to tell you what is
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coming up. So next week, we've got a few fun things that we're going to be talking about,
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important things. We are going to finally be covering that those two abortion bills that you
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guys have been asking me about, one in Colorado, one in Maryland. And I'm also going to share,
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I believe it's on Monday, maybe Tuesday. We haven't decided yet. This really interesting statistic that I
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found about maternal mortality rates in the United States. And it just kind of made me realize that so
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much policy, whether it's the policy of hospitals or whether it's government policy, not only are
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children laid on the altar of bad policy, as we've talked about many times, but so are women. So what
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does this mean for the Christian? How should we be looking at this stuff biblically? And we'll also
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look once again at the Supreme Court nominee and what she thinks about life and life inside the womb.
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And so we'll be talking about all of that on Monday or Tuesday. I think we are going to
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look at Ukraine also from another angle next week. I've also got a fun interview coming out with Phil
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and Al Robertson. So lots to look forward to. As always, feel free to send me what you want me to
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talk about next week. Pedro, thanks so much for joining us. Can you first tell us who you are and what
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you do? Yeah. So I'm the associate editor at Chronicles Magazine and I am a writer because I
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don't like the term journalist because I don't like journalists. So. Oh, can you unpack that for us just
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a little bit? I'm sure a lot of people have the same sentiments. Yeah. It's a weird place to be in
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because this is what I do, right? This is what I do for a living. It's my only job. But there's also
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this kind of conflicted feeling I have because when you look around, it really seems like a lot of
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journalists are not actually, you know, truth tellers or how they like to describe themselves.
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They're actually just kind of repeating whatever, whether it is they're the people that own their
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publications or right now in the context of Ukraine and Russia, it's whatever the Pentagon is saying.
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Right. Right now, you know, you've got journalists from MSNBC and CNN basically demanding, not asking NATO
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questions like, you know, would it be worth getting into a nuclear war with Russia over Ukraine? I mean,
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would that make sense for the world? Instead, you've got journalists asking, would it be morally
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acceptable for NATO to stand by and do nothing? I mean, this is again, these are journalists who are
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supposed to be asking tough questions, but instead they're kind of browbeating other people into doing what
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they want. So, yeah, I mean, it's just it's a weird position for people like me to be in because
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I know I'm not alone in this, like guys like Glenn Greenwald, who's obviously more on the political
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left, but he feels the same way that a lot of journalists, especially in the mainstream, are kind
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of just, for lack of a better word, bootlickers of one variety or another. Yeah, I think the journalist
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that you were just describing is Andrea Mitchell from NBC. I think that she's the one that recently
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asked that kind of just strange question. And we're used to this, especially over the past few
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years, we've seen a lot of journalists become sycophants for one side and really just kind of
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unashamedly, that whole activist journalist movement that has really become mainstream. And
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it really, I think it boils down to, well, there are a lot of different factors, the ones that you just
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listed are there for sure. But I think in the simplest terms, like it's hard to write objectively about
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your friends. And journalists have become friends with these Democrat politicians. They've become
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friends with the people in our intelligence bureaucracy. It's really hard to distance yourself
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when you have formed these relationships. And where these relationships are a little quid pro quo,
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and you feel like you've got a little bit of power, a little bit of maybe insulation from criticism or
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whatever it is, if you kind of cozy up to the people in power, it's really difficult. It takes more
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integrity than most journalists have in this country to distance yourself from your friends and be able
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to write about things objectively. Do you think that's part of it? Yeah, that's certainly part of
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it. It's access. And you don't, like you said, you don't want to fear losing access by, you know,
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doing your job a little too well. And that's, I think that's certainly a huge aspect of it. But
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there's also this ideological component to it where, again, journalists like to describe themselves.
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And I don't lie about this. Like, I have my prejudices. I am biased, in fact, toward the
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American interests. But I don't hide it. I guess the issue is that you have so many journalists who
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do hide it. They like to cast themselves as just objective truth tellers. You know, they're not
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picking a side, but they are. It's obvious they are. When they ask questions like that, you know,
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don't we have a moral responsibility to intervene and possibly trigger World War III? That's not an
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unbiased question. That's all of these questions are loaded. Right. Yeah. So I think that's a huge
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part of it is, on the one hand, yes, there is this sycophancy, this desire for access, which
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the access part to a degree is understandable. But, you know, when it's informing all of your work,
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it obviously becomes a problem. Because you do need to maintain good relations with some people
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to do your job. But, you know, again, there's a limit to what that looks like. Right. And then on
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the other, on the other hand, it's this, this ideological component that I've just been referring
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to as liberal internationalism, that we have a kind of, or as Andrea Mitchell said, we have a moral
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obligation to invade the world or intervene, to put it euphemistically, to intervene everywhere and invite
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the world. So basically, I mean, it's not a coincidence that many of the same people that are saying that we
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must intervene in Ukraine are also the same ones that you'll hear saying that we have an obligation,
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we have a moral duty to accept everyone who comes to our border illegally or not. We have a moral duty
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to allow them into the country. It's often the same people. Yeah. Can you help me kind of understand
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because there are these same people who are saying that we have a moral obligation to intervene
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uniquely in Ukraine? They don't seem to think that in every single area of the world, which is
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interesting. These are some of the same people, though, that say that they are anti-imperialism and
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they kind of demonize the history of the United States by saying America have, it's just been an evil
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imperialist force for wickedness and destruction throughout our history, throughout the world.
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They would say that they are against that. But at the same time, they are pushing for a form of
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imperialism. And also, they don't care about China's imperialism in different parts of the world. So
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can you help me understand that? Is that just hypocrisy? Like they don't understand that they
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are contradicting themselves? Or is it more complex than what I'm explaining?
