The Charlie Kirk Show - The Case for and Against a Ukraine Proxy War with Sebastian Gorka

00:00:00.000 Hey, everybody.

00:00:00.000 An entire episode dedicated to Ukraine.

00:00:04.000 A great man, Dr. Sebastian Gorka, has a different opinion than I do on Ukraine.

00:00:11.000 And we discuss it.

00:00:12.000 We have dialogue.

00:00:13.000 We hear his position.

00:00:14.000 I express mine.

00:00:15.000 I believe I could have done a better job at the beginning talking about my personal opinion on the comparison of using the reference to 1776 repeatedly.

00:00:27.000 We talk a little bit about that.

00:00:29.000 I clarified at the end of the episode, so just know that going in.

00:00:33.000 I appreciate Dr. Gorka.

00:00:34.000 He has a very successful radio show.

00:00:36.000 I'm glad he came on, and we have a great conversation.

00:00:38.000 And I want your thoughts after you listen to it.

00:00:39.000 Freedom at CharlieKirk.com is how you email me.

00:00:41.000 Get involved with TurningPointUSA, tpusa.com.

00:00:44.000 That is tpusa.com.

00:00:47.000 Start a high school chapter or a college chapter today at tpusa.com.

00:00:51.000 Turningpointusa is your starting point.

00:00:54.000 Join the movement today at tpusa.com.

00:00:57.000 That is tpusa.com.

00:01:02.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:01:03.000 Here we go.

00:01:04.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:01:06.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campuses.

00:01:08.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:01:11.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:01:15.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:01:16.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:01:17.000 His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.

00:01:25.000 We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.

00:01:34.000 That's why we are here.

00:01:37.000 Brought to you by Andrew and Todd at Sierra Pacific Mortgage.

00:01:40.000 For personalized loan services, you can count on.

00:01:42.000 Go to andrewandtodd.com, the wonderfulandrewandtodd.com.

00:01:49.000 I'm really excited for our conversation we're about to have here for somebody I really enjoy, and I go on his show quite often.

00:01:55.000 And we were thinking, we were planning out the show, and we said, we want to have some contrarian opinions on the Ukraine situation because it's such an important topic where we're spending a ton of money and somebody I have a lot of respect for, and we're definitely going to disagree on some.

00:02:09.000 And I'm going to learn throughout this conversation is Dr. Sebastian Gorka.

00:02:13.000 Dr. Gorka, welcome to the program.

00:02:16.000 Host of America First, author of The War for America's Soul.

00:02:20.000 And also check out Substack Dr. G's briefing at sebastiangorka.substack.com.

00:02:26.000 I think I got that all in there, Dr. Gorka.

00:02:28.000 You did, you did.

00:02:29.000 And I'm so excited.

00:02:30.000 I think I had this idea last year when we were on a stage together, and we had quite a heated but friendly debate.

00:02:36.000 And I said, let's do this on my show, your show.

00:02:40.000 And finally, we're doing it.

00:02:41.000 So I'm super excited, Charlie.

00:02:43.000 It was mostly peaceful, I have to say.

00:02:45.000 It was mostly peaceful.

00:02:48.000 So Dr. Gorka, I think the best way to start is the floor is yours.

00:02:51.000 Tell us your opinion, your stance on what's happening in Ukraine and how we should think about it.

00:02:56.000 Right.

00:02:57.000 So I don't want to disappoint you, but I'm not of the Lindsey Graham, you know, let's start World War III variety of people when it comes to Ukraine.

00:03:05.000 But for those who are not familiar with my background, I served as former strategist in the White House to President Trump.

00:03:11.000 I am a legal immigrant to the United States, but my parents lived under a communist dictatorship.

00:03:17.000 My father was actually betrayed by Kim Philby, one of the West's greatest double agents, arrested and tortured at the age of 20 and given a life sentence in a communist political prison.

00:03:28.000 He was liberated by freedom-loving revolutionaries in 1956 and escaped to the West.

00:03:34.000 So that's my perspective.

00:03:36.000 That's what I bring to the table.

00:03:38.000 But irrespective of that, let me be clear.

00:03:41.000 Russia has not been provoked into a war.

00:03:45.000 Russia hasn't been surrounded by NATO and has deployed to save ethnic Russians and destroy bioweapons labs. 0.89

00:03:54.000 Russia has been doing what it has always done, whether it was under the Tsars, whether it was the Soviet Union, or under a neophyte Tsar, and that is, of course, Vladimir Putin.

00:04:06.000 This is the aggrandizing territorially of the Russian Federation from a man who, by the way, is a former KGB colonel.

00:04:14.000 And I remember the good old days as a child of the Cold War when all conservatives hated all KGB colonels. 0.97

00:04:21.000 The idea that he is some champion for the West standing up against globalists is utterly asinine. 0.99

00:04:27.000 This is a man who persecuted Christians. 0.98

00:04:30.000 This is a man who is creating his own globalism, but under the fiat of the Kremlin.

00:04:35.000 And let's be clear here.

