Vladimir Putin begins a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Americans prepare for higher gas prices, and the Chinese watch with interest as the world reacts. This is the Ben Shapiro Show, and it's sponsored by ExpressVPN. If you haven't gotten a VPN yet, get ExpressVPN right now at expressvpn.net/benshaperson and use promo code Ben Shapiro for 25% off your first 3 months of coverage. You'll get unlimited talk, text, and unlimited data plus hotspot for just 55 bucks a month. That's 55 bucks less than what you'd typically spend on a car, a house, a car insurance policy, or a car loan. That's less than half the price of a new car, and you get way more bang for your buck! You can get a $5 credit when you use ExpressVPN, and then, this month only, you'll get an additional 25% of your first three months for free! Use promo code Ben Shapiro at checkout to get $5 off your First Three Months of Coverage and then get $25 off your entire membership when you sign up for $99 or more! You get 20% OFF your first month with the discount code: BENSHAPORTER. at ExpressVPN at checkout. It's the best VPN service in the world, and they'll give you 5% off the entire month, plus an additional $5 when you upgrade your membership gets you an extra $5,000, and get $50 off their first month, they'll get you an ad-free version of the service, plus they'll be getting $25,000 in the VIP membership offer, plus you get an extra 3 months, plus a FREE VIP membership, and a 2-piece of VIP access when you get the choice of the Provenza Prime membership starts starting at $50, they get $10,000 and they also get $35,000 they can choose a VIP membership. they'll also get a discount on the first place they'll receive $25% of the whole place they're going to get in for VIP access to the VIP service starts starting them'll get $4,000 will get all they're doing that they're reviewing in the program. The best deal starts at $99,000. Subscribe to Ben Shapiro's newest episode of the show on The Ben Shapiro Podcast, Ben Shapiro Talks About It All Things Ben Shapiro Does It All?
00:00:00.000Vladimir Putin begins a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Americans prepare for higher gas prices, and the Chinese watch with interest as the world reacts.
00:01:38.000It was not just in the eastern regions, the separatist regions of Ukraine, which is pilot in that sort of shaded yellow on the right-hand side of the map.
00:01:47.000It is all over Ukraine, including near Kiev.
00:01:50.000The Russian military has crossed the border in a wide variety of places.
00:01:53.000This is, in fact, a full-scale assault on Ukraine.
00:01:58.000Vladimir Putin announced that this would happen last night.
00:02:00.000He is suggesting, of course, that this is denazification of Ukraine.
00:02:04.000He called the invasion a special operation, did the president of the Russian state.
00:02:38.000He says I decided to conduct a special military operation.
00:02:44.000It aims to protect people who have been bullied and subjected to genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years.
00:02:54.000For that, we will strive for the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine.
00:02:58.000The reason that he is invoking the Nazis, of course, is because in the sort of Soviet mind, The idea that justified the Soviet regime was the resistance to the Nazis in World War II.
00:03:07.000Forget about the fact that they originally allied with the Nazis in World War II.
00:03:09.000It was the resistance to the Nazis in World War II.
00:03:12.000And so Putin is calling on that storied history in order to invoke some rationale for why, in fact, he is invading Ukraine at this point.
00:03:21.000The New York Times has live updates, and the live updates are stunning because you are seeing attack after attack on high-profile target after high-profile target.
00:04:03.000He's attempting to fully decapitate the Ukrainian administration, which had made the grave mistake for years of not being openly allied with the Russians.
00:04:13.000According to the New York Times, Ukrainian forces are in all-out defense mode to repel a multi-pronged Russian assault by land, sea, and air.
00:04:19.000The Ukrainian military claims to have shot down several Russian military aircraft.
00:04:22.000Civilians lined up at recruitment offices to take up arms against Vladimir Putin's forces.
00:04:27.000More than 40 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed already.
00:04:29.000Dozens were wounded in fighting on Thursday morning, according to Alexei Aristovich, an advisor to President Vladimir Putin.
00:04:35.000The country's foreign minister, Dmitry Kuleba, said Ukraine was facing a full-scale attack from multiple directions, but that it continues to defend itself from Russian advance.
00:04:43.000Initial reports of the fighting suggested that Russian forces had crossed into Ukraine at multiple points, with helicopter-borne troops flying in under cover of machine gun fire, naval units coming ashore in the southern port city of Odessa, military vehicles crossing in from Crimea, that's the peninsula that Russia seized, to the west.
00:05:00.000Remember the West did nothing in 2014 when they seized Crimea.
00:05:02.000So all of the areas that Russia had essentially seized have been used as staging points for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
00:05:09.000Ukrainian forces said they had shot down several Russian fighters and a helicopter in an increasingly intense battle to maintain control over key cities.
00:05:16.000According to a senior Ukrainian military official, Ukrainian troops had also repelled Russian advances on two major cities, Chernihiv in the north near the Belarus border, which Belarus is allied with the Russians, and Kharkiv in the northeast, close to Russia.
00:05:28.000The Ukrainian army is badly outgunned and outmanned by Russian forces, but in one indication it was mounting resistance.
00:05:33.000Two Russian armored personnel carriers were seen damaged.
00:05:35.000One crashed into a tree in an eastern Ukrainian town.
00:05:39.000Apparently the refugees have already started to flow into Poland by the thousands, and it's likely to get worse.
00:05:46.000Well, as you can see from the news, it is a very risky world out there.
00:05:50.000Well, this is just one reason why you should, in your personal life, you should have life insurance.