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I think hypocrisy is certainly a factor. But then I think that hypocrisy might entail a... I know it's
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difficult, right? Because you have to wonder, is there any self-awareness here? Part of me thinks
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that to be a hypocrite, you have to be... A person has to be aware of the contradictions. But the fact
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that they're not aware of them, or they don't even recognize them, I think is what makes this more
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complicated. And so, I mean, this gets into the history of Ukraine, right? Because like you said,
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we like to denounce imperialism in the United States a lot. In recent times, we like to demonize
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our own history now in schools. And we have engaged in this systematic project of basically
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deconstructing America and kind of recasting it as an evil empire. But the same people are also,
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like you said, the ones saying that we actually have a responsibility to intervene in places like
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Ukraine. And when you go back and look at how we got here, you kind of see this, we'll just call it
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hypocrisy. You can see this hypocrisy at play, that basically, the thing that's being left out of this
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entire discussion is that the West, and specifically, Western liberal interventionists,
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have, I mean, I've been putting this very bluntly, these people have blood on their hands.
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Yes, Putin invaded Ukraine in February. There's no disputing that. Russia is going to have to answer
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for what's happening. You know, civilians are being killed in this. All of these things are obvious and
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tragic. But what's not obvious, and I would even say is just as tragic is the fact that the architects
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of this crisis have not been held accountable. Right now, they're doing a great job of reinventing
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themselves as the heroes of the moment. And they're even going so far as saying that if you dare
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question, you know, if you even ask that question, like, for example, Tucker Carlson, you know, did
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Washington, D.C. have a hand in this crisis? If you ask that question, you're a traitor.
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Yeah. According to Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney and other smart people like Adam Kinzinger.
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That's who you're talking about. When you're talking about the architects,
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who are you talking about? And why do you say that they're the architects?
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Oh, boy. Ukraine is, I can't think of an analog for it because there are so many different competing
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factors and players from basically D.C. ideologues to cynics like the Clinton Foundation to Ukrainian
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and Russian oligarchs. It's actually it's it's so what we can just say this for certain. And I'll
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get into like a few key figures. But we can say this for certain. Ukraine is not a battle for
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democracy. There is an actual nationalist sentiment in Ukraine. And there are people in Ukraine who
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want democracy, namely the civilians who are really caught in the crossfire. But in terms of like
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geopolitics, this is not a battle for democracy. It's a battle between like competing interest groups
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that are obviously just reframing it as a battle for democracy because, you know, it democracies
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and heist buzzword. You know, who could disagree with democracy? Right. Who could be against
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liberal democracy? Right. So, yeah, I mean, we can we can focus on one set of players and to kind of
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help understand why, you know, this is not actually, like I said, a battle for liberal democracy.
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But instead, this it's a kind of like hive of villainy and intrigue. And so one example that is
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kind of illustrative of the relationship on the one hand between the U.S. government, Ukrainian
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oligarchs, and on the other hand, NGOs, this is a huge thing in Ukraine is this relationship between
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the Clinton Foundation and a Ukrainian oligarch named Viktor Pinchuk. And cut me off at any time.
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So the Wall Street Journal published an article in 2015, and they looked at individual donations
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made by foreign donors to the Clinton Foundation between the 90s and running up to 2014.
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Because the article was published in 2015. So that's the window they had to work with. And what
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they found was, is that the top source of donations of more than $50,000 or more to the Clinton
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Foundation by foreign contributors actually came from Ukraine. Interesting, right? And one of these key
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figures is, like I said, a guy named Viktor Pinchuk. So how does Viktor Pinchuk end up giving almost $10
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million to the Clinton Foundation? Well, he was introduced to Bill Clinton by a registered lobbyist
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for Viktor Pinchuk named Doug Schoen, who actually worked as a pollster for both Bill and Hillary Clinton.
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So Pinchuk is introduced to Bill Clinton by Doug Schoen in 2006. By 2007, Bill Clinton is doing speaking
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events at initiatives that are run by Viktor Pinchuk. And by 2008, you have a significant amount of money
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that's moving between Viktor Pinchuk and Clinton NGOs. And this relationship overlaps, this relationship
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between the Ukrainian oligarch and the Clinton Foundation overlaps with Hillary Clinton's time
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at the State Department. Doug Schoen has denied that him being a registered lobbyist for Pinchuk
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had anything to do with the relationship between the Clinton Foundation, Hillary Clinton, and Bill
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Clinton, of course, because he has to. But this is, again, really illustrative of the kind of dealing
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that you have going on in this country, which kind of helps explain why there is this incredible,
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like powerful border. I mean, it is it's hysterical reaction to the threat of Ukraine kind of being
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taken out of the orbit of of DC and its allies. I can we can move on. Yeah, I think. Well, I'll just
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kind of enter, I think, some questions that just that the common person has. I don't consider myself a
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foreign policy expert. But of course, I pay attention and a lot of people do. And I think
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some questions that people have, but they're scared to ask, because we're being told by the
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very journalist that we were just referencing, that you can't have common sense and compassion
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at the same time that the two are mutually exclusive. So if you ask questions about our
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motivations in our the level of intervention in Ukraine, that means you don't care about the
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Ukrainians dying. That means, as you mentioned earlier, that you're a Putin puppet, that you're pro
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Russia, whatever. But I think most people actually do hold common sense and compassion at the same
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time. I think most people do say, you know what, what's happening there is really bad. Obviously,
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don't support don't support Putin. And we're really sad for what's happening in Ukraine. The
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stories coming out of their women and children being trafficked, it's all just awful. We can be sad
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about that. And also ask at the same time, hang on, like, why are we so hyper focused on this? Why are the
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same people that believe, as you mentioned earlier, that we have a moral obligation to accept all
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people that we basically have no sovereignty? As a country, we have no borders. Why are they so
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hyper focused on Ukraine's borders? Like the people who don't care about democracy at all here? They
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say that they care so much about democracy in Ukraine. Isn't that a little odd? Isn't it a little
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odd how they are? They are doing the same thing that they did with BLM. They're doing the same thing that
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they did with lockdowns, that if you disagree with them, it's because you want people to die. The same
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thing that they do with, you know, transitioning kids, if you don't agree with that, it's because you
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want kids to die by suicide. They do this. And they're doing this with Ukraine. And so the question
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I think that most people have is, why? And I know that you kind of started to answer that, especially
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with the people who have, you know, actual monetary interest, financial interest there. But what is the
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interest of people like Mitt Romney? What is the interest of people like Adam Kissinger, these
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Republicans who want so badly for us to intervene and maybe start World War Three? Why? I just can't
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Well, I think the so let's say that these people are true believers. They're dyed in the wool ideologues.
