The Charlie Kirk Show - The SMOG of War: Propaganda, Pundits, and Putin

00:00:00.000 Hey, everybody, the smog of war.

00:00:02.000 The confusion continues in Ukraine and Russia.

00:00:04.000 And we unpack that and we challenge Joe Biden to do what is necessary to end this conflict, be the peacekeeper in chief.

00:00:11.000 Doesn't seem as if there's any willingness to do that.

00:00:14.000 We go through all the breaking news.

00:00:16.000 Email us your thoughts as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:00:19.000 Subscribe to the Charlie Kirk Show podcast.

00:00:20.000 Take out your podcast app and type in Charlie Kirk's show.

00:00:24.000 You hit subscribe by hitting the plus sign in the upper right-hand corner, Charlie Kirk Show, and hit subscribe in the upper right-hand corner.

00:00:30.000 Get involved with Turning Point USA today at tpusa.com, tpusa.com.

00:00:35.000 At Turning Point USA, we're playing offense with a sense of urgency to win the American culture war.

00:00:40.000 And we're on the front lines to educate your children and grandchildren about American values.

00:00:44.000 tpusa.com tpusa.com.

00:00:48.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:00:49.000 Here we go.

00:00:50.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:52.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

00:00:54.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:00:57.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:01:00.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:01:02.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:01:03.000 His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.

00:01:10.000 Turning point USA. 0.65

00:01:11.000 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.

00:01:20.000 That's why we are here.

00:01:23.000 Brought to you by the Loan Experts I Trust, Andrew and Todd at Sierra Pacific Mortgage at andrewandTodd.com.

00:01:32.000 So on Sunday, I spent about five or six hours watching international news.

00:01:37.000 I was watching BBC.

00:01:38.000 I was watching Russian television, RT.

00:01:41.000 I spent a lot of time just trying to study what was happening in Ukraine.

00:01:48.000 And the more I studied it and the more I kind of dove into it, the more questions actually I had.

00:01:57.000 Now, if you're listening to this right now and you think you've gotten this whole thing figured out, you're wrong.

00:02:01.000 You don't.

00:02:02.000 No one does.

00:02:03.000 This is a very confusing situation, but there are some things we do know.

00:02:07.000 Number one, this is Putin's war.

00:02:10.000 Putin decided to do this.

00:02:12.000 And Putin is evil for invading another country.

00:02:15.000 There are some people that are Putin apologists on social media, like, oh, it's, you know, it's time for him to reunify the Soviet Union.

00:02:24.000 I don't find any sympathy for that.

00:02:26.000 I don't.

00:02:27.000 Civilians are being killed.

00:02:29.000 There are people that I'm connected to in Ukraine, and there's legitimate suffering happening in Ukraine.

00:02:34.000 So that's what we do know.

00:02:35.000 We do know this is Putin's war.

00:02:37.000 Now, do I think that the reflexive response should be to try to declare war on Russia and try to further the bond that Russia has with China?

00:02:45.000 Of course not.

00:02:46.000 But this is Putin's war.

00:02:47.000 He fired the first shot.

00:02:49.000 He decided to go to war with Ukraine.

00:02:51.000 The second thing I know after watching like six hours of international television is I have more questions than answers.

00:02:59.000 There's something that is not adding up about the coverage of this.

00:03:03.000 Now, in war, there are a couple things that are instrumental towards victory.

00:03:09.000 Having more people matters a lot, obviously.

00:03:12.000 Technology, the will to fight, but of course, winning the information war.

00:03:18.000 It's almost as if what we are seeing on television and the information we're consuming in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal is designed to confuse us.

00:03:26.000 Now, a lot of you listening and watching right now, I guarantee, are equally as surprised.

00:03:30.000 You probably have a lot of questions like, why are the Russians using tanks from the 1970s and 1980s?

00:03:36.000 So there's only two explanations for that.

00:03:38.000 Either Russia is sending their worst equipment to the front lines, or they're not as strong as they have pretended to be.

00:03:45.000 And both could be true.

00:03:47.000 I'm a little suspicious of that, considering how much money Russia has spent on their military, that this would be the best they have to offer.

00:03:54.000 So that's a question.

00:03:55.000 A lot of people watching, I'm sure, have questions such as the Zelensky videos seem a little too rehearsed.

00:04:01.000 And I'm not saying that Zelensky is not under threat.

00:04:04.000 I'm not saying that Zelensky is someone that isn't likely going to be displaced by the invading Russians. 0.77

00:04:10.000 What I am saying, though, is we know Zelensky is an actor.

00:04:12.000 We know that.

00:04:13.000 Zelensky was part of a Hollywood community in Ukraine.

00:04:18.000 And we also know that some of these stories that a lot of people have been publicizing, such as the Ukrainian border patrol on Snake Island and many other stories that we've heard, such as the ghost over Kyiv, are getting debunked and, let's say, getting cross-examined in real time.