00:04:37.000 Russia is doing what it always does, violence against civilians to create larger amounts of Russian territory. 0.67

00:04:44.000 And for the record, and please, my former MOS in the British Army, I was in the reserves.

00:04:50.000 I was in an intelligence unit.

00:04:51.000 You can look it all up now.

00:04:52.000 It's unclassified.

00:04:54.000 Vladimir Putin, since he became president, has been giving speeches.

00:04:57.000 You can read in translation at the state, not only is Ukraine an illegitimate non-state, so are the Baltic states and so are Poland, which are, of course, NATO nations.

00:05:09.000 This isn't about some fight against Karl Schwab and the WF.

00:05:14.000 This is Vladimir Putin trying to recreate a stunted version of the Russian Empire.

00:05:19.000 Not even the Soviet Union, but the Russian Empire.

00:05:22.000 And as conservatives, we should be on the side that is fighting the Russian KGB colonel.

00:05:27.000 By the way, that doesn't mean Kiev isn't corrupt. 1.00

00:05:30.000 That doesn't mean that sending pallets of cash to Kiev is stupid. 0.98

00:05:34.000 But if 1776 meant something to conservatives today, guess what? 0.93

00:05:40.000 This is Ukraine's 1776.

00:05:43.000 So I agree with a lot of that, but I want to challenge on that last one that I wanted to do during our last conversation, which is I think you would agree, Dr. Gorka, that there needs to be, though, a lot of work put in before a country is ready for a 1776 moment, right?

00:05:57.000 For example, Roger Williams, the people need to want self-government and they need to prioritize virtue and piety.

00:06:05.000 Do you get the sense that the Ukrainian government and people really have done the work that the American founders did leading into that with studying John Bloc and putting that into great thought of George Mason's Declaration of Rights and forming small governments of the colonies and then eventually having that boiling point over?

00:06:25.000 I only say that because I think that all people eventually can realize the promise of 1776, but I don't think all cultures or countries are ready to immediately teleport to that moment.

00:06:36.000 And I'm afraid that comparison, especially with Ukraine, is not exactly one-to-one.

00:06:41.000 No, I agree it isn't one-to-one because we are the greatest nation on God's green earth and we are the only nation that was founded on the individual liberties bestowed upon us by being made in the image of our creator.

00:06:52.000 There is, I mean, at that point, the analogy breaks down, but I'm not talking of the qualitative political economy or society or the volunteerism in Ukraine.

00:07:03.000 I'm talking about an independent state.

00:07:04.000 An independent state, by the way, that in 1995, the U.S. president, along with the British prime minister, vouched safe the independence of when we said, look, you may be now the third greatest nuclear power in the world with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, but you don't need those nukes, Kiev.

00:07:21.000 Why don't you give those nukes back to the Kremlin and we will make sure you are safe?

00:07:25.000 That was America's promise to Ukraine. 0.50

00:07:28.000 And if Ukraine had those nuclear weapons today, there never would have been an invasion. 0.75

00:07:34.000 So, you know, there is also the idea that this is a nation that simply has lost its independence, irrespective of its political culture or whether they've read the Federalist Papers.

00:07:43.000 No nation, we shouldn't agree to any nation being invaded rapaciously by another one and saying, well, you know what?

00:07:51.000 They don't know the difference between Hamilton and Washington, therefore.

00:07:56.000 I think you would agree.

00:07:57.000 The contention I'm making is: I don't think the Ukrainian people are ready for self-government.

00:08:01.000 I don't.

00:08:03.000 I think that's I don't, we're not in the position to state that.

00:08:08.000 What allows me or you to say you don't deserve to have self-determination?

00:08:11.000 They don't deserve.

00:08:12.000 That's a different argument.

00:08:13.000 Morally, everyone deserves self-government.

00:08:15.000 You have to wait.

00:08:16.000 But they were a nation state, Charlie.

00:08:18.000 Right.

00:08:18.000 So why?

00:08:19.000 Just because somebody wants their terror.

00:08:21.000 If you have a neighbor who has an IQ of less than yours and hasn't gone to school and isn't mature and understands the Federalist Papers, do you get to take their house, Charlie?

00:08:33.000 Well, no, no, no, that's not the argument.

00:08:34.000 It's the argument is whether or not, first of all, the eastern part of Ukraine wants to be part of Russia, right? 0.98

00:08:42.000 Anything that has to do with polling in eastern Ukraine is absolutely garbage.

00:08:48.000 The idea that a nation that is under the control of Russian troops is going to have fair polling, especially after a million people have left that territory, you can't make those assertions. 0.93

00:08:59.000 But let's go back to your prior point.

00:09:01.000 Do they not have the right to self-determination as a nation that was independent?

00:09:06.000 Well, no, of course they do, but the eastern part of Ukraine wants to be part of Russia.

00:09:10.000 They speak about the USA.

00:09:11.000 But Russia gets to take it by force.

00:09:14.000 Well, was there not a peace deal in 2021 publicly put forward where Putin said we can have independent elections be part of that area, part of Russia?

00:09:25.000 The idea that we take on good faith anything a former KGB colonel says is risable.