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I think that you'll you'll eventually go crazy trying to understand ideologues because, I mean, ideology
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is a kind of self-contained thing. It's you can't really we have this saying, right, or conservatives have
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this saying. Facts don't care about your feelings. Well, with ideologues, feelings always trump facts.
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And so you can show them, for example, that you Washington led sanctions against Iraq for its
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invasion of Kuwait in the early 90s, that those sanctions resulted. And again, I say Washington
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because obviously the American people, if they knew what happens as a result of this stuff, they
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wouldn't they wouldn't want anything to do with it. But the sanctions led by the United States
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government resulted in up to half a million children in Iraq starving and dying. That again,
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that's the high end. And I think to give you some insight into how unrepentant ideologues are true
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believers, Madeleine Albright, who recently passed away when she was asked by 60 Minutes if she thought
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and again, that number is disputed, like on the high end, it's half a million. But some people say
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it's half that. What's indisputable is that a lot of children ended up starving to death as a direct
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result of the sanctions imposed by Washington, D.C. and that they spearheaded. So when presented with
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the figure half a million by I think it was 60 Minutes during an interview at 60 Minutes, she was asked,
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was it worth it? And Madeleine Albright said it was. It was worth it. There's no, I mean, again,
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it's important to understand that these are the same people that are telling you we have a moral
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obligation to intervene because we did it in Kuwait and it was worth it. That's insane. You know, what
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good, decent American would say, yeah, that was worth it. I mean, Americans have good, and I think this is
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one of the good things about conservatism is that there's like a deep skepticism toward government,
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and for good reason, because these are the people that are creating policy, the ones that will just
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look you in the face and say, yeah, it was half a million, up to half a million children starving to
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death. Yeah, that was worth it. No, it wasn't. And I mean, like, I'm a father. I'm a new father. I
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have a toddler and a few month old. Me too. We're in the same boat, in the same stage. Yep.
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Yeah. So, no, when I hear people talk like that, it was worth it. I mean,
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like, you know, obviously what Iraq did was bad, but no, making it worse, you know,
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to satisfy your ideology of liberal internationalism, no, it's not worth it.
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Do you distinguish, because I saw this distinction earlier, and maybe you don't,
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do you distinguish between internationalism and globalism? And if you do, why?
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I think they're related. I mean, it's ultimately this view of, well, I would say that the difference
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is that we're talking about globalism, or in a sense, we're talking about just the
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internationalization of the division of labor. We're all now kind of interdependent on each other,
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right? Which is obviously, you know, on the one hand, you get like nice wine and cheese from
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around the world. But on the other hand, you send your factories to China and Mexico and stuff like
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that. So that's kind of globalism, right? The, again, the internationalization, the division of
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labor, and global interdependency. I would say that the liberal internationalist, or the pejorative form
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is liberal interventionist, which is the one I most commonly use. Liberal interventionist,
00:24:32.260
on the one hand, they think that the kind of global interdependence is a good thing. But they
00:24:39.140
think that the United States and specifically Washington should be kind of leading it, that
00:24:45.040
everyone should be kind of bowing to us, and that NATO is kind of just an instrument for our interests,
00:24:51.280
and not actually like, you know, like, it's, I mean, it's a military alliance, but it's ultimately led
00:24:56.140
by DC. And it's kind of just whatever we want it to be, whatever we want to use it for. So I think
00:25:01.680
that's the difference is that liberal interventionists just think that DC should be kind of leading the
00:25:06.760
show. And again, as conservatives, you know, or people on the right, I actually don't use the term
00:25:13.040
conservative for myself, but, but a lot of people still just, you know, obviously do. It's a different
00:25:18.940
discussion. But the point is, is that I think it's important for conservatives to understand who are
00:25:22.900
deeply patriotic, to not conflate, being patriotic, with risk, kind of like, just going along with
00:25:34.440
Because I think that's one of the reasons why this, this, the current crisis is kind of horrifying
00:25:41.520
is because certain people, conservative pundits, Republican politicians have done a really good job of
00:25:48.620
kind of wedding, basically what DC wants, which is not what is best for the American people,
00:25:55.620
with these notions of American exceptionalism, that basically, it's kind of with us or against us all
00:26:01.820
over again. And if you're critical of what DC wants, of what these liberal internationalists wants,
00:26:08.740
well, then it must mean that you hate America, you're like a Putin stooge, or a useful idiot or
00:26:13.900
something. It's, Ann Applebaum recently used that term to describe people like Tucker Carlson,
00:26:18.400
useful idiot, because he's, again, asking these questions, like, should we start World War III
00:26:23.320
over Ukraine? You know, like, would that save lives or, or result in more casualties? Well,
00:26:30.140
even if you ask that, you know, you're not patriotic. And it's not just, again, it's not just people like
00:26:34.800
Ann Applebaum at the Atlantic. It's a lot of conservative pundits. And it's a lot of Republican
00:26:40.660
politicians. Yeah, it's very bizarre, actually, watching Fox News going from Tucker Carlson's show
00:26:47.400
where he's asking those questions, and then going through the next to the next programming, where
