The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - The Anchormen Show Ep 63- The Sharp Report on The Warfront w： Pearson Sharp

00:00:00.000 Now, it's time for the Anchorman Podcast with Matt Gaetz and Dan Ball.

00:00:25.640 Welcome back to the Anchorman Show.

00:00:27.320 I'm Matt Gaetz, host of The Matt Gaetz Show on One American News.

00:00:30.360 And one of the things we love to do on this platform is highlight the exceptional journalism

00:00:35.120 that happens at One American News.

00:00:37.160 I spent most of my time in public life as a legislator, a lawmaker, so it's been great

00:00:42.000 to be a journalist.

00:00:43.020 And one of the investigative reporters we have here at OAN who goes closest to the story,

00:00:49.000 deepest into the fight, is my man, Pearson Sharp.

00:00:52.140 Pearson, thanks for being with me.

00:00:53.680 You have had a trip to Russia that we are going to spend the bulk of this discussion

00:00:59.360 on, the people, the culture, where the front lines are, what the sentiment is.

00:01:04.580 But just to give a backdrop, you have a way about you where you go and do these types of

00:01:11.000 things.

00:01:11.280 You've been to Syria.

00:01:12.760 Just maybe give the audience here a little refresher on some of the journalism you've done that's

00:01:18.120 been on the ground in places of great conflict and consternation.

00:01:22.340 Well, the biggest one outside of Russia would be, of course, Syria. 0.98

00:01:26.260 And I went there in 2018 in April.

00:01:29.660 And I went to Douma, which was a little suburb outside of Damascus.

00:01:34.360 And that was right exactly when the chemical attacks had happened.

00:01:38.980 And I got to go into this area that was cordoned off.

00:01:44.400 It was a restricted area.

00:01:45.780 No one else could go in except for the residents and stuff.

00:01:48.320 So we were there before some international teams even got to go in.

00:01:51.120 And we went down to these places that were making headlines everywhere for the wrong reasons.

00:01:57.720 And the narrative at the time was, of course, that President Bashar al-Assad was gassing his

00:02:04.620 own people.

00:02:05.380 He was killing his own civilians, killing his own citizens for his mustache-twirling, nefarious 0.97

00:02:12.300 purposes.

00:02:12.740 And that never made sense to me.

00:02:16.340 That kind of description of what's happening just doesn't make sense.

00:02:21.060 Because when you have, and it's the same thing with Ukraine, but we'll get to that. 0.99

00:02:24.540 When you have worldwide international attention on this area, you have international observers

00:02:30.500 in the area.

00:02:31.340 You have teams of Western media crews in the area.

00:02:35.160 Do you think that would be the time that you as a leader would choose to gas your own

00:02:39.660 civilians?

00:02:40.840 Like right on the brink of having an international treaty where you can end the war and things

00:02:45.660 are calming down and you're starting to get along with other Western leaders and President

00:02:48.700 Trump is maybe opening a dialogue like, no, this, this is the time that I want to gas my

00:02:53.260 people.

00:02:53.960 Like it didn't make any sense.

00:02:55.360 And so you, you decide to go there and what's the evidence you're looking for to prove or

00:03:00.480 disprove this theory?

00:03:01.740 Well, you go there to where they say that it happened and you just start asking questions.

00:03:05.240 It's as simple as that.

00:03:06.500 You talk to the people who were supposedly involved.

00:03:09.000 You go to the place that it happened and you look for evidence of what they're saying happened.

00:03:14.520 And that's just like a whole like throwback version of journalism.

00:03:18.700 You're like Clark Kent and Lois Lane and Jimmy at the Daily Planet going to the story.

00:03:24.300 And now journalism has been reduced to tweets and responses and mere commentary on the stories

00:03:31.920 generated by others.

00:03:33.100 It's like the most basic thing you can do is to go there and ask questions.

00:03:36.820 And people afterwards are always like, wow, I can't believe you went back there and you

00:03:40.540 did.

00:03:40.820 And it's like, it's the simplest thing.

00:03:42.860 You buy a ticket and you go.

00:03:45.540 Well, and that just do it.

00:03:46.820 Well, and so that spirit of really, I think, proactive journalism is what you've displayed

00:03:53.160 recently in your trip to Russia.

00:03:55.080 And I'm so excited to get into it.

00:03:57.280 Start with how does this opportunity present itself where you get the opportunity to go

00:04:02.860 and tell this story?

00:04:05.420 Well, so it's kind of a long story.

00:04:09.400 But over the years of doing reporting over there or reporting about the Ukrainian conflict,

00:04:14.280 I've, you know, made contacts in the area.

00:04:17.960 And I think in March, one of them reached out to me and said that they were putting together

00:04:25.060 a team of journalists, international journalists, to go over there and look at this area and

00:04:30.160 just see for yourself what's happening.

00:04:33.680 And that sounded really interesting to me.

00:04:36.240 See, like, to me, that sounds like hit up a few museums, maybe like a tea house.

00:04:42.300 Well, no, no.

00:04:43.320 Five-star hotel.

00:04:44.840 Yeah.

00:04:45.200 Room service.

00:04:46.720 Some really good borscht.

00:04:48.520 But that is not the experience you had.

00:04:50.960 That's not my, no, that's not my cup of tea.

00:04:52.680 I wanted to go over and see what was actually happening, like, in these areas.

00:04:55.340 So people had picked up that you were interested in this story, that you'd been following it.

00:05:01.140 You get this invitation.

00:05:03.540 Where do you show up?

00:05:05.520 Who are you talking with?

00:05:07.280 Who is helping to coordinate some of these interactions?

00:05:12.520 So there was an international team, and there was a team that was working with some state agencies,

00:05:21.920 but they were independent.

00:05:23.480 So the Russians knew you were there?

00:05:24.880 Yes.

00:05:25.440 Okay, so the Russians are aware you're there.

00:05:27.380 They know you're there.

00:05:28.340 You have to kind of get permission to go into some of these places.

00:05:30.380 Well, sure.

00:05:31.100 I mean, the American government knows when a foreign journalist who isn't a citizen of

00:05:35.100 the country comes here for the purpose of reporting.

00:05:37.420 Right.

00:05:38.240 But I never had any, like, forward-facing interactions with government officials.

00:05:43.040 It was never like, you know, Ivanovsky of the state bureau.

00:05:46.680 Which, by the way, is something I'm here to deeply criticize Russia over. 0.78

00:05:50.660 Vladimir Putin, you should have allowed Pearson Sharp to interview you, and you are wrong for

00:05:55.420 not granting Pearson his interview request.

00:05:57.680 Lavrov, you're wrong about it. 0.97

00:05:59.280 You're all cowards for not standing before Pearson's questions. 0.96

00:06:04.040 But anyway, so you're there. 0.76

00:06:06.700 What are some of the first scenes you're seeing, your first perspective on this place that the

00:06:13.820 Western media has been telling you is crippled as a consequence of the war?

00:06:17.820 Well, we land in Moscow, and I mean, right away, the picture is different from what we've been

00:06:24.600 told.

00:06:26.980 And I saw this subsequent times throughout my entire trip.

00:06:30.540 The idea is reinforced that the sanctions and the impact that they're supposedly having is

00:06:37.420 not nearly what we've been led to believe.