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00:06:30.000Policy Genius has thousands of five-star reviews across Google and Trustpilot.
00:06:33.000And since 2014, Policy Genius has helped over 30 million people shop for insurance and placed over $120 billion in What's going on right here is, in fact, a challenge to the West.
00:06:42.000policygenius.com slash Shapiro right now.
00:06:58.000What's going on right here is in fact, a challenge to the West.
00:07:01.000That doesn't mean the West is in a place where it can put troops into Ukraine without fear of an all out war with Russia.
00:07:07.000It also doesn't mean that sanctions are gonna be sufficient to deter Russia.
00:07:11.000This is the natural outgrowth of decades of the West basically deciding after the Cold War that it was going to focus inward, that it was going to spend inordinate amounts of money, that it was going to cripple its own natural energy independence, that it was going to kowtow to aggressive foreign powers like China and Russia in order to avoid conflict.
00:07:27.000And it is no wonder that Russia has decided it's going to make a move like this.
00:07:30.000Now, we in the West don't understand this kind of move.
00:07:32.000We don't understand why China would try to take Hong Kong.
00:09:01.000So George Orwell wrote about this in 1940.
00:09:03.000He said, Hitler has grasped the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life.
00:09:08.000Nearly all Western thought since the last war, certainly all progressive thought, has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security, and avoidance of pain.
00:09:17.000In such a view of life, there is no room, for instance, for patriotism and the military virtues.
00:09:21.000The socialist who finds his children playing with soldiers is usually upset, but he is never able to think of a substitute for the tin soldiers.
00:09:28.000Hitler, because in his own joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don't only want comfort, safety, short working hours, hygiene, birth control, and in general, common sense.
00:09:37.000They also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags, and loyalty parades.
00:09:43.000However they may be, as economic theories, fascism and Nazism are psychologically far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life.
00:09:49.000The same is probably true of Stalin's militarized version of socialism.
00:09:52.000All three of the great dictators have enhanced their power by imposing intolerable burdens on their peoples.
00:09:57.000Whereas socialism and even capitalism, in a more grudging way, has said to people, I offer you a good time, Hitler has said to them, I offer you struggle, danger, and death.
00:10:04.000And as a result, a whole nation flings itself at his feet.
00:10:06.000Perhaps later on they'll get sick of it and change their minds, as at the end of the last war, after a few years of slaughter and starvation, greatest happiness of the greatest number is a good slogan.
00:10:14.000But at the moment, better an end with honor than a horror without end is a winner.
00:10:17.000Now that we're fighting against the man who coined it, we ought not to underrate his emotional appeal.
00:10:21.000George Orwell wrote that in March of 1940.
00:10:23.000Right before the all-out assault on the continent had already begun by that point.
00:10:31.000Well, you see the same sort of feeling crop up for Vladimir Putin.
00:10:36.000People wonder why Putin is doing what he's doing.
00:10:40.000Vladimir Putin has been very clear about his intentions.
00:10:41.000He wishes to reconstitute the Soviet Empire.
00:10:43.000It's why he's made aggressive moves in Georgia.
00:10:45.000It's why he's made aggressive moves in Ukraine before.
00:10:47.000It's why he's made aggressive moves in Kazakhstan.
00:10:49.000He wants to... He's been very clear about this.
00:10:51.000He has said it over and over and over again.
00:10:54.000And in believing this, he is revivifying a belief in the Russian people.
00:10:59.000Because the fact is that since the end of the Cold War, there has been a tremendous amount of nostalgia in the former Soviet Union for the era of the Soviet Union.
00:11:09.000However much we may not understand it, the reality is that Stalin remains extraordinarily popular in polls in Russia.
00:11:16.000As of 2019, a record 70% of Russians approved of Joseph Stalin's role in Russian history.
00:11:24.000In the early 2000s, that was not the case.
00:11:27.000People saw Stalin as a hallmark of a bloody, terrible past.
00:11:31.000But Putin had revived the Soviet anthem, Soviet-style military parades, and Soviet-era medal for labor during his presidency.
00:11:37.000And by 2019, Respondents said that 70% that Stalin played a positive role in Russian history, only 19% viewed Stalin's role negatively.
00:12:58.000You know, in modern times, Alekseevich interviewed this person.
00:13:01.000And what he said is, quote, when I go into my grandchildren's room, everything in there is foreign. The shirts, the jeans, the books, the music, savages.
00:13:09.000That's my final wish. Well, there's a lot of truth to this perspective that you need a higher purpose in order to explain why you're here, in order to justify why you matter.
00:13:21.000And that higher purpose isn't just going to be, well, you know, we have a slightly better economic relationship with the West than we would have if Vladimir Putin didn't invent invade Ukraine.
00:13:28.000If you don't understand the motivation of the bad guys.
00:13:31.000You're not going to understand how to stop them.
00:13:33.000The West seems to be under the grave misimpression since the end of the Cold War that everybody wants the same thing that the West does.
00:13:42.000And then we're surprised when none of those deals are actually adhered to.
00:13:46.000We spend all of our time blowing out the welfare state, destroying our own national energy independence on behalf of Swedish teens who lecture us about how terrible we are.
00:13:58.000For wanting, you know, a functioning world order and economy.
00:14:02.000And then all of this is slow and it doesn't have a real impact and then it all materializes at once.
00:14:06.000And what we are watching is the quickening of history right now.
00:14:09.000The last 20 years have been a slow roll toward what we have seen in the last three years alone.
00:15:00.000And just a few months later, not even a year later, Vladimir Putin has full-scale invaded Ukraine.