00:09:33.000 I mean, this is where, you know, I have problems with people talking about we have to emphasize peace, we have to have an off-ramp, and we have to have negotiations.

00:09:42.000 Really?

00:09:43.000 You have negotiations with somebody who has not kept any promise from the Cold War, whether it was SALT I, SALT II, the Chemical Weapons and Biolabs Convention of 1972.

00:09:54.000 These are not good faith actors.

00:09:55.000 When I worked for the Defense Department, I used to tell the officers I was training, you need to know one thing about Moscow and the Kremlin, whether it's the Soviet Union, whether it's Putin today, this is an anti-status quo actor.

00:10:10.000 They're not interested in nice peace treaties in Geneva or Vienna and stabilizing the situation.

00:10:17.000 Why did they send 300 mercenaries to Syria when I was in the White House?

00:10:21.000 Mercenaries, by the way, that President Trump had killed, and which Putin didn't even mention afterwards because he was afraid of America then, because he wished to destabilize that part of the world and reap the benefits of that destabilization.

00:10:35.000 The idea that anything Putin does is done in, let's have a referendum, let's have the people vote.

00:10:41.000 What, as we're bombing the maternity clinics in Mariupol, it doesn't sit well.

00:10:48.000 What do you think success looks like at this point in Ukraine?

00:10:52.000 Yeah, let's start with, if you're not familiar with it, my favorite international podcast are a bunch of former left-wing stand-up comics who had enough with wokeness and have created something called trigonometry.

00:11:04.000 It's one of the best podcasts out there.

00:11:06.000 It's based out of the UK.

00:11:07.000 And one of the co-hosts is Konstantin Kissin.

00:11:10.000 And he is a Jew whose dad was Ukrainian.

00:11:15.000 His mom was Russian.

00:11:16.000 He has family in Ukraine.

00:11:18.000 He left the Soviet Union as a child.

00:11:20.000 And he was on somebody else's podcast, will remain nameless, who was lecturing him about the need for peace talks and off-ramps and stopping the war.

00:11:30.000 And this guy who's been to Ukraine recently, who's half Ukraine, married to Ukrainian, who's Russian Jewish, said, you can't have peace talks if both sides want to fight.

00:11:40.000 And that's the kind of razor clarity that we need right now.

00:11:44.000 You can't have any off-ramp or success in the classical Klausevitsian victory terms if both sides want to fight.

00:11:54.000 Now, that's just a statement of fact.

00:11:55.000 Ukrainians will fight not to the last man, Charlie.

00:11:58.000 They'll fight to the last 12-year-old who can hold an AK.

00:12:02.000 Why?

00:12:02.000 Because they remember what Russia did to them in the 20s and 30s, the Holomodor, 7 million Ukrainians starved to death by Stalin.

00:12:09.000 So they'll fight to the bitter end.

00:12:11.000 On the other side, you've got Vladimir Putin, who's got his reputation on the line, said that the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century was the loss of the Soviet Union.

00:12:22.000 So for various reasons, he's going to fight.

00:12:25.000 So right now, the best we can hope for, it's not victory, but the best we can hope for is the conflict de-escalates into what is called a frozen war, like Transdynistria, like South Ossetia, like Moldova, where the sides stop actively shelling each other every single day, but where there is no territorial gains made.

00:12:46.000 Sadly, for the time being, that's the best we can hope for.

00:12:50.000 Do you think us supplying weapons get us closer to that or get us more towards kinetic conflict?

00:12:57.000 So when it comes to supplying weapons, this is really, this is hugely important.

00:13:02.000 Right at the beginning of the war, I wrote an analytic piece.

00:13:04.000 I think it was for Breitbart.

00:13:07.000 And what I said back then, 10 months ago, hasn't changed today.

00:13:11.000 The idea that we should be sending, that anybody, the Germans, the Brits, or the Americans, should be sending Western weaponry to Ukraine and cash is insane.

00:13:23.000 This is a former republic of the Soviet Union.

00:13:26.000 What they need is Soviet-era equipment, which is standing in stockpiles in former Warsaw Pact nations like Hungary, like Poland, the Baltic states, and Romania.

00:13:36.000 They need to divest.

00:13:37.000 This is the Polish deal. 0.98

00:13:38.000 Remember the Polish deal? 0.88

00:13:39.000 Poland said, we've got MiG-29s.

00:13:41.000 We'll give them to Ukraine if America backfills them. 0.99

00:13:44.000 And then 48 hours later, because he's a feckless, senile old git, changes his mind. 0.98

00:13:44.000 Biden says yes. 0.98

00:13:50.000 So they should be supplied equipment they know how to use, not Abrams tanks that nobody in Ukraine has ever driven, that have 19 different types of oil to run them, and that need a resupply chain from America.

00:14:02.000 No, give them Soviet-air equipment that we don't want anyway.

00:14:06.000 Give them ammunition.

00:14:08.000 And lastly, just because we have a dominance in ISR in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance when it comes to military satellites, give them the target packets to hit the Russians that are on their territory where it hurts. 0.78

00:14:22.000 That's the best that we should do and let them fight their 1776. 1.00

00:14:28.000 No U.S. troops, no U.S. material, because it makes no strategic sense.