00:04:40.000 Ukraine is winning the propaganda war.

00:04:43.000 That is for sure.

00:04:44.000 In fact, it seems as if Ukraine is more worried about the propaganda war than they are actually about the Kinetic War, which is rallying the world to its defense.

00:04:52.000 And so this is something that I just can't quite understand: if Putin really wanted to take over Ukraine, which it seems that he does, why is he not sending his best equipment?

00:05:02.000 And why is he allowing Ukraine to win over the hearts and minds of people in the West?

00:05:07.000 But here's another question.

00:05:09.000 Russia could shut down Ukraine's propaganda in a heartbeat with a cyber attack.

00:05:13.000 He could turn off all the electricity.

00:05:14.000 He could turn off the water.

00:05:16.000 Why isn't he doing that?

00:05:17.000 Now, some people say it's all because Putin cares about the civilians of Ukraine.

00:05:22.000 Well, that doesn't make any sense because there's evidence that he's bombing civilian centers in Ukraine.

00:05:27.000 Now, we have to remember that Zelensky, again, is a Martin Scorsese type.

00:05:32.000 He is a Quentin Tarantino.

00:05:34.000 He knows how to film and make arguments.

00:05:37.000 And boy, is he good at it.

00:05:39.000 Very sympathetic.

00:05:40.000 And I'm not attacking him or criticizing him. 0.95

00:05:42.000 He's an incredibly corrupt person, by the way, but he knows what he's doing.

00:05:47.000 He's also a man that came into power after a color revolution, which is by the very nature a war of propaganda.

00:05:55.000 It's an information warfare.

00:05:59.000 Now, the question is: does Zelensky's playing into whose hands?

00:06:05.000 Now, is Vladimir Putin trying to goad the West into backing Ukraine and starting some sort of ground war or invasion?

00:06:12.000 Is Putin saving his best ground forces for a potential NATO defense?

00:06:19.000 What we do know is this, though.

00:06:20.000 So here's what we'd start with: what we know and what we do not know.

00:06:23.000 Here's what we know: the Russian economy is in freefall.

00:06:27.000 There are runs on banks.

00:06:28.000 There is economic crises happening in Russia.

00:06:32.000 The interest rate has skyrocketed to 20% in Russia.

00:06:36.000 It's a very real economic catastrophe.

00:06:38.000 Russia is having an economic emergency meeting right now.

00:06:42.000 There are protests breaking all across, breaking out all across Russia.

00:06:46.000 We know this to be true.

00:06:48.000 So either Putin, there's only two ways that you can judge Putin.

00:06:53.000 Either Putin has lost his mind, and by the way, a lot of dictators lose their mind towards the end of their life.

00:07:00.000 You could look at Stalin.

00:07:02.000 You could look at Mussolini.

00:07:04.000 You could look at Xi Ji Pen, not Zig Pol, I guess Zijiping soon, Mao Setong. 0.98

00:07:09.000 It's really, it takes a lot of brainpower.

00:07:11.000 It takes a lot of focus.

00:07:13.000 It takes a lot of energy to be that tyrannical for a long period of time.

00:07:16.000 And it makes you to be paranoid.

00:07:19.000 And so either Putin has totally lost his mind and he's a psychopath, which I'm totally open to that argument, or there's another game at play that we're not seeing here.

00:07:29.000 That Putin is playing three-dimensional chess and he has something up his sleeve that we don't see.

00:07:35.000 I'm not as sympathetic to that argument, but let's play that out.

00:07:38.000 Here's what we do know: that Russia and China have formed a international super alliance.

00:07:45.000 That China refuses to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

00:07:51.000 And it seems as if the United States intelligence community is perfectly fine with beating the drums of war and trying to solidify the Russian-Chinese alliance.

00:08:02.000 And I'm by no means defending what Putin is doing in Ukraine.

00:08:05.000 I think it's reprehensible.

00:08:06.000 I hate war.

00:08:07.000 You should too.

00:08:08.000 War is awful.

00:08:09.000 It brings out the worst of humanity.

00:08:12.000 And the consequences will be felt for generations.

00:08:14.000 It creates refugees. 0.99

00:08:15.000 It creates people to be displaced from their homeland.

00:08:20.000 Not to mention the death and the injury and the lives that are just permanently ruined.

00:08:26.000 It appears that Putin does not care at all about the ramifications, the economic ramifications of this war.

00:08:33.000 And this brings to the third thing that we know.

00:08:36.000 And you guys can watch international television and dive deep into this.

00:08:41.000 Something is not right about this entire thing.

00:08:43.000 Something is not adding up.

00:08:45.000 There's immense amount of propaganda.

00:08:48.000 Some of the images you're seeing on TV are people that don't even have real guns.