00:15:05.000Already coming up, we'll talk about what Ukraine gave up for a promise of protection from the West.
00:15:11.000Because once again, if you're a non-aligned country or you're a country that's an American ally but not in a formal treaty agreement with the United States, Man, you best watch your back at this point.
00:15:19.000We'll get to more on that in just one second.
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00:16:40.000We should note that when it comes to Ukraine, the Ukrainians, again, were effectively guaranteed security by the West in exchange for turning over their nuclear weapons.
00:16:52.000That had been a deal that the Ukrainians made all the way back in 1994.
00:17:01.000Right after the end of the Cold War, there was really wide debate over whether or not Ukrainians should turn over their nuclear arsenal.
00:17:08.000They had about 5,000 nuclear weapons left over after the end of the Cold War.
00:17:12.000And there were questions, what do you do with this nuclear arsenal?
00:17:14.000And there were some who suggested they should keep the nuclear arsenal and they should point it at Russia and say, if you cross that border, you're going to regret it.
00:17:21.000Instead, the United States and Russia encouraged Ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons.
00:17:29.000I'm not a fan of Mearsheimer, but he's right on this particular issue.
00:17:32.000In the summer of 1993, according to the New York Times, Mearsheimer, a prominent international relations theorist at the University of Chicago, lent his voice to the issue of atomic retention.
00:17:40.000He argued in Foreign Affairs, a nuclear arsenal was imperative if Ukraine was to maintain peace.
00:17:44.000The deterrence, he added, would ensure that the Russians, who have a history of bad relations with Ukraine, do not move to reconquer it.
00:17:49.000In Kiev, the government went so far as to consider seizing operational control of its nuclear missiles and bombers.
00:17:56.000Instead, Ukraine punted and demanded, in exchange for nuclear disarmament, it would need ironclad security guarantees.
00:18:02.000There was an agreement in late 1994 called the Budapest Memorandum signed by Russia, Ukraine, Britain, and the United States promising that none of the nations would use force or threats against Ukraine and all would respect its sovereignty and existing borders.
00:18:13.000That agreement also vowed that if aggression took place, the signatories would immediately seek action from the UN Security Council to aid Ukraine.
00:18:18.000Of course, that was a ridiculous agreement on its face because the UN Security Council is a joke and always has been a joke.
00:18:24.000I mean, Russia sits on the UN Security Council.
00:18:27.000Russia did not get a legally binding guarantee of security, but it received assurances.
00:18:32.000And by 1996, all of its nuclear weapons were gone.
00:18:36.000And now, Ukraine is being invaded by Russia, and the West is basically doing nothing.
00:18:40.000The West has issued a series of rather toothless sanctions, as we'll discuss in just one moment.
00:18:46.000But Russia, you know, again, Russia made a promise.
00:18:54.000Countries that oppose the United States in this way are forming alliances with one another.
00:18:59.000They're not interested in the same things that we are interested in.
00:19:01.000So the idea that we're going to levy sanctions against them and they're going to somehow stop their aggressive military action is foolishness.
00:19:07.000You have to understand why they're doing what they're doing if you want to stop them.
00:19:10.000If the United States had actually wanted to stop Russia from invading Ukraine, then it should have signed an actual security guarantee with Ukraine back in 1994.
00:19:17.000Or it should have allowed Ukraine to maintain its nuclear weapons.
00:19:20.000And by the way, if you're an American ally right now, why would you not seek to develop your own nuclear weapons?
00:20:51.000We're going to have to have like secondary meetings to talk about whether we do that or not.
00:20:55.000Because we were too busy, again, caving to the demands of the environmentalists to decommission nuclear plants and ensure that we were going to build more windmills or some such.
00:21:06.000And while the situation on the ground, it's Ukraine that's now paying the price, according to CNN.
00:21:12.000Ukrainian casualties already in the hundreds and we are just hours into this conflict.
00:21:16.000Here's one of their reporters yesterday.
00:21:18.000Ukraine is putting the number of casualties so far in this nationwide assault, missile assault at this stage, for the most part, in the hundreds, which is, you know, I mean, incredibly alarming.
00:21:33.000OK, according to the Financial Times, Western security services, which have actually accurately predicted the course of events up until now.
00:21:40.000And by the way, we should remember that for all the people who said that it was all fake, it was all phony, it was the West ramping up all of this.
00:21:45.000That's what Putin was saying, but he was lying.
00:21:48.000Western security services have so far been correct about this.
00:22:11.000Remember, this is also in the heart of Europe.
00:22:12.000This is not a far-off place in the Middle East.
00:22:15.000The deployment of Russian artillery and its air force would mean heavy military and civilian casualties on the Ukrainian side.
00:22:19.000Some Western sources have spoken of 50,000 deaths within a week.
00:22:23.000The Ukrainian military is determined to fight back.
00:22:26.000It's likely to find itself heavily outgunned.
00:22:28.000The Russians don't want to get involved in urban warfare if they can avoid it.
00:22:31.000They're also determined to keep the West out of this conflict.
00:22:33.000In his speech announcing the invasion, Putin warned outsiders tempted to interfere there would be consequences you have never encountered in your history, which is a thinly veiled reference to nuclear war.
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00:24:09.000So Joe Biden, for his part, he says the world is going to react.
00:24:21.000Saying the prayers of the world are with the people of Ukraine tonight as they suffer an unprovoked and unjustified attack by Russian military forces.
00:24:27.000President Putin has chosen a premeditated war that will bring a catastrophic loss of life and human suffering.