00:26:51.160
those questions aren't asked at all. It is, I mean, I don't think people realize, I know you don't call
00:26:55.760
yourself a conservative, but how many different perspectives there are on this just on the right
00:27:00.240
alone, or on the non left, at least. I saw this really interesting study. And it was just, it was in
00:27:06.560
Canada, wasn't in the United States, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was similar here, that the more
00:27:13.740
vaccines you have, the more likely you are to support more intervention between Russia and
00:27:21.500
Ukraine. I mean, that's crazy. That tells you something about people's willingness, their almost
00:27:27.800
just desire, their craving to find a narrative to find a different way to show that they're virtuous,
00:27:34.440
to show that they're patriotic, which a lot of these people truly like hate the countries where
00:27:39.300
they live. And so it's funny that they care about seeming patriotic. But man, shouldn't that tell us
00:27:45.240
something about the messengers, the message itself, and the importance in asking the questions that are
00:27:52.480
being demonized right now? Yeah, no, yeah, that's, it's funny, because a lot of us were kind of joking
00:28:00.000
about this, right, that it's the new thing. And, and that before, before Ukraine, before our stand
00:28:07.180
with Ukraine, and like hashtag stand with Ukraine, it was vaccines and kind of just doing whatever
00:28:12.340
people like Fauci said, before that, it was BLM. And it ended up being, you know, empirically true,
00:28:19.960
that basically, the more willing you were to go on, go along with the vaccine regime,
00:28:25.620
the more likely, literally, the more vaccines you have, the more likely you are to support Ukraine,
00:28:30.980
it's actually terrifying in a way. Yeah. Because you wonder, like, you know, jokingly, like, is it
00:28:37.480
something in the vaccine? Or is this, like, is it like a psychological thing that, you know, that,
00:28:43.060
that, I mean, in a sense, that's, that's setting aside some horrific dystopian thing that, you know,
00:28:48.300
there's something in the in the drug. But the easiest explanation is really just that
00:28:52.740
people are moving from one kind of way of identification, identifying to another. So before
00:28:59.940
you showed people that you were virtuous by, you know, putting a black square in your Instagram to
00:29:05.060
show that you stood with BLM. And then it was, you know, bragging about how you're, you're vaxxed
00:29:13.060
and boosted. And now it's putting the Ukrainian flag in your bio and doing the hashtag stand with
00:29:19.840
Ukraine. So I think it's, it's a desire to belong to groups, and, which is human. And we're all I mean,
00:29:28.100
we're all guilty of this, we all we all identify with things. But there, obviously, there's a there's
00:29:33.940
a line that people should be aware of, which is, you know, rushing into these into these fads,
00:29:40.820
that have tremendous consequences for society or entire civilizations, like, you know, support for
00:29:47.920
BLM. Yeah, was basically, whether people want to admit it or not, like supporting BLM was was a way
00:29:55.780
to look away from what BLM was actually doing, which was on the one hand, just stealing people's
00:30:00.140
donations. And, you know, and you can look at the the organizers of BLM. And like, they're all like fat,
00:30:06.720
happy cats now with like mansions and stuff. Yeah. After destroying poor communities with
00:30:11.760
predominantly minority Americans, and them, it's been exclusively a destructive force and a force
00:30:18.940
for injustice. And yeah, there's no reckoning about that. But I think you go ahead, go ahead.
00:30:24.260
I was gonna say, but if you supported BLM, you didn't actually have to reckon with any of the
00:30:28.420
things that you've just described. Yeah, because you're on the right side of history.
00:30:31.460
Exactly. And no one ever tried to hold you okay, no one ever gets held accountable for getting it
00:30:37.840
wrong in the beginning, as long as the position that you took in the beginning was what, you know,
00:30:43.020
the, I don't even know if it's liberal, whatever it is, whatever the regime narrative was, as long
00:30:48.520
as you took that position, then you are considered a good leader, all of the Democratic governors who,
00:30:53.720
you know, inflicted the harshest, most draconian policies as possible. It doesn't matter that people
00:30:58.780
maybe died of isolation-induced depression and suicide. It doesn't matter that alcoholism went
00:31:06.340
up. It doesn't matter that our mental health is deteriorating because of that. It doesn't matter
00:31:10.460
that people's business closed. Like, you're still considered a good leader if you inflicted those
00:31:15.540
kinds of policies. You're still considered a good person if you posted the Black Square. You're still
00:31:19.340
considered a good person if you go along with whatever the narrative is. And I think you touched
00:31:24.140
on something about human nature that is really important and profound that I don't want to gloss
00:31:28.100
over is that everyone wants to be a part of something. Yes, that's part of human nature.
00:31:32.480
But I think the sad thing is, is that because everyone wants to be a part of something and
00:31:36.600
because we've become such a disjointed, hyper-individualistic society, I mean, the family
00:31:42.600
has broken down, communities have broken down, church attendance is less than it was. We don't
00:31:48.300
really have those communities and those close relationships that we seek and we're more godless
00:31:52.960
than ever before. People are seeking identification with groups that aren't really real. Like, it's not
00:31:58.180
real. The Black Square community is not a community. The Ukrainian flag in my bio, you know, community
00:32:05.840
is not a real community. It's all fake. It's almost like the metaverse community. It's not real, which
00:32:11.740
is really, really sad. Yeah. It feels like we're already living in the metaverse because of how quickly
00:32:17.920
people can be kind of programmed into going from supporting BLM to Fauci to Zelensky in Ukraine.
00:32:25.260
Yeah, it is. I mean, that's a huge part of it. And I think the conservatives kind of already
00:32:29.380
understand this, or I should say Christians already understand this because of this, you know,
00:32:35.420
the saying that people have a God-shaped hole in their hearts. It's basically the same thing.
00:32:40.880
People have a community-shaped hole in their hearts. And so it's easy to move from one thing
00:32:47.480
to another and look around you and, you know, see that you're part of a group that has solidarity
00:32:53.540
for the current thing. And then for the time being, shaping your whole identity around that social
00:33:00.000
community until the next thing. But again, right. Well, tell me a little bit about you. You mentioned
00:33:06.720
Zelensky, and I want, I've heard you talk about this before in other interviews, but tell us about
00:33:11.700
Zelensky because he is almost universally lionized, maybe for a good reason, but maybe not. Like who
00:33:18.600
really is he? And should we be, you know, lauding him as a hero? Well, I've likened him to Fauci in the
00:33:25.080
sense that he's a kind of media creation, because until recently, Zelensky was actually taking a lot of
00:33:30.500
heat because he had campaigned as an anti-corruption president. But surprise, he ended up being
00:33:36.540
just as corrupt as pretty much all of his predecessors. So, I mean, this was, this was a big deal
00:33:42.360
literally until last year. How was he corrupt? He was like jailing dissidents basically, right?