00:08:51.000 They're cardboard cutout of guns that we saw in Kyiv.

00:08:55.000 We have pictures of Zelensky that are being shared of him visiting the front lines years ago, not in the last month or two months.

00:09:05.000 So what's really happening in Ukraine, the question is, what should America and the West's response be to this?

00:09:11.000 According to all public reports, it seems that the Russians are closing in on Kyiv.

00:09:18.000 That it's just a matter of time until that capital falls, okay?

00:09:22.000 Well, at the same time, Ukrainians and Russians just talked in Belarus without preconditions.

00:09:30.000 This is Putin's war, but there are more questions than there are answers.

00:09:35.000 And something is not right.

00:09:37.000 Something is not adding up.

00:09:39.000 And all the while this is occurring, Joe Biden is at his house in Delaware completely and totally silent.

00:09:46.000 So we don't have a president anymore.

00:09:49.000 We used to call this the fog of war.

00:09:53.000 But given the oil component of all this and the emissions that come with it, one might call it the smog of war.

00:10:06.000 So many people are worried about a major economic collapse right around the corner.

00:10:10.000 Are you prepared for the worst?

00:10:12.000 In other words, do you have emergency food that you can rely on no matter what happens?

00:10:16.000 What if there's a storm?

00:10:17.000 What if there's an electromagnetic pulse attack from the Chinese Communist Party?

00:10:21.000 You know, people laugh and they chuckle.

00:10:23.000 I'm telling you, there might be something around the corner.

00:10:26.000 And are you prepared?

00:10:27.000 How will you feed your family?

00:10:29.000 You are nine meals away from anarchy.

00:10:31.000 Remember that.

00:10:32.000 Nine meals.

00:10:32.000 Do you have nine meals saved up?

00:10:34.000 Well, if not, you need to get the four-week emergency food kit from MyPatriot Supply.

00:10:38.000 They're the nation's largest emergency food company, and they've served millions of your fellow Americans over the last 15 years.

00:10:44.000 I use them, and you should too.

00:10:45.000 Save $50 on their four-week emergency food kit, which gives you breakfast, lunch, and dinner, totaling over 2,000 calories a day.

00:10:52.000 The food stays fresh up to 25 years in proper storage.

00:10:55.000 Go to preparewithkirk.com right now to save $50 per kit per person.

00:10:59.000 Act now and we'll ship right to your door.

00:11:01.000 Preparewithkirk.com.

00:11:03.000 Check it out.

00:11:03.000 Preparewithkirk.com.

00:11:08.000 Let's get to some sound here as the questions mount.

00:11:13.000 We try to separate fact from fiction.

00:11:16.000 Let's go to cut five, latest on what's happening in Ukraine.

00:11:19.000 Cut five.

00:11:20.000 Here is where things stand at this hour.

00:11:22.000 Russian forces are bearing down on the Ukrainian city, Kharkiv.

00:11:25.000 This after they failed to take the capital of Kiev.

00:11:28.000 At the same time, Dana, Ukrainian, and Russian negotiators are holding their first talks as we speak since the war began.

00:11:35.000 This is the U.S. condemns Vladimir Putin for putting his nuclear forces on high alert.

00:11:40.000 The White House, calling that move totally unnecessary.

00:11:43.000 So meanwhile, the Ukrainian people are putting the world on notice, taking the fight back to Russia.

00:11:48.000 Ordinary people stockpiling Molotov cocktails and shoring up defenses in their own neighborhoods. 0.74

00:11:54.000 President Zelensky is hunkering down with his troops on the front lines.

00:11:58.000 So that video they just showed those from him from December.

00:12:01.000 That is not from this month.

00:12:05.000 Anyway, so there's so much information warfare going on at this moment.

00:12:11.000 It's almost created a smog effect.

00:12:13.000 You know, the old expression is the fog of war, but given the oil implications of all this, I think the smog of war is more fitting. 0.97

00:12:20.000 And I think that there's a fair argument to say that the Ukrainian government is very, very corrupt.

00:12:29.000 But there is increasing evidence that the Ukrainian people are standing up and rising up against this invasion.

00:12:40.000 Now, the Ukrainian people are fighting back against the invasion and occupation in a lot of these different neighborhoods.

00:12:53.000 Let's go to Cut 15. 0.94

00:12:56.000 Fox News guest says Russia can overtake Ukraine very quickly if they deploy like they did in Crimea, I believe.

00:13:02.000 Play cut 15.

00:13:04.000 Because they're fighting for freedom and they're fighting for democracy and they're risking their lives for an ideal.

00:13:09.000 It's deeply moving.

00:13:11.000 But let's not kid ourselves.

00:13:13.000 They are massively likely to be overwhelmed if Russia deploys the kind of brute force that we've seen the Russians deploy. 0.79

00:13:22.000 I think the probability of his being overthrown is no longer 0%, but it's still, I'd say, no more than 10%.