00:24:31.000Well, I mean, I guess then he's going to stop now that you've tweeted that.
00:25:53.000Meanwhile, the Ukrainian diplomats are doing their best to raise the alarm.
00:25:59.000The Ukrainian ambassador, he said, there's no purgatory for war criminals, you go straight to hell.
00:26:04.000But this sort of language at the UN is likely to avail them not.
00:26:09.000Well, as I said, relinquish your duties as a chair.
00:26:13.000Call Putin, call Lavrov to stop aggression.
00:26:18.000And I welcome the decision of some members of this council To meet as soon as possible to consider the necessary decision that would condemn the aggression that you launch on my people.
00:26:35.000There is no purgatory for war criminals.
00:26:43.000Well, I mean, all of that is well and good, but words are not going to stop Vladimir Putin or China or Iran.
00:26:49.000None of that is going to have any impact.
00:26:51.000You can see that the fecklessness of the West here.
00:26:54.000UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, he literally started quoting peacenik hippie songs from the 1960s in an attempt to stop Vladimir Putin yesterday.
00:27:05.000If indeed an operation is being prepared, I have only one thing to say.
00:27:58.000And by the way, even if they do, Putin knows that's only temporary.
00:28:01.000Because in its own idiotic, self-obsessed narcissism, the West decided the most important thing on planet Earth was to pretend that we were going to lower carbon emissions by not developing our own energy resources and instead shipping in cheap oil and gas from the Russians into Europe while building useless windmills.
00:28:21.000I mean, listen, when Biden first came into office, his first couple moves were green light Nord Stream 2, which is the Russian gas pipeline from Russia into Europe, and to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline.
00:28:35.000Dan Crenshaw was pointing out today, and he is correct, of course, that we import almost 600,000 barrels of oil per day from Russia.
00:28:42.000The Keystone XL pipeline would have produced 830,000 barrels per day.
00:28:47.000But Joe Biden had his orders and his orders were that cheap oil is bad as long as we produce it.
00:28:54.000And if we sort of bring it under the table from other countries, I guess that we should probably do that.
00:28:57.000So we've made ourselves more dependent on some of the worst people on Earth.
00:28:59.000So Joe Biden sanctioned Nord Stream 2 yesterday.
00:29:02.000He put out a statement saying, since Russia began deploying troops to the Ukrainian border, the United States has worked closely with our allies and partners to deliver a strong unified response.
00:29:09.000As I said, when I met with Chancellor Scholz earlier this month, Germany has been a leader in that effort.
00:29:13.000We have closely coordinated our efforts to stop the Nord Stream 2 pipeline if Russia further invaded Ukraine.
00:29:18.000Yesterday, after further close consultations between our two governments, Germany announced it would halt certification of the pipeline.
00:29:24.000Okay, so this prompted Matt Lee of the Associated Press, one of the few good reporters left in the industry, to ask, so why did you greenlight Nord Stream 2 in the first place?
00:29:33.000Since obviously your decommissioning of Nord Stream 2 didn't stop Putin in any serious way.
00:29:39.000You guys have been saying for months, indeed for over a year, since the waivers were first granted, that in fact this gave you additional leverage withholding the sanctions and would serve as a deterrent.
00:29:52.000Clearly, that didn't They didn't provide you with any leverage at all that we can tell because of what you just said in your opening statement about the invasion beginning.
00:30:04.000So, you know, how do you explain to people why you didn't impose these sanctions earlier?
00:30:13.000Okay, and of course, they have no good answer for that.
00:30:17.000In fact, Jen Psaki suggested yesterday from the podium of the White House that Biden's sanction strategy was working.
00:30:25.000What would not working look like then?
00:30:29.000Why is this a better way, a more effective way than issuing sanctions unilaterally and then possibly pressuring the Germans to take action themselves?
00:30:37.000Well, it hasn't been operational, which is an important component, right?
00:30:40.000It's not like oil has been flowing through Nord Stream 2, which is a very important component here.
00:30:45.000And we made the assessment, others can have different assessments, that this would be the way to achieve the outcome that we've now achieved.
00:30:52.000Others can have different assessments.
00:30:53.000There's no proof or evidence that their approach would have worked.
00:31:11.000Because it seems to me, with the Russians in Kiev, that it has most definitely not worked.
00:31:15.000In fact, Jen Psaki was asked, this is right before the invasion, this is yesterday afternoon, the invasion happened late last night in American time, Eastern time.
00:31:24.000And Jen Psaki was asked about whether, if it was working, Putin would invade further, and she had no answer for this.
00:31:30.000Do you think these sanctions will actually be a deterrent?
00:31:34.000Well, I think that is a decision for President Putin to make.
00:31:37.000I mean, there are statements he has conveyed in terms of what he wants to achieve here, right?
00:31:42.000The division of NATO, the opposite is happening, right?
00:31:45.000He wanted to see Nord Stream 2 move forward, a key prize for him.
00:31:51.000He wants to have a flourishing economy for the Russian people.
00:31:55.000Uh, just even without the bite of our sanctions, that is clearly not happening.
00:31:59.000So, this is an assessment he's gonna have to make, and we expect he'll hear, uh, from people around him who are being impacted, and other people in Russia about the impact of these sanctions.
00:32:40.000I don't like those higher purposes at all, by the way.
00:32:43.000But why can't it just transfer that same utopianism over to what Putin is trying to do?
00:32:47.000Because that's much more indicative of what he's trying to do than any talk about how if we sanction oil or natural gas pipelines, that's going to magically change his mind on any of this.