00:06:40.640 Life over there seems almost idyllic until you get to right where the actual war zone is

00:06:46.180 happening.

00:06:46.760 But, you know, the average Russian day, Dmitry Dmitryov over there is having a pretty good

00:06:52.480 time most of the time.

00:06:54.700 And what do they do most of the day?

00:06:57.320 What do Russians do every day? 0.91

00:07:00.040 Yeah, I don't know.

00:07:00.540 Are there malls?

00:07:01.540 Are there movies?

00:07:01.980 Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

00:07:03.380 Are there parks?

00:07:04.300 So one of my last night, yeah, there's parks.

00:07:06.140 One of my last days there, I just took a walk through Moscow, and I went through some of

00:07:10.480 the bigger areas, some of the smaller areas, just try to get a cross section of it.

00:07:13.900 And it was remarkable how normal everything was.

00:07:17.580 There was no panicking.

00:07:19.800 There was no trying to hoard supplies.

00:07:23.220 Everyone was out.

00:07:24.440 There's nightlife.

00:07:25.420 This was like a Monday night, I think, and people were out living it up.

00:07:29.460 I mean, it was the most normal scene you could picture.

00:07:33.540 Safe, clean, people were happy, having a good time.

00:07:36.860 It looked like downtown New York.

00:07:38.480 Like, it was just such a stark contrast.

00:07:42.360 As you're watching that, does it feel like the war sits over the culture in any way?

00:07:47.680 No, absolutely not.

00:07:48.540 No, you don't get a sense that there's anything like a war happening.

00:07:51.400 Do people seem embattled?

00:07:52.780 No.

00:07:53.640 No, it's very normal.

00:07:54.960 Do people seem scared?

00:07:55.800 No.

00:07:56.540 No, and when you ask them about, you know, how they feel about it, you know, they're

00:07:59.400 they're bothered that there's a war.

00:08:00.960 They, you know, they don't want to be fighting like anybody would, but the sanctions haven't

00:08:04.840 impacted their lives.

00:08:05.880 So there's a theory I've seen posited that the sanctions regime actually was a form of

00:08:12.760 economic nationalism that helped Russia.

00:08:15.540 They had these oligarchs that were spilling money all over the world. 0.98

00:08:20.400 And when their yachts and townhouses and mansions were seized or under threat of seizure, they

00:08:29.360 took the cash that they had and they brought it back to Russia and started developing vertical

00:08:35.620 residential.

00:08:37.040 They started making investments in Russian factories and manufacturers.

00:08:40.780 There's so much renovation.

00:08:41.620 And so I'm sitting there thinking, did the sanctions against Russia have like a similar

00:08:46.960 effect to Trump's tariffs?

00:08:48.500 No, they hurt us.

00:08:49.200 Like Trump's tariffs were about giving Americans and American businesses all the incentive in

00:08:55.820 the world to reinvest in our own people.

00:08:58.240 And for like a tax structure, not like a seizure structure.

00:09:02.140 But by the way, what is seizing the assets of Russian oligarchs if not a tax?

00:09:06.760 I guess it's like a war tax that we put on their elite.

00:09:10.540 And I remember being in Congress and people bringing us into these strategy meetings and

00:09:15.840 saying, so if we put these sanctions on and squeeze these oligarchs, if we fund domestic

00:09:21.560 spending by reappropriating the assets of some Russians that had New York penthouses, then

00:09:29.420 they will put pressure on Putin.

00:09:31.720 See, they won't want to be poor again.

00:09:33.380 They've been poor and they'll put pressure on Putin.

00:09:35.600 Not the way it works.

00:09:36.280 Instead, they brought their money back to Russia and they, from my perspective, are doing some

00:09:43.560 of the economic nationalism things.

00:09:44.820 Look, and I'm glad you brought this up.

00:09:48.560 That was one of the biggest things I noticed there is it seems like we shot ourselves in

00:09:52.760 the foot because before where there would have been American cars, and you still see some

00:09:59.040 American cars over there, but it's few and far between, all the cars you see are Chinese.

00:10:03.200 Chinese, they just gave a big boost.

00:10:06.000 These sanctions gave a big boost to the Chinese manufacturing industry because everything they're 0.94

00:10:10.480 buying now is Chinese.

00:10:12.580 Chinese cars wall to wall.

00:10:14.240 And I was just driving around thinking like, well, America, we lost Taiwan, but at least 0.99

00:10:17.960 we saved the Donbass region.

00:10:19.920 Yeah.

00:10:20.220 Yeah.

00:10:20.740 I mean, but it's like they could be driving American cars, but instead they're driving

00:10:24.780 Chinese cars.

00:10:25.360 Who did that help?

00:10:26.100 If they were the same, because I want to really get into the culture question because

00:10:29.560 it's what a lot of the arguments you've been making since you've returned have come back

00:10:34.280 to.

00:10:34.800 But like if your average Russian family for the same price could have a comparable Chinese 0.87

00:10:39.580 car or a comparable American car, what would they choose?

00:10:42.840 Yeah.

00:10:43.980 I couldn't say it was certainty, but my feeling would be they'd choose American because they

00:10:47.440 have a fetish for American stuff over there.

00:10:50.980 Absolutely.

00:10:52.260 And like, were they listening to Chinese music?

00:10:54.440 No, no.

00:10:55.340 Were they listening to American music?

00:10:56.540 It was American music.

00:10:57.580 Were they wearing Chinese clothes?

00:10:58.940 I mean, there's a lot of Russian music, but, well, I didn't check the tags, but you

00:11:02.460 know.

00:11:02.760 Yeah.

00:11:02.960 But I mean like traditional Chinese cars.

00:11:04.900 No.

00:11:05.400 I mean, these are American style.

00:11:07.640 Everything.

00:11:09.340 But like, for example, they used to have Uber over there and people would use Uber.

00:11:13.200 Uber got pulled out of the country with all the sanctions and stuff.

00:11:15.420 So now they have something called Yandex.

00:11:17.540 Operates basically the same thing.

00:11:18.840 So we swapped one American company for a Russian company.

00:11:21.960 That doesn't help us.

00:11:23.360 Then I'm sure there's a lot more examples.

00:11:26.380 That's a terrific example.

00:11:27.540 They have Starbucks pulled out of the country.

00:11:30.800 And so instead of Starbucks, they now have Stars Coffee with the exact same logo.

00:11:36.200 And I've got some, I've got a picture of it.

00:11:37.560 I'll see if we can put it up later.

00:11:39.580 Unbelievable.

00:11:40.160 So I'm sure there's tons of examples like that, but that's not hurting them.

00:11:43.660 That's helping them because they're becoming independent.

00:11:46.000 And I think Putin even commented on that.

00:11:47.480 He said that these sanctions have been the greatest gift to Russia that Trump could have

00:11:51.240 given us or that Biden could have given us because now they're producing their own things.

00:11:54.860 Well, yeah.

00:11:55.540 And I don't think Trump owns that because as you look at how Trump has tried to end this

00:12:00.440 war, it all leads to economic cooperation.

00:12:04.000 My sources tell me that a lot of this discussion in Alaska centered around what the world looks

00:12:09.900 like if the United States and Russia are cooperating on things like energy, like the Arctic, like

00:12:16.860 global shipping generally, you know, fighting radical Islamic extremism, which still exists

00:12:22.900 in some places and has to be dealt with one way or another.