00:13:29.000 I can't think of many more dangerous things you could do in the world today than to try a coup against Vladimir Putin.

00:13:36.000 So I hate to correct the great Neal Ferguson, and I agree with him on a lot of different things.

00:13:41.000 He's very smart.

00:13:42.000 But a lot of Ukrainians are not fighting for democracy.

00:13:44.000 Ukraine is not a democracy.

00:13:46.000 They displaced a democratically elected leader with a color revolution, basically orchestrated by the U.S. State Department.

00:13:52.000 And they suppressed opposition media and dissenting ideas.

00:13:55.000 And Zelensky was implemented as a result of that.

00:14:01.000 No, they're fighting for their country.

00:14:02.000 They're fighting for their history, for their people.

00:14:03.000 And they also just hate the Russians because of everything that Stalin did to them back in the 1930s and 1940s.

00:14:13.000 Now, there is this question of, and since there's so much uncertainty, why is Putin not using his best machinery and weaponry at this moment?

00:14:23.000 Well, Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg says Putin is losing and it's incredible to watch.

00:14:27.000 This is a new, let's say, narrative that has popped up that Putin is losing this war and he can't tolerate, he can't understand why this is so difficult.

00:14:37.000 So that very well might be true.

00:14:39.000 Or there might be another explanation as to that.

00:14:42.000 I just find it hard to believe, and maybe this is the truth.

00:14:45.000 I'm open to it, that Russia would not be able to quickly overtake Ukraine, take out their air defense systems.

00:14:53.000 That fact that Ukrainians can still land helicopters and airplanes is awfully remarkable to me.

00:15:00.000 Play cut 12.

00:15:01.000 Putin and the Russian army are losing.

00:15:04.000 And it's incredible to watch.

00:15:06.000 They've lost their momentum.

00:15:08.000 They have not been able to decapitate the government, in other words, get to the president to get to Zelensky.

00:15:15.000 The army has not been able to take Kiev, and they've slowed everything, all their momentum is slowed.

00:15:20.000 This is absolutely fascinating to me to watch because everybody thought they would be able to have it within days, and they're not there.

00:15:26.000 So there are two narratives, and it just proves the smog of war.

00:15:30.000 And the Russian narrative actually has been quite quiet.

00:15:33.000 They're not pushing up propaganda nearly as much as the Ukrainians are.

00:15:39.000 And is this a surgical operation?

00:15:43.000 You have two clips hours apart.

00:15:45.000 One that says Putin is winning, and then the other one that says Putin is losing.

00:15:50.000 It's quite a remarkable, let's just say, set of circumstances that just adds to this continual confusion.

00:15:56.000 The Gulf is extraordinary.

00:15:58.000 The chasm.

00:16:01.000 Hey, everybody, Charlie Kirk here.

00:16:03.000 As you know, Mike Lindell has a passion to help everyone get the best sleep of your life.

00:16:07.000 He created the Giza Dream bedsheets.

00:16:09.000 They look and feel great, which means an even better night's sleep for me.

00:16:13.000 Mike found the world's best cotton called Giza.

00:16:16.000 Mike's latest incredible deal is the sale of the year.

00:16:20.000 For a limited time, you'll receive 60% off the Giza Dream Sheets that come with a 60-day money-back guarantee and a 10-year warranty.

00:16:26.000 You receive a set for as low as $39.99 for a limited time with a purchase.

00:16:30.000 You will receive Mike's soft cover book free when you use promo code Kirk.

00:16:34.000 Go to mypillow.com and click on the Radio Listener Square and use promo code Kirk.

00:16:38.000 Along with this offer, you also get deep discounts on all my pillow products and my pillow talent sets and so much more.

00:16:44.000 Call 1-800-875-use promo code Kirk on mypillow.com.

00:16:48.000 That's promo code Kirk.

00:16:49.000 I just bought a dog bed.

00:16:50.000 It's amazing.

00:16:50.000 Check it out right now, mypillow.com, promo code Kirk.

00:16:54.000 Mike Lindell is a great American.

00:16:56.000 He sits on the Turning Point USA Advisory Board.

00:16:58.000 Go to mypillow.com, promo code Kirk, mypillow.com, promo code Kirk.

00:17:05.000 You know, when we had presidents in the past, they would not just find themselves at the center point of trying to resolve conflicts, but they understood that in the American standpoint, not intervening does not mean not caring or trying to broker peace.

00:17:26.000 So back in 1905, there was a bloody and brutal war similar to the one we're seeing kind of, let's say, develop in Ukraine.

00:17:37.000 It was the Russo-Japanese War.

00:17:42.000 The Russo-Japanese War was on pace to be one of the most bloody wars in the early 1900s.