00:33:49.660
I mean, there's, there's that stuff, but then also just the fact that he's connected to all
00:33:53.120
Ukrainian oligarchs who, who, and specifically one named Ihor Kolomoisky. I'll get into that. But
00:33:59.600
the point is, is that within the last year, an investigative effort culminating in the, in the
00:34:06.380
Pandora papers looked at the, the secret offshore holdings of more than 300 politicians and public
00:34:16.020
officials across more than 90 nations. And what they found was, is that the, the country that had the,
00:34:24.060
the greatest number of politicians and public officials hiding, you know, these, these secret
00:34:30.440
holdings somewhere was actually in Ukraine. Number two was actually Russia. So in other words, you have
00:34:38.580
more of this kind of like international financial crime activity that's happening in Ukraine than, than a
00:34:47.080
lot of other countries. And, you know, according to the Pandora papers, again, even more, more so than
00:34:50.720
Russia to, in a certain sense. And, and this was actually a huge deal for Ukraine or specifically
00:34:56.900
Zelensky, because again, he had campaigned as an anti-corruption president and here he's being
00:35:01.360
outed as basically not much, you know, not, not being much different from his predecessors,
00:35:07.240
Petro Poroshenko or Viktor Yanukovych, who was ousted by a U S state, uh, state department backed
00:35:15.040
color revolution in 2014, uh, for being, he was characterized as kind of like a, like a pro
00:35:20.820
Russian, uh, puppet. I mean, the economist, I think accurately described him as more of like
00:35:27.260
a neutralist who kind of milked both sides. Uh, but then since then supposedly Ukraine was like
00:35:33.500
on track for becoming an actual democracy. Yeah. That's, I mean, that's up for debate. Um,
00:35:38.960
but, but I think, yeah, if you want to understand Zelensky, you have to look at a particular
00:35:44.260
oligarch named Ihor Kolomoisky. So who is Kolomoisky? Wow. This guy is like, he's like a larger than
00:35:51.980
life figure. Uh, in some ways you kind of like admire how Machiavellian he is, but in other ways,
00:35:57.800
um, when you accept that Kolomoisky is like the real power behind Zelensky, you also accept that
00:36:05.300
Zelensky is not really in control. And so going back to 20, uh, let's see,
00:36:14.260
because we, we kind of have to go back almost to 2013, but I think the, a good starting point is
00:36:22.260
this, this, this, um, $2 billion, what do we call it? Uh, looting of IMF money that happens in the,
00:36:31.940
the, the mid two thousands. So up until 2016, Kolomoisky was the co-owner, uh, he was the
00:36:39.480
co-founder. And then up until 2016, he was the co-owner of, of Privat Bank, one of the biggest
00:36:45.040
banks in Ukraine. In 2016, it was nationalized. Uh, and basically he had taken about $2 billion
00:36:51.780
of emergency, uh, IMF aid money and embezzled that basically stole it through the Privat Bank and the
00:37:02.440
Privat group of companies. But the United States looked the other way because Kolomoisky was, uh,
00:37:11.000
kind of like, um, he, he was useful to us in a, in a sense. And specifically, uh, we needed to kind
00:37:19.380
of have oligarchs that we could work with. And Kolomoisky was one of them. Um, and so I'm sorry,
00:37:27.300
I'm like, I'm paraphrasing a lot here, but basically, uh, in order to get off of, cause
00:37:34.960
this guy was so corrupt that the United States actually put him on a visa ban list, right?
00:37:40.220
So how does Kolomoisky get off the visa ban list? Well, he, uh, attempts to take control
00:37:47.140
of a Ukrainian company that is in charge of most of the oil pipelines in the country.
00:37:53.040
And this is a direct threat to then Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko. And so basically
00:38:02.860
they come up with a deal to, uh, to get Kolomoisky off of Poroshenko's back. Part of that deal involves
00:38:12.080
taking, uh, basically having Poroshenko work with his friends in the United States, uh, specifically
00:38:19.320
a woman named Victoria Nuland, who has worked in every administration since Bill Clinton.
00:38:25.000
She worked, uh, under Bill Clinton, under George H.W. Bush. She was instrumental. Um,
00:38:31.440
not George H.W., I'm sorry, George W. Bush. Uh, she worked under Obama and she's actually working,
00:38:36.100
uh, uh, under Biden right now. But so Kolomoisky goes and said, tells Poroshenko, you know,
00:38:43.540
talk to your allies in the United States and tell them to get me off the visa ban list so I can resume,
00:38:49.060
you know, traveling into the United States and more importantly, doing business there.
00:38:52.740
And it actually works. Poroshenko manages to get Kolomoisky off the visa ban list and Kolomoisky
00:38:59.860
agrees to basically not taking over Ukraine's oil, uh, oil product, oil operations. But that's not the
00:39:08.400
end of the story for Kolomoisky. He basically decides that he's going to, uh, undermine Poroshenko.
00:39:15.700
So how does he do that? Well, he, he takes, uh, Zelensky who is, you know, I remember he's a,
00:39:22.660
he's a comedian, he's an actor and he creates a show called Servant of the People and he puts it
00:39:27.260
on his network. And some people have basically characterized it. Wow. I did not, I did not know
00:39:31.500
the background. I mean, I knew he was a comedian and that he played a president in the show, but I
00:39:35.100
didn't know the background. Wow. Yeah. I'm sorry. There's, I'm like trying to paraphrase.
00:39:39.520
No, that's okay. No, it's really interesting. Yeah. Yeah, it is. So, um, some people have
00:39:45.620
basically likened this to kind of like campaigning by another name because, uh, because on this show
00:39:54.180
Zelensky is a kind of like anti-corruption leader of Ukraine. And when he actually took, when he actually
00:40:02.220
ended up, uh, becoming president of Ukraine, he, he basically tried to become the character
00:40:06.680
that he had played in this show that was hosted on a network owned by Kolomoisky. And so, um,
00:40:14.440
when asked, uh, a few years ago, basically whether Ukraine could do without, basically when it,
00:40:21.260
when it emerged that, you know, Ukraine is, is just as corrupt as it has always been.