00:12:27.460 And, you know, as you went to Russia, as you talked to the people there, would you sense

00:12:33.900 any resistance to that among the body politic?

00:12:36.160 Or if we lived in a new world order that was driven by patriots investing in their own

00:12:45.100 country, economic nationalism, and then cooperation between Russia and the United States, could

00:12:50.660 that be something mutually aspired to?

00:12:53.500 But you're asking if the Russians that I talked to would want to cooperate with the

00:12:57.560 U.S.?

00:12:57.860 Sure.

00:12:58.120 Absolutely.

00:12:59.180 Well, because sometimes like in a war, like I would get it.

00:13:02.420 That's all they want to do.

00:13:02.820 I would get it if the answer was you guys have been giving a bunch of weapons to people that

00:13:07.020 are shooting at us, but we're not really eager in that type of an economic cooperation.

00:13:10.560 They don't have that feeling.

00:13:11.520 That blew my mind.

00:13:12.420 I expected that resistance, but it wasn't there.

00:13:14.580 All they want is to cooperate.

00:13:16.980 And I don't see any resentment when I was there towards us, which was-

00:13:22.260 Are there areas of cooperation I haven't mentioned that you might have picked up on having been

00:13:28.500 there that you think, hey, there is an alignment between Russia and the United States or Russian

00:13:33.600 culture and American culture, faith, anything more-

00:13:36.260 I mean, culturally, yeah.

00:13:37.320 I think we have a lot more in common, especially conservatives in America with Russia, because they have- 0.61

00:13:43.560 Right now, I think conservatism and traditional values are in a renaissance period in Russia,

00:13:50.800 like a real resurgence towards going back to old-fashioned values, especially with regarding faith.

00:13:56.100 And a lot of the Russians I talked to were extremely orthodox in their beliefs, very, very traditional,

00:14:02.440 especially with Christianity.

00:14:04.820 And when I talked to Alexander Dugan, he genuinely felt, like, from his core, that this was a battle

00:14:14.280 between good and evil, that Russia was fighting for the side of Christ and for the side of Western 0.76

00:14:20.620 civilization against the forces of Satan.

00:14:23.140 And those were his words.

00:14:24.900 And when you look at what's happening-

00:14:26.780 Do they think about us as on the side of, like, good or Satan?

00:14:30.500 They don't think about the United States as being part of Satan, but they think that we've been infected.

00:14:35.220 You know, there are elements in our society and our culture, which that's hard to argue with

00:14:38.640 when you look at what's happening in our country.

00:14:41.160 I mean-

00:14:41.580 Any country.

00:14:42.120 Well, any country in the West, especially.

00:14:43.980 Yeah.

00:14:44.400 But the cultural decay and, yeah, Satanism that we have here in America is hard to deny.

00:14:50.040 So from that perspective, it's easy to see why they want to resist that.

00:14:54.180 And they look at it as a civilizational battle.

00:14:57.480 And that's one problem I'm having with my reporting is, coming back from there, you want to be

00:15:02.240 balanced.

00:15:02.720 You want to have the pros and cons.

00:15:04.760 And from what I've seen, it's very hard to find any of the cons.

00:15:09.260 Like-

00:15:09.620 Cons with what?

00:15:10.700 Cons as far as everybody portraying Russia to be negative or finding the downside to what

00:15:16.100 they're doing or finding people who disagreed even with what they're doing.

00:15:19.660 Well, let me-

00:15:20.140 Yeah, let me offer that.

00:15:21.820 Yeah.

00:15:22.040 I mean, even for someone who was sympathetic to the argument that NATO was encircling, that,

00:15:29.960 you know, Biden was kind of blowing through some of these buffers recklessly and without

00:15:35.520 a real plan.

00:15:37.300 I look at the amount of death and I look at the amount of bloodshed and I look at Trump

00:15:42.080 as a willing partner for peace.

00:15:44.060 He's showing that in the Middle East.

00:15:45.760 He's shown that throughout Africa.

00:15:48.100 Why isn't Putin doing more to forge that peace?

00:15:50.300 And by the way, I'm not saying Zelensky is a Boy Scout here.

00:15:54.500 I think he's done plenty to sabotage and I think that there have been some consequences

00:15:58.800 for him as a result of that.

00:16:01.100 But like, you know what I wish?

00:16:02.600 I wish Putin and Trump could have emerged out of Alaska and said, look, we're meeting again

00:16:07.480 in six weeks and, you know, we believe that we will have a ceasefire and then to see bloodshed

00:16:14.060 reduce instead, we've seen Putin increase the acuity of some of the attacks against Ukraine

00:16:19.880 since Alaska.

00:16:21.340 And I don't know why he doesn't see Trump's presidency as an opportunity to get past the

00:16:28.720 Biden mistakes.

00:16:30.100 Understand that Europe needs a security structure that includes Russia, obviously.

00:16:36.060 Obviously.

00:16:36.480 And does it doesn't isolate a major power and energy provider.

00:16:41.320 And that does what our foreign policy has traditionally done for the last half century.

00:16:45.260 And that is not ensure a Russian Sino relationship that becomes far more difficult for the for the

00:16:53.340 West to combat when making our argument for freedom and democracy.

00:16:57.360 I think, and this is very complicated, I think that Putin and Trump came away with a deal

00:17:05.720 fairly solidified.

00:17:07.860 I think they reached an agreement and I think they have an understanding.

00:17:10.940 And I think right now what we're seeing is posturing.

00:17:14.220 I think they're both playing a game because what Biden and the deep state and Obama and

00:17:19.480 Victoria Nuland and all of them have done since 2014 and even before then is entangle the

00:17:26.020 United States and Russia and Europe in this morass of a conflict that you can't just go 0.59

00:17:33.960 in, shake hands and end in one day.

00:17:36.460 Yeah, but you could also not provoke.

00:17:38.460 Yeah.

00:17:38.600 Like when Lavrov, when Lavrov shows up wearing the USSR sweater, it's disrespectful to Trump.

00:17:45.400 That's provocative.

00:17:46.660 And that is not like we're not going to reassemble the USSR. 0.96

00:17:49.540 No, no, we're not.

00:17:50.680 And it, I don't.

00:17:52.140 That gets into a whole other issue, which I found very interesting.

00:17:54.960 Um, I don't think he wants to reassemble the USSR. 0.87

00:17:58.840 And he made a comment about, um, when you remember the past of your own country, it's

00:18:06.600 not necessarily that you want to bring it back.

00:18:09.000 It's just that you're recognizing that it happened.

00:18:11.880 And sure, there must've been a statement that he's making wearing that to that event.

00:18:17.320 You don't just, that's not an accident.

00:18:18.620 But I was surprised when I was there about the almost nostalgia that a lot of Russians,

00:18:26.500 especially younger Russians have towards the USSR.

00:18:30.160 And I don't know if that's just rose colored glasses looking back at the past, but I think-

00:18:36.080 Do you believe that, that energy can be channeled into the type of productive economic nationalism

00:18:41.380 we've discussed without the, the, you know, border shattering interventionism?

00:18:46.300 So what I think that is, is during the USSR, during Soviet period, Russia and the Russians

00:18:54.780 had a very solid core identity.