00:17:50.000 It lasted for two years.

00:17:53.000 Now, the president of the United States at the time was former Vice President Teddy Roosevelt.

00:17:59.000 Teddy Roosevelt demanded both parties come to the table.

00:18:03.000 And what was negotiated is now known as the Treaty of Portsmouth, which formally ended the Russo-Japanese war.

00:18:11.000 Teddy Roosevelt was the broker.

00:18:13.000 He brought both sides to the table and said, knock it off. 0.73

00:18:16.000 Stop killing each other.

00:18:18.000 It affirmed the Japanese presence in South Manchuria and Korea and ceded the southern half of the island to Japan.

00:18:26.000 By 1904, Russia and Japan had endured several years of disputes over Manchuria.

00:18:32.000 And then eventually it boiled over.

00:18:36.000 Russia lost over 60,000 soldiers and Japan lost 41,000 soldiers.

00:18:41.000 The military costs were very high as well.

00:18:45.000 Japan asked Teddy Roosevelt and the United States to intervene.

00:18:49.000 He refused.

00:18:50.000 But then Teddy Roosevelt said, I will go anywhere to end a war.

00:18:55.000 Teddy Roosevelt knew war very well.

00:18:57.000 He was part of the Roughneck Brigade in Cuba.

00:19:01.000 So he traveled all the way around the world, sat them in a table together and said, sat them around a table together, said, We're going to figure this out.

00:19:09.000 Now, negotiations reached an impasse.

00:19:13.000 And so then Roosevelt stepped in to the proposal to buy back the northern part of the peninsula from Japanese control. 0.58

00:19:20.000 The Russians were adamant that they would not pay him any amount of money, which would act as disguised indemnity when the territory ought to be theirs.

00:19:28.000 After a long debate, Japan eventually agreed to take only the southern part of the island without any kind of payment.

00:19:36.000 Teddy Roosevelt was so effective at developing the off-ramp of what was a brutal conflict, yes, involving Russia and then Japan, he won a Nobel Peace Prize.

00:19:47.000 That was Teddy Roosevelt.

00:19:49.000 His mediation and personal pressure on the leadership in Moscow and Tokyo to the final agreement led to what was called one of the great accomplishments of peace in the early 1900s.

00:20:05.000 Remember, Teddy Roosevelt had the famous expression, speak softly, but carry a big stick.

00:20:11.000 And he was willing to do what was necessary to end the war.

00:20:14.000 The question is, where is Joe Biden trying to end this war?

00:20:17.000 He's putting more sanctions on Russia, which is probably warranted given the escalation of the conflict and Putin recklessly saying he's putting his nuclear forces on high alert, which again goes back to the binary choice.

00:20:32.000 Either Putin is bluffing and has some sort of plan here that is, quite honestly, reprehensible, or he's completely lost his mind.

00:20:42.000 He's either got some sort of strategy that we're not keyed in on, or he has really totally and mentally slipped.

00:20:50.000 And some intelligence reports are showing that Putin is not the same post-COVID.

00:20:54.000 He just isn't.

00:20:56.000 Or the third option is that Putin is Xi Jinping's puppet, that this is a proxy war to try to get the West into another conflict while China takes over the world.

00:21:07.000 So what does Joe Biden need to do right now?

00:21:11.000 Joe Biden should be in Minsk right now, demanding that Zelensky and Putin come to the table, the same way Teddy Roosevelt demanded the Russians and the Japanese come to the table.

00:21:23.000 This is what Trump would do.

00:21:25.000 This is what any sane president would do.

00:21:27.000 Joe Biden is none of those things.

00:21:29.000 First, you need to bring him to the table and say, cut it out.

00:21:33.000 We're the stronger power here.

00:21:35.000 Vlad, you can't even take over Ukraine and you had five days. 0.92

00:21:39.000 Zelensky, you're super corrupt and trying to draw the West into this family dispute is not working.

00:21:46.000 So here's what's going to happen.

00:21:49.000 Mr. Putin, we're going to guarantee that U.S. troops will not go into Ukraine.

00:21:56.000 However, if you invade Ukraine again, there will be a heavier cost.

00:22:01.000 Now, remember, Trump went a step further and he said, if you invade Ukraine, he said, I will bomb all those beautiful turrets in Moscow, those beautiful golden turrets in Moscow.

00:22:11.000 Number two, Biden has to be very careful not to allow the dollar to stop being the international reserve currency.

00:22:19.000 Forcing Russia out of the SWIFT system and going into the China-Russia type system to develop their own SWIFT will harm the United States on the world stage more than the Ukrainian situation.

00:22:32.000 We need to make sure that the American dollar remains the world reserve currency.

00:22:41.000 Number three, worldwide oil prices, the lower they are, benefit our allies and destroy Putin's fragile economy.