00:32:55.000But again, we don't even have the stomach for that.
00:32:58.000We don't have the stomach for that because Putin could upend the world oil markets.
00:33:02.000David Frum has a piece in the Atlantic talking about this.
00:33:06.000He says some commentators are comparing the current Russian aggression against Ukraine to Hitler's invasion of Poland in 1939.
00:33:11.000Here's another analogy that could be more accurate.
00:33:14.000In 1979, a people in the Middle East sensed energy prices soaring and Western economies tumbling.
00:33:18.000Russia is the world's number three exporter of oil.
00:33:21.000It's number two exporter of natural gas.
00:33:23.000If Western countries respond to Russia's invasion by imposing sanctions, Russia's obvious counter move is to retaliate by cutting back fuel sales.
00:33:29.000Such a move would hurt Russia too, but Putin has prepared for the shock.
00:33:33.000The real explanation for Putin's timing is the slackness of the world energy market in the late 2010s and its new tightness in the 2020s.
00:33:40.000From mid-2014 until the onset of the global pandemic in 2020, Russian gas sold for less than $10 per million metric British thermal units, often for under $5.
00:33:50.000But the gas market is cyclical, and right now Russia has leverage.
00:33:53.000The higher prices enabled Russia to build massive holdings of dollars, euros, and gold.
00:33:57.000Those holdings now exceed $630 billion, an impressive stash for a country with a GDP of only $1.5 trillion.
00:34:03.000In 2017, 18, and 19, Russia's dominance over its gas customers in Western Europe was weaker.
00:34:08.000Its financial resources to endure market disruption were fewer.
00:34:11.000In 2022, Russia's power over its gas customers is at a zenith, and its financial resources are enormous.
00:34:17.000Putin has been building to this crisis for a long time.
00:34:19.000Now we have arrived at an impasse where Russia could inflict real havoc on world energy markets if it so chooses.
00:34:50.000They have to get back together to try and figure out what to do right now.
00:34:54.000Now, again, the West could compete its way out of this.
00:34:58.000Kenneth Griffin and Neil Ferguson have a piece of The Wall Street Journal talking about this.
00:35:02.000They say the foundation of Russian power today is the energy industry, which funds Russia's foreign policy, including its formidable armed forces.
00:35:08.000Russia is an energy superpower in no small part because European consumers buy Russian gas.
00:35:13.000Europeans wagered that energy interdependence would temper Russian militarism, but instead, Europe has funded the Kremlin's rearmament.
00:35:19.000Europe would be safer if it had relied on allies for its gas.
00:35:22.000The problem isn't just Europe's energy dependence, but Russia's use of energy to co-opt European politicians.
00:35:27.000In early February, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schrader was nominated to join the board of Gazprom, Russia's state-owned gas monopoly.
00:35:34.000He already sits on the board of Rosneft, Russia's state-owned oil giant.
00:35:37.000These appointments highlight Germany's dependence on Russian gas.
00:35:41.000Is it any surprise that Chancellor Olaf Scholz initially sought to exclude energy explicitly from sanctions on Russia if it invaded Ukraine?
00:35:49.000should encourage its European allies to reduce their reliance on Russian gas exports.
00:35:52.000The additional sanctions against Russia envisaged by the Biden administration would come at a tremendous cost to Americans without addressing any long-term source of Putin's power.
00:35:59.000Tougher financial sanctions would only further reduce the attractiveness of the dollar as a reserve currency.
00:36:05.000technology from Russia would inflict both direct and indirect damage on American companies, which have many international competitors, not least in China.
00:36:12.000Reducing reliance on Russian gas will require substantial investment and political will.
00:36:16.000Europe needs to replace as much Russian gas as possible with liquefied natural gas, ideally with long-term contracts to buy gas from allied countries such as the United States.
00:36:24.000But then they would have to give up all of their ridiculous environmental nonsense for five seconds and come to grip with the fact that they haven't actually been... They've been powered by the carbon-based energy that they supposedly decry.
00:36:37.000Once again, Giving in to a screamy Nordic teen about your energy policy, it turns out, enables a mass-murdering Russian dictator to cross borders.
00:36:51.000And you can see the reluctance in the West to do anything.
00:40:08.000You will join me and my closest friends as we head to my favorite local coffee spots and dive into deep conversations you normally don't hear because the camera normally isn't rolling.
00:40:17.000My first guest was the great Jordan Peterson.
00:40:19.000The second episode of The Search features another of my very good friends, highly lauded historian Neil Ferguson.
00:40:42.000Thursday the 24th will be exclusive to DailyWire members, so if you're not currently a member, head on over to dailywire.com slash subscribe to join today.
00:40:48.000There's a lot of talk about China and Taiwan there, so it's going to be highly relevant.
00:40:51.000Go check it out today at dailywire.com slash subscribe.
00:40:55.000If you have not heard of my book club, well, now is your chance to sign up.
00:40:58.000Last week, I took members through my analysis of Huck Finn.
00:41:01.000Next up is Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities.
00:41:04.000I can't wait to read it and discuss it with you next month.
00:41:06.000We are reading the great works of Western literature together, and I'm having a blast.
00:41:10.000I hope you are too, and if you haven't joined yet, find out why so many thousands of people already have.
00:41:15.000Tens of thousands of people, actually.
00:41:16.000Remember, 3rd Thursday Book Club is a live experience.
00:41:19.000Get to engage with me like never before.