00:18:57.120 They knew who they were.

00:18:58.260 They stood for something.

00:18:59.680 Even if that thing was evil, a lot of times they felt like this is our country and this

00:19:04.340 is our nationalism.

00:19:05.360 And we stand for this.

00:19:07.500 We know what this is.

00:19:08.340 And then in the 1990s, all that fell apart.

00:19:12.300 And a lot of the Russians I talked to, all of them felt completely betrayed by the West,

00:19:17.620 who they thought they were opening up to.

00:19:19.340 And they felt like they got taken advantage of and abused and thrown to the gutter in so

00:19:24.700 many different ways.

00:19:25.520 And their national identity was just shredded and people were just scrapping their country

00:19:29.900 for parts.

00:19:31.080 And so the view of the USSR today is kind of looking back to when they stood for something.

00:19:37.200 And I think that's what they're calling back for.

00:19:39.560 Not necessarily a Stalin-esque period of brutality, but that national identity.

00:19:44.860 That's what I think that represents.

00:19:47.160 How common do you think that is globally?

00:19:49.680 Because I, I see a lot of places reaching for that and I see the places that, that, that

00:19:55.820 achieve it and get, I, I look to my friend in El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, you know, building

00:20:00.580 on that nationalism was like central to their success and their security, uh, uh, wins.

00:20:07.200 And I wonder if in Russia, they, they look at this war in Ukraine, with Ukraine as, you

00:20:14.140 know, the springboard to something else.

00:20:16.000 And I really don't know what that something else is.

00:20:18.220 What the neocons would tell you is they're taking Moldova.

00:20:21.420 They'll be walking through the Baltics.

00:20:24.240 Uh, did you get the sense that that's what the next thing is or what is it?

00:20:28.420 Absolutely not.

00:20:29.420 Absolutely not.

00:20:30.420 Um, and I asked Dugan this and he said, there is absolutely no ambition to take any other

00:20:34.860 part of Europe, but Ukraine is central to Russia's identity and they have to have that 0.90

00:20:42.940 for their national security.

00:20:43.860 Look, when you say have that, are we talking Crimea and the Donbass or are you saying they

00:20:49.300 need to be hoisting the Russian flag over Kyiv?

00:20:52.800 Yes.

00:20:53.800 And do you believe they will stop until they achieve that?

00:20:55.800 Putin doesn't seem like he will.

00:20:59.000 He's made comments that they're going to take all of Ukraine.

00:21:03.740 Dugan, Dugan doesn't speak for Putin.

00:21:07.760 They're very close, but he doesn't speak for him.

00:21:10.160 In his view, 100% Ukraine must be part of Russia.

00:21:14.680 And he told me if that does not happen or if they're going to lose, they'll use nuclear

00:21:18.120 weapons to secure it.

00:21:20.280 I don't know that Putin shares that view.

00:21:23.540 I think Putin is a very shrewd strategist and I think he's biding his time and he has

00:21:27.960 shown unbelievable restraint.

00:21:31.020 I think over the last few years from the provocations of the West.

00:21:36.060 And I try and flip the script and you would probably get this, but I think a lot of people

00:21:42.640 probably haven't thought of it this way.

00:21:45.200 If Russia and Mexico and Central America created this anti-United States alliance, they were

00:21:53.580 all in on it together.

00:21:54.580 It was just to oppose the United States. 0.81

00:21:57.460 And then, in that alliance, Russia started putting a bunch of military operations right

00:22:03.200 on our border with Mexico.

00:22:05.040 And they started carrying out military drills off San Diego's coast.

00:22:10.920 We wouldn't stand for that.

00:22:12.540 That wouldn't be tolerated.

00:22:14.040 But that's exactly what we're doing to Russia. 0.95

00:22:15.980 That's exactly what NATO is doing to Russia.

00:22:18.040 Like, NATO was created to oppose Russia.

00:22:20.040 I long have believed that we should have offered Russia NATO membership.

00:22:24.280 Yeah, absolutely.

00:22:25.280 Because really, if NATO was always just going to be about threat constructing Russia, then

00:22:31.420 some war between NATO and Russia was always inevitable.

00:22:34.440 Whereas if NATO was about a security structure for Europe that allowed peace to flourish, cooperation

00:22:41.180 to occur when it was mutually agreed to, then NATO actually had a future possibly as an anti-Sino

00:22:47.620 entity.

00:22:48.620 Yeah, that would be huge.

00:22:50.200 Wouldn't that be nice?

00:22:50.960 Yeah.

00:22:51.460 Wouldn't that be better as we look at questions on AI and technology and space to have like

00:22:57.900 a full European security structure where we weren't bogged down in some land war in the

00:23:02.900 bogs of Ukraine.

00:23:03.700 But, you know, the motivation around nuclear weapons, I think, is something President Trump

00:23:11.160 is very sensitive to.

00:23:12.280 He talks about this a lot publicly about his apprehension to even use the word because it

00:23:18.020 is such a game changer.

00:23:19.020 Yeah.

00:23:20.020 You know, what you just said is like definitely like the promo clip of the show, right?

00:23:24.840 You saying that you went to Russia, you had this meeting, there's someone who is actively

00:23:29.760 talking about the use of nuclear weapons.

00:23:31.940 How do you think the populace in Russia would react to that?

00:23:37.320 Nobody wants a nuclear war.

00:23:39.220 Nobody does.

00:23:40.720 But the Russians that I talked to, like I said, view this as a do or die situation.

00:23:46.000 Like, why?

00:23:47.180 Can't Ukraine be like, can't Ukraine be a country with a capital in Kiev that looks westward

00:23:53.460 and people in Russia go about their lives and their nightclubs on Monday night just like

00:23:58.300 always?

00:23:59.120 They don't view Ukraine as being a country, as being a real country.

00:24:04.880 Like a lot of the Russians that I've, well, actually every Russian that I talked to said

00:24:08.380 that Ukraine is not a real country.

00:24:09.500 Like, do they feel the same way about Moldova?

00:24:12.200 No.

00:24:12.560 I'm not entirely sure Moldova is a real country.

00:24:14.800 Well, yeah.

00:24:15.220 I mean, that argument could be made, but no one's talking about that.

00:24:17.800 They're talking about Ukraine specifically.

00:24:19.260 Right.

00:24:19.400 But the domino theory is one the neocons present.

00:24:22.160 Yes.

00:24:22.460 But no one ever mentioned anything past Ukraine.

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00:24:57.080 Nobody was like, Ukraine and then the rest of it. 0.96

00:25:00.000 Yeah, no.

00:25:00.580 And specifically when I asked Dugan about that, he's like, no, it begins and ends with Ukraine.

00:25:05.240 This is part of Russia's identity.

00:25:07.040 We have to have this.

00:25:08.700 And I think that was part of, it's a viewpoint of national security.

00:25:13.580 Because they have been encroached upon so many times.

00:25:16.680 And they view Ukraine at this point as kind of a cancer.

00:25:20.960 Because it keeps attacking them.

00:25:22.720 And it's been left open to these anti-Russian leaders who are using it as an excuse to attack Russia.

00:25:30.240 And so they want to secure that.

00:25:32.260 And I asked him, well, what if, what if you get a guarantee that there is a neutral leader in Kiev.