00:14:33.000 So, but we are sending tanks and we are sending weapons and funding.

00:14:38.000 And so your position is more nuanced that it should be we should try to do this prudently.

00:14:44.000 But I suppose, Dr. Gorka, one of the reasons I'm so entrenched in my position that we should have no involvement, no aid, is I don't trust any of the military elite right now.

00:14:54.000 Millie.

00:14:55.000 Yeah, that is very reasonable.

00:14:57.000 When you have an overweight chairman of the Joint Chiefs who has admitted calling up his counterpart in communist China General Li when we were in the Trump administration and saying, don't worry about my boss, the president.

00:15:11.000 If he does anything with China, I'll give you a heads up.

00:15:13.000 I mean, that's treason.

00:15:15.000 That man should be in the brig in shackles, not in the highest military position in the United States.

00:15:20.000 We've heard in the last 48 hours that of the balloon flights across America when we were in the White House, we weren't told either by Secretary Mattis or by Mark Milley.

00:15:31.000 Again, derelictions of duty.

00:15:33.000 So the lack of trust of our military above, let's be clear here.

00:15:38.000 I've worked with the U.S. military for decades.

00:15:40.000 Above the rank of 05 is warranted.

00:15:44.000 Anybody above 06, 05 is a problem.

00:15:48.000 But that doesn't mean that Russia invading other countries isn't a geopolitical problem that we are going to have to deal with.

00:15:56.000 That's what I want to pick up on after the break.

00:15:58.000 You know all about radio breaks, Dr. Gorka.

00:16:01.000 So I want to have you try to convince me why that is a geopolitical threat, why a border dispute thousands of miles away matters.

00:16:09.000 Not justifying Putin's invasion of a sovereign country, but why does that matter to our national security?

00:16:17.000 All right, everyone, listen.

00:16:19.000 I get asked to endorse health products all the time, and I say no to almost all of them.

00:16:23.000 But you've heard me talk about Strong Cell before.

00:16:26.000 Look, I take it every day, and I love it.

00:16:26.000 I'm a huge fan.

00:16:28.000 In fact, I have it in the next room.

00:16:29.000 It's right there.

00:16:30.000 It's just a quick shot.

00:16:31.000 You take it every day.

00:16:32.000 It takes three seconds and you just take it like a drink.

00:16:36.000 And I've personally seen a big difference in my energy mental clarity and ability to get more done.

00:16:40.000 You might ask, why?

00:16:41.000 Come on, Charlie.

00:16:42.000 That's a big claim.

00:16:43.000 Well, look, it includes something that I'm a big believer in.

00:16:46.000 I've studied it.

00:16:47.000 The studies behind it are extraordinary.

00:16:48.000 In fact, I'm going to read you one of the studies.

00:16:50.000 And that is NADH and also a combination of NADH with marine collagen.

00:16:56.000 So Strong Cell is a breakthrough liquid supplement containing NADH.

00:17:00.000 Don't believe me?

00:17:00.000 Just go Google the powers of NAD.

00:17:02.000 It can help with depression, anxiety, brain healing, addiction.

00:17:07.000 It helps boost your levels of ATP.

00:17:09.000 So listen to this study.

00:17:10.000 A 2015 study with 73 people showed that if you combine collagen, marine collagen, with NADH, you get a greater subjective increase in physical and cognitive function compared to a placebo.

00:17:24.000 The combined use of NADH increases ATP levels, which is your life source in the bloodstream.

00:17:30.000 Similar results were seen in a 2016 study from Spain in which NADH reduced post-malaise, PEM, a defining symptom of MECFS.

00:17:40.000 The CDC defines PEM as worsening symptoms following a minor physical or mental exertion.

00:17:46.000 So basically, this is a way for you to boost your life source.

00:17:49.000 Again, fact-check me.

00:17:50.000 Go look at what NAD can do for you.

00:17:53.000 And for most people, it's out of reach.

00:17:55.000 It's hard to stabilize.

00:17:57.000 It's hard to be able to transport, but Strong Cell has figured it out.

00:18:00.000 Strong Cell has seen such an overwhelmingly positive sales response from Kirk fans that they have completely sold out of inventory several times already.

00:18:08.000 But not to worry, they have promised me that the production has increased to meet the demand.

00:18:12.000 So just go to strongcell.com right now.

00:18:15.000 Look, I would not tell you guys to use this if I did not deeply believe in the power of NADH.

00:18:22.000 NADH can help you with cognitive function, memory recall.

00:18:26.000 We are just beginning to understand how the brain works.

00:18:30.000 Science can't agree on much, as we've learned from COVID.

00:18:33.000 In fact, there's all these sinister actors out there.

00:18:36.000 One of the few things that there's almost zero naysayers is the power of NAD.

00:18:43.000 Look at the studies.

00:18:43.000 Check it out.

00:18:44.000 Huberman agrees, by the way.

00:18:45.000 Strongcell.com forward slash Charlie.

00:18:48.000 And don't forget to use the special discount code Charlie at checkout to get an extra 20% off your order just for Kirk fans.