00:40:25.400
Kolomoisky, uh, was, was interviewed by the Washington Post and he was asked like, well, look,
00:40:29.280
do you, do you think that if Zelensky had to choose between basically you, uh, or the IMF,
00:40:34.680
basically international aid, who would he go with? Uh, or he said, who, who, who do you think
00:40:39.300
would win like international aid agencies or you? And Kolomoisky said, I would. I mean,
00:40:45.060
that, that kind of tells you that, you know, Zelensky, although I think he probably has tried
00:40:50.360
to do some good in Ukraine and has actually tried to advocate to a certain degree, anti-corruption
00:40:56.780
stuff. At the end of the day, he's, he's a creation of Kolomoisky, literally a creation of
00:41:02.780
the media, but all of this has been whitewashed. We haven't discussed it whatsoever because, you
00:41:09.780
know, we, we seem to, to have an interest in Ukraine or, uh, a, uh, a wide array of interests
00:41:16.740
in Ukraine. And so now Zelensky is kind of just above reproach. We're not allowed to ask these
00:41:22.140
questions. We're not allowed to look into this vast network of corruption. Uh, Kolomoisky
00:41:29.220
also has a controlling stake in Burisma. I was about to ask, where does Hunter Biden come
00:41:34.940
into all of this? Yeah. I know we don't have to get into all of it, but. Yeah. No, it's, it's,
00:41:39.920
it's just, it's a, it's actually incredible, uh, because, because precisely because we don't
00:41:44.400
talk about this. Yeah. So Hunter Biden actually ended up, uh, this relationship between Hunter
00:41:51.180
Biden and Burisma actually started in 20, I think April, 2014, right after this U S state
00:41:58.000
department backed coup, uh, went into effect in Ukraine. Um, so I mean, I I'm, I'm not an expert
00:42:06.280
on the, the, the Hunter Biden Burisma story, but basically it's just, it's actually not unusual
00:42:12.920
at all. Like this is just how Ukraine is like, it's just tit for tat, uh, Ukrainian oligarchs
00:42:18.340
and Ukrainian business interests doing favors for, uh, basically for, for DC players and they
00:42:25.780
get something out of it. And in the case of Kolomoisky, he managed to get himself off the
00:42:29.640
visa ban list. But then in 2021, uh, the state department, Anthony Blinken actually re-designated
00:42:35.660
him as someone who was banned from entering the United States. Wow. But, but again, this,
00:42:40.580
again, this is, this is, uh, Zelensky's number one backer and we're not asking any of these
00:42:47.720
questions. It, yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's, you could go crazy trying to like connect all
00:42:52.320
the dots and going down all the different rabbit holes. But I think the, the color revolution,
00:42:57.900
uh, is probably the most fascinating thing because it, Ukraine was really kind of ground
00:43:03.880
zero for using social media and NGOs and so-called civil society institutions to affect regime change.
00:43:14.020
I mean, it had happened before we'd seen it in the Arab spring. Um, but to the, to the degree that
00:43:19.200
it happened in Ukraine, I think was, it was, I mean, there's a reason it's called the Facebook
00:43:22.500
revolution and the journalist uprising. Right. Right. I think a lot of people probably don't know
00:43:27.180
that. That's another conversation for another day. I'm sure we could spend a lot of time talking
00:43:31.000
about that. Something that I want to get your thoughts on. You mentioned Tori Newlin and, um,
00:43:44.700
she admitted for people who don't know, I'm sure people did hear about this in exchange with Marco
00:43:49.920
Rubio a couple of weeks ago, she admitted that there are bio labs in Ukraine and that it would be
00:43:55.520
bad if Russia had access to those bio labs. But at the same time we're hearing, well, no,
00:44:01.040
they're, they're, they're nothing. It's insignificant. And yet if Russia got control
00:44:05.480
of them, it would be a problem to me. It needs to be one or the other. Tulsi Gabbard, she put a video
00:44:09.920
out saying, look, there are bio labs there. We're funding these bio labs and it's risky research
00:44:15.660
that's going on there. And then Mitt Romney, the ideologue one that we mentioned earlier said,
00:44:21.780
this is Russian propaganda. Um, but it's actually factually accurate what she says. She said that
00:44:27.800
there are 25 to 30 U S funded bio labs in Ukraine. According to the U S government, these bio labs
00:44:32.440
are conducting research on dangerous pathogens. So just what's, what's your take on that? What's the
00:44:38.140
truth about all that? Honestly, I thought that was a conspiracy theory in the beginning. And I was
00:44:41.780
kind of stunned to figure out that there's truth to it. Yeah, no, I mean, there's, there's what we do
00:44:46.880
know. And I, I really appreciate Tulsi because her bottom line is like, look, there are labs there.
00:44:51.700
It's just indisputable. And the, the talking point that our only real involvement in these labs has
00:45:00.460
been to basically kind of dismantle like Soviet era systems and kind of like, we're not doing any
00:45:07.720
kind of research and development there. Um, Tulsi has just pointed out like, look, that's just not
00:45:13.260
true. Like we've been investing money in, in research and development in these bio labs in
00:45:18.260
Ukraine. They're there. We don't, we don't necessarily know exactly what's going on. We
00:45:22.500
just know that there are dangerous pathogens in these bio labs that we've invested millions of
00:45:29.120
dollars in R and D there. Uh, and that that's, that's the extent of what we know, which is why
00:45:36.060
that whole exchange between new, uh, Victoria Noland and Marco Rubio was for a lot of people
00:45:42.520
alarming because up until that point, basically the, the line was that, you know, we're not doing
00:45:48.560
any kind of, any kind of research there. Like, it's just absurd to suggest that we are. And then
00:45:53.700
you get that interview and Rubio asks, uh, it was basically a softball question, right? And all she
00:45:59.440
had to say was no, but she didn't, she, she didn't say that we weren't, you know, experimenting with
00:46:05.060
dangerous stuff there, doing research and development with dangerous stuff. She said that there is,
00:46:09.800
and it would be bad if she kind of, it was a beater on the Bush answer, but more importantly,
00:46:15.720
she said it would be bad if the Russians got their hands on it. And then Marco Rubio's follow-up
00:46:19.920
is, uh, well, you know, any, you know, the, the, any, uh, suggestion that, that, uh, that the United
00:46:28.100
States would do something like a false flag is just Russian misinformation. Right. And then,
00:46:32.820
and then that's, that kind of ended up becoming the, the, the talking point for the media.