00:25:39.240 And you can keep the eastern Ukraine and Crimea. 0.76

00:25:44.040 Yeah, but what business do we have guaranteeing what kind of leader is going to be in Ukraine?

00:25:46.800 Well, no, I'm just hypothetical.

00:25:48.200 Hypothetical.

00:25:48.700 Yeah.

00:25:49.000 Would that satisfy Russia?

00:25:50.860 And Dugan said, no, that would not satisfy.

00:25:53.120 We have to have all of Ukraine. 0.99

00:25:54.140 Because if we leave any part of it left, it will come back and attack us.

00:25:58.000 I don't believe that to be true.

00:26:01.200 It's fine if that's Dugan's perspective.

00:26:03.340 And I guess if that's Russia's perspective, it tells us a lot about where this fight is going.

00:26:07.800 How close did you get to the fighting?

00:26:12.100 It's hard to say exactly because I couldn't see a map of where the front lines were in relation to us.

00:26:16.420 You looked like you were with some dudes who were pretty close to it.

00:26:19.980 Yeah, we were in some training grounds, some training camps, and our closest point, I think, was probably 10 to 15 kilometers from the front lines.

00:26:29.540 Well, that's like a California bike ride.

00:26:32.720 Could be, yeah.

00:26:33.640 But saying that, when we were in Donetsk, and this goes back to another point I wanted to make, you mentioned that Putin and Russia have been escalating the attacks recently.

00:26:45.060 And I think that's part of the problem we have is that we get one side of the story over here.

00:26:51.240 Because while I was in Donetsk, just a day before, a school had been attacked by a drone.

00:26:58.600 A school?

00:26:59.420 A school had been attacked by a drone.

00:27:01.400 Right, a school for...

00:27:02.720 It's children.

00:27:03.880 No, children.

00:27:05.400 These were middle school and I think high school children.

00:27:08.580 It might have even been elementary school.

00:27:11.780 But the atrocious part about that is if you fly a bomber over a city and you drop bombs on it, you can't guarantee where the bombs are going.

00:27:21.040 But if you're flying a drone, you direct it where to go.

00:27:24.200 You know exactly what you're hitting when you hit that target.

00:27:27.140 So they targeted, the Ukrainians targeted a school. 0.89

00:27:30.780 And so that's not being reported.

00:27:33.400 And do you think they did so for a military purpose?

00:27:35.540 Well, no.

00:27:36.000 There's no military targets in the area.

00:27:38.320 None whatsoever.

00:27:39.160 Were the military generals hiding in the school cafeteria?

00:27:42.060 No.

00:27:42.100 Oh, I mean, I didn't check under the desks, but the...

00:27:45.160 But was that the allegation around those attacks?

00:27:47.960 The point is that wasn't reported.

00:27:50.640 You hadn't heard about that.

00:27:51.780 We don't get that story here in the West that Ukraine is attacking the civilian areas.

00:27:56.200 And I saw apartment buildings.

00:27:58.100 I was there and I saw apartment buildings that were bombed by Ukraine. 1.00

00:28:01.680 And I talked to people who had been bombed by the Ukrainians. 1.00

00:28:04.860 And they told me this.

00:28:06.360 So this was not something that you hear over here.

00:28:08.980 The other thing was recently, it made the news that Russia flew some jets into, you know, NATO territory and didn't turn their transponders on.

00:28:17.500 And why would they do that if they weren't provoking?

00:28:19.920 You know, we do that all the time.

00:28:22.760 The U.S., NATO flies planes into Russian airspace all the time.

00:28:27.260 And we don't turn our transponders on.

00:28:29.920 But that never makes the headlines.

00:28:32.160 So it's like, you only get one side of the story.

00:28:35.000 I'm not trying to be a Russian apologist, but these are facts you have to look at when you're trying to determine who's right and who's wrong.

00:28:43.020 What do you think the status of free speech and journalism are in Russia?

00:28:49.180 That's a good question.

00:28:50.300 I asked quite a few people that.

00:28:52.300 The last couple of days I was there, we went to this World Youth Festival,

00:28:56.420 which was held in Nizhny Novgorod.

00:28:58.640 And I think there were 3,000 or 4,000 people there.

00:29:01.720 And there were youths being from, I think, well, mostly college.

00:29:09.540 I'd say mostly college-age people who were there, but from everywhere.

00:29:13.500 I saw lots of Africans, lots of Chinese.

00:29:16.280 All over the world they were there.

00:29:18.100 It was a sort of an international cooperation kind of event.

00:29:21.220 And I got a chance to talk to a lot of Russians who were there.

00:29:25.400 And I asked them specifically how you feel about free speech in Russia and in journalism.

00:29:32.740 And most of them, I'd say probably 75%, believed in free speech in Russia and thought that it was an open platform and that you could...

00:29:42.700 I don't think we'd hit 75% in the United States.

00:29:44.680 Yeah, well, yeah, look at Putin's numbers.

00:29:47.280 He's doing pretty good over there.

00:29:48.560 Well, it certainly helps when you constrain free speech and execute your political opponents.

00:29:53.300 So, to that point, that's what the people there said.

00:29:56.220 They thought that it was free.

00:29:57.160 I had one guy who vehemently denied that there was free journalism in Russia, and he thought that it was absolutely being constrained.

00:30:07.980 And I asked him on a whim where he gets his news if he thinks that Russian news is untrustworthy.

00:30:12.820 And he said, The Guardian, BBC, and CNN.

00:30:18.060 He said those were his sources.

00:30:20.140 Bless his soul.

00:30:21.320 Bless his soul.

00:30:21.980 The translator I had with me said that we consider him a liberal in Russia.

00:30:28.360 So, apparently, there is the same distinction between liberals and conservatives.

00:30:31.360 But he was there, able to publish it.

00:30:33.840 Yes.

00:30:34.480 Yes, exactly.

00:30:35.660 He was there, and he was able to criticize Putin and the regime, as he called it, on air freely, without worry about being arrested.

00:30:43.200 Interestingly, I think that he was actually the person who then reported me to the authorities there at the festival for agitating people and causing problems and asking inappropriate questions at a youth festival.

00:30:57.780 You got reported at a youth festival for being an agitator?

00:31:01.520 And then I had police following me around, interrupting different interviews that I tried to do.

00:31:06.820 And the police were like, Look, we don't have a problem with you.

00:31:09.480 We think you're fine, but you keep getting reported.

00:31:12.180 So, the first time they came up and talked to me, and they had my picture.

00:31:16.000 They knew who I was.

00:31:16.620 They were looking for me.

00:31:17.960 And so, they stopped me and were like, Okay, yeah, you can't be doing this.

00:31:21.440 They had to get a translator to tell me what they were saying because they didn't speak English.

00:31:24.920 And this girl... 0.99

00:31:25.400 That could have ended very poorly for you.

00:31:26.400 Yeah, you could have.

00:31:28.100 But they were very nice.

00:31:29.320 But they said, Look, you know, we appreciate what you're doing, but you can't do that here.

00:31:32.880 So, please just go off and do it somewhere else.

00:31:35.140 And so, I was talking with the girl, and she spoke English very well, and she was Russian.

00:31:39.460 So, I was like, Well, would you care to be interviewed?

00:31:40.840 And she said, Yes.