00:18:54.000 And listen here, the Charlie discount code not only saves you 20% today, but also locks in your discount for life when you choose the monthly subscription.

00:19:02.000 The Strong Cell shot that you take every single day, it also includes B vitamins, collagen.

00:19:08.000 It's really good for you.

00:19:09.000 You can cancel anytime, but do yourself a favor and give it the full four weeks to work in your body.

00:19:15.000 Visit strongcell.com forward slash Charlie today.

00:19:18.000 What have you done today or done recently to care for your brain?

00:19:23.000 Well, NADH is right there.

00:19:25.000 So check it out.

00:19:26.000 Strongcell.com forward slash Charlie.

00:19:29.000 That is strongcell.com forward slash Charlie.

00:19:35.000 Make the case as to why this tangled and complicated dispute war is a pressing and urgent national security concern for our country.

00:19:47.000 First, before I do that, we don't get to do this often enough.

00:19:50.000 You know, I'll have Dennis on my show when he writes an amazing op-ed.

00:19:53.000 I'll have Dinesh if he does a new movie.

00:19:55.000 But we need to do this more often.

00:19:57.000 And whilst I am on your show, because it's easier for me to do it, everybody out there, I don't care who you are, where you live, you need to support Turning Point USA.

00:20:06.000 It is perhaps the most important organization in America that is taking back our high schools and our colleges.

00:20:12.000 So God bless you, Charlie.

00:20:13.000 And what you've done in the last eight years is remarkable.

00:20:15.000 Thank you.

00:20:16.000 Let me start with a question to you.

00:20:19.000 If this were 1940, would you have supported the lend lease to the Soviet Union?

00:20:25.000 No.

00:20:28.000 Which land?

00:20:28.000 Really?

00:20:29.000 I'm sorry.

00:20:30.000 Maybe the lend lease to the Soviet Union and the Brits. 0.91

00:20:34.000 So during World War II, we sent about $750 billion worth of weapons to the Soviet Union, which was not exactly a republic of representative democratic principles.

00:20:51.000 Did it make sense to stand up to a bully back in 1940?

00:20:55.000 So you're talking about empowering the Soviet Unions against Hitler?

00:21:00.000 The Soviets against Hitler? 0.60

00:21:01.000 Is that correct?

00:21:02.000 I'm not as familiar with that.

00:21:04.000 I'll be very honest.

00:21:05.000 Let me make it very simple.

00:21:06.000 I'm not familiar with this.

00:21:07.000 So let me make it very simple.

00:21:10.000 Why we do what we do today in the terms I discussed, I'm not talking about M1 Abrams and parrots of cash, but providing the means for the Ukrainians to fight for themselves.

00:21:22.000 Why that is actually a national security interest of the United States is very simply because of what you remember from your childhood at school.

00:21:31.000 If a bully is permitted to get away with bullying, they will proceed to keep on bullying.

00:21:38.000 You can remember a bully from the playground at school.

00:21:42.000 The only time a bully stopped bullying is when somebody stood up to them and gave them a bloody nose.

00:21:48.000 That's when a bully stops.

00:21:49.000 When you have somebody who is a remnant, a relic, a dinosaur of the Cold War, who says the loss of the Soviet Union is the greatest tragedy that we have faced, invades another country and then states repeatedly that the other countries bordering that nation are illegitimate, have no right to exist.

00:22:09.000 That is a state of affairs that America will not be able to stay out of, even if you believe in neo-Buchananite, Tucker-esque isolationism.

00:22:20.000 If they landlock the bottom, if Mariupol is landlocked across Russian-controlled territory and there is no way to actually send the goods from Ukraine to North Africa, then there will be an absolute disaster in terms of starvation on the African continent.

00:22:40.000 That will, again, be something America can't stay clear of.

00:22:43.000 It's like saying it doesn't matter to us.

00:22:46.000 These nations can collapse and there will be no consequences.

00:22:50.000 There will be consequences.

00:22:51.000 No, just to make sure I understand, because I don't think I totally know the issue as well as I probably should.

00:22:57.000 Can you just educate me on the lend lease you mentioned of who we lended weapons to and what was the context there?

00:23:04.000 So when we supported, for example, when we sent, we said we're not going to get involved in war, but we sent huge amounts of equipment.

00:23:13.000 Most of the trucks the Soviet Union used were from the United States.

00:23:17.000 And when we sent Tommy guns to the UK before Pearl Harbor, we were providing huge amounts of armaments to nations that were five, six, seven thousand miles away to fight a threat to them.

00:23:32.000 Was that wrong prior to Pearl Harbor?

00:23:35.000 No, no, but were we sending them to Soviet Russia?

00:23:37.000 Is that what you were saying?

00:23:40.000 We were sending arms to Soviet Russia. 0.60

00:23:42.000 Absolutely.

00:23:43.000 No, that's where I got confused because I said, aren't we now supposed to fight Russia?

00:23:47.000 No, the context is different because the enemy back then was the Third Reich.

00:23:52.000 Understandable.

00:23:54.000 But it amplifies the point.

00:23:55.000 Soviet Russia was not a democracy.

00:23:59.000 It's like, you know, Ukraine is corrupt.

00:24:02.000 I get it.

00:24:03.000 Well, wasn't the Soviet Union a little bit?

00:24:05.000 No, no, no.

00:24:05.000 I just want to try to understand.

00:24:06.000 So you're saying in some sense that Vladimir Putin is similar to the Nazis and Adolf Hitler.

00:24:14.000 No, I'm saying that you supply aid to those who are being intimidated, bullied, and invaded, irrespective of the quality internally of those nations governments.

00:24:25.000 That's part of real politic.

00:24:26.000 I get that.

00:24:29.000 But didn't Lendlease didn't Lend-Lease eventually get us into the war?

00:24:34.000 Well, I think Pearl Harbor got us into the war.

00:24:37.000 Okay, so I think troops on the ground was when Imperial Japan killed Americans on U.S. soil.

00:24:43.000 But supplying weapons and getting involved, despite multiple provocations, Hitler declaring war in America, didn't it get us closer to getting involved?

00:24:54.000 Well, I think it was inevitable because when you're facing somebody who wants to have domination of the Eurasian landmass, America probably should be on a side of that that isn't supporting him.

00:25:05.000 So whether we gave one Tommy gun or a million Tommy guns is irrespective.

00:25:09.000 When you have a nation that says, I want to own the Eurasian landmass, if you read Spikeman, McKinder, The Rim Land, The Heartland, you know that there are certain actors whose actions will not touch upon American national interest in a way that is nuggetory.

00:25:28.000 So, you know, Hitler or the Soviet Union sooner or later will be America's problem. 0.96

00:25:33.000 And the last point that I'd make with regards to the Ukraine, and this is where I find it really galling that anybody who says they're a conservative says, we don't care, pull down the shutters on the Atlantic coast, pull down the shutters on the Pacific, and let the rest of the world rot in hell.

00:25:48.000 What would Ronald Reagan say about the Ukrainians fighting for their freedom?

00:25:53.000 If you look at his willingness to stand up to communism everywhere, you would say that Reagan wouldn't exactly call a KGB colonel a champion for, what, the West or anti-globalism?

00:26:05.000 So let's remember: if we are a shining city on a hill, we need to be a shining city on a hill at all times.

00:26:12.000 And also when it comes to external assistance to Ukraine, this nation, where I'm sitting right now, would still be part of the British Commonwealth.

00:26:20.000 It would be a colony of the UK if France hadn't assisted us.

00:26:25.000 The nascent revolutionary forces, if they hadn't been assisted by French naval blockades, 1776 never would have happened.

00:26:33.000 So the idea that helping another nation fight for its own territorial integrity is by dint of history not justified, America wouldn't have existed without assistance from the outside.

00:26:45.000 Do you think $100 billion has been too much?

00:26:48.000 Oh, I think it's insane.

00:26:49.000 I think it's utterly, utterly insane.

00:26:52.000 The fact that we have spent more on Ukraine than we have in Afghanistan since 9-11 is unconscionable.

00:26:59.000 And the idea, the broader point is, and this is one that you have hammered out on your podcast frequently.

00:27:05.000 There was no debate, Charlie.

00:27:07.000 How is it that, you know, Steve, I don't know if Steve coined the term, but we have a uniparty.

00:27:12.000 Apart from those 20 people around the speaker's debate, we have this massive, amorphous uniparty debate.

00:27:21.000 How much aid are we going to give?

00:27:23.000 Is nuclear war okay?

00:27:24.000 Is tactical nukes okay?

00:27:26.000 The idea there has narrowly been any debate in America is inexcusable.

00:27:33.000 So I think you can understand my position, though, Dr. Ruger, not just the incompetency of the military elite or brass, but I also have this bubbling up frustration of the pace, the focus that Congress puts on this particular border crisis and not our own, which does animate, honestly, some of my rejection to just want to get further involved,

00:27:57.000 which could end up being a quagmire because it seems like the foreign policy establishment wants to get involved in, let's just say, theaters of conflict that don't always have inevitable endings for profits or for whatever the reason.

00:28:12.000 But I suppose I just, I do want you to, without, you know, without mentioning the Lend-Least thing, I understand, but why is it an urgent national security threat to us?

00:28:23.000 And the bully argument, I got that, but why is Putin taking over Ukraine a threat to Rhode Island?

00:28:31.000 Because it won't stop with Ukraine. 0.64

00:28:34.000 And it will escalate to NATO nations.

00:28:37.000 NATO nations that, by the way, we helped create that club.

00:28:40.000 It is a club of free countries.

00:28:42.000 And the idea that Poland doesn't have a right to exist because a former KGB colonel says so, that's not something we can ignore.

00:28:49.000 Either we created NATO in 1949 as a club of Western civilization, of nations that agree together to stand together, or it was a con, it was a fraud, and we didn't mean it.

00:29:01.000 And the Soviet Union wasn't a threat.

00:29:02.000 I don't subscribe to the latter.

00:29:04.000 But your prior point is very well taken.

00:29:06.000 And I completely subscribe to the frustration that we can send hundreds of billions of dollars and it doesn't matter.

00:29:14.000 And we look at the fact that we are the only nation in the world today that has no border regime.

00:29:19.000 On my last Newsmax show, I did a very simple back-of-the-envelope calculation.

00:29:24.000 And I went to the official statistics.

00:29:26.000 Since World War II, if you add every combat fatality of the U.S. armed forces, so Korea, Vietnam, the GWAT, so every, you know, Afghanistan and Iraq, combined, every war we have fought in since 1945 has led to the deaths of 103,000 combat service men and women, 103,000 in 70 years.

00:29:50.000 In the last 12 months, 110,000 have died of fentanyl poisoning in America.

00:29:56.000 So yeah, I understand the frustration, but that doesn't mean Russia invading other countries on the periphery of our NATO that we helped create can be ignored.

00:30:10.000 That's all I'm asking for.

00:30:11.000 Sure.

00:30:11.000 No, and I make no question of the moral sense.

00:30:15.000 It's wrong for a strong country to invade a smaller country and a weaker one.

00:30:20.000 However, saying that it's an urgent national security threat.

00:30:24.000 And I guess the final point, though, Dr. Gorka, is if he wouldn't stop there, he's struggling to even take over Ukraine.

00:30:30.000 So what's to say that he would go to Warsaw?

00:30:33.000 Well, this is, you know, this is where I'm glad you said that because you had a guest on your show just a few days ago who said that Ukraine has lost already.

00:30:42.000 Ukraine is on the brink of collapse.

00:30:44.000 Yeah, let's be true.

00:30:48.000 Let's be factual about this.

00:30:49.000 Russia was ranked second in military power in the world before this war started.

00:30:54.000 Ukraine was ranked 22nd.

00:30:57.000 Thanks in part to our assistance and the Brits and the Germans. 0.99

00:31:01.000 They have pretty much managed to fight Russia to a standstill.

00:31:05.000 That doesn't mean he won't try.

00:31:08.000 The fact that it's been difficult doesn't mean he says, oops, sorry, I finally recognize the Baltic states and I recognize Poland.

00:31:16.000 If he can, he will, because that's the nature of a KGB colonel.

00:31:20.000 But at the end of the day, you're right.

00:31:21.000 You know, God bless the Ukrainians.

00:31:23.000 They've done pretty well.

00:31:24.000 Do you think Ukraine should be part of NATO?

00:31:27.000 No, I don't think they're ready for that.

00:31:28.000 No, no.

00:31:30.000 So NATO, the NATO accession principles are very clear.

00:31:34.000 Any nation that has representative government in the Eurasian region can join NATO if, if it has a functioning representative government and if the nation can contribute to the collective defense of the whole.

00:31:49.000 Ukraine doesn't satisfy either of those.

00:31:52.000 It doesn't have a well-functioning representative democracy and it doesn't have the capacity to substantively contribute to the collective defense of the North Atlantic Treaty area.

00:32:04.000 If it did, that would be another question, but it doesn't.

00:32:07.000 Dr. Sebastian Gorka, about 20 seconds.

00:32:09.000 Any closing thoughts?

00:32:11.000 Yeah, I'm so glad we did this.

00:32:15.000 I want us to have more sophisticated national security debates on the right.

00:32:21.000 It's not isolationism versus invade everywhere.

00:32:24.000 There is a happy medium.

00:32:26.000 Educate yourselves.

00:32:27.000 Read a bit of Klausevitz.

00:32:29.000 Read a bit of Sun Tzu.

00:32:30.000 And let's have a discussion on all platforms.

00:32:32.000 Dr. Gorka, God bless you.

00:32:34.000 Thank you so much.

00:32:35.000 God bless.

00:32:39.000 Hey, everybody, Charlie Kirk here.

00:32:40.000 2022 is history.

00:32:42.000 But have you thought about what you'll do in 2023?

00:32:44.000 How you'll make it better than last year?

00:32:46.000 That's why I have a challenge for you.

00:32:48.000 Become better educated.

00:32:50.000 Look, every new year has a new opportunity.

00:32:53.000 So I have a great way for you to make the most of this one.

00:32:55.000 Join me in helping take the online courses at Hillsdale College.

00:33:00.000 Their amazing online courses are for free for all who wish to learn.

00:33:03.000 They have significantly enriched my life.

00:33:06.000 Look, take one of these fantastic courses, like the beauty of the Bible in the Genesis story.

00:33:10.000 Study the writings of C.S. Lewis, or maybe even go into the meaning of America in Constitution 101.

00:33:18.000 There are many courses to choose from.

00:33:19.000 They're self-paced.

00:33:20.000 They're free.

00:33:21.000 They're fulfilling.

00:33:22.000 They're deep.

00:33:22.000 They're beautiful.

00:33:23.000 Go to charlie4hillsdale.com and pick one of the more than 30 free Hillsdale online courses.

00:33:29.000 I hope you'll accept my challenge.

00:33:30.000 Pick whichever course you like.

00:33:32.000 That is charlie4hillsdale.com.

00:33:35.000 Resolve to go deeper and get more educated this year.

00:33:38.000 Charlie4Hillsdale.com.

00:33:44.000 Just to complete the point, Dr. Gorka was saying, and this is an opinion held by a lot of people, that this is Ukraine's 1776 moment.

00:33:52.000 I don't agree with that.

00:33:53.000 And what I was trying to communicate, and I probably could have done a better job, is saying that 1776 in our history can't just be copy-pasted to every time a country quote-unquote fights for its freedom.

00:34:07.000 The reason being is 1776 was a very rare and exceptional moment in all of human history.

00:34:14.000 Yes, there are some comparisons that can be used.

00:34:17.000 However, the tradition that started with faith-centric colonists that experimented with all sorts of different types of government, the Pilgrims, from Roger Williams, to eventually the signers of the Declaration, not to mention the Black Robe Regiment and the First Great Awakening.

00:34:40.000 So to just say that 1776 appeared as if out of the sky, which I know was not the argument by Dr. Gorka, but that is the essence at times.

00:34:49.000 Ignores Jonathan Edwards.

00:34:51.000 It ignores the Black Robe Regimen. 0.81

00:34:55.000 It ignores Jonathan Mayhew.

00:34:58.000 It ignores some of the incredible amount of work that went into developing the fertile soil that eventually allowed 1776 to happen and then wrestling with the Federalist Papers and then finally landing on the Constitution in 1787 is that the Revolutionary War was more than a physical conflict because there's been physical conflicts for thousands and thousands of years.

00:35:22.000 No, it took many decades, in fact, 120, 130 years of work that I don't think Ukraine has gone through.

00:35:31.000 I do not think Ukraine has labored over a religious awakening focused on virtue and piety and self-government, which is exactly why I think we should push for peace.

00:35:42.000 And I think we should have Ukraine-Russia peace. 0.79

00:35:45.000 We should redo the elections of the annexed regions under UN supervision.

00:35:48.000 Russia leaves, if that is the will of the people.

00:35:51.000 Crimea should formally be part of Russia, as it has been since 1783 until Khrushchev's mistake.

00:35:56.000 The water supply to Crimea should be reassured, and Ukraine remains neutral.

00:36:02.000 This is Elon Musk's framework, and I think is rather rational.

00:36:10.000 Email us freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:36:14.000 We're getting a fair amount of emails here.

00:36:17.000 I'm wondering what your guys' opinion is.

00:36:18.000 Should we get more involved?

00:36:19.000 Should we get less involved in Ukraine?

00:36:21.000 Should we focus on our own borders?

00:36:24.000 And I think we agreed on a lot as well in our conversation, which is I think we should obviously stop writing these blank checks.

00:36:30.000 We should focus on our own borders. 1.00

00:36:32.000 It doesn't have to be as black and white at times as people make it.

00:36:36.000 I do want to play a piece of tape here, though, that I think can be instructive, that I meant to play during our conversation.

00:36:42.000 It's Lindsey Graham saying we're going to play offense.

00:36:45.000 Play Cut 50.

00:36:48.000 Your fight is our fight.

00:36:49.000 2017 will be the year of offense.

00:36:52.000 All of us will go back to Washington and we will push the case against Russia.

00:36:58.000 Enough of a Russian aggression. 0.90

00:37:00.000 It is time for them to pay a heavier price.

00:37:04.000 And that was back in, I think, in 14 or 15, right on the border of Russia and Ukraine.

00:37:10.000 Another argument I wanted to make, and we'll have to have another conversation, is shouldn't Russia be a strategic partner in fighting the CCP?

00:37:20.000 Which I actually think plays into one of the arguments that Dr. Gorka was making about Lend-Lease.

00:37:27.000 I just misunderstood the question.

00:37:28.000 I didn't quite internalize it.

00:37:31.000 Which was supplying weapons to the Soviets so they could fight the Nazis.

00:37:36.000 Shouldn't there also be a lesson from there to say that we could partner with the Russians to defeat the Chinese Communist Party, which I think is a much greater threat than Russia? 0.90

00:37:47.000 I do understand the argument that says that people, that large countries should not invade smaller countries.

00:37:54.000 I think you can say that with moral clarity while also saying that doesn't mean we should get involved with military equipment, arms, $100 billion.

00:38:06.000 That will only further get us closer and closer to conflict.

00:38:11.000 Someone said here, I don't care if it's their 1776.

00:38:16.000 They are not America. 0.87

00:38:18.000 Yeah, and so the reason I just kind of latch onto that is I actually think repeating it's there 1776 over and over again is unfair, but also I think it's built to try to have Americans have more compassion for this cause when I don't think that our 1776 should be copy-pasted on every time a country says we want freedom.

00:38:39.000 I do think the cause can be universal, but the circumstances certainly are not.

00:38:43.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:38:45.000 Email me your thoughts as always freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:38:48.000 Thank you so much for listening and God bless.

00:38:53.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - February 07, 2023

The Case for and Against a Ukraine Proxy War with Sebastian Gorka

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript