Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 588 ｜ What the Media Won't Tell You About Ukraine & Zelenskyy ｜ Guest： Pedro Gonzalez

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Thursday. This episode is brought to you by our friends

00:00:04.480 at Good Ranchers, American meat delivered right to your front door. That's goodranchers.com

00:00:08.380 slash Allie, goodranchers.com slash Allie. Okay, today we are having a fascinating conversation

00:00:23.020 with Pedro Gonzalez. He is the associate editor of Chronicles Magazine. He is a writer. He does

00:00:29.480 not describe himself as a journalist and you will hear him say why. We are talking about Ukraine.

00:00:35.320 Pedro has been very courageous in asking some questions that are deemed controversial,

00:00:40.600 that you are not allowed to ask unless you want to be accused by the mainstream media of being a

00:00:45.720 Putin puppet. And yet he's asking these questions. He's going to talk to us about the history of

00:00:50.580 Ukraine. He's going to talk to us about Zelensky. We're going to talk about some things that a lot

00:00:55.560 of people just don't want to talk about, don't want to mention, don't want to dig into, because as we

00:01:01.140 will discuss, you're only supposed to have one position when it comes to Ukraine and you cannot

00:01:06.240 question the popular narrative or else you are unpatriotic. Now, as we've mentioned before,

00:01:11.520 doesn't that line sound very familiar? If you're not for lockdowns, if you're not for Black Lives Matter

00:01:18.540 burning down and looting cities, if you are not for kids having, you know, mandatory vaccines and 0.51

00:01:26.040 masks when they're two years old, then it's because you want people to die, because you hate America. 0.82

00:01:31.240 If you don't think that young kids should be chemically castrated in the state of Texas, 0.94

00:01:35.440 if you don't think that teachers should be talking to five-year-olds about gender switching, 0.99

00:01:39.860 it's because you want these people to die. It's because you're a horrible person. And that's the same 1.00

00:01:44.700 kind of line that we are hearing when it comes to Ukraine. If you ask any questions at all about

00:01:50.340 our involvement or the level of our involvement, you are accused of not caring about the Ukrainian

00:01:54.820 people and of being pro-Putin. Of course, that's ridiculous. So we're just going to buck that 0.94

00:02:00.560 narrative because, quite frankly, I don't believe that. I think, as we discussed either last week or

00:02:06.960 a couple weeks ago, that you can hold common sense and compassion in your brain at the same time.

00:02:12.400 We should be able to do that as thoughtful people, especially as Christians, right? We should be

00:02:16.640 able to say that what's happening in Ukraine to the Ukrainian people who are caught in the

00:02:20.520 crossfire here, that's really bad. We talked also about how there's always been a human trafficking

00:02:27.300 problem in Ukraine. Of course, there's a problem throughout the world, but especially in Ukraine,

00:02:31.100 it's kind of a hotbed for it. Human trafficking, not just in the sense of sex trafficking, but also

00:02:35.960 in the human trafficking of the corrupt surrogacy industry that is there. And so Ukraine has been a 0.63

00:02:41.840 hotbed of a corruption for a long time. If you just search on whatever your search engine is,

00:02:47.180 Ukraine, corruption, New York Times, you will come up with a lot of articles detailing this.

00:02:52.420 And so it's really nonsensical and it's really worrisome that we are supposed to now be

00:02:57.820 unconditionally lionizing the leadership of a country that we've known for a long time

00:03:03.260 is not actually pro-democracy. So we can understand that while also still saying, wow,

00:03:09.800 we have so much compassion and so much sympathy for the Ukrainian people and also a lot of sympathy

00:03:15.340 for the Russian people who are not a part of this invasion and are also suffering because of

00:03:21.900 sanctions that are actually hurting them and hurting us and not actually hurting the Putin regime.

00:03:26.980 So let's be a little bit more thoughtful than what the mainstream media is telling us that we can be.