00:31:41.680 So, we went someplace where no one else would see, like, the corner of this conference hall.

00:31:46.020 No one around us whatsoever.

00:31:48.140 No one to overhear us.

00:31:49.480 And so, I started interviewing her, and the police came over about five minutes later and was like,

00:31:54.040 Someone reported you.

00:31:55.120 You've been, you know, asking these questions about the war and Ukraine and everything else,

00:31:58.360 and it's upsetting people.

00:32:00.860 Who?

00:32:02.020 Who could have done that?

00:32:03.160 Well, but doesn't that, doesn't that create sort of an uncomfortable dynamic for a journalist?

00:32:08.020 Yeah.

00:32:08.360 You're a well-known American journalist, but if you were an upstart Russian journalist,

00:32:11.660 the police are saying your questions upset people.

00:32:14.020 That doesn't really sound like freedom of the press to me.

00:32:16.640 It doesn't.

00:32:17.500 But I think it was that guy.

00:32:20.480 I'm pretty sure it was that one guy, and he was reporting me.

00:32:23.460 He sounds very powerful.

00:32:24.580 Well, he was one of the organizers of the event, it turns out.

00:32:27.400 Okay, so it is an imperfect dynamic there.

00:32:32.460 You have mentioned on My Daily Show and a little bit here, this intersection of faith as a real building block for cultural cooperation.

00:32:44.560 What's the status of the church in Russia?

00:32:47.620 Did you see, did you meet a lot of believers?

00:32:50.280 How's it organized?

00:32:51.280 What role does the church play in Russian life?

00:32:53.280 I would say it's central to Russian life, as far as what I saw.

00:32:58.700 Everyone that I talked to, I was very surprised by this.

00:33:01.300 Everyone from the people in the villages to especially the soldiers, which maybe is not that surprising, were very orthodox.

00:33:09.380 Very, very orthodox.

00:33:10.900 And professed their faith.

00:33:12.700 And that seems to be one of the core tenets of why they're involved in this conflict to begin with, is that they, like I said, they feel that this is part of their civilization, and they're defending their faith against Western decay.

00:33:28.920 Yeah, I mean, I've never really heard this described from the Russian standpoint as a holy war.

00:33:34.580 But you think that energy is somewhere down in there.

00:33:37.660 That seems to be one of the, at least one of the aspects of this war for them.

00:33:43.220 Because they believe their faith and Christianity is under assault from the West.

00:33:48.700 And I mean, you look at what's happening to Christians in America, you look at the media, you look at everything that we're putting out, it's very anti-Christian.

00:33:55.420 And so it's not hard for them to...

00:33:56.940 It just seems like killing people in eastern Ukraine is a weird way to work that out.

00:34:00.880 They don't want to do that.

00:34:02.280 They feel like they're being forced to defend themselves.

00:34:05.160 This is not a war of aggression.

00:34:06.400 This is a war of defense.

00:34:07.220 And again, I'm not apologizing or justifying it.

00:34:10.140 I'm explaining their views.

00:34:10.960 Yeah, you're explaining their position.

00:34:11.520 Yeah, this is not my position.

00:34:13.260 I have to make that clear because, I mean, I sent you the article today.

00:34:17.020 I am a Russian propagandist.

00:34:18.340 Yes, well, that's what I want to talk about next.

00:34:19.820 You've gone and done this journalism.

00:34:22.540 You've had this access and exposure to life in Russia that's going to be really valuable to our viewers here on One American News.

00:34:29.680 And the Kiev Independent puts out a hit piece on you and says you have been used by Russia.

00:34:36.960 They have used you.

00:34:38.500 I'm a pawn.

00:34:39.200 Right.

00:34:39.580 Well, that must have been how Vladimir Putin got a bunch of people in Wisconsin to vote for Donald Trump in 2016.

00:34:45.620 So what is it like to be used by the Russian government in this way?

00:34:50.640 Well, I'm still waiting for the paycheck.

00:34:52.560 Right.

00:34:53.240 I'm still waiting for the rubles.

00:34:54.960 Those would be nice.

00:34:55.960 If I'm going to be a pawn, I'd like to get paid for it.

00:34:57.880 But it's just, it's part of the war of propaganda.

00:35:02.940 You can't.

00:35:05.000 But to be clear, we just have to do some threshold stuff.

00:35:07.680 Did anyone tell you what to report?

00:35:09.060 No, absolutely.

00:35:10.160 Other than when you were at an event where the organizer moved you around a little bit, did you have any government officials tell you that you couldn't talk to someone, that you couldn't use some of the information that you got?

00:35:21.120 No, I never had anyone tell me anything that I could do or not do.

00:35:25.060 And when we went to these areas, it was free reign.

00:35:28.060 Okay.

00:35:28.300 I could walk over and talk to anyone.

00:35:30.120 I could walk anywhere I wanted to.

00:35:31.520 It wasn't like I had to go on a certain route and follow a prescribed, talk to anyone.

00:35:36.100 You were like locked in a room and given access to three people.

00:35:38.940 And they specifically told us that.

00:35:40.200 They said, ask them whatever you want, talk to whoever you want.

00:35:42.680 Okay.

00:35:42.920 So with that as the baseline that you drove the reporting on this, what is your reaction to like the Kiev press saying that Russia has this grand strategy to ensorcel American journalists such as yourself?

00:36:00.040 It's very similar to what happened when I went to Syria because there's basically an identical phenomenon where the Western media just attacked me in droves for my reporting and said that, well, he's doing it because of this.

00:36:15.680 I'm like, how do you know that?

00:36:17.700 How do you know?

00:36:19.000 And he was told to say this.

00:36:21.220 Who told you that?

00:36:22.200 Where did you hear that?

00:36:23.780 Just all these false accusations and just made up claims from people who were never there, who have no firsthand experience, who didn't talk to any of these people.

00:36:32.800 And I think that's part of the same effort to control the narrative.

00:36:39.960 We have this other, in the case of Syria, it was Bashar al-Assad who wouldn't cooperate with the West the way we wanted him to.

00:36:47.820 And so he had to go.

00:36:49.500 Syria had things that we wanted.

00:36:50.800 So we had to go in there and get them.

00:36:52.000 And he was in the way.

00:36:53.740 So we need an agenda to get rid of him.

00:36:57.060 And now we have Putin and Russia.

00:37:00.040 And now they're the other.

00:37:00.980 And we have an agenda there.

00:37:03.080 You know, prop up Ukraine. 0.87

00:37:04.600 It's part of the globalist agenda.

00:37:06.320 Throw hundreds of billions of dollars at it.

00:37:08.360 Destabilize the West.

00:37:09.300 Start World War III. 0.83

00:37:10.640 You know, it's all this chaos-causing agenda.

00:37:13.960 But anyway, you have these reporters, first in Syria and now here, who are just ready to jump on to anybody who contradicts their version of events, whether they have any firsthand knowledge of it or not.

00:37:25.100 Well, yeah.

00:37:25.720 I also found it interesting that people weren't all that interested in confronting the presentation of viewpoint that your journalism offered.

00:37:35.700 Instead, they just wanted to say that because you went, you had somehow been converted into an agent of the Russian government.

00:37:43.060 There was a point.

00:37:43.540 Maybe that's what you and Donald Trump have in common.