00:46:36.860
Um, weird, but an interesting way to ask that question.
00:46:40.960
Yeah. I mean, because it seemed like Rubio was expecting her to just say no and kind of deny it,
00:46:46.760
but then when she didn't, he was like, well, anything to the contrary is Russian misinformation.
00:46:50.700
Right. And I mean, this, this gets into the question of like, would the United States government
00:46:56.060
ever lie to us? Which is yes. Right. Yeah. Uh, so I think that, I mean, the, the biolab story is,
00:47:02.560
is it's, I mean, it's, it's only alarming in the sense that right now you're hearing again and again
00:47:12.220
that the, the red line for NATO intervention is the use of chemical weapons. Yeah. That's alarming
00:47:18.540
because we, we apparently do have things like chemical weapons in Ukraine. Yeah. It's alarming
00:47:26.140
because it's impossible not to speculate like would, would, uh, basically Ukrainian forces
00:47:33.640
attempt to do something with that stuff and make it seem as if Russia did it in order to get us
00:47:39.140
involved. Like we've seen examples of this. I didn't even think about that. Right. Well,
00:47:43.680
I mean, we've seen example of this, uh, examples of this debate. Uh, I mean, this is extremely
00:47:48.600
controversial. There's, there's still tons of debate over it, but you know, the question of
00:47:51.980
whether or not Assad used chemical weapons in Syria, you know, on the one hand, you have people
00:47:57.200
that say that he did. And on the other hand, you have people that saying that like, actually it was
00:48:01.240
rebels that used chemical weapons and then attempt to attempted to, to put it on the Assad regime
00:48:06.860
in order to spark international outrage. And just the fact that that argument exists and that debate
00:48:14.300
is still ongoing should inform what's happening right now in Ukraine. Because again,
00:48:21.320
it is extremely concerning that we're drawing the red line of chemical weapons when we've established
00:48:27.300
that there are in fact chemical weapons in Ukraine. Right. It's, it's alarming for a number
00:48:32.640
of reasons. On the one, the most obvious one is that it would trigger basically world war three.
00:48:37.480
And on the other one, the only recall, the only thing that you could do in the event that chemical
00:48:43.780
weapons are used in Ukraine and everyone is saying it's Russia is saying, well, how do we know it was in
00:48:48.680
Ukraine that use them and then attempted to peg them on Russia? Right. To get us involved. That is
00:48:54.420
an extremely difficult position to find yourself in because then you start sounding like you're just
00:49:00.080
repeating like, you know, whatever the Kremlin is saying. But on the other hand, we actually have
00:49:05.440
seen Ukraine lie about things that Russia is doing. Like, for example, on more than one occasion,
00:49:12.100
Zelensky and his officials have claimed that Russia was deliberately trying to blow up
00:49:15.980
nuclear facilities. Not like there's fighting nearby. This is cause for concern. It was like
00:49:23.560
Zelensky used the term nuclear terrorism and was suggesting that Russia was deliberately trying
00:49:29.200
to destroy nuclear facilities. Just not true. Like it, uh, Reuters, I mean, incredibly Reuters and the
00:49:36.960
Associated Press actually did on the ground interviews with people at the plant who on the one hand confirmed
00:49:41.700
that like, there is no imminent, you know, like, yeah, yes, this, this, this, unfortunately there is
00:49:46.620
fighting going around nuclear facilities, but, uh, like it's under control. Uh, the, the fires are under
00:49:54.420
control. Uh, the, the facilities are, are, are basically safe. And at the same time that you have
00:50:00.040
these, these officials on the ground saying that, like basically just, uh, dismissing the idea that Russia
00:50:06.080
is actively trying to detonate like a nuclear power plant or something like that. Zelensky and officials
00:50:10.920
are saying like Russia is engaging in nuclear terrorism and we need to close the skies over
00:50:15.080
Ukraine right now. Every time that, that, that, that they can, they've used or played up some
00:50:21.780
events in order to get us involved. And I think that one was actually for, for, I mean, people have
00:50:27.780
already forgotten about this, but for a while that was actually the scariest moment that we had.
00:50:33.020
Um, it's a nuclear power plants. It's the, I think it's actually the biggest one in Europe.
00:50:37.040
And, uh, I'm not, I'm not even gonna try to pronounce the name of the, of the town that it's
00:50:40.620
in, but that plant became kind of like the rallying point for Zelensky and his officials.
00:50:47.460
And for a lot of journalists that like, okay, Russia is trying to blow up the biggest nuclear
00:50:51.920
facility in, in Europe. We need to close the skies over Ukraine, which would entail shooting
00:50:57.040
down Russian aircraft and destroying Russian anti-air, uh, systems on the ground. In other words,
00:51:03.680
a full scale intervention by NATO, bringing the United States into direct conflict with Russia.
00:51:09.940
That is what Ukraine tried to trick us into doing already. Why wouldn't they do it again
00:51:16.360
with something like chemical weapons? It's not, it's not insane to say that we should be extremely
00:51:21.900
skeptical of anything like this that comes out of Ukraine because they, I mean, it's, it's in their
00:51:27.420
interest to get us involved in a sense. It's rational to get us involved. It's catastrophic.
00:51:32.160
It would get tons of people killed, but it's understandable that they would do that kind
00:51:36.040
of stuff to get, to bring us into the conflict. So that's why.