00:41:47.000Sign up for the Third Thursday Book Club at thirdthursdaybookclub.com because I'll be sending out my notes for A Tale of Two Cities later today.
00:41:54.000Set a reminder to join the conversation on Thursday, March 17th at 8 p.m.
00:41:58.000Also, if you haven't noticed, The Daily Wire, we are constantly expanding our catalog.
00:42:02.000One of our newest projects is exciting and vital, especially right now.
00:42:06.000The Enemy Within, a new docu-series featuring acclaimed journalist and expert in national threats, Lee Smith.
00:42:10.000Smith uncovers a political coup orchestrated by America's ruling class to generate their own wealth and power at the expense of the American people's safety and freedom.
00:42:18.000In the third episode, Lee uncovers the infiltration of America's universities by Chinese spies, students affiliated with the CCP, and American professors who have sold their allegiance to the Chinese Communist Party for bribes.
00:42:48.000However, the most significant threat comes from within.
00:42:53.000You're trying to obscure responsibility for four million people dying around the world?
00:42:57.000Okay, Senator Paul, you do not know what you are talking about.
00:43:01.000We've already seen evidence of how the elites want to run the United States.
00:43:05.000They're modeling themselves after Chinese autocracy.
00:43:09.000For over a decade, the People's Republic of China has stood publicly accused of acts of cruelty and wickedness that match the cruelty and wickedness Diane Feinstein had a Chinese spy as her driver for 20 years!
00:43:33.000We're not talking about one person infiltrating senior levels at the CIA or the White House.
00:43:40.000We're talking about an entire elite class.
00:43:43.000Throughout the political, corporate, academic, cultural, and media establishment.
00:44:18.000I mean, given the geopolitical situation right now, it gets more vital every minute.
00:44:21.000All episodes of The Enemy Within are streaming now exclusively at The Daily Wire.
00:44:25.000So if you're not a member, now's the time to change that.
00:44:27.000Head to dailywire.com slash subscribe to join us today.
00:44:30.000You're listening to the largest, fastest growing conservative podcast and radio show in the nation.
00:44:33.000So what other options are on the table with regard to Heming in Russia?
00:44:44.000Well, now the White House is considering curbs on Russia's access to American technology, which, you know, might have been good before.
00:44:51.000Again, all the measures that are currently being discussed are too little too late.
00:44:53.000And not only that, they're going to have unintended consequences, which I'll get to in just one moment.
00:44:57.000According to the New York Times, the Biden administration warned on Wednesday it had prepared additional measures aimed at cutting off Russia from advanced technology critical to its economy and military in the event of further aggression by Putin toward Ukraine.
00:45:07.000on Tuesday announced sanctions on two Russian banks and curbs on Russia's sovereign debt Biden also announced sanctions on Nord Stream 2.
00:45:13.000Export controls could ratchet up pressure on Russia by preventing the country from obtaining semiconductors and other advanced technology used to power Russia's aerospace, military, and tech industries.
00:45:23.000Wally Adeyemo, the Deputy Treasury Secretary, said, if he chooses to invade, what we're telling him very directly is that we're going to cut that off.
00:45:29.000We're going to cut him off from Western technology that's critical to advancing his military, cut him off from Western financial resources that will be critical to feeding his economy and also to enriching himself.
00:45:38.000The actions and statements of administration officials suggest they could repurpose a novel measure the Trump administration turned to to cripple the business of Huawei, a Chinese telecom company, in 2020.
00:45:47.000The tool, called Foreign Direct Product Rule, allows U.S.
00:45:50.000officials to block more than just exports from the U.S.
00:45:52.000to Russia, which totaled just $4.9 billion in 2020.
00:45:55.000It also allows American officials to restrict exports to Russia from any country in the world if they use American technology, including software or machinery.
00:46:04.000Companies could seek licenses to sidestep the restrictions, but they would be likely to be denied.
00:46:09.000According to Dalip Singh, who we heard from a moment ago, we produce the most sophisticated technological inputs across a range of foundational technologies, AI, quantum, biotech, hypersonic flight, robotics.
00:46:18.000As we and our partners move in lockstep to deny these critical technology inputs to Russia's economy, Putin's desire to diversify outside of oil and gas, which is two-thirds of his export revenue, half of his budget revenues, that will be denied.
00:46:30.000So we're going to deny them this technology.
00:46:43.000Well, Russia will then turn to China, of course.
00:46:47.000And let's say that we then start restricting the flow of technology to China in order to stop it from flowing into Russia.
00:46:53.000What do you think China's going to do?
00:46:55.000What do you think China's going to do?
00:46:57.000So China, so far throughout this conflict, has been going very, very easy on Russia.
00:47:02.000There seems to be this bizarre going theory among the smart sets that China would either stay out of this completely or that they would tacitly tell Russia to cut it, cut it back, just stop it a little bit.
00:47:11.000Instead, China seems to be quietly cheering us on and then watching from the sidelines to see what the West will do.
00:47:17.000According to Russia Today, which of course is a Russian official news outlet, as the Ukraine crisis deepens, it has been widely reported the Biden administration is considering technology sanctions on Russia, specifically with regard to semiconductors.
00:47:27.000By weaponizing its position in the semiconductor value chain, the U.S.
00:47:31.000would essentially be repeating the action it took against the Chinese telecommunications from Huawei, this time targeting an entire country.
00:47:37.000As China has recently learned, this amounts to an act of extraterritorial jurisdiction by the U.S.
00:47:42.000America has politicized the global semiconductor market and supply chain and sparked Beijing to urgently attempt to develop its own industry and capabilities.