00:22:53.000 We already know this.

00:22:54.000 We've talked about this at length.

00:22:56.000 But the fact that Joe Biden is not allowing more fracking in oil, natural gas, and Keystone pipeline is inexplicable.

00:23:03.000 So here's Jen Saki, as a side note, saying that we want to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

00:23:08.000 Play cut six.

00:23:09.000 On oil leases, what this actually justifies in President Biden's view is the fact that we need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, on oil in general, and we need to look at other ways of having energy in our country and others.

00:23:23.000 One of the interesting things, George, we've seen over the last week or so is that a number of European countries are recognizing they need to reduce their own reliance on Russian oil.

00:23:33.000 Oh, we need to reduce our reliance on foreign oil.

00:23:35.000 Then why'd you abolish the Keystone XL pipeline?

00:23:38.000 Why have you not expanded oil and natural gas development?

00:23:41.000 Why do you continue the war on fossil fuels?

00:23:44.000 You see, remember, we demonstrated the binary choice.

00:23:47.000 You can either have environmental green energy policy or you can have a strong Putin.

00:23:52.000 I mean, you have an environmental policy, which makes a strong Putin, or you can have cheap oil and abundant oil, which makes a weak Putin.

00:24:02.000 Why are we still importing 600,000 barrels a day from Russia?

00:24:05.000 Why are we doing that?

00:24:06.000 If we really wanted to make Vladimir Putin suffer, if we really, this is what a president should do: fly to Minsk, look Putin in the eye and say, hey, we're buying 600,000 barrels of oil.

00:24:19.000 Do you ever hear the Permian Basin?

00:24:21.000 You ever hear of the Marcellus Shale?

00:24:25.000 I'm reinstituting the Keystone XL pipeline.

00:24:28.000 I'm going to dramatically expand the strategic petroleum reserve.

00:24:31.000 You're on your own, Putin.

00:24:32.000 We're buying zero.

00:24:33.000 We're going from 600,000 to zero.

00:24:35.000 Have some fun.

00:24:36.000 And you'd say, no, no, hold on.

00:24:39.000 Like, oh, so you don't want to go into an economic depression.

00:24:41.000 Then why the heck are you invading Ukraine?

00:24:43.000 Stop it. 0.95

00:24:44.000 You see, there's a lot of, let's say, progress that could be made outside of what some people on television are saying, we need to drop bombs on Russian targets.

00:24:56.000 That's a really bad idea.

00:24:59.000 Strength comes through clear communication and diplomacy.

00:25:04.000 Sanctions don't do much while we are propping up the Russian economy by importing 600,000 barrels of their oil every single day.

00:25:14.000 Continue by saying that in the meeting that needs to be brokered, the off-ramp, the Teddy Roosevelt moment that won a Nobel Peace Prize, which it seems that our leaders went from Teddy Roosevelt wanting to broker peace to now our leaders want a broker war.

00:25:30.000 It's an interesting development, isn't it?

00:25:32.000 The model is Teddy Roosevelt.

00:25:34.000 He ended a brutal conflict between Russia and Japan.

00:25:40.000 It seems our leader seems our current president is uninterested in that.

00:25:43.000 I don't even know one thing he said that was meaningful this weekend.

00:25:46.000 Nothing.

00:25:47.000 He's silent.

00:25:49.000 Cut seven, former Trump advisor Douglas McGregor says we need to stop demonizing Putin, lift all sanctions and stop providing weapons and aid.

00:25:57.000 Let me be very clear.

00:25:58.000 I don't agree with this totally, and I've invited him to come on this program.

00:26:02.000 I think there's some wisdom in this, but I think this goes too far.

00:26:06.000 I think that demonizing Putin is actually, in some ways, the morally correct argument.

00:26:11.000 I don't like it when strong countries invade weak countries.

00:26:14.000 I don't like it when America invaded Iraq for weapons of mass destruction.

00:26:19.000 I don't like it when Putin invades Ukraine.

00:26:20.000 I don't like it when we invaded Vietnam.

00:26:23.000 I don't like it.

00:26:24.000 Play cut seven.

00:26:25.000 This is not the liberal democracy, the shining example that everyone says it is.

00:26:30.000 Far from it.

00:26:30.000 Mr. Zelensky has jailed journalists and his political opposition.

00:26:35.000 I think we need to stay out of it.

00:26:36.000 The American people think we should stay out of it.

00:26:38.000 The Europeans think we should stay out of it.

00:26:41.000 And we should stop shipping weapons and encouraging Ukrainians to die in what is a hopeless endeavor. 0.99

00:26:48.000 So when you say stay out of it, you mean no sanctions, no military aid, just let Russia take the portion of Ukraine they want to take. 0.73

00:26:57.000 Yes, absolutely.