00:03:31.540 Let's ask the questions that we are not allowed to ask because we are under an obligation as people,

00:03:39.940 as Christians, to try to find the truth. And I'm not saying that like we're going to come up with

00:03:44.900 everything that is objectively true in this conversation, but we're asking, we're going

00:03:49.520 into the territory that we are being told right now you're not supposed to go into. So I think you

00:03:54.960 are going to find this conversation with Pedro very interesting and very enlightening. At the very

00:04:00.200 least, it'll give you food for thought. And it should make us wonder what is actually in

00:04:05.320 Americans' interest. That's what we're supposed to be thinking about. That's what the leadership of

00:04:09.660 any country is supposed to be thinking. What is in the interest of my people? Not the intelligence

00:04:18.180 bureaucracy, not the military industrial complex, not just the leadership, not the bureaucracy in the

00:04:25.160 country, but what is in the best interest of our people? And unfortunately, we've seen in a variety

00:04:30.120 of ways time and time again that the people who lead this country, mostly unelected bureaucrats

00:04:35.240 in a variety of agencies, don't really care about what is in the best interest of the American people.

00:04:42.440 So knowing that and seeing that throughout the years, that should make us a little bit curious,

00:04:47.620 if not entirely cynical, about what we hear from the media about anything, including when it comes to

00:04:54.960 Russia and Ukraine. So we know Putin is a wicked dictator. We know that the Ukrainian people are 1.00

00:05:03.600 suffering. We understand those things. Let's hold those things in our head while also asking some

00:05:08.920 interesting questions. Can we do that? I think that we can. I think that we can. And Pedro is going to

00:05:14.080 help us. So before we have that conversation with Pedro Gonzalez, just going to tell you what is

00:05:19.540 coming up. So next week, we've got a few fun things that we're going to be talking about,

00:05:25.600 important things. We are going to finally be covering that those two abortion bills that you 0.98

00:05:30.180 guys have been asking me about, one in Colorado, one in Maryland. And I'm also going to share,

00:05:34.940 I believe it's on Monday, maybe Tuesday. We haven't decided yet. This really interesting statistic that I

00:05:42.580 found about maternal mortality rates in the United States. And it just kind of made me realize that so

00:05:49.260 much policy, whether it's the policy of hospitals or whether it's government policy, not only are

00:05:54.680 children laid on the altar of bad policy, as we've talked about many times, but so are women. So what 0.99

00:06:01.320 does this mean for the Christian? How should we be looking at this stuff biblically? And we'll also

00:06:06.460 look once again at the Supreme Court nominee and what she thinks about life and life inside the womb. 0.85

00:06:13.620 And so we'll be talking about all of that on Monday or Tuesday. I think we are going to

00:06:19.800 look at Ukraine also from another angle next week. I've also got a fun interview coming out with Phil

00:06:25.440 and Al Robertson. So lots to look forward to. As always, feel free to send me what you want me to

00:06:31.440 talk about next week. Pedro, thanks so much for joining us. Can you first tell us who you are and what

00:06:37.960 you do? Yeah. So I'm the associate editor at Chronicles Magazine and I am a writer because I

00:06:44.180 don't like the term journalist because I don't like journalists. So. Oh, can you unpack that for us just

00:06:49.400 a little bit? I'm sure a lot of people have the same sentiments. Yeah. It's a weird place to be in

00:06:54.360 because this is what I do, right? This is what I do for a living. It's my only job. But there's also

00:07:01.860 this kind of conflicted feeling I have because when you look around, it really seems like a lot of

00:07:07.020 journalists are not actually, you know, truth tellers or how they like to describe themselves.

00:07:12.500 They're actually just kind of repeating whatever, whether it is they're the people that own their

00:07:18.280 publications or right now in the context of Ukraine and Russia, it's whatever the Pentagon is saying.

00:07:24.480 Right. Right now, you know, you've got journalists from MSNBC and CNN basically demanding, not asking NATO

00:07:31.620 questions like, you know, would it be worth getting into a nuclear war with Russia over Ukraine? I mean,

00:07:38.460 would that make sense for the world? Instead, you've got journalists asking, would it be morally

00:07:43.800 acceptable for NATO to stand by and do nothing? I mean, this is again, these are journalists who are

00:07:50.240 supposed to be asking tough questions, but instead they're kind of browbeating other people into doing what

00:07:55.300 they want. So, yeah, I mean, it's just it's a weird position for people like me to be in because

00:08:01.480 I know I'm not alone in this, like guys like Glenn Greenwald, who's obviously more on the political

00:08:06.860 left, but he feels the same way that a lot of journalists, especially in the mainstream, are kind

00:08:11.580 of just, for lack of a better word, bootlickers of one variety or another. Yeah, I think the journalist

00:08:18.320 that you were just describing is Andrea Mitchell from NBC. I think that she's the one that recently

00:08:23.800 asked that kind of just strange question. And we're used to this, especially over the past few

00:08:29.920 years, we've seen a lot of journalists become sycophants for one side and really just kind of

00:08:34.600 unashamedly, that whole activist journalist movement that has really become mainstream. And

00:08:40.140 it really, I think it boils down to, well, there are a lot of different factors, the ones that you just

00:08:44.940 listed are there for sure. But I think in the simplest terms, like it's hard to write objectively about

00:08:49.560 your friends. And journalists have become friends with these Democrat politicians. They've become

00:08:54.220 friends with the people in our intelligence bureaucracy. It's really hard to distance yourself

00:09:01.280 when you have formed these relationships. And where these relationships are a little quid pro quo,

00:09:06.200 and you feel like you've got a little bit of power, a little bit of maybe insulation from criticism or

00:09:11.580 whatever it is, if you kind of cozy up to the people in power, it's really difficult. It takes more

00:09:17.040 integrity than most journalists have in this country to distance yourself from your friends and be able

00:09:21.560 to write about things objectively. Do you think that's part of it? Yeah, that's certainly part of

00:09:25.920 it. It's access. And you don't, like you said, you don't want to fear losing access by, you know,

00:09:31.700 doing your job a little too well. And that's, I think that's certainly a huge aspect of it. But

00:09:37.700 there's also this ideological component to it where, again, journalists like to describe themselves.

00:09:44.360 And I don't lie about this. Like, I have my prejudices. I am biased, in fact, toward the

00:09:50.900 American interests. But I don't hide it. I guess the issue is that you have so many journalists who

00:09:55.340 do hide it. They like to cast themselves as just objective truth tellers. You know, they're not

00:10:00.780 picking a side, but they are. It's obvious they are. When they ask questions like that, you know,

00:10:05.180 don't we have a moral responsibility to intervene and possibly trigger World War III? That's not an

00:10:10.320 unbiased question. That's all of these questions are loaded. Right. Yeah. So I think that's a huge

00:10:16.540 part of it is, on the one hand, yes, there is this sycophancy, this desire for access, which

00:10:23.380 the access part to a degree is understandable. But, you know, when it's informing all of your work,

00:10:29.860 it obviously becomes a problem. Because you do need to maintain good relations with some people

00:10:35.360 to do your job. But, you know, again, there's a limit to what that looks like. Right. And then on

00:10:41.200 the other, on the other hand, it's this, this ideological component that I've just been referring

00:10:46.020 to as liberal internationalism, that we have a kind of, or as Andrea Mitchell said, we have a moral

00:10:51.840 obligation to invade the world or intervene, to put it euphemistically, to intervene everywhere and invite

00:10:58.840 the world. So basically, I mean, it's not a coincidence that many of the same people that are saying that we

00:11:04.580 must intervene in Ukraine are also the same ones that you'll hear saying that we have an obligation,

00:11:10.320 we have a moral duty to accept everyone who comes to our border illegally or not. We have a moral duty

00:11:17.080 to allow them into the country. It's often the same people. Yeah. Can you help me kind of understand

00:11:22.660 because there are these same people who are saying that we have a moral obligation to intervene

00:11:31.960 uniquely in Ukraine? They don't seem to think that in every single area of the world, which is

00:11:38.020 interesting. These are some of the same people, though, that say that they are anti-imperialism and

00:11:43.220 they kind of demonize the history of the United States by saying America have, it's just been an evil

00:11:49.440 imperialist force for wickedness and destruction throughout our history, throughout the world. 0.73

00:11:55.560 They would say that they are against that. But at the same time, they are pushing for a form of

00:12:00.660 imperialism. And also, they don't care about China's imperialism in different parts of the world. So

00:12:05.940 can you help me understand that? Is that just hypocrisy? Like they don't understand that they

00:12:10.240 are contradicting themselves? Or is it more complex than what I'm explaining?

00:12:15.180 I think hypocrisy is certainly a factor. But then I think that hypocrisy might entail a... I know it's

00:12:25.000 difficult, right? Because you have to wonder, is there any self-awareness here? Part of me thinks

00:12:31.340 that to be a hypocrite, you have to be... A person has to be aware of the contradictions. But the fact 0.91

00:12:38.640 that they're not aware of them, or they don't even recognize them, I think is what makes this more

00:12:42.920 complicated. And so, I mean, this gets into the history of Ukraine, right? Because like you said,

00:12:49.120 we like to denounce imperialism in the United States a lot. In recent times, we like to demonize

00:12:57.160 our own history now in schools. And we have engaged in this systematic project of basically

00:13:05.200 deconstructing America and kind of recasting it as an evil empire. But the same people are also, 0.71

00:13:12.440 like you said, the ones saying that we actually have a responsibility to intervene in places like

00:13:17.340 Ukraine. And when you go back and look at how we got here, you kind of see this, we'll just call it

00:13:26.020 hypocrisy. You can see this hypocrisy at play, that basically, the thing that's being left out of this

00:13:32.140 entire discussion is that the West, and specifically, Western liberal interventionists,

00:13:39.580 have, I mean, I've been putting this very bluntly, these people have blood on their hands.

00:13:44.660 Yes, Putin invaded Ukraine in February. There's no disputing that. Russia is going to have to answer

00:13:51.940 for what's happening. You know, civilians are being killed in this. All of these things are obvious and

00:13:59.180 tragic. But what's not obvious, and I would even say is just as tragic is the fact that the architects

00:14:04.560 of this crisis have not been held accountable. Right now, they're doing a great job of reinventing

00:14:12.160 themselves as the heroes of the moment. And they're even going so far as saying that if you dare

00:14:18.620 question, you know, if you even ask that question, like, for example, Tucker Carlson, you know, did

00:14:23.240 Washington, D.C. have a hand in this crisis? If you ask that question, you're a traitor. 0.96

00:14:28.040 Yeah. According to Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney and other smart people like Adam Kinzinger. 0.54

00:14:33.120 That's who you're talking about. When you're talking about the architects,

00:14:36.020 who are you talking about? And why do you say that they're the architects?

00:14:40.940 Oh, boy. Ukraine is, I can't think of an analog for it because there are so many different competing 1.00

00:14:46.580 factors and players from basically D.C. ideologues to cynics like the Clinton Foundation to Ukrainian

00:14:56.660 and Russian oligarchs. It's actually it's it's so what we can just say this for certain. And I'll

00:15:03.220 get into like a few key figures. But we can say this for certain. Ukraine is not a battle for

00:15:07.780 democracy. There is an actual nationalist sentiment in Ukraine. And there are people in Ukraine who

00:15:13.080 want democracy, namely the civilians who are really caught in the crossfire. But in terms of like

00:15:18.740 geopolitics, this is not a battle for democracy. It's a battle between like competing interest groups

00:15:24.960 that are obviously just reframing it as a battle for democracy because, you know, it democracies

00:15:30.760 and heist buzzword. You know, who could disagree with democracy? Right. Who could be against

00:15:34.980 liberal democracy? Right. So, yeah, I mean, we can we can focus on one set of players and to kind of

00:15:44.280 help understand why, you know, this is not actually, like I said, a battle for liberal democracy.

00:15:49.660 But instead, this it's a kind of like hive of villainy and intrigue. And so one example that is

00:16:00.980 kind of illustrative of the relationship on the one hand between the U.S. government, Ukrainian

00:16:06.980 oligarchs, and on the other hand, NGOs, this is a huge thing in Ukraine is this relationship between

00:16:16.400 the Clinton Foundation and a Ukrainian oligarch named Viktor Pinchuk. And cut me off at any time.

00:16:24.480 Go for it.

00:16:25.200 So the Wall Street Journal published an article in 2015, and they looked at individual donations

00:16:32.180 made by foreign donors to the Clinton Foundation between the 90s and running up to 2014.

00:16:39.780 Because the article was published in 2015. So that's the window they had to work with. And what

00:16:46.020 they found was, is that the top source of donations of more than $50,000 or more to the Clinton

00:16:56.520 Foundation by foreign contributors actually came from Ukraine. Interesting, right? And one of these key

00:17:04.900 figures is, like I said, a guy named Viktor Pinchuk. So how does Viktor Pinchuk end up giving almost $10

00:17:12.300 million to the Clinton Foundation? Well, he was introduced to Bill Clinton by a registered lobbyist

00:17:19.500 for Viktor Pinchuk named Doug Schoen, who actually worked as a pollster for both Bill and Hillary Clinton.

00:17:26.160 So Pinchuk is introduced to Bill Clinton by Doug Schoen in 2006. By 2007, Bill Clinton is doing speaking

00:17:36.920 events at initiatives that are run by Viktor Pinchuk. And by 2008, you have a significant amount of money

00:17:45.500 that's moving between Viktor Pinchuk and Clinton NGOs. And this relationship overlaps, this relationship

00:17:54.580 between the Ukrainian oligarch and the Clinton Foundation overlaps with Hillary Clinton's time

00:18:00.700 at the State Department. Doug Schoen has denied that him being a registered lobbyist for Pinchuk

00:18:08.180 had anything to do with the relationship between the Clinton Foundation, Hillary Clinton, and Bill

00:18:13.660 Clinton, of course, because he has to. But this is, again, really illustrative of the kind of dealing

00:18:19.580 that you have going on in this country, which kind of helps explain why there is this incredible,

00:18:26.860 like powerful border. I mean, it is it's hysterical reaction to the threat of Ukraine kind of being 0.81

00:18:33.980 taken out of the orbit of of DC and its allies. I can we can move on. Yeah, I think. Well, I'll just

00:18:44.580 kind of enter, I think, some questions that just that the common person has. I don't consider myself a

00:18:49.280 foreign policy expert. But of course, I pay attention and a lot of people do. And I think

00:18:53.700 some questions that people have, but they're scared to ask, because we're being told by the

00:18:58.060 very journalist that we were just referencing, that you can't have common sense and compassion

00:19:03.900 at the same time that the two are mutually exclusive. So if you ask questions about our

00:19:08.060 motivations in our the level of intervention in Ukraine, that means you don't care about the

00:19:12.420 Ukrainians dying. That means, as you mentioned earlier, that you're a Putin puppet, that you're pro 0.80

00:19:16.620 Russia, whatever. But I think most people actually do hold common sense and compassion at the same

00:19:22.100 time. I think most people do say, you know what, what's happening there is really bad. Obviously,

00:19:27.160 don't support don't support Putin. And we're really sad for what's happening in Ukraine. The

00:19:32.860 stories coming out of their women and children being trafficked, it's all just awful. We can be sad

00:19:36.880 about that. And also ask at the same time, hang on, like, why are we so hyper focused on this? Why are the

00:19:43.760 same people that believe, as you mentioned earlier, that we have a moral obligation to accept all

00:19:48.640 people that we basically have no sovereignty? As a country, we have no borders. Why are they so

00:19:52.900 hyper focused on Ukraine's borders? Like the people who don't care about democracy at all here? They

00:19:58.000 say that they care so much about democracy in Ukraine. Isn't that a little odd? Isn't it a little

00:20:02.760 odd how they are? They are doing the same thing that they did with BLM. They're doing the same thing that

00:20:09.240 they did with lockdowns, that if you disagree with them, it's because you want people to die. The same

00:20:13.220 thing that they do with, you know, transitioning kids, if you don't agree with that, it's because you 0.92

00:20:17.800 want kids to die by suicide. They do this. And they're doing this with Ukraine. And so the question 1.00

00:20:22.580 I think that most people have is, why? And I know that you kind of started to answer that, especially

00:20:27.660 with the people who have, you know, actual monetary interest, financial interest there. But what is the

00:20:33.060 interest of people like Mitt Romney? What is the interest of people like Adam Kissinger, these

00:20:37.640 Republicans who want so badly for us to intervene and maybe start World War Three? Why? I just can't

00:20:45.220 understand the why behind it.

00:20:47.420 Well, I think the so let's say that these people are true believers. They're dyed in the wool ideologues.

00:20:53.340 I think that you'll you'll eventually go crazy trying to understand ideologues because, I mean, ideology

00:20:59.460 is a kind of self-contained thing. It's you can't really we have this saying, right, or conservatives have

00:21:05.680 this saying. Facts don't care about your feelings. Well, with ideologues, feelings always trump facts.

00:21:12.320 And so you can show them, for example, that you Washington led sanctions against Iraq for its

00:21:20.180 invasion of Kuwait in the early 90s, that those sanctions resulted. And again, I say Washington

00:21:27.280 because obviously the American people, if they knew what happens as a result of this stuff, they

00:21:32.640 wouldn't they wouldn't want anything to do with it. But the sanctions led by the United States

00:21:36.680 government resulted in up to half a million children in Iraq starving and dying. That again,

00:21:44.400 that's the high end. And I think to give you some insight into how unrepentant ideologues are true

00:21:51.920 believers, Madeleine Albright, who recently passed away when she was asked by 60 Minutes if she thought

00:21:58.540 and again, that number is disputed, like on the high end, it's half a million. But some people say

00:22:02.740 it's half that. What's indisputable is that a lot of children ended up starving to death as a direct

00:22:08.080 result of the sanctions imposed by Washington, D.C. and that they spearheaded. So when presented with

00:22:16.120 the figure half a million by I think it was 60 Minutes during an interview at 60 Minutes, she was asked,

00:22:21.960 was it worth it? And Madeleine Albright said it was. It was worth it. There's no, I mean, again,

00:22:30.600 it's important to understand that these are the same people that are telling you we have a moral

00:22:34.680 obligation to intervene because we did it in Kuwait and it was worth it. That's insane. You know, what

00:22:40.980 good, decent American would say, yeah, that was worth it. I mean, Americans have good, and I think this is

00:22:48.000 one of the good things about conservatism is that there's like a deep skepticism toward government,

00:22:53.480 and for good reason, because these are the people that are creating policy, the ones that will just

00:22:58.020 look you in the face and say, yeah, it was half a million, up to half a million children starving to

00:23:01.900 death. Yeah, that was worth it. No, it wasn't. And I mean, like, I'm a father. I'm a new father. I

00:23:08.480 have a toddler and a few month old. Me too. We're in the same boat, in the same stage. Yep.

00:23:16.020 Yeah. So, no, when I hear people talk like that, it was worth it. I mean,

00:23:19.980 like, you know, obviously what Iraq did was bad, but no, making it worse, you know, 0.73

00:23:26.700 to satisfy your ideology of liberal internationalism, no, it's not worth it.

00:23:36.640 Do you distinguish, because I saw this distinction earlier, and maybe you don't,

00:23:41.040 do you distinguish between internationalism and globalism? And if you do, why?

00:23:48.360 I think they're related. I mean, it's ultimately this view of, well, I would say that the difference

00:23:54.360 is that we're talking about globalism, or in a sense, we're talking about just the

00:23:58.720 internationalization of the division of labor. We're all now kind of interdependent on each other,

00:24:04.180 right? Which is obviously, you know, on the one hand, you get like nice wine and cheese from

00:24:10.860 around the world. But on the other hand, you send your factories to China and Mexico and stuff like

00:24:14.820 that. So that's kind of globalism, right? The, again, the internationalization, the division of

00:24:19.800 labor, and global interdependency. I would say that the liberal internationalist, or the pejorative form

00:24:27.640 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

00:25:31.720 whatever Washington thinks is right. Right.

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 1.00

00:26:13.900 something. It's, Ann Applebaum recently used that term to describe people like Tucker Carlson, 1.00

00:26:18.400 useful idiot, because he's, again, asking these questions, like, should we start World War III 0.99

00:26:23.320 over Ukraine? You know, like, would that save lives or, or result in more casualties? Well, 1.00

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 1.00

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, 0.97

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 0.99

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 0.85

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 0.98

00:30:11.760 predominantly minority Americans, and them, it's been exclusively a destructive force and a force 1.00

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 0.98

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. 0.99

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. 0.96

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. 0.95

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 0.55

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 0.83

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. 0.98

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 0.97

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 1.00

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 1.00

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 0.93

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 1.00

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. 0.75

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.

00:57:44.920 Okay. Thank you so much, Pedro.

00:57:47.260 Thank you.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - March 24, 2022

Ep 588 ｜ What the Media Won't Tell You About Ukraine & Zelenskyy ｜ Guest： Pedro Gonzalez

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