00:47:50.000Whilst Huawei is the only firm that has been subject to these tough rules to their full extent, around 400 companies have been added to America's dreaded entity list, a tool used by the U.S.
00:47:59.000These span everything from telecoms to computing, aviation, biotech, nuclear energy, and more.
00:48:04.000Semiconductor sanctions have become a favored tool in Washington as a result, irrespective of what happens in Ukraine.
00:48:09.000Again, this is Russia Today, which is an outlet associated with the Russian government.
00:48:13.000Russia should anticipate it will eventually be subject to these sanctions in some form or another.
00:48:19.000This places Moscow in the same position as Beijing in needing urgently to lose its dependence on U.S.
00:48:24.000origin tech, which can then be weaponized against it without warning.
00:48:28.000While Russia has plenty of strength of its own in engineering, aerospace, and military, America's patent monopoly over semiconductor tech and the branch industries it has created and exerts control over in South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and the Netherlands creates a strategic problem.
00:48:40.000As a result, according to Russia Today, it is pivotal that China and Russia work together in this domain.
00:48:46.000Semiconductors need to be in the picture.
00:48:58.000So, what are the chances that if the United States cracks down on the global semiconductor flow, that this merely exacerbates China's drive toward taking Taiwan, especially seeing as Russia has taken Ukraine with no serious repercussions other than some bitching and moaning from the United Nations and some sanctions that are unlikely to last the test of time because Europe does not have the actual will to stand up on its own without the support of Russia, gas, and oil?
00:49:24.000Meanwhile, by the way, in the United States, the Department of Justice has now announced that it's shifting its approach to Chinese national security threats.
00:49:31.000So while China is drawing closer to Russia, and it is, right before the invasion, China accused the United States of creating panic over the Ukraine crisis and dismissed the sanctions against Russia as ineffective.
00:49:43.000And then the Chinese government basically said nothing after the invasion.
00:49:50.000They said they didn't like the word invasion.
00:49:52.000Which is basically a way of avoiding any sort of blowback at all.
00:49:58.000They refused to describe the attack by Russia as an invasion.
00:50:00.000They called it preconceived wording and then went on to echo Beijing's earlier line calling for dialogue and negotiation for de-escalation, which is a tacit way of basically saying they're not going to get involved.
00:50:29.000Now, Putin makes the same claim about Ukraine, of course, but they're saying ours is even stronger about Taiwan, which should not make anyone sleep easy at night.
00:50:38.000So while the DOJ is changing its rules for prosecution of Chinese nationals who are allegedly involved in, for example, technology theft in the United States.
00:50:49.000And China is allying more closely with the Russians.
00:50:51.000We're talking about cutting off the semiconductors to Russia, which will then ally with China, which will then invade Taiwan.
00:50:55.000It seems to be the way this is going to work out.
00:50:58.000Because semiconductors are the main resource on Earth right now.
00:51:03.000We can develop our own energy independence.
00:51:04.000The semiconductors and all the innovation they're in is on Taiwan.
00:51:09.000Well over 90% of semiconductor advanced tech is in Taiwan.
00:51:52.000Instead, what we're mostly focused on is, can the government cut us more checks?
00:51:57.000Because we have not prepared ourselves in any way for a global conflict of any size or scale.
00:52:02.000We have not prepared ourselves for an unfriendly world.
00:52:05.000We have been the stupid, fat, happy kid walking around the playground with pockets full of candy, chomping and hoping that the bully is not going to knock us down and take our candy.
00:52:21.000You can be the most powerful kid on the playground, but if you don't work out, if you don't have the mindset, if you're not willing to defend yourself, somebody's going to knock you off your feet.
00:52:29.000And that's what Russia and China are preparing to do right now.
00:52:33.000We've not taken any of the measures to ensure our, like, if you actually saw the world as a rough and tumble place, you know what you wouldn't do?
00:52:39.000You wouldn't blow out the national debt to the tune of $30 trillion for no apparent reason.
00:52:42.000You wouldn't focus on reorienting the military around woke values.
00:52:49.000You wouldn't worry About masking toddlers, right?
00:52:53.000These are all things that do not bespeak a country worthy of its greatness.
00:53:49.000A global system matters because we live in a global system, and pretending otherwise is thinking before airplanes existed.
00:53:56.000Certainly before the internet existed.
00:53:59.000Again, we're all complaining about the inflation right now.
00:54:02.000That's a supply chain problem created by the pandemic, and then exacerbated by overspending in the United States and loose Federal Reserve monetary policy.
00:54:12.000It's all fun and games until things get real, and things are beginning to get real right now.
00:54:15.000But we are not treating the world with any sense of seriousness.
00:54:20.000When you lose your higher sense of purpose, it turns out that that cannot be regained by a simple appeal to hedonistic check cutting.
00:54:28.000Right now, according to the Wall Street Journal, the national debt this month reached $30 trillion, says Jeb Hensarling, writing for the Wall Street Journal.
00:54:34.000Not only is this the largest debt in U.S.
00:54:36.000history in dollar terms, the ratio of debt to gross domestic product is now 119%, the largest it has ever been.
00:54:42.000The CBO predicts that the mammoth debt-to-GDP ratio will double over the next three decades.
00:54:47.000The Highway Trust Fund will likely become insolvent in 2027.
00:54:49.000Medicare Part A will run out of money in 2026.
00:54:52.000Social Security will go completely bust in fiscal 2033.
00:54:56.000Now Americans are beginning to experience inflation, one of the primary costs of rapidly growing levels of national debt.