00:37:45.360 You've both now been falsely accused of being agents of the Russian government.

00:37:48.720 Yeah, exactly.

00:37:49.220 No, there was definitely a point where I got off the plane and I was whisked away to, you know, an FSB bureau room.

00:37:54.920 And they sat me down and gave me a talking to.

00:37:56.680 And after that, everything was all in alignment.

00:37:59.180 Do you think that there's going to be more of this?

00:38:01.280 Absolutely.

00:38:01.580 There's going to be more.

00:38:02.520 Well, no, what I mean, more of the actual life in Russia, the cultural experiences there, the viewpoints on the war being accurately told in the West.

00:38:13.560 Or do you think that the ecosystem to really limit the exposure of that information is too strong?

00:38:20.120 No, I think it's going to grow.

00:38:21.820 I think it's growing.

00:38:22.740 I was there with at least 10 other journalists and we all saw the same things.

00:38:27.740 And from talking to them, I know they reported similar experiences to me.

00:38:31.700 So those narratives are out there as well.

00:38:34.360 It's not just my voice.

00:38:37.060 This press tour, I think this was the 10th one they've done.

00:38:40.900 And I know they're going to do more of them in the future.

00:38:43.840 And other independent journalists are going to get out there and be able to share their stories.

00:38:48.260 President Trump, I think, has also opened the door for that because unlike Biden, he's not trying to continue the war.

00:38:55.480 He wants to end the war.

00:38:57.260 And so he's not just dumping money into an endless war that we're going to be in forever.

00:39:01.440 So I think the mindset that people have about this war is changing and the people who are against it are allowed to have a platform.

00:39:08.780 And that's what's going to help this end.

00:39:11.060 Well, that's obviously the next question.

00:39:12.580 I mean, how does this end?

00:39:13.900 And in a way, it's zero sum.

00:39:18.300 Either Russia is going to march into Kiev and raise the Russian flag over Kiev, or there's going to be some sort of economic deal that ends the hostilities.

00:39:31.740 The latter is definitely Trump's preferred outcome and certainly Ukraine's preferred outcome.

00:39:37.520 But how do you think it ends?

00:39:38.980 Despite what Dugan said and what Putin has indicated in the past about needing to take all of Ukraine, I think it is going to be divided up.

00:39:48.720 I just I think that's the most realistic option.

00:39:52.040 I just have a real hard time picturing a scenario where Russia successfully takes all of Ukraine and is allowed to keep it by the West, like without being harassed. 0.78

00:40:04.120 Well, they haven't successfully taken.

00:40:05.480 No, and they haven't.

00:40:06.320 I mean, these battle lines aren't really moving that much if you in the grand scheme of things, but they are moving and they're moving in Russia's favor.

00:40:14.180 Someone over there told me that.

00:40:17.040 Ukraine can't take back these territories and Russia won't give them back.

00:40:23.040 So where does that leave it?

00:40:25.260 So I think that Putin and Trump are going to arrive at an agreement because, I mean, let's face it, they're the big boys in the room.

00:40:31.640 Zelensky is nobody. 0.97

00:40:32.680 He's a puppet.

00:40:33.260 And I think that Ukraine will be divided and that will have to be the end of it, because I think Trump and America will stop funding the war.

00:40:42.620 Europe's not going to continue funding it.

00:40:44.680 And that will have to be the end of it.

00:40:46.980 Our viewers are really going to get something special when this sharp report comes out.

00:40:51.400 Is there a specific person, a specific interview that was your favorite, putting it together?

00:40:57.480 Well, Dugans was phenomenal just because he's, I agree or disagree with him.

00:41:04.360 He is a brilliant man.

00:41:05.880 He's very, very shrewd.

00:41:07.380 I felt like an ant talking to him.

00:41:09.300 His knowledge is unbelievable.

00:41:12.600 But the most powerful interview for me was the old man that I spoke with in Gorlovka, who was living in that bombed out building.

00:41:22.160 And I think I mentioned to you before, the pain and the sorrow in his eyes when you talk to him was overpowering.

00:41:35.780 And his sincere desire for peace with America and hope that we could resolve this was very inspirational.

00:41:49.300 The most powerful moment would be two moments for me.

00:41:54.280 One was in the Alley of Angels, which was in Donetsk.

00:41:59.440 And it was a memorial for the children who were killed.

00:42:01.460 One of the areas that has had some of the most fighting.

00:42:04.240 Yeah.

00:42:04.380 And it wasn't much.

00:42:07.100 It was a little arch, archway in a park.

00:42:09.600 But there was a bunch of flowers and toys that were laying at the foot of it.

00:42:15.660 And they gave us some carnations that we could lay down.

00:42:19.100 And that, as a father, that was very difficult for me to be there and to experience that.

00:42:28.800 And since then, I didn't know anything about the Alley of Angels before I went.

00:42:32.980 But since then, I've heard Ukrainian leaders have come out.

00:42:37.040 I think it was the Minister of Defense.

00:42:39.160 Someone will correct me.

00:42:40.440 It was someone very high up who said that, one, it not only doesn't exist, it's a fake, it's a forgery.

00:42:48.240 But two, that when Ukraine retakes that area, they're going to demolish it, which is just appalling on so many levels.

00:42:58.300 And it brings to mind another point, which was there are several memorials for Ukraine in Russia.

00:43:07.800 In fact, there's one right outside of Red Square.

00:43:12.860 And I forget, but it was a memorial for one of the towns that was destroyed during the war.

00:43:17.200 And it's right there.

00:43:19.160 No one's touched it.

00:43:20.540 It's a memorial for Ukraine.

00:43:21.900 And it's right there, right outside of Red Square.

00:43:23.980 And it's not being desecrated.

00:43:25.600 No one's trying to destroy anything.

00:43:27.960 It's there in remembrance.

00:43:29.400 And I think that shows a difference in a mindset between the Ukrainians and the Russians,

00:43:33.820 as I definitely see a lot more animosity from the pro-Ukraine side than from the Russian side.

00:43:38.580 And the last thing I wanted to say was the other really powerful moment was we went to a school in Gorlovka.

00:43:47.000 And they've had to cancel in-person classes because the schools keep getting bombed so much, which tells you a lot.

00:43:54.460 So a lot of the students are now learning remotely.

00:43:57.600 But there was a room in the school.

00:44:00.880 And I think there were pictures on the wall.

00:44:04.040 They had a mural set up.

00:44:05.500 It was 27 children.

00:44:08.580 And one of them was a, I think it was a two-month-old baby.

00:44:15.740 A two-month-old baby.

00:44:22.000 And they're hitting the schools.

00:44:24.700 We've heard no explanation as to why the schools would be of any value to hit.

00:44:30.560 Lindsey Graham has introduced legislation to deem Russia a state sponsor of terror.

00:44:36.720 Yeah.

00:44:37.000 Until they return the children that Lindsey Graham says were taken out of Ukraine.

00:44:43.560 Do you see any evidence that children were taken out of Ukraine?

00:44:47.520 I've heard that accusation.

00:44:48.800 I didn't see anything to corroborate that.

00:44:50.640 It almost makes you wonder if the Ukrainians believe that.

00:44:54.520 Are they like literally killing children in Russia as some sort of weird retaliation?

00:45:00.320 And if so, it's like so deeply dehumanizing and wrong.