00:51:38.840
Right. Ukraine seeks its own interest better than the United States is looking after its
00:51:43.160
own interest. I mean, for sure, whether we agree with the tactics or not, and maybe we
00:51:48.840
give the Biden administration a little credit. I don't know if you agree with this, but I did
00:51:53.320
hear Jen Psaki when she was asked by a journalist, like, why don't we do a no fly zone? I honestly
00:51:58.060
think a lot of people don't know what a no fly zone entails. There's this very popular
00:52:02.100
Instagram influencer who says that she's unbiased, but she definitely leans to the left and so
00:52:06.380
does her audience. She asked people, you know, what do you think we should do in Ukraine?
00:52:10.420
Almost every comment said no fly zone. We need to go in there. We need to intervene. I don't
00:52:15.680
think people even understand the level of casualties that we would have in what that actually means.
00:52:21.780
But anyway, back to the Biden administration, Jen Psaki said that she said, look, we're basically
00:52:27.080
declaring war if we do a no fly zone and they haven't intervened as much as Republicans and
00:52:33.260
Democrats have asked them to as much as the media has asked them to. Do you think they'll hold the
00:52:37.100
line on that? I this is this is what work gets. Again, this is one of the things that you can go
00:52:43.160
crazy thinking about. But I think Biden personally is kind of dovish and he doesn't. I think he's
00:52:49.620
genuinely afraid of a full scale confrontation with Russia, which is good. That's one of the most
00:52:54.660
sanist thoughts that he probably has. Yes, it's one. Yeah, it's one of the only redeeming qualities
00:53:00.520
of Biden is that I think he's deeply afraid of of an actual U.S.-led war against Russia for good
00:53:07.360
reason. Russia's only real recourse, if that happens, is the use of its tactical nuclear arsenal,
00:53:14.400
which, again, I think is something that a lot of Americans and Westerners don't understand is they
00:53:19.360
think of like these massive ICBMs that that are just so destructive that people don't use them
00:53:25.880
precisely because of the concept of mutually assured destruction. Right. But then there are these lower
00:53:30.940
yield nuclear weapons that are designed to take out smaller targets. I mean, they're still extremely
00:53:36.440
destructive, but they're not like doomsday level destructive. Right. And Russia has a massive arsenal
00:53:43.280
of these tactical nuclear weapons that it would use if faced with I mean, they've already said
00:53:50.500
if faced with an existential threat, we will use our nuclear arsenal. They have more of them than we
00:53:56.880
do in Europe. And they've made it clear like and it makes I mean, it makes sense from Russia's
00:54:02.260
perspective. They how else will they handle a unified NATO led by the United States going to war with
00:54:09.960
them by itself? Nukes. And that is being totally omitted from the discussion. I mean, you have
00:54:17.760
some people that are actually honest and they're saying, well, it's worth it. Like Madeleine Albright
00:54:21.400
moment. Right. It's worth nuclear war is worth democracy in Ukraine. There won't be anybody left
00:54:26.120
alive in Ukraine, but there'll be democracy there. The smoldering ruins of democracy. So I think Biden,
00:54:33.540
I think Biden is dovish, which I'm grateful for. But I think there are also people in the administration,
00:54:39.160
like Victoria, who are extremely interventionist and are, I mean, these people, it's important to
00:54:46.940
understand that these people like Noland were instrumental in kind of taking the Obama administration
00:54:54.760
and pushing it more in a liberal internationalist direction. You know, there's debate over whether or
00:55:02.820
not Obama would have done certain things on the foreign policy level were not for the fact that
00:55:10.160
you had people like Victoria Noland working for him, who kind of hijacked his policy or nudged it in a
00:55:15.300
certain direction. I mean, these people really are determined to get what they want, regardless of
00:55:21.040
who the president is. I mean, that's, that's actually a really useful way of looking at this. Like,
00:55:26.900
again, Noland has been, she served under Clinton. She served under W. She served under Obama. She
00:55:34.080
served under Biden. All of these presidents and all these administrations have gone, but she and her
00:55:40.320
friends have remained and they have been really effective at getting their way, regardless of
00:55:45.220
who's president, Republican or Democrat. And that's the really terrifying thing is just in the same way
00:55:51.320
that Zelensky is not fully in control. I think you could argue that Biden is not fully in control.
00:55:56.900
And that although he might actually be a, you know, thank God, a restraining force,
00:56:01.560
there are people within his administration who absolutely want to take us in the direction of war.
00:56:08.580
And I don't think Biden, I mean, if Obama couldn't overcome these people, I think Biden's chances of
00:56:16.260
doing it are not great, which is why in a really, I'm basically like the best possible
00:56:26.900
outcome is that Putin and Zelensky actually come to an agreement and end up partitioning Ukraine,
00:56:33.960
basically like the Eastern parts of Ukraine end up becoming part of Russia. And then the Western
00:56:39.040
parts end up just, you know, actually just remain part of, uh, or remain, uh, as Ukraine. I think that
00:56:45.800
would actually be the, probably the best possible outcome and the only way to avoid it because the
00:56:50.360
longer this conflict drags on, the more likely our intervention becomes.
00:56:55.060
Yeah. And they're just scary implications, scary implications for that for sure.
00:57:00.380
Well, I appreciate your insight so much. Thanks for having the courage to ask a lot of the questions
00:57:05.160
that people won't ask. I think it's a good reminder. I like this conversation because it's
00:57:10.040
a reminder that this isn't essentially a left versus right thing. It's really not. It's about
00:57:16.220
people who are seeking American interests and people who may possibly have interests beyond
00:57:20.600
and outside of the United States. And I just appreciate how you are always interested in
00:57:25.580
putting America first. So thanks for that. And thanks for coming on.
00:57:29.600
Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate, uh, the platform and I'm sorry, I couldn't go
00:57:34.840
more into detail, but there's just, there's like, you could do, you could write, uh, a, like a mini
00:57:40.240
series on, on this stuff. And maybe you should, maybe you should, maybe that's your next project.