00:55:01.000Every day we hear supply chain challenges and the pandemic are to blame, but those aren't the only culprit.
00:55:06.000To help finance $5.9 trillion of COVID relief, the Federal Reserve purchased treasury debt from third parties, typically large banks known as primary dealers.
00:55:14.000And then with a few keystrokes, the Fed simply created a new set of credits on its books for the sellers.
00:55:19.000Because of the additions of these credits, in two years, the Fed's balance has doubled to almost $9 trillion, creating a risk of significant and sustained inflation.
00:55:27.000Some policymakers and economists maintain that sustained, harmful inflation can never happen here.
00:55:31.000They argue the dollar is the world's reserve currency.
00:55:34.000Investors will continue to purchase Treasury debt as long as they believe they'll get their money back.
00:55:37.000But what happens if the national debt makes bondholders begin to question that proposition?
00:55:43.000What happens if the American economy stops growing?
00:55:46.000If we have a weak economy, if we overspend, if we treat our economy as a grab bag of cash filled with free money, guess what?
00:55:56.000We are not making ourselves strong enough on the world stage to withstand any sort of real conflict.
00:56:02.000If we distract ourselves with all this stuff, Then we give up our claim to be a global hegemon.
00:56:07.000And when we do that, by the way, there are costs.
00:56:09.000There are real, real world costs, not just in human lives around the world and U.S.
00:56:13.000military lives that will be lost, but also in terms of the quality of life in the United States.
00:56:39.000That doesn't mean that we have to go to outright war.
00:56:42.000Because, let's face it, Ukraine is already pretty much gone.
00:56:46.000Sanctions are not going to stop Putin from doing what he wants to do.
00:56:49.000The question is going to be, what do we do with the next thing?
00:56:52.000Do we allow China to take Taiwan the way that we've allowed Putin to take Ukraine?
00:56:56.000Or do we ship in more weaponry than God has ever seen in Taiwan and damn the consequences with regard to China?
00:57:03.000Do we start cutting China off at the knees economically?
00:57:05.000Do we stop their intellectual property theft?
00:57:08.000Do we treat our enemies like our enemies?
00:57:10.000Or do we keep signing ridiculous deals with Iran with the help of China and Russia?
00:57:15.000Do we keep focusing in on how to reimagine capitalism?
00:57:19.000Which is something that the left has been very focused on.
00:57:21.000Instead of unleashing the power of the American economy, American innovation and ingenuity, we've been focused on what kind of checks can we cut to people to stay home?
00:57:28.000How can we reimagine capitalism on a global scale to cut down on innovation and redistribute?
00:57:34.000The Wall Street Journal has an interesting piece today about the Hewlett Foundation.
00:57:39.000Since the 20th century economist Joseph Schumpeter famously wrote that capitalism sows its own destruction by creating a knowledge class who despise its success.
00:57:45.000Behold the Hewlett Foundation and Omidyar Network's $40 million gift to the paupers at Harvard and MIT to reimagine capitalism.
00:57:54.000The press release says, for more than 40 years, neoliberalism has dominated economic and political debates, both in the U.S.
00:57:59.000and globally, with its free-market fundamentalism and growth-at-all-costs approach to economic and social policy.
00:58:04.000It offers no solutions for the biggest challenges of our time, such as the climate crisis, systemic racism, and rampant wealth inequality, and in many ways, it has made those problems even worse.
00:58:13.000If you think these are the worst problems on Earth, climate crisis, systemic racism, and rampant wealth inequality, you are a first-world person who does not understand how the actual real world works.
00:58:22.000It's our stupid focus on the so-called climate crisis that has led Europe to be completely dependent on Russian natural gas.
00:58:31.000We're so busy focusing on the alleged systemic racism of America's police forces that we've forgotten about the fact that, you know, our enemies are committing actual genocides in places like Zhangjiang.
00:58:44.000But again, we have too many navel-gazing rich people over here who are perfectly happy to undermine the foundations of their own society.
00:58:51.000As the Wall Street Journal says, Joseph Schumpeter predicted that people in the comfortable West, including tech entrepreneurs, would take prosperity for granted.
00:58:59.000I reimagine capitalism as the press release advertises.
00:59:02.000What these foundations really mean is putting politicians and the administrative state in charge of redistributing more of its proceeds.
00:59:09.000But if they've been paying attention in recent years, they might have noticed free market fundamentalism could have spared the United States from some terrible mistakes.
00:59:17.000But they don't care about sparing the United States from terrible mistakes.
00:59:19.000They think that the mistake is the system.
00:59:23.000People on the left make fun of people on the right for pointing out things like, why are you so focused in on social policy in the United States when there are threats abroad?
00:59:32.000Why do you focus in on silly stories about transgenderism and transgender swimmers and gender ideology and the indoctrination of our children?
00:59:40.000Because when you're a society that is so engrossed in your own navel, you destroy the institutions that made your freedom possible and you undermine freedom around the world.
00:59:51.000If you're a weak, pusillanimous society, you will collapse.
00:59:56.000Going all the way back to the Bible, when God suggests Yeshua got fat and kicked, what he means is that when you get fat, and when you get happy, and when you ignore what you had to do to get there, when you ignore your fundamental principles and your higher purpose, the predictable result is that you lose, and bad things happen.
01:00:12.000And that's precisely what the United States has been doing for decades.
01:00:16.000Until the end of the Cold War, at the very least, we had the ability to look at the Soviet Union and say, we're standing up to those guys.