00:45:03.760 One of the issues that I had when I was over there is determining whose version of events is correct.

00:45:13.960 And one of the areas that was most difficult was in Mariupol.

00:45:20.800 There's a theater there that was famous in the early parts of the war because there were, it was kind of like an evacuation center.

00:45:29.580 And I think there were several thousand Ukrainians that were evacuated to this theater as like a safe place.

00:45:35.440 And on the outside of the theater, there was a giant sign that you could see from the air that said children.

00:45:42.980 And it was written on the outside.

00:45:44.780 So obviously this was not a target, a military target, you know, like a hospital.

00:45:50.260 Don't attack this place.

00:45:51.340 And it was blown up.

00:45:55.360 And the accusation was that Russians dropped a bomb on it and blew it up.

00:45:59.480 And I don't know the numbers of the people that were killed, but it was significant.

00:46:04.300 And so that was one of the examples and still is that Ukraine and others use as a justification for, you know, Russia being this vile aggressor.

00:46:15.220 However, when I was there, I actually went to that theater.

00:46:19.120 And I talked to people who lived there and people who had seen it happen.

00:46:25.820 And I didn't talk to this person, but I was told about them that there was a survivor who was in there.

00:46:31.920 And I said, I use as an example, I said, you know, the West points to this theater as an example of Russia's aggression.

00:46:38.000 How do we justify this?

00:46:39.680 And they said, well, that's not what happened.

00:46:40.980 And one of the survivors said that on that day, they were ushered into that area by the Ukrainians, the military, who were also carrying in crates of explosives.

00:46:53.340 And that they filled the center of the theater with these explosives.

00:46:59.740 And then they left.

00:47:00.980 And then the Ukrainians blew up the theater with the people inside. 1.00

00:47:06.340 And I've been told that the investigators, a forensic analysis shows that the explosion was not from top down, but was from bottom up.

00:47:14.720 I can't prove that, but that's what I was told.

00:47:20.340 It really does make you want to ask.

00:47:21.460 I mean, you know what it reminds me of?

00:47:23.080 It reminds me of some of the questions we were asking about the Assad attacks in Syria.

00:47:29.540 Yes.

00:47:29.960 Because there was some evidence we were seeing that some of that was not delivered through bombs, but may have been delivered with other delivery systems.

00:47:39.400 And that got us thinking, well, gosh, that makes us think it might not have been Assad.

00:47:43.800 And now here, almost a similar tactic.

00:47:46.880 Almost a similar thing.

00:47:48.040 But the point, you know, people kind of accept these stories without proof.

00:47:53.080 You hear it and you think, oh, that's awful.

00:47:54.880 And it just, you build it into the history of your mind.

00:47:56.740 Because it came through a wire.

00:47:57.940 It came through a wire.

00:47:59.480 But when you stop and you think about it, I mean, who on the Russian side would drop a bomb on a building that said children? 0.82

00:48:09.400 I mean, you would genuinely have to be a homicidal maniac to do that kind of thing. 0.86

00:48:16.320 That would be horrendous. 0.72

00:48:17.380 And the Russians that I taught, these are...

00:48:19.380 But what a powerful piece of propaganda.

00:48:21.260 What a powerful piece of propaganda.

00:48:22.440 What a touchstone to get people involved.

00:48:24.480 The Russians were bombing children. 0.93

00:48:25.840 Man, if history finds out that that survivor was telling the truth when they were sharing that story in that community you visited, it will tell us so much about the lies of modern warfare.

00:48:37.200 When folks are done watching this incredible piece you're going to put together for the Sharpe Report, how are they going to feel differently about this conflict between Russia and Ukraine?

00:48:48.020 I genuinely hope that this information will help people realize this war is not necessary.

00:48:54.640 That was my biggest takeaway, is that we don't need to be fighting this war.

00:48:58.880 None of us do.

00:49:00.240 The senselessness of the lives that are lost and are being sacrificed on this, and especially of the children.

00:49:06.980 I just, I really hope that people will question what they've been told and stop just accepting what they see on social media at face value, because there's such an agenda to sell this war and to continue it.

00:49:22.940 What can fight that, if not social media?

00:49:26.320 Information.

00:49:27.320 You have to fight information with information, with bigger information.

00:49:30.500 And you have to, it's easier to lie to somebody than to convince someone that they've been lied to.

00:49:40.320 And people have to have an epiphany.

00:49:43.480 There has to be something that's shocking enough to break you out of that mindset.

00:49:47.960 And actually, there is a lady that I interviewed there. 0.99

00:49:51.220 She was one of the translators.

00:49:53.440 And she, at the start of the war, she was Russian.

00:49:56.180 She was hardcore anti-Putin, and she wore a Ukrainian flag, and she went to Red Square, and she protested against Putin and against the regime and the killing of the Ukrainians.

00:50:09.180 And on a fluke, she happened to be attached to someone who was going down to the Donbass region, and she was going to be the translator for them.

00:50:17.820 And she went down there expecting to see confirmation of, you know, all these things.

00:50:22.360 And it completely changed her mind.

00:50:25.900 And she told me that the moment that her whole script flipped, like everything turned upside down for her, was when she went to this village, and they went to talk to a resident there.

00:50:36.220 And he took them to their backyard, and there was a makeshift graveyard for the people there and for the children who had died.

00:50:44.140 And that was when everything just, like, broke apart inside her.

00:50:48.960 And I think a lot of people need to have that moment before they realize that what they've believed is wrong.

00:50:54.540 You can't just suddenly one day switch your whole belief system.

00:50:57.800 And that's what it is for a lot of people.

00:50:59.240 The people who have Ukrainian flags in their cars, you can't just sit down and talk to them for 10 minutes and change their mind.

00:51:04.760 You can't just show them one thing.

00:51:05.760 Well, if you wait long enough, it'll be the LGBTQ flag, then it'll be the trans flag, then it'll be a little black square. 0.96

00:51:14.040 The current thing, whatever it is.

00:51:15.600 Yeah, now, like, you know, Gavin Newsom's cartography, whatever it is.

00:51:18.880 Whatever it is.

00:51:19.480 Whatever it is.

00:51:20.120 Well, you know what?

00:51:20.680 I think that's why this type of journalism is so gritty and so admirable.

00:51:25.040 It's why I'm so proud to be here at One America News, where we're allowed to do this type of journalism.

00:51:29.400 It makes it so different.

00:51:30.360 This is not corporate journalism you get here on our network.

00:51:33.980 This is an ownership structure that allows fearless, fearless reporting.

00:51:38.860 And that's what this was.

00:51:40.140 And I just think the perfect capstone is that you got the critique from the Keeve media.

00:51:47.280 And I think that's how you really get a reward for showing effectiveness is that you get that kind of attention.

00:51:54.120 But great work.

00:51:55.060 Cannot wait to see this episode of Sharp Report.

00:51:56.800 Folks need to make sure they get the OAN Live app so that you always get the very best of Pearson's work.

00:52:02.120 It is the primo way to not miss anything, to be able to go back on demand, and really make sure that you're steeped in this critical information.

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00:53:13.560 Thanks for joining us.

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The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - October 02, 2025

The Anchormen Show Ep 63- The Sharp Report on The Warfront w： Pearson Sharp

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