00:26:59.000 I see no reason why we should fight with the Russians over something that they have been talking about for years. 0.90

00:27:04.000 We simply chose to ignore it.

00:27:06.000 Now, staying out of it, militarily, I agree.

00:27:10.000 But America's the leader of the world, and we should at least lead in an attempt towards diplomacy.

00:27:15.000 By the way, Colonel McGregor is a total patriot.

00:27:17.000 I think the slander against him has been terrible.

00:27:18.000 I'm not going to get too far into that.

00:27:20.000 Let me say this.

00:27:20.000 Imagine Air Force One landing right now in Minsk, demanding a meeting between Putin and Zelensky, saying, we're here.

00:27:29.000 We're going to broker this.

00:27:31.000 Come on.

00:27:33.000 No more.

00:27:34.000 You need a third party to mediate.

00:27:36.000 Same way in divorce proceedings or in arbitration.

00:27:40.000 Who is going to arbitrate the differences here?

00:27:43.000 Are more civilians going to die?

00:27:45.000 Now, while I think that our military intervention needs to be nothing in regards to the Russian-Ukrainian dispute, that does not mean we cannot put our own interests first while also pursuing an end to the war.

00:28:02.000 Our leader, lack thereof, our president, could be developing an off-ramp to peace.

00:28:09.000 Instead, it seems like he's doing the exact opposite.

00:28:11.000 It seems like we're ratcheting up the need for war.

00:28:17.000 Someone says, you know, do you agree with sending arms?

00:28:20.000 Have we tried all the off-ramps to peace?

00:28:23.000 It's my first question.

00:28:25.000 Have we forced the hand to peace right now before we send weapons that the Ukrainians likely don't know how they can use? 0.55

00:28:33.000 Have we tried the Teddy Roosevelt moment?

00:28:35.000 And most importantly, have we actually tried to unleash the American energy entrepreneur?

00:28:40.000 Stopping by, if we stop buying oil from Putin, that's worth a lot more than Stinger missiles in the hands of Ukrainians. 1.00

00:28:50.000 If you are like me and my team here, you are spending countless hours in front of a computer screen or on your smartphone.

00:28:56.000 And that can really do some serious damage to your eyes.

00:28:59.000 You might suffer from headaches, sore eyes, digital eye strain, watery eyes, and fatigue.

00:29:03.000 And how about your sleep?

00:29:04.000 I didn't realize how much eye strain can hamper me from getting a restful night's sleep.

00:29:09.000 But now I have discovered Blue Blocks Blue Light glasses.

00:29:14.000 I know better.

00:29:15.000 The glasses come in non-prescription, prescription, and reading options.

00:29:19.000 They have glasses for every need you can think of.

00:29:22.000 They have stylish frames that have been featured in GQ and Vogue, but more importantly, are backed by technology and tested to ensure they are the best.

00:29:29.000 Blue Light for helping with digital eye strain.

00:29:32.000 Summerglow for helping with low mood and migraines.

00:29:35.000 And Seek Plus for improving your sleep.

00:29:37.000 Mention my name, Charlie, and get 15% off your entire order.

00:29:41.000 Go to blue blocks.

00:29:42.000 That's B-L-U-B-L-O-X.com backslash Charlie to order.

00:29:47.000 That's B-L-U-B-L-O-X.com backslash Charlie.

00:29:51.000 They may just change your life, and there's no risk because there's a 100% money-back guarantee.

00:29:56.000 Blueblocks.com backslash Charlie.

00:30:01.000 So there's this dispute going back and forth where then Jennifer Griffin responded to Colonel Douglas McGregor on this.

00:30:07.000 This kind of goes to show the differences of opinions even on Fox News Network.

00:30:12.000 Play cut nine.

00:30:13.000 I just heard your last guess and I feel like I need to correct some of the things that Colonel Doug McGregor just said because, and I'm not sure 10 minutes is enough time to do so because there were so many distortions in what he just said and talking about the West and NATO vilifying Putin and sounding like an apologist for Putin.

00:30:31.000 So those, what he just said was so distorted that I do feel that our audience needs to know the truth.

00:30:38.000 Well, I don't know if the clip continues.

00:30:40.000 I do want to know the distortions though, because Ukraine's not a democracy.

00:30:43.000 It's super corrupt and has been for quite some time.

00:30:46.000 So America could be leading, leading in de-escalation. 0.64

00:30:52.000 War is bad for the world.

00:30:54.000 War tends to get out of hand.

00:30:56.000 People die who were not intended to die.

00:31:00.000 Civilians die. 0.99

00:31:01.000 Other foreign nationals can die. 1.00

00:31:02.000 You get a whole mess of things.

00:31:03.000 World War I was awfully instructive in that, and so was World War II to some regard.

00:31:07.000 Why is America not leading in the de-escalation of this?

00:31:10.000 And that's not to say we shouldn't do sanctions.

00:31:11.000 I think there's a fair argument for that.

00:31:13.000 I think that if you invade another sovereign country, sanctions very well might be something that is a proper and appropriate response, especially after Putin lied about invading.

00:31:23.000 I don't like liars.

00:31:24.000 Oh, we're not going to invade.

00:31:25.000 We're not going to invade.

00:31:25.000 It's the West who's provoking this, and then he invades overnight.

00:31:28.000 I just don't like that, and you shouldn't either.

00:31:31.000 And I think that also the greatest sanction we could do is to actually put our own energy policy first.

00:31:36.000 So therefore, you're not necessarily over-involving yourself in world affairs.

00:31:40.000 You're actually saying we want to explore our own energy assets.

00:31:43.000 Okay, let's go to cut 14.

00:31:46.000 Russia and Ukraine were negotiating peace at the Belarus border.

00:31:49.000 I'm going to give you the update of that.

00:31:51.000 It basically fell apart.

00:31:52.000 Play cut 14.

00:31:53.000 Ukrainians and Russian officials are meeting in Belarus.

00:31:57.000 That's right.

00:31:58.000 We've actually got war and peace going on at the same time.

00:32:00.000 Peace talks while there is fighting here on the ground, here in the capital and in the major city of Kharkiv also.

00:32:06.000 Those peace talks are taking place on the border between Belarus and Ukraine.

00:32:10.000 Russia likely to ask for a full surrender by Ukraine.

00:32:15.000 Lay your weapons down.

00:32:16.000 We're in charge.

00:32:17.000 Ukraine looking for something very different, an immediate ceasefire and a pullback of Russian forces.

00:32:23.000 So the two sides very far apart.

00:32:25.000 But at least they're talking.

00:32:27.000 But after that, the shelling of Kyiv continued.

00:32:31.000 Now, Ukraine is attempting to fast-track to EU membership, which I don't quite understand the significance of that.

00:32:37.000 Also, just in FIFA and UEFA has now basically banned Russia from competing in the World Cup this summer.

00:32:48.000 So we'll keep eyes on that.

00:32:50.000 Putin tells Emmanuel Macron, which, I don't know, Putin with Emmanuel Macron.

00:32:54.000 There's something weird with that whole thing.

00:32:56.000 It's a power dynamic.

00:32:57.000 I don't think Putin respects Emmanuel Macron.

00:32:59.000 And if Emmanuel Macron is the best the West has to offer against Putin, we're in massive trouble.

00:33:06.000 I mean, we can't pick any.

00:33:08.000 I'll say this.

00:33:08.000 I would prefer Boris Johnson over Emmanuel Macron.

00:33:11.000 And I'm no Boris Johnson fan.

00:33:12.000 I think that Putin would take Angela Milko more seriously than Emmanuel Macron.

00:33:16.000 Goodness gracious.

00:33:17.000 It's the best we have.

00:33:18.000 I don't know what it is with Macron and Putin, but Putin tells Macron Ukraine neutrality and demilitarization is key to ending conflict.

00:33:28.000 The question is, can we believe Putin that he will stop the invasion and stop the shelling of Ukraine if they get guarantees that there is no NATO membership?

00:33:39.000 That remains to be seen.

00:33:40.000 Not sure I trust Putin in that regard, to be perfectly honest with you.

00:33:44.000 Cut 13, Ukrainian MP says, we know that we don't only fight for Ukraine, but for the new world order, and we are the shield for the Euro.

00:33:52.000 I'm sorry, what?

00:33:52.000 Play cut 13.

00:33:54.000 But right now, it's a critical time because we know that we not only fight for Ukraine, we fight for this new world order for the democratic countries.

00:34:04.000 We knew that we are the shield for the Euro.

00:34:07.000 Well, if that's what you're fighting for, you're not going to get my support.

00:34:10.000 I feel sorry that your people are dying and the civilians are in the way.

00:34:13.000 And I think we should do everything we possibly can to try to broker peace.

00:34:17.000 But if what you're fighting for is a new world order, if what you're fighting for is the endorsement of George Soros, which they have received, and the World Economic Forum, which they have received, then I think we should stay neutral on this.

00:34:31.000 If that's what they're fighting for, I'm not saying they deserve it.

00:34:34.000 I think Putin is wrong and he is reckless in his regard of invading another country and putting civilians' lives in danger.

00:34:40.000 But it certainly doesn't endear me to Ukraine the more you're saying you're fighting for the new world order.

00:34:47.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:34:49.000 Email us your thoughts as always, freedom at charliekirk.com and subscribe to the Charlie Kirk Show podcast.

00:34:54.000 Thanks so much for listening.

00:34:55.000 God bless.

00:34:59.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - February 28, 2022

The SMOG of War: Propaganda, Pundits, and Putin

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript