The Culture War - Tim Pool - America First or Supporting Ukraine War, DEBATE w⧸ Whick & Lactoid

00:00:00.000 Hi, I'm Mike Peska, host of The Gist, and I'm the kind of person, maybe you are too,

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00:00:53.040 This morning, Donald Trump put out a truth social statement saying,

00:00:56.960 Well, we are heavily focused on other things, just tariffs and potential escalation with China

00:01:13.820 and their retaliation as well as this trade war or largely the trade war.

00:01:17.580 But the issue of Ukraine is not over.

00:01:19.880 And Donald Trump is bringing it up once again because, well, he's trying to resolve it to some degree.

00:01:24.840 But what does that resolution actually look like?

00:01:27.240 And what should we as Americans do?

00:01:29.060 We're going to debate the issue.

00:01:30.480 We've got a couple of gentlemen joining us to have this discussion.

00:01:32.880 Sir, would you like to introduce yourself?

00:01:34.200 Sure.

00:01:34.640 Name's Wick TV, and I run a podcast on YouTube of the same name.

00:01:39.800 And I'm here to support Ukraine and advocate that we continue to aid Ukraine

00:01:45.160 and even ramp it up a little bit.

00:01:47.020 Oh, interesting.

00:01:47.960 And then, sir, who are you?

00:01:49.200 Yeah, I'm Lactoy.

00:01:50.340 You can find me at LactoyTV on TwitchX and YouTube.

00:01:54.580 I am a libertarian lawyer.

00:01:58.180 My position on this is that it's time for the U.S. to withdraw funding

00:02:03.060 and to keep that money here at home.

00:02:05.200 All right.

00:02:05.680 Well, this should be fun, my friends.

00:02:06.840 If you're just tuning in, smash the like button, of course.

00:02:09.400 Share this show far and wide.

00:02:10.800 It's Friday morning.

00:02:11.500 The Culture War is live, and we're going to be having this debate.

00:02:14.100 So share the show if you really do enjoy it.

00:02:15.620 So who wants to go first?

00:02:17.600 Why we should or should not be supporting this country?

00:02:20.200 I'll take it away.

00:02:21.680 So here, look.

00:02:23.000 Ukraine has been unjustly invaded by an aggressive force, Russia.

00:02:31.260 This isn't the first time Russia has invaded other countries.

00:02:35.260 They did it in Chechnya.

00:02:36.780 They did it in Georgia.

00:02:38.040 They did it before in Ukraine in 2014, and they're doing it again now.

00:02:42.560 The idea that if we suddenly withdraw our funding, if we withdraw our forces, if we decide

00:02:48.600 to just, you know, let Putin have this little bite now that he will somehow stop is ludicrous.

00:02:55.940 It's naive.

00:02:57.120 Putin will not stop.

00:02:58.920 He must be stopped.

00:03:00.340 We have a situation where we are and should be funding more money into Ukraine because

00:03:08.380 that money doesn't just go to Ukraine.

00:03:11.160 It goes to American jobs in American factories, building American weapons to fight America's

00:03:17.040 enemies and support America's allies.

00:03:18.760 We made in 2024 $316 billion selling foreign weapons, selling our weapons to foreign countries.

00:03:29.980 This dwarfs the numbers that we've given in aid to Ukraine.

00:03:33.900 And this demand spiked in 2024 by 26%, in part because we have shown ourselves, at least

00:03:41.100 to some degree, to be a reliable ally.

00:03:44.420 And so Poland, the Netherlands, other countries want to take and help rearm.

00:03:52.000 They're up in their GDP, but there's more money out there than there is stuff.

00:03:56.000 So we have an opportunity now to rebuild our industrial base and use Ukraine as a way to

00:04:00.920 do that because there's other conflicts coming.

00:04:03.300 We have a trade war with China coming up, right?

00:04:05.860 Trade wars can often turn into something a little bit hotter, and it behooves us to be prepared

00:04:11.360 for that.

00:04:11.660 And I think Ukraine is a good reason to do so.

00:04:14.980 That's my argument.

00:04:17.200 Yeah, I mean, my argument's pretty straightforward.

00:04:19.840 I think we've been sold a lie when it comes to the war in Ukraine.

00:04:22.420 We've been sold this tale of a David versus Goliath, this fledgling democracy that's being

00:04:29.300 threatened by this massive authoritarian power, when the reality is the truth is much more

00:04:33.900 complicated.

00:04:34.940 I mean, here we are $200 billion later, and all we've managed to buy for ourselves is about

00:04:39.560 half a million dead, probably more at this point.

00:04:42.340 Another half million wounded, some critically, probably more at this point.

00:04:46.860 And this was all done in service of a power structure in Ukraine that's becoming increasingly

00:04:52.020 authoritarian, a power structure that was founded upon a illegal and unconstitutional coup

00:04:57.600 that disenfranchised millions of people in the East that we just don't seem to care about.

00:05:02.260 We didn't seem to care about it in 2014, but it's the direct cause of what's going on

00:05:06.840 now.

00:05:08.140 And on top of all of that, Ukraine is losing, and Ukraine continues to lose every single

00:05:13.820 day, despite the fact that we're dumping money into it.

00:05:16.780 Ukraine is losing?

00:05:17.140 And last time, yeah, last time I brought this up, you know, you and your comrades kept hammering,

00:05:22.600 well, Kursk, they have Kursk.

00:05:24.000 Kursk is gone, right?

00:05:25.060 No, it's not.

00:05:26.020 Ukrainians have lost Kursk.

00:05:27.200 They have not.

00:05:27.800 They still have forces in Kursk today.

00:05:30.260 Not as much, right?

00:05:31.720 Not as much of Kursk, but today.

00:05:33.460 They have a single digit percentage fraction of what they had, and the Russian forces are

00:05:37.300 moving into Sumy.

00:05:38.680 I'm following the war every single day.

00:05:40.380 The Russians make gains every single day.

00:05:42.000 The Ukrainians lose ground every single day.

00:05:43.740 And we're dumping money into this dumpster fire.

00:05:46.360 Let's start here.

00:05:47.420 Why did Russia invade Ukraine?

00:05:50.700 Well, Russia has always wanted to regain Ukraine.

00:05:54.860 So Putin has said many times in his interview with Tucker Carlson, and in his speeches, and

00:06:01.000 in other statements, that he wants to regain the imperial power of Russia, to establish greater

00:06:09.140 Russia.

00:06:09.580 And Ukraine, in his mind, is part of that project.

00:06:13.740 He believes that they are ethnically Russian, that Ukrainians don't exist in a real way,

00:06:18.080 and he just wants to bring them into his fold, right?

00:06:21.200 That's his belief structure, and that's why he's doing this.

00:06:23.980 This nonsense that people will say about, like, oh, it's NATO expansion.

00:06:27.800 Oh, it's this.

00:06:28.500 Oh, it's that.

00:06:29.260 It's not.

00:06:30.480 Putin has been very clear.

00:06:32.540 He's doing this because he believes that Ukraine doesn't exist, and Ukraine is part of

00:06:38.300 greater Russia, and he'll have it back.

00:06:40.500 Yeah, I think that's the kind of American propaganda version of whenever the enemies

00:06:44.780 are going to, you know.

00:06:45.420 That's what Putin has said?

00:06:46.500 Well, no, it's more complicated than that.

00:06:49.100 As I think we're going to visit a lot here, a lot of the claims here that are being made

00:06:52.280 are more complicated.

00:06:53.140 There's more gray area than I think you're giving credit for.

00:06:56.020 The reasons for the war in Ukraine are complex, and there's many of them.

00:06:58.780 But some of the main issues are the disenfranchisement of millions of people in Crimea and the

00:07:04.040 Donbass and entirely, really, the east of Ukraine that happened in 2014 when there was

00:07:08.820 a unconstitutional, unpopular coup that took place.

00:07:12.040 It's a distraction.

00:07:12.520 It's not a distraction.

00:07:13.740 That matters.

00:07:14.480 If we care about constitutional order and we care about democracy, we can't just ignore

00:07:17.480 it when it benefits our enemies.

00:07:19.400 Even if I grant you this.

00:07:20.760 One last thing.

00:07:22.560 NATO expansion is also, of course, going to be one of the major factors.

00:07:26.300 A few days before the invasion, a demand was made, don't let Ukraine join NATO.

00:07:30.400 That demand was ignored.

00:07:31.820 It was up to them.

00:07:32.900 And then a few days later, the invasion, the 2022 invasion happened.

00:07:36.300 It is up to them.

00:07:37.000 Why wouldn't it be up to them?

00:07:38.240 If we're going to, let me ask you this.

00:07:40.980 Do you think that a country's sovereignty matters?

00:07:44.720 I think that a country's sovereignty matters to an extent.

00:07:48.400 To an extent.

00:07:49.060 To an extent.

00:07:49.760 I think that we're-

00:07:50.520 Let me ask you a question.

00:07:51.540 Let me ask you a question.

00:07:52.240 If the Colombia protesters, right, the ones who supported Hamas and things, were like,

00:07:58.140 you know what?

00:07:59.000 And they're citizens.

00:07:59.820 I'm not talking about the student visas and things like that.

00:08:01.600 The citizens of Colombia were like, you know what?

00:08:03.760 We hate America.

00:08:05.100 We want to be part of Hamas now.

00:08:06.760 We want to join Gaza.

00:08:08.120 So we're going to vote to join Gaza.

00:08:10.060 Do you think that would justify in any way, shape, or form Hamas coming in and attacking

00:08:14.860 America in order to liberate the Colombian protesters who have decided that, oh, we want to be part

00:08:21.460 of Gaza now?

00:08:23.040 It's disanalogous, and I'll explain why.

00:08:25.500 A better analogy would be, let's imagine if Canada had an unconstitutional coup that was

00:08:30.800 undemocratic and was against the will of the vote that had just happened, let's say.

00:08:35.420 And there were parts of Canada that were thus disenfranchised because, like many countries,

00:08:40.000 certain areas tend to vote for certain candidates more than others.

00:08:42.200 And then on top of that, this new illegal government reached out to Russia and attempted to join

00:08:47.740 Sisto and attempted to put Russian missiles on the border with the U.S.

00:08:51.940 As a great power, it is myopic to think that the U.S. wouldn't do anything.

00:08:56.240 The tanks are rolling in the next day.

00:08:58.060 We were willing to end the world over the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, despite the fact that

00:09:02.960 we had invaded Cuba in the Bay of Pigs just a year prior.

00:09:06.180 There are certain lines, the great powers, red lines that they have, and one of them is,

00:09:10.580 and Russia's made it clear, Ukraine, for many reasons, is one of the red lines here.

00:09:14.460 They made it clear before the invasion, and they've made it clear since.

00:09:17.520 The question I have is, why Ukraine?

00:09:22.680 What about literally any other country?

00:09:25.600 Well, I do think we should support Taiwan, for example, as another country where I think

00:09:30.700 we should draw red lines, and we should not let imperial powers come in and start taking

00:09:35.120 chunks, and the reason why is because it's in our interest, and these are the key words.

00:09:40.500 Ukraine is in our interest because Ukraine is connected to a lot of European countries.

00:09:46.720 We have—Ukraine isn't just the only country that borders Russia.

00:09:50.940 You have Estonia boarding Russia.

00:09:53.220 You have the Balkans, right?

00:09:54.800 And you have, well, now Finland and Sweden and things, but they weren't part of NATO before

00:10:00.120 the invasion, but this matters because the reason why a lot of countries in 2004 joined

00:10:08.520 NATO was because they foresaw this Russian imperial aggression that was coming.

00:10:15.660 They were worried over their sovereignty, and they wanted protection from that.

00:10:20.080 So if we abandon Ukraine, what that does is it sends a signal to our allies that are our

00:10:26.420 actually allies, the NATO allies that we have, that, you know what?

00:10:29.860 If it costs too much, then maybe we're going to abandon them too, and that creates a very

00:10:34.260 dangerous situation.

00:10:35.480 But Ukraine is not an ally of the United States.

00:10:38.000 Ukraine can be, and I think it should be.

00:10:40.220 Sure, sure, but that's not what I'm asking.

00:10:42.260 It's not.

00:10:42.860 Because it's not.

00:10:43.740 And so it's understandable what you're saying that if, say, Lithuania saw an incursion from,

00:10:49.100 you know, Russia brought troops into Belarus, and then—or Kaliningrad started launching

00:10:53.000 incursions through the border of Kaliningrad.

00:10:54.820 But Ukraine's not an ally, nor are they a member of NATO, nor the EU.

00:10:59.220 So for what, you know, what is the reason the U.S. intervened in this regard?

00:11:03.140 Again, because it's in our interest.

00:11:05.240 What are those interests?

00:11:06.220 Sure.

00:11:07.060 One of our interests is—

00:11:08.100 The military-industrial complex.

00:11:09.240 That was one of the things he mentioned.

00:11:10.200 It's creating American jobs.

00:11:11.280 It's a way that we can—

00:11:12.440 That is one.

00:11:13.260 On the military-industrial complex.

00:11:14.360 Absolutely.

00:11:14.880 That is one of our interests.

00:11:16.200 But another of our interests is create stability in this region.

00:11:19.220 Because if Ukraine falls—like, we talk about the cost of supporting Ukraine.

00:11:22.620 We've got to talk about the cost of not supporting Ukraine.

00:11:25.320 What happens if we abandon Ukraine and Ukraine falls?

00:11:27.840 What happens to our interests?

00:11:29.420 What happens to the cost to American consumers?

00:11:33.180 Trade?

00:11:33.880 We have about a trillion dollars, a little less, a year with Europe in trade.

00:11:40.560 And if that is disrupted, right, it just hurts our wealth at home.

00:11:45.140 What would disrupt that?

00:11:46.280 So, for example, if Ukraine falls, a lot of our European allies will see us as unreliable.

00:11:57.220 And I'll give you an example of this happening.

00:11:58.480 When Trump canceled briefly, paused the aid that was going to Ukraine, cut off intelligence and things like that,

00:12:05.500 the EU began to question its purchases that it was making from us when it comes to us.

00:12:14.480 It has granted them—so the EU has talked about they are no longer going to want to source some of the parts that they get for their munitions and their things from us

00:12:27.000 because we are no longer reliable.

00:12:28.540 Well, they're setting up—I'm not sure if it's in place yet, but they're setting up a system where they buy from themselves

00:12:35.240 because they realize that, oh, maybe under this regime—

00:12:39.240 It doesn't sound like that's related to Ukraine, though.

00:12:41.800 It is.

00:12:42.300 It sounds like it's related to Trump's trade issues.

00:12:44.940 No, no, this was before the trade issues.

00:12:46.780 So you're saying that—

00:12:47.740 This was before the trade imports and anything like this.

00:12:49.880 This is when Trump canceled our—or paused, I should say, the aid we were giving to Ukraine that we had already allocated to give to Ukraine.

00:12:58.160 He paused that so it wasn't coming in.

00:13:00.000 He also canceled the intelligence sharing that we were doing.

00:13:02.800 And again, like, Europe is on this doorstep, and a lot of Europe are our allies,

00:13:09.140 and they see and they're watching how America is going to support them because by supporting Ukraine, we are supporting them.

00:13:16.720 We are making the world safe for them.

00:13:18.440 And that's a direct benefit.

00:13:21.040 It is not a wild assertion.

00:13:22.360 They're not an ally.

00:13:23.500 As Tim said, they're not an ally, right?

00:13:25.440 You're saying they could be an ally, and I understand that U.S. aid and several other—

00:13:29.600 But you understand that, like, Estonia is our ally.

00:13:32.440 Estonia is our ally.

00:13:33.460 They're a NATO ally.

00:13:34.200 And I would agree—

00:13:35.080 The Netherlands is our ally.

00:13:36.380 For sure, for sure.

00:13:37.380 France is our ally, correct?

00:13:38.700 And they're covered under other five.

00:13:39.320 And they are all wanting us.

00:13:40.940 They are all wanting us to support Ukraine.

00:13:43.620 I'm sure they are.

00:13:44.600 That's less money that they have to spend.

00:13:45.800 I'm sure they all want us to be—

00:13:47.080 They're all ramping up their money.

00:13:48.260 I'm sure—good.

00:13:48.480 What are you talking about?

00:13:49.240 They are ramping up their money in spending.

00:13:51.000 I don't control their money, okay?

00:13:52.440 If they want to spend money, I can't stop—

00:13:54.080 I don't think it's a good idea, but I can't stop them.

00:13:56.060 But if you're saying, oh, they want us to spend this money, I'm sure they do, right?

00:13:59.740 I don't think that we should.

00:14:01.160 Not only for the reasons that I outlined before, but because you're openly talking about, well,

00:14:06.520 it's in our interest because the military is a complex—

00:14:08.840 It's in our interest, it makes Americans safer, and it makes the world safer.

00:14:11.700 No, it's in our interest—

00:14:12.580 American hegemony has made the world a safer place, a better place, not just for America,

00:14:18.440 but for the world.

00:14:19.360 Ukraine was more stable or less stable after—do you think it was more stable or sorry?

00:14:23.320 Do you think it was more stable or less stable after Russia invaded?

00:14:25.820 I think it was less stable.

00:14:26.760 Hold on.

00:14:27.100 Do you think Ukraine was more stable after 2014 than before?

00:14:32.340 Of course not.

00:14:33.460 Okay.

00:14:33.840 What happened in 2014?

00:14:34.740 In 2014, Russian sent little green men into Crimea.

00:14:39.060 What happened before then?

00:14:39.860 They locked down, right?

00:14:41.420 They locked down the parliament so no one can get in, men with guns, right?

00:14:45.000 What happened before then?

00:14:45.960 They forced a vote.

00:14:46.580 What happened before then?

00:14:47.820 No, 100—let me read the exact resolution here.

00:14:51.200 That's why I took some notes.

00:14:52.060 I'm sorry.

00:14:52.480 I'm sorry.

00:14:52.760 UN Resolution 68262, right?

00:14:56.040 The invalid referendum on 16th of March, 2014, where Crimea declared its independence and joined Russia.

00:15:03.420 This was obviously under coercion.

00:15:06.140 Why'd you put that in scare quotes?

00:15:07.320 Because it was, again, as the UN resolution says, invalid.

00:15:12.480 You're saying it's invalid.

00:15:13.060 We recognize it's invalid.

00:15:14.080 I'm asking you why was it invalid?

00:15:16.760 It was done under duress.

00:15:18.520 Was it?

00:15:18.880 Because, yes, because Russians sent their little green men in.

00:15:22.800 They brought guns.

00:15:24.320 They locked down the parliament.

00:15:25.780 They forced the vote.

00:15:26.540 What's little green men?

00:15:27.600 Little green men.

00:15:28.140 So they have green uniforms.

00:15:29.560 They rip off their badge, right?

00:15:31.000 So they're not actually Russian soldiers, and they go in, and they do their thing, and they have some plausible deniability, which people like my comrade, Lactoid, here, will say, oh, that's obviously not the Russians.

00:15:46.000 It's just some paramilitary.

00:15:47.240 I want to educate Wick a little bit on this.

00:15:49.160 So obviously there were Russians there.

00:15:50.840 I'm not denying that the little green men were Russians, obviously.

00:15:53.600 Russian soldiers, to be clear.

00:15:54.480 Yes, of course, from Sevastopol, for sure.

00:15:56.580 With guns that were threatening force.

00:15:58.100 Yep, yep, yep, yep.

00:15:59.100 Okay.

00:15:59.560 But when I asked you before, what happened before then, I think it's telling that you're just ignoring all the context, as is usual with this conversation, before you cut me off again, as usual with this conversation, there's, oh, it just happened, right?

00:16:12.500 There's this, oh, it just came out of the sky.

00:16:14.040 This invasion just came out of the sky.

00:16:15.720 When, in reality, what happened is Crimea had, for years, wanted to leave Ukraine.

00:16:20.300 In fact, in 1992, they declared independence.

00:16:22.540 Ukraine said, you better nullify that within a week with the threat of force.

00:16:26.240 So then they were like, okay, fine, you know, we're not going to leave.

00:16:29.940 Just like Chechnya.

00:16:31.080 That's Russia.

00:16:31.640 We can talk about Chechnya in a second, because I also know about Chechnya.

00:16:35.600 But then in 2014, in 2010, there was a president elected in Ukraine, Yanukovych.

00:16:41.680 And in 2014, he was, do you deny that he was unconstitutionally couped in 2014?

00:16:47.600 No, but that doesn't matter.

00:16:48.640 Why doesn't it matter?

00:16:49.340 That doesn't matter.

00:16:49.880 Why doesn't the votes of Crimeans matter?

00:16:52.580 Does them big disenfranchised matter?

00:16:55.160 It doesn't give Russia the right to come in with guns, tanks, and materiel and force the issue.

00:17:03.360 Russia or any other nation does not have the right to come in with force and violate someone's sovereignty to solve an internecine conflict.

00:17:13.660 There are other ways to deal with that.

00:17:15.360 What way?

00:17:15.820 Russia did this with military force.

00:17:18.220 What way should Crimea have handled it?

00:17:20.220 Any other way but this.

00:17:21.560 What way?

00:17:22.000 Because Crimea didn't handle it.

00:17:23.440 Russia did.

00:17:23.960 What way?

00:17:24.440 Russia took away their choice.

00:17:25.860 Why did Russia go into Crimea?

00:17:28.040 Because it's always, it's been part of their plan.

00:17:30.400 They want Ukraine.

00:17:31.340 I mean, Putin's wanted Ukraine for a while.

00:17:33.440 No, but why Crimea?

00:17:35.220 Crimea had, pronunciation's hard.

00:17:39.280 There's ports in there that gives them access to the, what they call warm water ports, right?

00:17:44.480 Because they don't have a lot of those and it gives them access and they can use their navies and things like that.

00:17:49.240 It's the home of the Russian Black Sea Fleet and their only warm water port.

00:17:54.340 And they're primarily Russians in Crimea as well.

00:17:56.600 But that wasn't under threat, right?

00:17:58.360 Of course it was.

00:17:59.120 Why?

00:17:59.820 What was the threat?

00:18:00.740 They had a lease.

00:18:02.540 I'll explain to you why it was under threat, okay?

00:18:04.660 It was under threat for a couple reasons.

00:18:06.220 But when you have the pro-Russian president get unconstitutionally couped in 2014, and now you have this country, which prior had promised to not join military blocs, is now looking towards NATO, right?

00:18:18.240 There is a concern that if they join NATO, that you're saying that, but that's, how do you, as a geopolitical actor, how do you know that for sure?

00:18:25.860 Especially when you have-

00:18:27.100 I need more than just a possibility.

00:18:29.200 I need reasonable-

00:18:30.180 You had a coup.

00:18:31.180 You had a coup.

00:18:32.180 You had a coup.

00:18:33.180 How can you trust this new government?

00:18:34.180 When they ignored their own constitution, they ignored Article 108, they ignored Article 111, and they disenfranchised millions of people, millions of Crimeans.

00:18:42.240 And by the way, the UN had done polling in Crimea prior to this and found that most Crimeans would vote to leave Ukraine and join Russia.

00:18:51.700 This was between 2009 and 2011.

00:18:52.940 But we'll never know for sure if they would, because the vote they had was conducted under coercive force.

00:19:00.500 I'm almost done.

00:19:02.320 I think less than two months following the annexation of Crimea into Russia, Pew Research went in and did a poll, and 88% of Crimeans said that Kiev should recognize the results.

00:19:12.880 Only 4% said no, which is relatively in line with what the referendum was.

00:19:16.980 Again, they were occupied by Russian forces.

00:19:19.960 You don't say no.

00:19:21.080 When they weren't occupied, they wanted to leave Ukraine and join Russia.

00:19:24.120 What about that?

00:19:24.540 Through a poll.

00:19:25.680 Through a UN poll.

00:19:26.620 It's in a vote.

00:19:27.600 A UN?

00:19:28.220 Because Ukraine wouldn't let them have a vote.

00:19:30.540 They tried to have a vote in 1992, and Ukraine said no.

00:19:33.180 You need more than just someone calling you up on the phone like, hey, buddy, do you want to secede from your country?

00:19:37.740 You need an actual constitutional congress.

00:19:39.840 You need something actual-

00:19:41.020 Would Ukraine let them have that vote?

00:19:42.740 At the end of the day, at the end of the day, none of this justifies Russia coming in.

00:19:49.340 Of course it does.

00:19:49.840 And of course it does not.

00:19:51.460 Of course it does.

00:19:51.560 We would never let that happen in any other situation.

00:19:53.660 Ukraine didn't let them vote.

00:19:55.320 Russia did not let that happen.

00:19:55.960 No, no, no.

00:19:56.480 When Chechnya tried to secede, right, when the Warsaw Pact broke apart, when the USSR broke

00:20:04.040 apart, and Chechnya said, okay, we want to go away too.

00:20:06.880 At the time, they were like, no way, Jose.

00:20:10.100 And they came in with military force and stomped them down.

00:20:13.340 I absolutely do not, because of the way they handled that.

00:20:15.920 Whoa, why don't you support that?

00:20:17.720 Again, if you listen to that, because of the way they handled that.

00:20:20.440 What way did they handle it then?

00:20:21.600 Gross human violations of their rights.

00:20:24.120 Do Ukrainians do that in the Donbass?

00:20:25.800 No.

00:20:26.480 No?

00:20:27.000 No.

00:20:27.220 When Amnesty says that they were committing war crimes by firing unguided rockets in civilian

00:20:32.480 areas, that's just thousands of people dead.

00:20:34.600 Who cares?

00:20:35.260 So the ICE...

00:20:35.840 Oh, go ahead.

00:20:37.300 You brought up the vote from Crimea, and so I've been looking into it.

00:20:41.260 I have a question for you.

00:20:42.260 In the 2010 election in Ukraine, which you mentioned, Viktor Yanukovych won 49.55% against

00:20:49.520 Yulia Timoshenko, who won 46.03%.

00:20:52.600 Yes.

00:20:52.940 The country was split from the east to the west, with the west largely, this includes

00:20:58.100 Kiev, largely being in favor of Timoshenko, and the right being in favor of Yanukovych.

00:21:03.100 Yanukovych had his political opposition after this arrested and held for three years in prison.

00:21:09.320 The following 2010?

00:21:10.840 Yes.

00:21:11.080 In 2011, Yulia Timoshenko was arrested for what is largely seen as political persecution

00:21:17.360 and held for three years until Yanukovych was ousted.

00:21:20.780 Sure.

00:21:21.220 And so...

00:21:21.800 Not to mention, during Euromaidon, right, the brutalities, the brutalities that Yanukovych

00:21:28.860 was perpetrated on his people, 108 protesters killed brutally.

00:21:33.360 And 13 cops were killed.

00:21:35.400 So in terms of the political, I guess, oppression that came following Yanukovych's election,

00:21:41.320 I'm sure there's criticisms you can levy.

00:21:43.060 I know Yanukovych had issues with corruption.

00:21:45.140 I know that, in fact, Ukraine now has issues with corruption.

00:21:47.820 But just because there are those issues doesn't mean that you can trample upon your own constitution

00:21:56.380 to remove a president and not expect separatism in the places, as you brought up, in the places

00:22:02.120 that overwhelmingly voted for Yanukovych.

00:22:04.320 In Crimea and the Donbass, it was overwhelmingly pro-Yanukovych.

00:22:07.900 Do their votes not matter?

00:22:09.000 Do you just get to replace this president in 2014 with somebody that was not democratically

00:22:14.180 elected?

00:22:14.560 Ignore your own constitution?

00:22:16.080 This is what led to the separatism.

00:22:17.960 And the separatism and this new power structure in Ukraine, and this new power structure in

00:22:22.300 separatism is what led to the 2022 invasion.

00:22:25.160 Well, let me ask you this.

00:22:26.140 Had the U.S. backed and really wanted Yanukovych's political enemy that he jailed for three years

00:22:34.800 unconstitutionally, right?

00:22:36.260 If he had wanted—

00:22:37.460 Well, you don't know the details about that, and you don't either.

00:22:39.620 If he had really wanted—and I'll go with the hypothetical that what Tim just said was

00:22:44.500 accurate and that it was seen and pretty much seen as shady, as illegal, etc.

00:22:49.840 So go with it.

00:22:50.900 Run with me on this.

00:22:52.220 Would that give us, the U.S., the right to go in with gun, tanks, men, and occupy and seek

00:23:01.140 to annex parts of Ukraine?

00:23:04.760 Would that have given us the right to do that?

00:23:07.300 I don't believe you if you say that you think that we would have that.

00:23:12.440 I think we've talked about matters of scale.

00:23:14.500 Matters of scale.

00:23:15.320 Yeah.

00:23:15.720 No, for sure.

00:23:16.520 Let me explain.

00:23:17.300 In the event that the Constitution was violated, which we don't know if it was—I mean, we

00:23:21.980 had an arrest warrant for Yanukovych issued in 2014 immediately after he left the country.

00:23:26.500 You do have a history—

00:23:27.840 Fled the country, yes.

00:23:28.420 He left—yeah.

00:23:29.300 You can say he fled because his car was shot at.

00:23:31.480 If there's a constitutional issue with that, you can say there's major issues.

00:23:37.780 You can, in fact, even potentially, if it's bad enough, if there's enough repression,

00:23:41.720 that could potentially justify an invasion based on humanitarian reasons.

00:23:45.400 There is—unless you want to say—

00:23:47.380 Look, there are reasons.

00:23:48.820 Hold on.

00:23:49.320 Unless you want to say—

00:23:50.120 I'll say this.

00:23:50.680 Hold on a second.

00:23:51.640 Unless you want to say, well, we can't invade a country even if, like, there's gross humanitarian

00:23:56.260 violations, and then that means you can't, you know, invading Nazi Germany is out of the

00:24:00.480 question, the Confederate South.

00:24:02.520 That's what I'm saying.

00:24:03.180 So you can—yeah, if there's enough violations of the Constitution and human rights that could

00:24:07.580 justify potentially humanitarian intervention.

00:24:09.980 Human rights.

00:24:10.480 But what I'm saying is this—the euro made on was particularly egregious.

00:24:15.200 We have a movement that, according to the last poll prior to the ousting of Yanukovych,

00:24:20.220 had about 45% popularity and 48% unpopularity, primarily in the East.

00:24:24.420 And you had the president removed, violating Article 108 and Article 111.

00:24:29.680 And you had separatism.

00:24:31.020 That does not justify it.

00:24:31.620 Well, to some extent, it does.

00:24:33.480 I don't believe it.

00:24:34.620 The United States had help from France.

00:24:37.020 We had a general, Lafayette, come in to help us leave the UK.

00:24:40.880 Let me ask you this.

00:24:41.860 Does the U.S., because, you know, we argued no taxation with our representation, and I

00:24:46.440 think nullifying your vote is essentially removing representation, did the U.S. have a

00:24:50.280 right to leave the UK, the England?

00:24:52.480 Do we have a right to declare independence?

00:24:54.060 Sure.

00:24:54.400 They were doing more than just that.

00:24:56.720 They were grossly—they were disappearing people.

00:24:59.120 They were giving people no trial.

00:25:01.400 They were just taking them off the street, right?

00:25:04.140 But here's the deal.

00:25:05.320 Well, we don't live in 1700s anymore, and we're dealing in a world that is fundamentally

00:25:11.320 different than back then.

00:25:13.120 And to pretend that we're going to live by the same rules that we did back in 1700s,

00:25:17.900 I think is folly.

00:25:19.040 Look, none of this justifies.

00:25:20.700 None of this justifies.

00:25:21.960 And this is a principle, right, that a country's sovereignty matters, and a foreign entity

00:25:27.220 cannot use military force in order to violate another country's sovereignty, in order to

00:25:32.760 solve a crisis that they themselves have helped serve up.

00:25:36.840 Because let me—if I may finish, Russia has a habit of doing this.

00:25:42.120 Russia has done this before.

00:25:44.120 They did it in Georgia.

00:25:45.620 They put—they took an interesting conflict that was in South Ossetia and—I can't

00:25:52.580 pronounce—oh, Abkhazia?

00:25:54.260 Abkhazia.

00:25:54.760 Abkhazia, thank you.

00:25:55.820 And they pumped money into them.

00:25:58.040 They sent their little green men in there again, their little Russian soldiers, and

00:26:02.260 they stirred up this conflict.

00:26:05.420 Again, remarkably similar to how they behaved in Ukraine with the Donbass and with Crimea

00:26:11.380 and these things.

00:26:12.420 And they used this as an excuse, right, to go in with military force and take a slice,

00:26:18.800 right?

00:26:19.200 And today, even today, they occupy illegally 20% of Georgians' sovereign territory.

00:26:27.140 Russia, and Putin specifically, continues to do this, and they play this game.

00:26:32.060 So this idea that if we just stop funding Ukraine, it's not our problem, he's just going to stop,

00:26:38.160 has not been borne out by the facts of the matter.

00:26:41.400 If someone continues to exhibit a habit of behavior over and over and over and over again,

00:26:46.640 what is different this time?

00:26:47.660 Let me ask you this, Simon.

00:26:48.480 You listed twice.

00:26:48.560 You listed two times.

00:26:49.400 That's less than the U.S. has intervened in other countries.

00:26:51.640 We invaded Iraq.

00:26:52.460 We invaded Afghanistan.

00:26:53.520 We got involved in Libya.

00:26:54.580 We got involved in Syria.

00:26:55.140 We didn't annex Afghanistan.

00:26:56.420 We didn't annex Iraq.

00:26:57.200 No, we replaced the government.

00:26:58.700 But that's a fundamentally different thing.

00:26:59.820 To a pro-Western government.

00:27:00.800 And again, I'm not here to support every single thing that the United States has done.

00:27:04.540 And I'm not here to support every single thing the Russian government has done.

00:27:08.800 I'm not—you can point out—and by the way, I'm actually critical of the Russian government when it comes to Chechnya.

00:27:12.980 I think it's surprising that you're not because—or that you are, sorry.

00:27:17.900 I think it's surprising that you are critical—

00:27:19.140 I was about to say, do you not think of?

00:27:19.860 —of the Russian government in Chechnya because the same arguments—

00:27:23.820 It's a genocide, man.

00:27:24.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:27:24.400 Well, it's a little—it's not—I mean, no, it wasn't a genocide.

00:27:27.300 But it was an annexation of an area that wanted self-determination, wanted to be separate because the Soviet Union had just collapsed.

00:27:34.760 But under your logic of the countries are sovereign, we can't get involved, you should be against Chechnya.

00:27:41.000 Because Chechnya was part of the Russian government, wasn't it?

00:27:43.420 It was part of the Russian territory.

00:27:44.480 Do you think the U.S. should have gone in in Chechnya?

00:27:46.560 Probably not just—

00:27:50.120 Probably not.

00:27:51.080 Hold on, hold on.

00:27:51.660 Indeed.

00:27:52.200 Just because of the expense and the kind of geopolitical reality on the ground.

00:27:56.480 So from a moral perspective, we would have been justified.

00:27:58.840 Thank you.

00:27:59.140 We would have been justified.

00:28:00.540 We would have strong justification.

00:28:02.000 Again, until the—like the Balkans, right?

00:28:05.600 When we went in—when NATO went in in the 90s, right, and stopped the Serbian genocide that was happening there, that the Serbians were conducting, right?

00:28:14.860 NATO offensive.

00:28:15.620 Yes, that was good.

00:28:17.640 That was something we should have done, right?

00:28:19.920 And when it comes to the war crimes, like we talk about when war crimes justify intervention.

00:28:26.260 Look at Bukha.

00:28:27.140 What happened to Bukha?

00:28:28.820 498 civilians massacred.

00:28:30.980 Does that justify the U.S. getting involved?

00:28:33.320 I think it does.

00:28:34.860 Look at what they've done by stealing 20,000, at least, children, Ukrainian children, and disappearing them into Russia to serve with Russian families, to live with Russian families, and to be raised as Russian?

00:28:50.620 Against the will of their parents.

00:28:51.740 Can you even state—

00:28:52.420 Does that justify—

00:28:53.440 Can you even state—

00:28:53.940 Does that justify U.S. evoking?

00:28:55.840 Hold on.

00:28:56.100 When you say against the will of their parents, what do you mean?

00:28:58.260 I mean that the parents, they're not allowed to see the kids.

00:29:01.800 Is that what's happening?

00:29:02.880 That is.

00:29:03.300 Do you even know what the Russian argument is on that?

00:29:05.980 I don't care why they're doing it.

00:29:08.520 It's wrong.

00:29:09.320 They're orphans.

00:29:10.200 And if the parents are identified, they ship them back to Ukraine.

00:29:12.820 They're orphans.

00:29:13.440 They're orphans.

00:29:14.220 That is not true.

00:29:15.100 It is absolutely true.

00:29:16.400 They're orphans in combat zones.

00:29:17.500 That is not true.

00:29:18.300 They're orphans in combat zones.

00:29:19.760 That is 100% true.

00:29:20.940 Now, you could say, well, Russia has an obligation to send the orphans to Ukraine.

00:29:24.380 That could be a discussion.

00:29:25.980 But again—

00:29:27.020 It's not a discussion.

00:29:27.760 It's just the fact that they—

00:29:28.720 Hold on.

00:29:29.040 The framing here—

00:29:30.120 Do you not think children should be reunited with their families if we're able?

00:29:33.560 Wick.

00:29:34.480 They're orphans.

00:29:35.100 They don't have families.

00:29:36.380 They don't have families.

00:29:37.540 It's in a combat zone.

00:29:38.500 But they do in many cases.

00:29:39.500 And if they—

00:29:39.820 Their parents are saying, give us back our kids.

00:29:42.120 No.

00:29:42.840 And every month when they identify parents, they do send them back.

00:29:46.580 They are making it very, very hard to identify parents.

00:29:49.600 See, you're all over the place.

00:29:50.200 First—

00:29:50.380 I'm not all over the place.

00:29:51.380 You are all over the place.

00:29:52.320 No, no.

00:29:52.500 First is—

00:29:52.820 Again, let me ask you one more time.

00:29:54.560 Let me ask you one more time.

00:29:55.680 You keep not answering the question.

00:29:57.340 Does the Buka massacre justify—because you have agreed that violations of human rights allow us or allow a foreign country to go in militarily, right?

00:30:10.680 So if Buka is not enough for you, is them snatching these 20,000 orphans, as you call them, off the streets and disappearing them into Russia, is that not enough for you?

00:30:21.840 What about all the other war crimes that have been recognized by the UN, by the ICJ, by the OSCE, right, by these other human rights watchdog groups that they know is happening in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories where they are forcing Ukrainian citizens to become Russian, get a Russian passport, and then they conscript the men and send them off to fight against Ukraine?

00:30:50.780 Does that not justify—

00:30:52.600 Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

00:30:53.300 Hold on.

00:30:54.360 We've got a problem with conscription now?

00:30:55.780 Okay, we've got a couple questions here.

00:30:57.660 Yes, if you are making someone—

00:30:59.760 Wick, Wick, please.

00:31:01.740 A couple points here.

00:31:02.960 First of all, you didn't know what was going on with the orphans.

00:31:05.860 You were saying, oh, the children are being—

00:31:07.340 This is absolutely happening.

00:31:08.620 Wick, for God's sake.

00:31:10.920 You made the claim, oh, all these children and their parents are begging for them back.

00:31:15.800 In a lot of cases, yes.

00:31:16.940 And this is happening in the majority or the vast majority of cases.

00:31:21.580 That's what was implied.

00:31:23.100 The reality is they're orphans in a combat zone, and they're being moved out of the combat zone.

00:31:27.860 There's a genuine discussion to be had as to whether or not the orphans should be sent to Ukraine or whether or not they should be sent—

00:31:32.140 It's just pure Russian propaganda.

00:31:33.500 It's just not true.

00:31:34.340 Hold on.

00:31:34.940 It's just not true.

00:31:36.140 I let you finish, didn't I?

00:31:37.880 Whether they should be sent to safer places, I did.

00:31:40.380 Whether they should be sent to safer places deeper within Russia, away from the combat zone.

00:31:44.120 I understand that Russia has annexed those areas, and there are people there now who the Russian government considers to be Russian citizens.

00:31:53.860 And I also understand there's conscription occurring.

00:31:56.400 The Ukrainian government is also conscripting people who don't want to fight.

00:31:59.280 There's plenty of videos you can find right now of vans pulling up, grabbing people off the street, forcing them into the front line.

00:32:05.420 And the big reason why this is happening is—hold on.

00:32:08.760 A big reason this is happening is because Ukraine is suffering from a critical manpower shortage, which is one of the reasons why they are losing.

00:32:18.580 Okay.

00:32:18.840 Where are you going?

00:32:19.420 Hold on.

00:32:20.160 I'm responding.

00:32:21.120 No, no.

00:32:21.400 You laid out like eight points.

00:32:23.180 You want to talk about the Butcher massacre?

00:32:24.540 You keep talking about things, and we keep needing to address them because you bring up points that are just demonstrably right.

00:32:29.780 And I wait for you to finish.

00:32:31.240 General—no, you do not, sir.

00:32:33.080 So General—the Army General Christopher G. Cavoli met April 3rd, right?

00:32:39.500 He's the commander of EUCOM.

00:32:41.840 He's the supreme allied commander of NATO forces, right?

00:32:45.020 He sat down in front of a session of Congress, right, an open session of Congress, and he talked about the Ukraine situation.

00:32:55.360 This is very recent.

00:32:56.140 In this, he testified, right?

00:32:59.480 And I think he would be in a better position to know than you or I, considering the access to the intel he has, right?

00:33:05.500 He'd also be biased.

00:33:06.180 Right?

00:33:07.400 Biased.

00:33:08.240 He's involved in NATO, isn't he?

00:33:09.660 Okay.

00:33:10.040 Yes.

00:33:10.820 But he has the duty to tell the truth.

00:33:15.840 Like, here we go.

00:33:16.920 Like, saying he's biased because he's a NATO general, right?

00:33:21.380 He's testified that Ukraine has solved his—solved its manpower issues.

00:33:27.000 And, right, and it is currently in a better position today than it was last year.

00:33:32.980 I gotta—so, I suppose my issue with this conversation so far is I still don't understand why I should care about Ukraine.

00:33:40.400 You guys are arguing humanitarian issues.

00:33:43.180 You want to talk about China and humanitarian issues?

00:33:44.840 We can do that.

00:33:45.400 I'm unmoved by the plight of a country that has nothing to do with us.

00:33:49.780 I think you're just incorrect when you say it has nothing to do with us.

00:33:53.840 Again, our allies—Taiwan, for example.

00:33:56.280 So we should invade China?

00:33:58.300 Why?

00:33:58.880 Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam.

00:34:01.720 These countries rely on us as well.

00:34:03.020 I think if China—

00:34:03.820 China's been invading the South China Sea and sinking Vietnamese fishing vessels.

00:34:06.920 They're building military bases.

00:34:08.620 Should we invade mainland China?

00:34:10.180 If they invade Taiwan, yes.

00:34:11.980 Well, they have a bright red line.

00:34:13.160 They took over Hong Kong.

00:34:13.960 We have a bright red—they took over Hong Kong—

00:34:16.340 They were mass protests trying to shut it down.

00:34:17.840 Sure.

00:34:18.300 But the—

00:34:19.200 Hong Kong was a—

00:34:19.980 The British government had made a contract to give it back in so many years.

00:34:24.140 That was a legal thing.

00:34:25.180 Is that the authority of a foreign government to tell Hong Kong that they'd give up their rights?

00:34:29.880 The Hong Kong citizens, if you will?

00:34:31.400 The Hong Kong citizens aren't beholden to the will of the Crown of England.

00:34:34.480 So when the protesters in Hong Kong started saying,

00:34:36.460 we do not want the rule of mainland China, and China sent in tanks to crush them—

00:34:40.600 Yeah, that was wrong.

00:34:41.460 That was horrible.

00:34:42.180 So like with Crimea, should the U.S. now get involved and support the people of Hong Kong

00:34:46.840 and Southeast Asia in incursions against mainland China?

00:34:49.800 If we could send aid into Hong Kong, do you think we should?

00:34:53.280 If we could send monetary aid to help smuggle people out, do you think we should do that?

00:34:56.780 Should the U.S. send—

00:34:58.240 Well, can you answer my question?

00:34:59.360 I'll ask you a question first.

00:35:00.640 Sure.

00:35:01.420 Right.

00:35:01.680 Should we sink the flagship of the Chinese fleet in the South China Sea?

00:35:05.540 If they invade Taiwan, yes.

00:35:06.800 If they cross out of London.

00:35:07.560 Again, the people of Hong Kong did not vote for that.

00:35:10.420 Characterizing as an invasion is a little bit different.

00:35:13.600 It's a different context.

00:35:14.900 They sent in tanks.

00:35:16.320 Again, horrible.

00:35:17.180 Horrible.

00:35:17.580 The people fought back against it, and they started disappearing them.

00:35:20.100 Horrible.

00:35:20.860 So what's the difference between Crimea and Hong Kong?

00:35:23.460 So in Crimea, there was no contract, right?

00:35:27.000 So in Hong Kong, the British government—

00:35:28.820 You said there was a lease that Russia had.

00:35:30.440 With Serevopol, which is to the military—

00:35:32.140 Sevastopol.

00:35:33.240 Sorry.

00:35:35.360 Pronunciations might—

00:35:35.960 So the tanks that Russia had in Crimea were already leased to have been in there at the Black Sea port.

00:35:41.380 But not to blockade the Ukrainian military bases there, not to lock down parliament there.

00:35:47.040 Well, again, the British had a—the British, as I understand it—and again, I'm not an expert on China by any means, but the British had an agreement with the government of China that in 100 years they were going to give back Hong Kong into China's hands.

00:36:02.780 And the day came, and they did that.

00:36:04.940 Now, I'm with you.

00:36:06.020 China has done horrible things to the protesters in Hong Kong, horrible things indeed.

00:36:11.260 And there might be an argument.

00:36:13.020 And the Uyghur Muslims.

00:36:13.120 They're—yes, absolutely.

00:36:14.460 Our interests, I think, are very much at risk with China right now, considering the seizures, the atolls they've built, and their declaration of ownership of South Tennessee.

00:36:24.180 Would you think it's beneficial then for us to stimmy China's allies, to hurt China's allies?

00:36:31.280 Do you think making China's allies weaker would be in our best interest in the United States?

00:36:35.520 No.

00:36:36.420 No, why not?

00:36:37.160 We're about to have a conflict with China.

00:36:38.960 The reason I asked the question is that—

00:36:41.000 I understand that's the reason you asked your question.

00:36:42.760 The reason we asked the question is that we have multiple conflicts around the world.

00:36:46.700 And my point was, when you guys are debating the humanitarian issues of Ukraine, I'm sitting here being like, I literally don't care.

00:36:53.000 Like, you're arguing with him.

00:36:55.140 He's saying—you know, you're saying we should be involved.

00:36:57.480 And you're saying, but there's humanitarian issues.

00:36:59.020 I know you're arguing other things, too.

00:37:00.140 But in that context, I'm just like, I literally don't care.

00:37:04.300 Let me explain my position a little bit more.

00:37:06.540 So I think perhaps there's some agreement that me and Wick have on the extremes, which is that if you have a sufficient humanitarian crisis or a sufficient erosion of democratic principles or constitutional principles, that could justify intervention in certain circumstances.

00:37:21.240 I think we all believe that, right?

00:37:22.460 No.

00:37:23.300 Intervention in Nazi Germany.

00:37:24.380 We all agree.

00:37:25.760 I mean—

00:37:26.220 Stop them from doing what they were doing.

00:37:27.960 The issue with Nazi Germany goes beyond humanitarian issues.

00:37:30.700 The U.S. did not invade—

00:37:31.680 So does Ukraine and so does China.

00:37:32.740 The U.S. did not invade Storm the Beaches of Normandy because of the Holocaust.

00:37:35.560 But if we knew about the Holocaust, and even if Germany wasn't doing all the other things that we invaded them for, I think that would have been sufficient reason to invade Germany.

00:37:43.700 So we should invade China now?

00:37:45.160 No.

00:37:45.620 I mean, they're giving forced abortions to Uyghur women.

00:37:48.300 Let me explain.

00:37:49.120 I'm not saying that we should invade China now.

00:37:51.020 I understand there's a lot of—it's a different situation, and we can go into the minutia of the different factors that are involved.

00:37:58.000 But what I'm saying is that if you do reach a certain threshold, I think, and it's possible to intervene, I think that there is a justification to do so.

00:38:08.980 The question here is, does Ukraine deserve U.S. intervention?

00:38:13.660 Is it worth $200 billion?

00:38:15.400 What are we getting out of this?

00:38:16.680 What's Ukraine getting out of this, right?

00:38:18.880 Ukraine's getting the right to exist.

00:38:20.100 From what I see is that really what's happening is—you said something a while ago that I thought was actually kind of profound.

00:38:26.840 Your belief on the Israel-Palestine conflict is that Palestine needs to be allowed to lose.

00:38:31.800 I sort of believe that about this as well.

00:38:34.320 I think that by giving Ukraine weapons at this point, all we're doing is—we might be slowing the progress of the Russian military to some extent, but it's dramatically increasing the casualties, and the end result's going to be the same.

00:38:46.260 You may believe that, but that is demonstrably untrue by the facts of the matter.

00:38:50.260 But I want to talk—

00:38:51.120 And it's not even a country—

00:38:52.800 Again, you keep saying things that are just not true.

00:38:54.720 No, it is—

00:38:55.760 You keep saying things that are just not true.

00:38:57.540 You can look this up.

00:38:58.280 People who have much more access—

00:39:00.080 Should we invade Gaza?

00:39:02.200 Do I think we should invade Gaza?

00:39:03.780 Should we invade Gaza?

00:39:04.740 No, absolutely not.

00:39:05.820 Well, why not?

00:39:06.300 There's a humanitarian crisis.

00:39:07.480 Again, there are levels of intervention, and this is why I asked you the question earlier about Hong Kong, about, well, in this case, would you be okay?

00:39:16.000 Not with military intervention, but with us intervening with aid money.

00:39:20.720 Do you think that—

00:39:21.500 For Hong Kong?

00:39:22.340 For Hong Kong, yes.

00:39:23.240 I don't think we should be involved in it at all.

00:39:25.060 At all.

00:39:25.700 At all.

00:39:26.640 Right.

00:39:27.060 Well, this is where I disagree.

00:39:28.520 I think that the—well, let me ask.

00:39:30.040 Are you an isolationist?

00:39:30.920 I don't actually know.

00:39:31.680 What does that mean?

00:39:32.300 An isolationist is someone who doesn't want foreign involvements at all.

00:39:34.980 So, for example—

00:39:36.080 Okay.

00:39:36.660 So, let me ask your line, then.

00:39:39.100 At what point would it be sufficient—what do you care about?

00:39:43.100 What would you care about in a foreign land that says, okay, the U.S. needs to get involved in this?

00:39:49.660 What does it mean by involved?

00:39:51.400 Whatever you think it means.

00:39:52.800 So, like, a trade negotiation?

00:39:55.260 Perhaps, or—

00:39:55.840 We're buying rare earths from China, so we negotiate a trade agreement, involvement, and that is fine.

00:40:01.500 So, no, when I'm talking about it, I'm talking about conflict.

00:40:04.040 So, if there's a conflict in China, for example, with the Uyghur Muslims, would that be something you should care about?

00:40:09.800 That, hey, we need to stop this from happening?

00:40:12.400 Yeah, that's a coin toss.

00:40:14.340 I don't know that the U.S. involved in a conflict which could escalate to kinetic conflict for which it's not a priority of the United States.

00:40:23.120 There's an argument of, wow, it is really bad what they're doing.

00:40:25.840 So, maybe we just don't do business there.

00:40:28.240 Maybe it's that simple.

00:40:29.240 Maybe—

00:40:29.640 That's a form of intervention.

00:40:31.100 Not really.

00:40:31.980 It actually is, though.

00:40:33.220 Yeah, saying I'm not going to buy bread from you is not me kicking your door in at your grocery store.

00:40:37.020 You're saying, I'm not going to buy bread for you unless you change this.

00:40:41.120 Uh-huh.

00:40:41.440 It's called a boycott.

00:40:42.480 I understand, but it is a form of intervention.

00:40:44.540 I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it.

00:40:46.260 I'm saying it's a form of intervention.

00:40:47.320 That's an extremely absurd definition of intervention.

00:40:50.860 I don't agree.

00:40:52.240 Okay.

00:40:52.620 Well, then let's define this between kinetic intervention and purchasing boycotts.

00:40:57.360 There's a whole host of other types of intervention that we can do when we talk about this.

00:41:01.780 So, we're talking about should the U.S. engage in forms of warfare such as sanctions or kinetic

00:41:08.920 conflict, psychological operations, cyber warfare, et cetera?

00:41:11.860 The answer is no.

00:41:13.520 Should we stop buying from them?

00:41:15.240 Yep.

00:41:16.400 Yeah.

00:41:16.700 If there's a guy who has got animals and he's a butcher and he tortures the animals before he kills them, I ain't buying from him.

00:41:24.320 I'm not intervening.

00:41:25.620 I'm just saying I'm not going to go.

00:41:26.580 That guy's crazy.

00:41:27.020 Do you think there's any foreign situation where you would be in favor of the U.S. using a kinetic intervention?

00:41:34.300 Probably.

00:41:35.440 Can you give me an example?

00:41:36.740 Yeah.

00:41:37.140 Like the most difficult position is should we have gotten involved in World War II?

00:41:42.920 When you have an expansionist power that is ethnically nationalistic, authoritarian, we did not know—

00:41:51.560 Like Russia?

00:41:52.020 Go ahead.

00:41:52.880 I mean, it's a bit extreme considering the Holocaust.

00:41:56.560 But we didn't know the Holocaust was happening before we invaded.

00:41:58.980 There was speculation.

00:42:00.840 There were concerns.

00:42:01.720 But that's not the reason for the U.S.'s intervention.

00:42:04.060 And it wasn't until afterwards.

00:42:05.420 But you basically had the collapse of Europe.

00:42:07.240 But the expansion—and don't forget, Nazi Germany was in North Africa, not to mention Italy, not to mention Japan.

00:42:15.280 So this was a global war for which the U.S. largely stayed out of until the final few years.

00:42:20.740 So even in the minds of the Americans, we should not be involved.

00:42:24.480 It actually wasn't until we were attacked that we decided to actually get involved, which is interesting.

00:42:28.220 Do you think we should have gotten involved earlier?

00:42:30.340 Probably.

00:42:30.880 Well—

00:42:31.520 Do you think it would—let me ask it this way.

00:42:32.800 Do you think it would be better for the U.S. and the world had we gotten involved in World War II earlier than we did?

00:42:39.900 No.

00:42:40.520 No.

00:42:40.820 Why not?

00:42:41.540 Because we don't know what would have happened had things played out differently.

00:42:45.580 What we do know is the timeframes by which we acted, we got a result that was largely beneficial until the prevailing powers created what's called the liberal economic order,

00:42:54.460 which has created instability and chaos for generations, and the U.S. entering a bunch of wars they've never declared.

00:42:59.420 The Constitution of the United States effectively ended in the 50s with these declarations of, say, the IMF, the World Bank, etc.

00:43:07.340 So there's—it's an interesting conversation that actually was lighting up with Douglas Murray and Dave Smith the other day,

00:43:15.040 and it's been one of the principal discussions on foreign policy now.

00:43:17.560 There's a lot of concern over the worldview of people like Daryl Cooper as well as Dave Smith and others who have made arguments that Winston Churchill was a bad guy,

00:43:26.900 which I think is largely silly.

00:43:28.540 I think the circumstances of World War II are the offshoot of World War I.

00:43:33.860 World War I was high-density nations in dispute for a variety of reasons, came to the industrialization of war, which then leads to the wars it was.

00:43:43.280 Because it's easy to say, now 100 years on nearly, I would have done it better.

00:43:48.680 Honestly, I have no idea.

00:43:50.060 So if you were to say, should we have gotten involved earlier?

00:43:53.100 Well, I don't know, because the outcome could have been substantially worse.

00:43:55.900 Right now what we know is the Nazis were very bad.

00:43:59.280 They were authoritarian.

00:44:00.720 They controlled their economy.

00:44:02.120 They functioned not too dissimilar—the difference between the communists and the fascists and the Nazis

00:44:06.820 was largely on their view of culture, traditionalism, and progressivism.

00:44:10.780 So we don't want an expansionist, authoritarian system that takes everything over.

00:44:16.700 I agree that we don't want that.

00:44:17.980 But the liberal economic order has functioned largely like that, only slightly better in some respects.

00:44:23.080 I fundamentally disagree with that view.

00:44:25.240 I think the liberal world order has made people more safe, more wealthy, and much better off than it was before.

00:44:31.060 But that's another argument.

00:44:32.240 We're talking about Ukraine, Russia today, and I want to—because you said something there that I do think is interesting,

00:44:37.980 like that we don't want authoritarian expansionist powers, and I would argue that we should have NATO again.

00:44:45.480 There's a difference between expanding at the point of a gun like Russia does,

00:44:48.720 and there's a difference between expanding, say, hey, you want to join NATO?

00:44:51.820 And there's like, you know what?

00:44:53.160 I would like to join NATO.

00:44:53.960 If that's what had happened.

00:44:55.060 But if you look at the history of Ukraine, that's literally not what happened.

00:44:58.500 Ukraine isn't joining NATO.

00:45:00.220 It hasn't joined NATO.

00:45:01.760 It wasn't even discussions to join NATO.

00:45:04.020 It got nixed.

00:45:04.920 It is now because of Russia's actions, but it's probably not going to happen.

00:45:09.500 And the conflict is largely predicated upon NATO expanding its policies.

00:45:12.360 But again, once again, you have said that like, oh, it happens in the case of NATO that it's just the same as Russia doing the guns.

00:45:18.840 But no, NATO has largely expanded through voluntary joining.

00:45:23.860 This has happened—can you give me a country that you think that has joined NATO under coercion?

00:45:28.200 Right now in Romania, they've removed the populist right-wing candidate from being able to run for no reason.

00:45:34.660 In France, Marine Le Pen has been accused of money laundering.

00:45:36.840 What does that have to do with joining NATO?

00:45:38.380 How is it—

00:45:38.960 Romania has a—

00:45:39.680 How can I determine whether or not the population of a country is willfully joining a nation when they remove its leaders?

00:45:45.120 Okay.

00:45:45.460 So if Russia—

00:45:46.060 If Russia ousts—

00:45:46.640 France joined NATO.

00:45:47.880 They removed Ukraine's leader.

00:45:49.360 If USAID funds protests in Ukraine—

00:45:51.760 Then Ukraine isn't joining NATO.

00:45:53.180 So, hold on, the few days before the invasion, a demand was said, don't you—promise to never join NATO.

00:45:59.940 Why didn't they just say, yeah, sure, we'll never join NATO.

00:46:02.500 U.S., NATO will never accept them.

00:46:03.780 Because a country has a right to make its own choices.

00:46:06.540 You said they're not joining NATO.

00:46:07.560 So if they're not joining it, why not do they just say, yeah, we're never going to join?

00:46:10.040 Because you don't let a foreign power come in and tell you what you can and cannot do.

00:46:14.040 You say, we—if we're going to exist as a country, we have to be at least somewhat independent and be able to make our own decisions.

00:46:21.240 They don't want to be a puppet of Russia.

00:46:23.580 Okay.

00:46:23.940 So they were never going to join it.

00:46:25.500 But I still want an answer.

00:46:26.440 They were never going to join it.

00:46:27.520 Just real quick.

00:46:27.680 I still want an answer from you, Tim.

00:46:29.060 On what?

00:46:29.340 Which NATO country has joined through coercion.

00:46:33.400 So my point is, I cannot assess which country is joining of their free will when we know in these countries they forcefully remove opposition to NATO.

00:46:43.860 When a president starts to rise up, say, Marine Le Pen, and she says, we want to leave the European Union, so they accuse her of crimes, criminally charge her, and remove her.

00:46:54.840 Did she do those crimes?

00:46:56.180 We don't know.

00:46:56.840 And probably not.

00:46:58.180 The argument was—

00:46:58.760 That's why they hold a trial to be able to find out.

00:47:01.560 Hold on, hold on, hold on.

00:47:02.940 You're right.

00:47:03.460 You're right.

00:47:04.320 He's completely correct.

00:47:05.260 He's completely correct.

00:47:06.260 You are completely correct.

00:47:07.820 Crimea separated from Ukraine by a vote that was completely legitimate.

00:47:10.960 We all agree.

00:47:11.400 Of course, except for, again, in UN Resolution 68, they disagreed because there was evidence that it was under coercion.

00:47:19.160 So the people who are largely on the side of opposing Russia—

00:47:23.500 So the people who oppose Russia have argued that the election that happened in Crimea is invalid.

00:47:29.360 My point is, you have chosen to respect only certain administrative procedures and not others.

00:47:34.460 Absolutely.

00:47:35.040 My position is neutral.

00:47:36.580 We know that they've criminally charged Marine Le Pen.

00:47:38.520 There's been—we don't know if it's true or not.

00:47:41.060 If it is true, should they charge her?

00:47:44.040 If Marine Le Pen committed a crime, should she be charged?

00:47:46.180 Yes.

00:47:46.420 It's a question.

00:47:46.780 Yes.

00:47:47.120 Should she be removed?

00:47:48.320 No.

00:47:49.040 No.

00:47:49.380 Why not?

00:47:49.840 Why do you think—

00:47:50.660 Well, I guess it depends on the time, right?

00:47:51.280 Because democratic countries allow for people to vote.

00:47:53.660 So previously in France, when other politicians—

00:47:55.620 Do you think felons should be able to vote?

00:47:56.780 Like convicted people sitting in prison right now should be able to vote?

00:47:59.120 Not in prison.

00:48:00.040 Not in prison.

00:48:00.700 There's due process restrictions.

00:48:01.820 But once you get out, your rights should be restored.

00:48:03.260 If her criminal conviction involved jail time, and I'm not sure it does because I'm not quite up on that case specifically, but say five years in jail, do you think she should be able to run from a jail cell?

00:48:13.920 Interesting.

00:48:14.280 Yes, because in a democratic institution, a democratic country, the people decide.

00:48:18.840 You can't simply have a judge bang a gavel and say the people no longer have a right to vote.

00:48:22.860 I can't decide to take away your guns.

00:48:24.900 I can't vote on that.

00:48:25.960 I can't decide to stop you from speaking, to de-platform you.

00:48:28.740 I can't vote on that.

00:48:29.620 And we understand that.

00:48:30.740 We understand that because we have a constitution that protects this.

00:48:34.360 We understand that in a democracy, there are certain things—

00:48:37.080 That's not correct.

00:48:37.780 Wait, wait, wait.

00:48:38.100 Hold on.

00:48:38.300 Do we care about constitutional rules now?

00:48:39.940 Just want to ask.

00:48:40.920 Like, do we care about constitutional process?

00:48:42.440 We care about principles.

00:48:42.940 Do we care about constitutional principles?

00:48:44.000 We care about principles, and sometimes principles comes into conflict, and you have to decide the higher principle.

00:48:48.400 And when you have a principle of sovereign territories should not be invaded militarily with lethal force by foreign powers to stop them from resolving their internecine conflicts, I think that does rise above a, again, some legalese in a constitution.

00:49:08.800 I think that's fundamentally a different—

00:49:10.600 I have a question.

00:49:11.400 I think your position here really—it's very convenient, right?

00:49:14.880 Very convenient because it's very correct.

00:49:16.500 No, it's very convenient because, oh, if the people there, if they're powerless to stop their oppression, and now your position is, well, other countries, they can't go in and help the oppressed.

00:49:25.500 Well, that's very convenient, right?

00:49:26.880 Now they have to stay oppressed because, hey, other countries can't go in.

00:49:30.300 You'd be against the French sending Lafayette to help us in our revolution against the British.

00:49:34.220 You'd be against the U.S. getting involved in Afghanistan for moral reasons, and Iraq and Libya and Syria.

00:49:39.820 You're just like—you're an anti-interventionalist across the board, surely.

00:49:45.000 Of course not.

00:49:46.100 And I've already recognized that there are severe extreme circumstances where, yes, intervention, you know, you probably should do that.

00:49:53.880 Again, I gave you an example.

00:49:55.920 In the 90s, when we invaded the Balkans, right, and NATO did all that and stopped the Serbians from genocide, all these people, that was good.

00:50:04.140 Should we have invaded Iraq?

00:50:06.620 Ooh, that's a good question.

00:50:07.940 Which time?

00:50:08.740 Gulf War?

00:50:09.540 Either.

00:50:10.460 Gulf War, yes.

00:50:11.380 The other time, probably in hindsight, no.

00:50:14.420 Why did we invade Iraq in the Gulf War?

00:50:17.260 Because they were taking over Kuwait, which was a sovereign country, which was pleading for our help, and which was our ally.

00:50:24.420 And then what about the second time?

00:50:26.200 The second time, it was because we were sold a lie, that there was weapons of mass destruction.

00:50:31.240 Had there actually been weapons of mass destruction, there might have been a case there.

00:50:36.320 And had we actually believed there were weapons of mass destruction, then fair enough.

00:50:41.760 But I think in hindsight, it was a mistake.

00:50:45.520 Should we have intervened in Libya?

00:50:47.200 I'm not familiar enough about Libya to make a decision on that, unfortunately.

00:50:51.400 But the actions of NATO resulted in the death of Muammar Gaddafi, which resulted in the re-ignition of the North African slave trade and tribal warfare.

00:51:01.920 And the country is in relative chaos right now.

00:51:04.120 I'm wondering for what reason NATO got involved in Libya.

00:51:07.760 Why did we do this?

00:51:08.540 I don't know enough about Libya to say.

00:51:10.420 I'm just going to—

00:51:11.180 It sounds to me like a dominant international power intervened in a local nation's conflict and overthrew their government.

00:51:18.380 In certain cases, if you're asking me that if everything America and NATO has done has been wise or correct, I would say no.

00:51:26.140 There are obviously instances where I think we should not have gone in.

00:51:30.500 Vietnam is a good one, right?

00:51:31.640 Should we be involved in Syria?

00:51:32.500 Now, there's a—

00:51:37.500 Yes, I think we have interest in overthrowing a monster like Assad, yes.

00:51:46.900 Because he destabilized his people, and I think the—

00:51:50.400 How did he do that?

00:51:51.960 Again, by severely oppressing the people who would rise against him.

00:51:57.320 What does that mean?

00:51:58.340 Chemical weapon attacks, mass graves.

00:52:00.880 Again, look at what happened after Syria, right?

00:52:04.380 After—I'm sorry, the rebels took back Syria, right?

00:52:08.540 And what they found, again, I'm not for that.

00:52:11.880 That's bad, right?

00:52:14.080 But they found—that doesn't make Assad good.

00:52:17.560 That doesn't make Assad better even because, again, the prisons found in Syria where they had people who hadn't seen daylight in years, just mass prisons, was horrific.

00:52:28.160 Again, I am not saying that every intervention is good.

00:52:33.220 Does the U.S. do that with prisons?

00:52:37.680 To the extent that Syria did?

00:52:40.960 People are in solitary confinement for extended periods, maybe years, for instance, without trial?

00:52:46.160 Again, this is incomparable to what Syria does.

00:52:49.500 What does Syria do?

00:52:50.120 Syria has mass prisons that they throw people in for simply opposing the government, for simply just—

00:52:59.940 What does that mean, opposing the government?

00:53:01.020 Does Ukraine arrest people and imprison them for opposing the government?

00:53:03.540 Yes.

00:53:04.320 But do you think these are the—look, this idea, okay, and these comparisons you guys are trying to draw here—

00:53:12.240 Between Syria and USA, right?

00:53:16.840 Syria and Ukraine are insane to me.

00:53:21.560 I think—

00:53:22.060 That's not an argument.

00:53:23.760 Hmm?

00:53:24.080 That's not an argument.

00:53:25.040 I understand, but I'm not going to make my argument after I say it's insane.

00:53:28.280 I feel it's insane because—in which I make my argument, right?

00:53:31.980 I feel it's insane because of scale, the matter of scale.

00:53:37.540 These things matter.

00:53:38.320 It's like water, right?

00:53:40.280 It's good to drink.

00:53:41.920 It's okay to drink.

00:53:43.120 If I splashed you with water, it'd probably be bad, but it wouldn't be as bad as if a tsunami or a flood

00:53:49.740 or any, like, a biblical type of flood came in and drowned you.

00:53:54.440 So just because a thing, right, can be bad doesn't mean that scale doesn't matter.

00:54:00.780 When it comes to Syria, the scale matters, and when it comes to Russia and Ukraine, look,

00:54:06.600 I'm not here to say that Ukraine has been perfect, that Ukraine is this perfect country.

00:54:11.120 I am saying that when you look at the scale, we're talking about a glass of water versus a flood,

00:54:17.180 a flood that is Russia's war crimes in Bukha, right?

00:54:22.040 Russia's war crimes in the occupied territories that it does, Russia's war crimes in Chechnya,

00:54:26.600 Russia's war crimes in almost every conflict it's been involved in, massively, massively

00:54:33.580 outscale anything you could say Ukraine has done.

00:54:37.040 So what happens if right now we just stopped Ukraine and said, no more funding, we're done,

00:54:41.560 we're out?

00:54:42.320 What would happen?

00:54:43.420 So first of all, that sends a signal to nuclear proliferation expands.

00:54:48.960 Japan starts to want to get nukes.

00:54:50.720 You have all these other smaller countries that say, you know what, we need nukes now

00:54:53.980 because we can no longer rely on the global world order to protect us, which has been

00:54:58.920 protecting us before.

00:55:00.320 So now we need nukes for ourselves so we can be a sovereign nation and not worry about a

00:55:06.100 greater power coming in and taking us out.

00:55:08.180 So that's the first thing that happens.

00:55:09.500 The second thing that happens is China takes Taiwan.

00:55:12.300 It shuts down trade in the Bering Strait.

00:55:14.000 Or I'm sorry, not the Bering Strait, my bad, the Taiwan Strait, right, where about two

00:55:18.720 trillion a year of commerce goes through.

00:55:21.000 And it just shuts that down because it can.

00:55:23.900 And you have land grabs by smaller countries, each trying to take pieces of each other, because

00:55:30.680 Ukraine is really a domino.

00:55:32.620 And once it falls, it's going to look for this cascade.

00:55:36.000 For clarification, you're saying that the structure of the liberal economic order right

00:55:40.080 now relies on us staying in Ukraine.

00:55:41.760 Is that-

00:55:42.040 Yes.

00:55:43.060 Okay.

00:55:43.740 Yes.

00:55:44.240 In a very real way.

00:55:45.880 And we, again, Taiwan is looking at us.

00:55:48.640 We have our NATO allies looking at us.

00:55:50.700 We have other countries looking at us.

00:55:52.200 We have our enemies looking at us.

00:55:53.600 How are we going to respond?

00:55:54.980 Are we actually going to stand up for the values that we say that we hold?

00:55:59.100 When we say we will support Ukraine no matter what, do we actually follow through on that?

00:56:04.500 And they're looking to see if they can trust us and keep our word.

00:56:08.660 Our new government has not said that, that we're going to support Ukraine no matter

00:56:12.360 what, and that would be a wild standard to have.

00:56:14.900 I'm curious why you support Taiwan.

00:56:17.140 Because if you have this standard, well, we can't get involved, even if the population

00:56:21.840 there really wants to leave and perhaps has justification to leave and be a separate

00:56:25.900 country, we shouldn't get involved.

00:56:28.100 Why is the U.S.

00:56:28.920 arming Taiwan?

00:56:29.600 Why are we involved in Taiwan?

00:56:31.000 Shouldn't we just kind of say, well, we can just, you know, let them be part of China?

00:56:33.900 We've set a red line in Taiwan that if China decides to take over using military force,

00:56:39.880 we will stop them.

00:56:40.940 What?

00:56:41.400 Because we recognize that there are fundamental, specific interests that are good for America

00:56:46.400 that run through Taiwan.

00:56:48.620 First of all, we get a bunch of chips from them, which we put in-

00:56:50.800 I understand.

00:56:51.520 I understand.

00:56:51.920 What I'm asking-

00:56:53.200 I'm going towards the principle that you elucidated earlier, when you were saying that

00:56:58.580 there's this principle of national sovereignty, and that countries shouldn't be interfered

00:57:02.120 with by outside powers, even if certain sections of that country want to be independent.

00:57:06.360 Now, it's clear that Crimeans wanted to be independent.

00:57:08.900 They wanted to be separate.

00:57:10.180 And their constitution-

00:57:10.700 When you say-

00:57:11.200 Hold on.

00:57:11.880 And their contract was-

00:57:13.200 Just need to clarify.

00:57:13.400 The rest of Ukraine was violated when the constitution was thrown away in 2014.

00:57:19.340 So, why are you okay with the U.S. intervening in Taiwan, this also kind of breakaway area,

00:57:27.620 but you're not okay with the Crimean people wanting to leave Ukraine?

00:57:31.600 Because, again, just like I would be okay if instead of-

00:57:36.360 Like, if Taiwan wanted to hold a vote, hold a referendum now, right, today, right, with

00:57:41.680 the situation it has now, they aren't under occupation right now, at least not in any real

00:57:47.620 way.

00:57:47.900 They could hold that vote, and they have several times to, do we want closer relations with

00:57:53.360 the Mayan land of China and things like that?

00:57:55.180 And you may have fights politically where they elect leaders that go closer to China,

00:57:59.680 go away from China, things like that.

00:58:02.680 If they were to say, you know what, we just want to rejoin the motherland, and we are done

00:58:09.300 being our own separate thing, and there was no or not enough coercive force, then, you

00:58:15.540 know, we should probably let that happen.

00:58:17.060 But if China came in and does what they want to do, which is send boats, missiles, and

00:58:24.000 troops to occupy the nation and force the issue, then yes, I think we absolutely should stop

00:58:30.380 them from doing that.

00:58:30.540 I feel like you ignored something that I brought up earlier.

00:58:32.360 Because that's what, again, that's what Russia did.

00:58:34.140 Sure.

00:58:34.500 Well, no, I feel like you're ignoring something that I said earlier.

00:58:38.960 In 1992, Crimea declared independence from Ukraine, and they were going to hold a referendum

00:58:43.440 to have a vote.

00:58:44.540 The central government in Kiev said, no, you don't get to have that vote.

00:58:48.660 You have one week to withdraw the referendum with a threat of force.

00:58:52.580 So when you keep saying, well, the Crimeans should have been allowed to vote without Russian

00:58:56.560 interference, I agree the Ukrainian government wouldn't let them.

00:59:00.140 And they also wouldn't let them in 2014.

00:59:02.940 And so that's why the Russians intervened in Crimea, for also some political, obviously

00:59:06.920 geopolitical reasons as well.

00:59:08.440 But the people of Crimea, you keep saying, let me ask you, in 1992, do you deny the truth

00:59:15.100 that in 1992, Crimea declared independence and Kiev said no?

00:59:19.040 I don't deny it.

00:59:19.480 So when you keep saying, well, the Crimeans should have had a vote themselves, and you

00:59:22.600 have Kiev not letting them have the vote, I'm confused as to your actual standard here.

00:59:26.660 Why do you support Taiwan?

00:59:28.140 Do you think that the United States should have allowed, during the Civil War, the South

00:59:33.520 to secede?

00:59:34.560 No, because they didn't have their constitutional rights violated.

00:59:37.640 What constitutional rights in 92 were violated from Crimea?

00:59:43.380 Hold on, so the Soviet Union collapsed, we're talking between 1990 and 1992, there was a

00:59:48.960 first referendum in 1991, in which the Crimean people overwhelmingly voted for autonomy, there

00:59:53.780 was a second referendum in 1991, and the Crimeans, and really the rest of Ukraine, voted to leave

00:59:59.000 the Soviet Union, and then literally within a year of the Ukrainians having a referendum to

01:00:04.960 leave the Soviet Union, right, which was arguably legal at the time, probably illegal, you had

01:00:11.140 the Crimeans say, well, we're going to have a referendum to leave Ukraine, and the Ukrainians

01:00:14.200 said no.

01:00:15.040 So the Ukrainian people, when they wanted to have a vote, it was denied to them, and then

01:00:19.420 in 2014, when they wanted to have a vote, it was denied to them as well.

01:00:23.140 Well, the OSCE refused to come in and monitor that election in Crimea, despite the fact that

01:00:28.560 the Crimeans invited the OSCE to come in and monitor the election.

01:00:32.460 Well, hold on, the fact that, you're saying, oh, they're not angels, they're not angels.

01:00:35.200 I understand.

01:00:36.260 I'm saying they're, I'm saying they're, I'm saying they're, I'm saying, no, no, we're

01:00:39.420 on the point.

01:00:39.760 Russia, we're on the, no, no, no, you, you keep, you keep saying, let's get back to the

01:00:43.020 point, but this is the thing.

01:00:44.280 It is not, it's obfuscation.

01:00:45.280 This is the thing that justifies intervention.

01:00:47.800 Obfuscation.

01:00:48.160 This is the thing that justifies intervention.

01:00:50.280 When you have an area that is denied a declaration of independence, denied the right to have a

01:00:55.320 referendum, and then when they vote for a president, fine, we're under your constitutional

01:00:58.820 rule, that constitution is broken, and the president that they elected, it gets thrown

01:01:02.780 out unconstitutionally, and now they're like, well, we want to leave, and then Ukraine

01:01:06.860 says no, and the OSCE says, we're not going to monitor it because, you know, Kiev didn't

01:01:11.320 authorize this referendum, and then you say, oh, but then the Russians come in, nothing

01:01:14.880 justifies this.

01:01:15.620 Let me ask you, like, what, at what point would Russian, like, it seems like your standard

01:01:20.920 is they'll never be justified.

01:01:22.540 Wow.

01:01:22.980 So, in March of 95, Ukrainian parliament abolished the Crimean constitution, all laws and decrees

01:01:30.120 contradicting those of Kiev, disarmed the bodyguards of the government.

01:01:35.960 That's crazy.

01:01:36.960 They've been bullying Crimea.

01:01:37.840 Ukrainian National Guard troops entered the residence of the leader of Crimea, seized

01:01:42.000 it, and forcefully took it over.

01:01:43.760 Yeah, look at 1992 as well.

01:01:45.260 Wow.

01:01:45.460 The whole story here.

01:01:46.120 That was in 95.

01:01:46.840 That was, yeah, I believe that was in 95.

01:01:48.540 That was in 95.

01:01:50.160 This has been going on since 91.

01:01:51.640 There's 91, 92, 95, 96.

01:01:54.260 When the Soviet Union fell, Crimea said, we're our own place.

01:01:58.460 Kiev said, we won't let you do that.

01:02:00.040 Yep.

01:02:00.140 And so then over the next few years, Crimea had established its own forces and constitution,

01:02:07.100 declared independence, and then Kiev invaded and took it over.

01:02:09.240 I'm not here to argue whether or not Ukraine did correctly there.

01:02:12.380 I'm here to argue that Russia did wrong when it forcefully invaded.

01:02:18.040 Like, again, even in 95, if Russia had said, you know what?

01:02:21.760 We're going to come in, and we're going to take Crimea ourselves.

01:02:24.800 That would have been wrong.

01:02:26.240 That would have been not okay.

01:02:27.720 That is something that we should oppose.

01:02:29.480 We should not let large foreign powers intercede in conflicts that they themselves are stirring

01:02:38.220 up.

01:02:39.460 Remember?

01:02:40.100 No.

01:02:40.840 Crimea and Crimea, this is not the case.

01:02:42.580 Hold on.

01:02:43.220 Yanukovych.

01:02:43.840 No.

01:02:44.060 Again, there's been a lot of evidence.

01:02:46.080 You're about to totally misquote the actual history on this once again.

01:02:48.820 Yeah.

01:02:49.100 When it comes to Crimea, okay, as Tim just pointed out, 1995, in 1996, there was also

01:02:55.820 a constitution that was passed in Kiev that changed in this relation.

01:03:00.800 And nothing that does not give Russia the right to intervene.

01:03:01.180 Hold on.

01:03:01.800 You keep saying that.

01:03:03.260 Because it keeps remaining to be true.

01:03:04.820 Okay.

01:03:05.540 But we all understand your point here.

01:03:07.500 We all understand that you think—

01:03:08.700 I don't think you do.

01:03:09.200 No, I do.

01:03:10.200 I'm disagreeing with it.

01:03:11.520 I'm saying that when you bully an area to this extent, when they want to leave and you

01:03:16.540 deny it, when you abolish—you invade them and take away their constitution, when you

01:03:22.460 violate the shared constitution that you force Crimea to be under to their detriment, the

01:03:30.860 person that they voted for, what it seems to me is that if there's anything that justifies—

01:03:35.940 Like, we're—like, this is way more justified than the U.S. leaving the U.K. at this point.

01:03:40.320 Like, if there's anything that justifies intervention, this is what justifies intervention.

01:03:43.660 Absolutely not.

01:03:43.960 And you keep saying, well, it's not justified.

01:03:45.660 It's not justified.

01:03:46.340 How convenient.

01:03:47.080 This oppressed people that doesn't have the means to defend themselves, well, they can't

01:03:50.380 appeal to any outside power to help save them, save them from this consistent oppression

01:03:55.400 because, well, we can't have intervention.

01:03:58.160 We can't have any intervention.

01:03:59.120 They just have to sit and take it.

01:04:00.120 That's your position.

01:04:01.180 The Koreans just have to sit and take it.

01:04:02.560 That is absolutely not true because there are a wealth of options, right, that we can

01:04:08.820 get into.

01:04:09.820 Like, if we wanted to stop that from happening, there are sanctions.

01:04:13.840 There are ways to—

01:04:14.880 Would it sanction Ukraine?

01:04:16.800 The U.S.?

01:04:17.320 Would it sanction Ukraine?

01:04:18.680 Again, if what you're saying is true, and I have to look it up, and when I look it up,

01:04:23.060 is it going to be true?

01:04:24.000 Please do.

01:04:24.500 I'm very curious.

01:04:25.380 Yes.

01:04:25.680 But we'll get into that, right?

01:04:26.860 But in the 1995, right, if to the world order, Crimea had said, help us, and appealed

01:04:37.960 for help to outside forces, there are—do you think that the only choices are military

01:04:44.280 intervention or just letting them—

01:04:48.000 I think at that point, the only option was military intervention.

01:04:51.440 I disagree.

01:04:52.340 I think that's—

01:04:52.940 Because the coup was pro-West, the West was not—we've already intervened on behalf

01:04:58.180 of this power structure.

01:04:58.980 Russia can impose sanctions as well.

01:05:00.900 Yeah.

01:05:01.160 What they're going to say is, we don't care.

01:05:02.840 We're going to, like, just trade with the EU now.

01:05:04.420 We're going to trade with NATO now.

01:05:05.580 We don't care.

01:05:06.240 We're going to continue to oppress the Crimeans, and there's nothing you can do about it.

01:05:08.760 There are other options.

01:05:09.280 It is one—you keep saying there's other options, but this—first of all, there's

01:05:12.640 not.

01:05:12.980 And second of all, this standard you have where it's like—

01:05:15.940 There's always other options.

01:05:18.180 It does not mean that you're correct.

01:05:19.300 The standard you have where it's always other options whenever it's any kind of intervention

01:05:23.480 that's not us doing it.

01:05:24.700 But when we do it, it's complicated.

01:05:26.480 You think I'm okay with all of U.S. interventions?

01:05:28.480 I mean, Assad was bad.

01:05:30.220 I've named two interventions by the U.S. that I've been totally against.

01:05:33.640 One is the Iraq War, as well as the Vietnam War.

01:05:37.680 Those are two U.S. interventions that I think we should not have done.

01:05:40.580 Yeah.

01:05:40.720 And then we asked you about Libya and Syria.

01:05:43.220 I didn't know enough about Libya.

01:05:43.800 You didn't know about Libya.

01:05:44.680 But Syria, I think, yes, stopping Assad was a good thing, and we should have done it.

01:05:48.180 And I'd do it again.

01:05:49.080 Couldn't there be other options for stopping Assad?

01:05:50.620 There could have, but they weren't working.

01:05:51.900 Couldn't we sanction him?

01:05:52.340 Do you understand that we did sanction Assad?

01:05:54.480 We went through the steps.

01:05:56.020 To go from zero to 100, right, to go from doing nothing to, okay, now we're coming in

01:06:00.700 with tanks.

01:06:01.180 It wasn't nothing.

01:06:01.780 It would be wrong.

01:06:02.460 This has been going on since 1991.

01:06:04.040 We go through a step-by-step process.

01:06:05.300 No, no, no.

01:06:05.620 This has been going on since 1991.

01:06:08.680 We brought up 1992, the Declaration of Independence that was ignored.

01:06:11.680 We talked about 1995 when Kiev invaded Crimea and abolished their constitution.

01:06:17.220 We're like, this has been going on for decades, right, at this point.

01:06:21.720 And you're saying, well, you know, there could have been other things.

01:06:23.940 They've been trying other things.

01:06:25.080 It's not like Russia just invaded this out of nowhere.

01:06:27.120 That's true.

01:06:29.060 Russia didn't invade out of nowhere.

01:06:30.040 1992.

01:06:31.200 Russia has always, always wanted Ukraine.

01:06:33.980 And they have not invaded out of nowhere.

01:06:35.700 They are invading because they want to gulp up this territory because Putin wants greater

01:06:41.480 Russia.

01:06:41.880 This is just true.

01:06:42.820 Full of the bully people that want to be gulped up.

01:06:44.540 What you are doing is trying to obfuscate and post-hoc rationalize.

01:06:47.840 Because, again, look at what Putin has said.

01:06:50.040 What has Putin said?

01:06:51.120 What is his reason for invading Ukraine?

01:06:53.360 He brought up the unconstitutional coup.

01:06:54.860 He gave two.

01:06:55.100 No, he brought up way more than two.

01:06:56.940 He gave two reasons.

01:06:57.980 There are two objectives in Ukraine.

01:06:59.260 What are they?

01:07:00.020 You didn't even.

01:07:00.720 Hold on.

01:07:01.140 There are two objections in Ukraine.

01:07:01.900 No, you're saying there's two.

01:07:02.960 You're wrong.

01:07:03.360 You're wrong.

01:07:03.820 There's more than two.

01:07:06.880 Emilitarization?

01:07:07.580 Did you watch his speech?

01:07:08.600 Denosification.

01:07:09.640 He gave reasons for those objectives.

01:07:11.260 Those were not the only two.

01:07:12.420 He doesn't believe Ukraine should exist.

01:07:13.380 You think that Putin is being honest?

01:07:15.760 I think when he says that he wants Ukraine, that he doesn't believe Ukraine, Ukrainians are

01:07:22.560 a thing, that Ukraine exists, really, that they're all

01:07:25.060 really just part of Russia, then yes, I think he's being honest when he says that.

01:07:27.820 Did you know that Kiev was the capital of Russia?

01:07:30.540 At one point?

01:07:31.540 What point?

01:07:32.040 Hundreds of years ago.

01:07:32.880 Okay, fair enough.

01:07:33.560 Hundreds of years ago.

01:07:34.340 We don't live in that time.

01:07:35.640 Right.

01:07:35.980 My point is that you know what Ukraine means?

01:07:39.320 The word.

01:07:40.300 The word itself?

01:07:41.460 Yeah.

01:07:42.020 No.

01:07:42.580 You?

01:07:43.480 I actually don't know.

01:07:44.280 It means the borderland.

01:07:46.280 That's why it's called the Ukraine.

01:07:47.980 They changed.

01:07:48.560 They dropped the the after the Soviet Union's collapse because they didn't want to be referred

01:07:52.580 to Russia's borderland.

01:07:54.240 Russia called it its borderland because it was historically a part of Russia and Kiev

01:07:57.120 was its capital.

01:07:57.820 I don't care about 800 years ago.

01:07:59.720 I don't care about 600 years ago.

01:08:00.580 This is pre-Soviet Union.

01:08:02.040 I don't care about 500 years ago.

01:08:03.660 You don't even care about 1992.

01:08:06.280 So.

01:08:07.560 I absolutely do.

01:08:08.980 Well, no.

01:08:09.240 You said like, oh, they just jumped their thing.

01:08:11.040 Again, if Russia had decided to militarily invade Ukraine in 1992, I would have opposed

01:08:16.680 that and I oppose it now.

01:08:18.520 And again, I mean, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, we wouldn't have called

01:08:20.880 it a military invasion of Ukraine because the Soviet states were in chaos and disarray

01:08:25.860 and they were largely under the rule of Russia as it was.

01:08:29.960 There was a lot going on and you're probably correct, actually, in the fact that we probably

01:08:35.020 would have just let it see where the chips fall.

01:08:37.580 But the chips have falled and we live in a world where certain borders have been drawn,

01:08:42.520 right?

01:08:42.900 And I think that, again, what is happening today, we're not talking about 20 years ago,

01:08:48.120 we're not talking about ancient history of 800 years ago, is Russia is engaged in an illegal

01:08:53.900 and unjustifiable, expansive project where it wants to take parts of Ukraine and absorb

01:09:02.900 into itself because Putin believes that ethnic Russians, that Ukraine isn't a thing, that

01:09:10.420 they're all ethnic Russians.

01:09:11.980 And he feels that a greater Russian empire wants to be a part, like he believes he should

01:09:18.320 expand Russia into this greater empire, that they could be a world power again.

01:09:23.360 And he has these imperialist ambitions and dreams, which he has said over and over and

01:09:28.100 over again.

01:09:29.100 So when to the question of the debate, right, of is it in the U.S.'s interest to continue

01:09:35.620 to support Ukraine?

01:09:38.180 Again, yes, it is, because we have financial interests there, we have military interests

01:09:44.780 there, strategic interests there.

01:09:46.720 We are—and making Ukraine an ally in the future, which I think we're on a path to do,

01:09:52.780 and I think that we should do, will give us access to rare earth minerals and better able

01:09:57.580 to, like, defensive bases where we can have better logistics and better protect our interests

01:10:02.220 in these countries.

01:10:02.500 Do you know what the principal political conflict in Ukraine was from 2010 to 2014?

01:10:08.540 The principal political—

01:10:10.060 The reason—

01:10:10.660 I can talk about some of the political conflicts.

01:10:12.500 What's the principal one?

01:10:14.100 Trade.

01:10:15.200 The trade issue.

01:10:16.200 Oh, trade, whether we're going to be trading more with the European Union and all that.

01:10:21.000 Or the Russian Federation.

01:10:21.640 The Russians, yes.

01:10:22.340 Yeah.

01:10:22.780 You're familiar with that conflict?

01:10:25.040 Vaguely, yes.

01:10:26.940 I'd assume you'd be more than vaguely, considering it's the reason for the war.

01:10:30.660 You think that's the reason for the Russian invasion now?

01:10:34.220 That was the reason for Euromaidan.

01:10:36.480 That's what Putin said.

01:10:37.780 And if we're taking Putin at his word, then—

01:10:40.300 Putin doesn't always tell the truth.

01:10:42.060 So only when you think he's telling the truth, you'll take what he says.

01:10:45.040 When I think what he's saying is backed up by his words and deeds, when it makes sense

01:10:49.800 in the—when we see him acting and—

01:10:54.760 What did he say about the trade conflict with Ukraine?

01:10:57.080 The trade conflict with Ukraine.

01:10:58.520 He obviously wanted people to be able to trade with Russia, and he wanted them to be closer

01:11:02.880 to Russia.

01:11:03.280 Because again, he says he wants to absorb Ukraine.

01:11:06.560 You're wrong.

01:11:07.460 I'm wrong.

01:11:08.000 What did he say then?

01:11:08.840 Putin said that he would cut off trade with Ukraine if they entered into an agreement

01:11:12.020 with the EU because he didn't want cheap European products flooding into Russia.

01:11:17.380 Okay.

01:11:18.120 What does it have to do with whether or not Russia is justified or whether we have interest

01:11:23.900 in continuing to support Ukraine?

01:11:25.660 I'm just curious.

01:11:26.740 It was a question about if you understood the political conflict that's occurring in

01:11:30.200 Ukraine and why the war was happening, because you made several assertions about Putin's

01:11:32.940 statements.

01:11:33.860 So I asked you what Putin said, and you didn't know.

01:11:36.460 And then you made an incorrect—

01:11:37.420 There are a lot of things, and I'm sure that there are things that I've said that—or

01:11:41.240 that Putin has said that I am unaware of.

01:11:43.160 That's true.

01:11:43.740 Fair enough.

01:11:44.060 The issue with—

01:11:44.820 If he has said some things that I am unaware of, I grant you that.

01:11:47.240 The trade agreement with Ukraine issue, largely in the election with Yanukovych and

01:11:52.240 Timoshenko, had to do with whether or not Ukraine would be opening up to or joining

01:11:56.340 the European Union.

01:11:57.580 Many of the Western Ukrainians wanted to join the Schengen zone so they could get freedom

01:12:01.160 of movement to leave Ukraine.

01:12:02.380 And they viewed it largely as Poland—they saw it as an opportunity the same as Poland

01:12:08.120 had.

01:12:08.760 When Poland joined the Schengen zone, millions of Poles began to flee the country and go

01:12:13.020 to other countries, notably in the UK, where they started taking jobs with higher base

01:12:17.520 pay because Poland's economy wasn't as good.

01:12:19.460 The EU didn't want to induct Ukraine because their economy was way too—way worse, substantially

01:12:24.180 worse.

01:12:25.260 And the average Ukraine at the time was making about $400 per month for, like, your median

01:12:29.500 job.

01:12:29.840 That meant if they did open the door to trade with Ukraine, 10 million Ukraines instantly

01:12:35.120 leave Ukraine and go to any other EU country where they can start taking jobs that pay more,

01:12:39.780 which would have caused economic destabilization, not too dissimilar to what they saw with Spain

01:12:44.320 and Greece, which they're trying not to repeat.

01:12:46.360 However, Ukraine was actively in a political dispute.

01:12:49.540 Western powers, notably the US, and funding various NGOs through USAID and with European interests

01:12:55.480 were supporting the EU side of the argument.

01:12:59.160 Russia was supporting the Russian side of the argument, which is why the country was

01:13:01.820 split east to west.

01:13:03.180 The Kiev oblast, obviously, was moving to the west, which is why you get Euromaidan.

01:13:08.080 So a lot of NGOs were able to organize with the assistance of USAID.

01:13:11.760 I don't think it's as simple to say that the CIA, like, snapped their fingers and made a

01:13:15.980 revolution happen.

01:13:16.560 They provided the resources so that activists in places like Kiev could do the work without

01:13:21.220 having to worry about having jobs or not getting paid enough money.

01:13:24.760 So largely what ends up happening is Russia issues an ultimatum.

01:13:28.420 Both sides offered tons of money to Yanukovych at the time.

01:13:32.320 Russia said, look, if you open the door to European trade, we're shutting you down.

01:13:36.300 We're not going to do trade with you because cheap European products would then flood into

01:13:39.780 Russia.

01:13:40.220 Nothing wrong with that.

01:13:41.200 So Russia needs, has protectionist policies to prevent their economy from being disrupted.

01:13:45.140 So Yanukovych said, OK, let me get back to you, went to the west and said, Russia's

01:13:49.300 going to cut us off.

01:13:50.720 What do you have to give us instead?

01:13:52.460 When it came down to brass tacks, Russia offered, I think, somewhere around like several

01:13:56.240 billion dollars.

01:13:57.420 And Yanukovych was leaning towards taking the deal with the Russian Trade Federation

01:14:00.600 over the EU.

01:14:01.680 This is when the Euromaidan protests ignited and we got the coup, which led to the physical

01:14:06.940 ousting of Yanukovych.

01:14:08.620 Now, don't get me wrong.

01:14:09.180 I'm not saying that Yanukovych was a good guy by any means.

01:14:11.580 Timoshenko was also accused of corruption.

01:14:13.020 This Ukraine is considered to be one of the most corrupt countries in Europe, especially

01:14:17.060 which is improving under Zelensky, to be clear.

01:14:19.580 Perhaps.

01:14:20.240 I mean, considering seven million Ukrainians fled, it's hard to know exactly what's going

01:14:22.940 on.

01:14:23.320 But what we got after the fall of Yanukovych was Poroshenko, which led to obviously the

01:14:30.520 Burisma scandal, U.S.'s illicit involvement in Ukraine, the Qatar-Turkey pipeline conflict,

01:14:36.280 Nord Stream 2, the expansion of the war.

01:14:38.060 And ultimately, where we're at now, with Russia seizing the Donbass region and the Oblast stretching

01:14:42.020 from the Donbass down to Crimea to secure a land bridge.

01:14:45.100 Which is, again, unjustified.

01:14:47.640 What Russia is doing in Ukraine right now, its invasion that it started in February of

01:14:53.860 2022, is unjustified because it is trying to go in and annex territory.

01:15:00.220 It's trying to seize territory unjustly from a sovereign nation.

01:15:03.380 All this Euro-Maidon stuff is a distraction.

01:15:07.680 It's not a distraction at all.

01:15:08.640 It really is.

01:15:08.660 Why is it a distraction?

01:15:09.220 It is a distraction.

01:15:10.180 The cause of the war is a distraction?

01:15:11.520 Because it does not matter to the justification.

01:15:13.740 The cause doesn't matter?

01:15:14.640 It does not matter to the justification.

01:15:16.540 Yeah, the cause.

01:15:17.600 When we're talking about the war in Ukraine, you don't think discussing the cause matters?

01:15:20.620 I think that the cause being their leader was unconstitutionally outed does not justify,

01:15:28.400 again, the Bukha massacre.

01:15:29.900 It does not justify the 20,000 children that were snatched away.

01:15:33.180 It does not justify any of these actions that Russia has taken.

01:15:35.940 And Russia has demonstrated again and again and again that this is how it operates.

01:15:40.140 It stirs up this conflict, and then it takes advantage when this conflict happens.

01:15:45.580 Do you think it was justified for the United States to instruct the state to fire their

01:15:50.120 state prosecutor?

01:15:53.900 Are we talking about the Burisma scandal and things like that?

01:15:57.320 I mean, it's connected to it, but the question is, does the U.S. government have the right

01:16:01.480 to go to Ukraine and say, we will withhold congressionally approved loan guarantees unless

01:16:06.760 you fire your state prosecutor?

01:16:10.500 I don't know enough about that to say, to be clear.

01:16:12.920 And it doesn't matter in the end of the day, because again, we're talking, we're not talking

01:16:16.720 about U.S. when it comes to, is U.S. justified in asking Ukraine to fire a prosecutor?

01:16:25.440 We're asking, is the U.S. justified?

01:16:28.600 And should the U.S. continue to aid this current conflict, regardless of how it started?

01:16:33.760 Is it justified?

01:16:34.320 We have a situation where Ukraine's people are fighting for its life.

01:16:38.800 They're fighting for its independence.

01:16:40.060 They're fighting for the right to exist as a nation.

01:16:43.040 And I think that we have both financial interest in this, right, in making them allies and getting

01:16:49.420 mineral trade deals like Trump is trying to do.

01:16:52.380 We have an interest in setting them up and protecting our wider interest in the regions

01:16:59.140 by, again, if we can stop Russia now, because Russia's not going to stop.

01:17:03.520 They have other imperialist ambitions.

01:17:06.080 And again, I encourage you to go watch the April 3rd discussion between the EU commander,

01:17:13.540 Army General Christopher G.

01:17:15.620 Cavoli, and Congress.

01:17:17.640 And he explains this, and he sets this out on detail.

01:17:19.920 He shows how, again, Russia, in his professional experience, has 38 years serving in the U.S.

01:17:29.340 Army.

01:17:29.800 I just, you know, I'm going to, as a NATO official, I just have a thought.

01:17:34.220 I wish he's going to have that opinion.

01:17:35.080 I just, I have this thought, and it's probably super arrogant, but I was just thinking, like,

01:17:39.980 I don't understand why every single conversation I've had with people who are in favor of the

01:17:44.440 war in Ukraine literally know nothing about it.

01:17:46.380 You say I know nothing about it.

01:17:48.160 You were able to say, well, here are these minute details, these trivial details.

01:17:53.900 Oh, you can't explain this period of history in complete detail?

01:17:57.320 Oh, you must know nothing about it.

01:17:58.700 The cause of it.

01:17:59.220 I don't know the cause of the war.

01:18:00.360 The cause of the war is, again, Putin.

01:18:03.520 See, this is what's happening.

01:18:04.900 He has decided.

01:18:05.840 These are the dogmatic talking points.

01:18:06.980 This is what happens, right?

01:18:07.880 But it's just true.

01:18:08.620 You're trying to obfuscate from this conversation, and it's just not true.

01:18:11.420 Talking about the cause of the war is not obfuscation.

01:18:14.920 What's happening here is that you have a list of, like, pre-programmed dogmatic talking points

01:18:19.700 that you've been giving out this whole time, right?

01:18:22.020 Putin is not justified.

01:18:23.220 He's invading.

01:18:24.180 Look what's happening.

01:18:25.180 He's not justified.

01:18:26.020 Whenever I bring up anything in history that Ukraine is doing, it's always, well, that's a distraction.

01:18:30.200 That's not justifying this.

01:18:31.360 That's not justifying this.

01:18:32.220 That's not justifying this.

01:18:33.180 What I'm saying is you cut it, congressional, you say over and over and over again.

01:18:37.340 What I'm saying is that when you look at the history of the conflict, when you look at the

01:18:40.960 causes of the conflict, that that's relevant when we're deciding who to support with our

01:18:45.720 money.

01:18:46.160 I'm not saying support Russia with U.S. dollars.

01:18:48.840 I'm not saying do that.

01:18:50.100 I'm saying that we should be a little bit choosy with which wars we're funding.

01:18:55.000 We should be a little bit choosy with where we're sending billions of dollars.

01:18:58.600 And I choose to send my money to Ukraine, and so does most of Americans.

01:19:02.040 I know you choose that.

01:19:02.760 I'm arguing that we shouldn't.

01:19:04.500 That's not most.

01:19:05.300 That's a plurality.

01:19:06.640 Plurality of Americans.

01:19:07.420 Regardless.

01:19:08.120 46% of Americans think that, and again, in a recent poll in March, let me finish, have

01:19:13.200 decided they want to send more aid to Ukraine.

01:19:17.260 They think that we aren't sending enough aid.

01:19:19.560 And talking about dogmatic talking points, you continue to bring up these things that do

01:19:25.360 not matter when it comes down to it.

01:19:27.460 They matter completely.

01:19:27.600 They do not.

01:19:28.460 You keep saying that, you repeat it, as if you're on—

01:19:31.100 Why doesn't the cause matter?

01:19:32.580 Let me ask you a question.

01:19:33.040 This is like Japan in 1945, saying, oh, the Americans are invading us.

01:19:37.100 And then we say, well, what about Pearl Harbor?

01:19:38.560 Oh, that doesn't matter.

01:19:39.700 That's history.

01:19:40.560 Who cares?

01:19:41.780 Right.

01:19:42.280 Okay.

01:19:42.760 So why is Vladimir Putin taking this specific region of Ukraine?

01:19:48.120 We have the battle map pulled up.

01:19:50.080 This specific—oh, the ones he's—well, he wants to take all of Ukraine, I would say.

01:19:57.600 Again, his stated goals at the start of the world were demilitarization and denazification.

01:20:02.600 And you can't do either of those if you don't control at least a major portion of Ukraine.

01:20:09.760 The region, the Donbass region, right?

01:20:15.520 This is what he has been since 2014, since Crimea, sending in his little green men to stir up these—and to fund these kind of separatist groups and to help them and to kind of stir up this conflict so he can, quote-unquote, justify him coming back in.

01:20:33.060 That's why he's trying to take those regions.

01:20:35.840 That's his, quote-unquote, justification.

01:20:38.160 But again—

01:20:39.360 Can you name the oblasts that he seized?

01:20:41.940 Luhansk and Donbass?

01:20:43.420 And then Zabas?

01:20:44.140 No.

01:20:45.200 Zapasia?

01:20:46.240 He has some—

01:20:46.900 Zafrisia, her son, Donetsk and Luhansk, and then Crimea.

01:20:50.980 Sure.

01:20:54.120 Okay.

01:20:55.620 I think it might be interesting to kind of put, like, the election map from 2010 compared to the current occupation map.

01:21:05.560 I think that's something that could be useful, right?

01:21:08.200 One of the reasons why—and with Crimea, the reason, obviously, the Russians were able to take it so quickly was because the population there was in support of Russia.

01:21:16.000 But one of the reasons, again, why they managed to make such great strides in the areas that they currently hold is because the population is not vehemently anti-Russian.

01:21:28.160 And there's polls that show this.

01:21:29.980 And this idea—

01:21:31.200 But we also have—

01:21:31.940 There's this idea that the separatist movement in the Donbass was just, you know, this entirely engineered thing.

01:21:36.860 It's just not true.

01:21:38.140 There are people there who were upset, again, because they voted for this guy that was removed.

01:21:42.320 But again, well, do you deny that Russia has exacerbated whatever natural enmity might exist there, that Russia has used its power, influence, and military to exacerbate, to funnel funds and men into these things?

01:22:00.320 Do you deny that's true?

01:22:01.180 I have no doubt that the Russian government has helped the separatists in the East and in Crimea in the same way that I have no doubt the Spanish and the French helped the U.S. during our War of Independence.

01:22:12.400 These are not analogous.

01:22:14.160 The Spanish and the French did not take a state for themselves.

01:22:18.020 If the state voted to join them—this is the thing that's very, like, confusing, right?

01:22:22.100 Self-determination includes a country voting to join another country.

01:22:25.540 Self-determination doesn't count when you have guns pointing at your head.

01:22:29.020 They—so when the Russians—

01:22:31.020 Which is what happened in 2014.

01:22:32.800 No, that's not what happened.

01:22:33.820 When the Russians intervened in Crimea, they weren't going and pointing the guns at the population that supported them's heads.

01:22:38.640 They supported them both before, during, and after this whole incident.

01:22:42.080 Why don't they have an election?

01:22:43.700 Why doesn't Ukraine vote on new leadership?

01:22:45.520 Well, first of all, it's unconstitutional.

01:22:47.600 It's not true.

01:22:48.520 They have a—

01:22:49.380 What does the Constitution of Ukraine say about having an election?

01:22:51.560 So under martial law, they are not allowed to have elections.

01:22:54.460 And—

01:22:54.600 Who declares martial law?

01:22:55.900 The president of the—

01:22:56.800 The Constitution of Ukraine leaves out the president when it comes to who the elections are suspended for during martial law.

01:23:04.600 Oh, wait, wait, wait.

01:23:05.500 The president declared martial law.

01:23:06.860 Yeah.

01:23:07.160 He could undeclare it.

01:23:08.740 Yes, but he is in a state—the country is being invaded.

01:23:12.180 Of course he's in a state of emergency.

01:23:14.140 Martial law is very important.

01:23:14.420 They shouldn't have elections.

01:23:16.280 No, I don't think they should have elections now.

01:23:18.040 I think it would disenfranchise millions of Ukrainians.

01:23:20.580 I think that the people who are under occupied areas in Russia wouldn't have their voices heard.

01:23:26.100 Do you think that Zelensky should abide strictly by the Constitution or should he use extreme measures to secure victory?

01:23:31.800 Really, it depends on the context.

01:23:36.860 I can imagine situations where he probably should violate the—

01:23:42.500 If it was—

01:23:43.320 Let me ask you this.

01:23:44.300 —and he knew he's going to lose the whole country unless he violated one section of the Constitution, it would depend.

01:23:51.600 I would need a specific example.

01:23:52.860 Let's try this.

01:23:53.420 So right now there's heavy conflict in their northern oblasts.

01:23:57.120 Kharkiv, for instance, is the Ukrainian front on the Russian border.

01:24:00.860 If the government of Kharkiv had, let's say, 40 percent of their—of the local government was in favor of seceding to join Russia,

01:24:09.960 should he go in and remove them from power by force?

01:24:13.620 In Kharkiv?

01:24:15.040 Yeah.

01:24:16.160 That's a good question.

01:24:17.640 I think that he gets to this point.

01:24:18.860 Growing sentiment is rising—like, hypothetically, growing sentiment is rising among the local population

01:24:23.280 that they should actually join the fight with Russia against Kiev should Zelensky send the military in and arrest those politicians.

01:24:29.600 I think that they have a duty to the state and to the security of the state to go in and to stop that.

01:24:35.420 I do believe that they have a duty to the state and the security of the state to go in and stop that from happening.

01:24:39.840 So in this context, if the people of these areas try to make self-determination independently through their own local government,

01:24:47.380 you're saying he should stop that political process?

01:24:49.840 Yes.

01:24:50.100 I don't think that—

01:24:51.240 So they have no right to vote on how they should exist?

01:24:55.140 I don't think that right supersedes the right for the state itself to protect itself from an ongoing invasion.

01:25:03.260 That's why I said it's a political process.

01:25:05.080 I'm saying a political process by which the local elected leaders say,

01:25:08.400 guys, we think we should actually side with Russia at this point.

01:25:11.620 But the political process is existing in the context of an ongoing invasion by a foreign hostile power, and we can't ignore that.

01:25:17.520 So your point—so my question, then, is you are saying there is no context in Ukraine right now where anyone has a democratic voice?

01:25:24.520 That's not true at all.

01:25:25.400 That's not what I'm saying at all.

01:25:26.300 That's why I asked specifically about a minority group in Kharkiv voting through the natural political process against the interests of Kiev,

01:25:34.220 and you said Zelensky should use military force to arrest those people.

01:25:38.000 Not just against the interests of Kiev, but also joining the enemy that is currently invading them.

01:25:46.140 Right.

01:25:46.720 They're becoming enemy combatants in that case.

01:25:49.880 Right.

01:25:50.100 So what about to separate?

01:25:51.900 Not to join the fight, but to separate from Kiev?

01:25:53.520 To separate, then that's a harder question, right?

01:25:55.560 But again, under the context of a current invasion, I don't think it's okay for a portion of a country to try to secede during an invasion.

01:26:06.700 So like, for example, if America was being invaded, if Canada rose up for some reason, right, and was coming in through the borders, I don't think that it would be okay—

01:26:16.400 I don't think it would be morally justified for Georgia to try to secede from the Union because there were—

01:26:21.540 Well, this is a border state, which is why I use the example.

01:26:23.380 So it would be more like Oregon or Washington.

01:26:24.740 Sure.

01:26:24.880 Washington.

01:26:25.460 I don't think that's—

01:26:25.740 I don't think that's morally—

01:26:29.380 I don't think that the United States should allow that to happen.

01:26:31.760 Do you think Zelensky should suspend legal jurisprudence considering that war?

01:26:37.160 Should he be able to detain and arrest anybody?

01:26:39.340 No.

01:26:39.560 So if there is an individual there who, say, a journalist, should he be able to just rendition that person or should they—

01:26:48.620 There should have some—there should be some justification.

01:26:52.020 They should be able to show that they've committed some crime.

01:26:55.160 There should be a legal process.

01:26:56.500 But like a normal legal process adversarial court, like we know it.

01:26:59.500 Or are you saying like at the very least have a writ from a judge saying he's a bad guy?

01:27:03.420 It would depend on the situation, right?

01:27:05.700 So depending on the situation means there is a—there would be a scenario then where the normal judicial process doesn't play out.

01:27:12.440 Well, for example—

01:27:13.800 Because you're either saying absolutely not.

01:27:15.680 There will always be standard habeas corpus and legal justifications through an adversarial court.

01:27:20.540 If you say there are some—it depends.

01:27:22.360 You're saying sometimes maybe he should just grab somebody and lock it up.

01:27:25.200 In extremis.

01:27:25.680 In extremis.

01:27:26.320 So like if, for example, there was a journalist and you knew, right, you found information that this journalist had a nuclear weapon that he was about to detonate.

01:27:35.280 I don't think you do it for a trial.

01:27:36.500 I think you take that out.

01:27:37.360 But you're not talking about a journalist.

01:27:38.300 You're talking about a terrorist or an insurgent or an enemy combatant.

01:27:40.680 A journalist, you're not going to call a journalist unless their job is literally just dissemination of information.

01:27:45.000 So dissemination of information then in that case, if that's all they're doing, it should be a legal process.

01:27:50.740 What about a foreign journalist operating at that?

01:27:52.040 Are you talking about Coach Redpill?

01:27:53.340 Is this what we're leading to here?

01:27:54.780 Well, one of the things we're getting to is the execution of Gonzalo Lira, yes.

01:27:58.700 Execution.

01:27:59.260 Yeah, I can talk about that.

01:28:00.160 He was murdered by the state.

01:28:01.100 He was trying to flee the state.

01:28:02.200 Can you prove that?

01:28:03.340 Yes.

01:28:03.580 He posted a video at the border and then he was kidnapped and reported dead.

01:28:07.320 He also claimed to be tortured.

01:28:09.820 Dead by what causes?

01:28:12.240 Improper treatment, malnutrition, and dehydration.

01:28:14.580 Improper treatment, malnutrition, and dehydration.

01:28:18.240 So pneumonia.

01:28:18.680 For some different reasons, when you lock them into jail and don't give them medical treatment when they're trying to flee your country.

01:28:23.140 Right.

01:28:23.780 How was he arrested?

01:28:25.640 How was he arrested?

01:28:26.680 Why was he arrested?

01:28:27.360 Why was he arrested?

01:28:28.200 Yeah, he was fleeing the country.

01:28:29.400 He was disseminating information, as far as I know, right?

01:28:33.640 And I'd have to look into the case again.

01:28:35.380 Are you in favor of that?

01:28:36.580 No.

01:28:36.820 I don't think he should have been arrested and killed.

01:28:39.820 Well, first of all, there was no evidence he was killed.

01:28:42.340 I mean, if you take someone by force.

01:28:44.200 Who killed him?

01:28:44.920 The state.

01:28:45.660 The state killed him.

01:28:46.880 Yes, by locking him up.

01:28:47.940 Because he died of pneumonia in prison.

01:28:49.680 Indeed, yes.

01:28:51.140 So you think in the United States.

01:28:52.440 In the United States, if someone dies of pneumonia in prison, did we execute that prisoner?

01:28:56.640 We are responsible for their deaths.

01:28:58.260 If someone is not guilty of a crime, is fleeing, and we take them, and we put them in prison.

01:29:03.280 How do we know he's not guilty of a crime?

01:29:05.400 What was he put in prison for?

01:29:06.540 He was put in prison for disinformation.

01:29:11.060 I can tell you exactly.

01:29:13.160 Which I believe was a crime.

01:29:14.860 Sure.

01:29:15.660 Sure.

01:29:15.940 But again, I'm against that.

01:29:17.840 I think people should have the ability to have free speech.

01:29:20.460 But to act as if the Ukrainian people don't get a say on their own laws, I think, is silly.

01:29:26.220 Well, that's why I asked you about Kharkiv.

01:29:27.900 And you said they should stop—they should arrest politicians who are against their will.

01:29:32.300 No, again, in the context of them joining an enemy state that is actively invading their country, you keep leaving out these contexts and doing this funny little trick where you'll set up a hypothetical under certain circumstances.

01:29:46.780 And then you will change the circumstances, and you'll say, oh, look, you said yes to this, so it must be yes to that.

01:29:51.980 Or the comparison.

01:29:52.460 That's, again—

01:29:53.360 Or it's literally called me asking you to find the degree by which you are accepting of certain degrees of power.

01:29:58.880 Sure.

01:29:59.020 So if you say, Zelensky should abide by the Constitution, I will then ask you, okay, should we have elections?

01:30:06.040 Then you say, right.

01:30:07.140 So the issue then when I say, should there be standard habeas corpus?

01:30:11.400 And you say, it depends.

01:30:12.300 That would literally imply sometimes there should not be.

01:30:14.420 Yes.

01:30:14.920 Yes, I'm asking you these questions to find the line by which you would say the line has been crossed.

01:30:19.180 Not to set up, as you described it, funny little hypotheticals.

01:30:22.080 So I'm asking you, when we talked about Crimea, Crimea had an election, and you didn't respect it.

01:30:27.020 So I ask you, what if Kharkiv was going to side with Russia?

01:30:30.260 The Crimea had an election under gunpoint, and the UN doesn't respect that.

01:30:33.600 The international law doesn't respect that.

01:30:36.040 Which is why I asked a hypothetical.

01:30:37.480 So if that's clearly a red line for you, let's try another scenario.

01:30:40.460 Would this be a red line for you?

01:30:41.800 And you said, in this circumstance, yes.

01:30:43.120 In that circumstance, no.

01:30:44.260 Simple answer.

01:30:45.240 Sure.

01:30:45.400 There's no conflict.

01:30:46.700 That's why I asked.

01:30:48.000 What is the line by which you think the political process is a threat to Kiev?

01:30:51.060 If the people choose, if the people in a oblast decide amongst themselves Russia is correct,

01:30:59.840 you think that Zelensky should send in military to remove those politicians.

01:31:04.680 And that's a fine position to have.

01:31:06.240 I disagree.

01:31:07.180 I think, and you said it's because it's an invasive force on your country.

01:31:09.860 But where does self-determination come in?

01:31:11.860 There are plenty of instances where we wouldn't let people self-determine.

01:31:20.460 I'll give you an example.

01:31:21.480 The reason why I asked?

01:31:22.220 I'll give you an example, right?

01:31:23.240 Just explain.

01:31:24.420 So if I saw someone on a roof who was about to jump, I wouldn't let them self-determination

01:31:30.200 themselves to jump.

01:31:31.360 I would physically stop them.

01:31:32.520 I would grab them and stop them from doing that.

01:31:34.780 Now, the reason why I asked is because in the instance of Crimea, the people of Crimea

01:31:38.640 overwhelmingly voted to join Russia.

01:31:40.160 But your argument, it's fake.

01:31:42.000 Russia was occupying the region.

01:31:43.700 Yes.

01:31:44.080 So it doesn't count.

01:31:45.220 Yes.

01:31:45.580 I then asked you, what about a legitimate election?

01:31:47.920 And you still said the state should use military force from stopping those people from having

01:31:52.220 that vote.

01:31:52.680 Because during, in Crimea, they weren't under invasion from Russia.

01:31:56.160 But in this other situation, they were.

01:31:58.600 And my answer was, in the context.

01:32:00.740 You're missing the point.

01:32:01.300 I think you're missing my answer.

01:32:02.600 No, you're not answering what I'm asking.

01:32:04.580 I'm absolutely answering the question.

01:32:05.640 The point that was brought up is this.

01:32:07.500 Crimea's election does not count because they're under duress.

01:32:10.160 We agree.

01:32:11.440 Yes.

01:32:11.720 I asked you about what if another oblast had a legitimate election and you said no, which

01:32:15.580 means even in the instance where Crimea was choosing to join Russia, you would not accept

01:32:20.460 it.

01:32:20.840 Because these legitimate, as you said, you sneak it in.

01:32:23.840 Right.

01:32:24.140 But again, they are also under duress because there is a foreign military power, a power

01:32:29.280 actively engaging.

01:32:30.260 Agreed and understood.

01:32:30.960 Now, let me try to explain what I'm saying.

01:32:32.940 Your argument then is it doesn't matter if Crimea is under duress.

01:32:38.060 An oppressive force is seeking to take over Ukraine.

01:32:40.200 We will not let Crimea secede.

01:32:41.800 If Russia was currently invading the Donbass and Crimea tried to secede, let's say the

01:32:48.540 Crimea referendum never happened and Crimea was part of Ukraine in 2022 when they came

01:32:53.760 in and Russia invaded the Donbass and Crimea at that point tried to secede.

01:32:58.640 Yes.

01:32:58.900 I would also say that that's not OK.

01:33:00.920 But in other situations, the reason for asking the point, you are missing mine.

01:33:06.660 The reason why I asked you this, because your point doesn't matter to why I'm asking you

01:33:09.840 a question, you can assert some point after the fact.

01:33:12.240 My point is we are trying to understand your position on Crimea versus any other political

01:33:17.200 process.

01:33:18.240 You have asserted that the Crimean election doesn't does is not legitimate because they

01:33:22.360 were under occupation.

01:33:23.560 Agreed.

01:33:24.280 What if there was an oblast not under occupation?

01:33:26.720 You still think they should not be allowed to secede.

01:33:28.700 In fact, when Crimea did get absorbed by Russia, the Donbass was already in conflict with Russian

01:33:34.120 troops in the eastern region of Luhansk and Donetsk.

01:33:38.380 Russia was already actively in this conflict, though it wasn't a hardcore invasion.

01:33:41.320 The country was still considered a civil war when this broke out.

01:33:44.240 After Trump's election, this simmered down and they stopped referring it to as a civil

01:33:48.120 war, but a separatist movement, despite the fact Crimea had already been absorbed.

01:33:51.880 Your argument is inconsistent.

01:33:54.480 I disagree.

01:33:55.400 I'd have no problem with you saying I don't care what Crimea wants.

01:33:58.120 They don't get to vote for secession.

01:33:59.620 And I'd say, OK, if you made the argument that I don't care what Ukraine does, the U.S.

01:34:04.620 shall prevail.

01:34:05.300 I'd understand your position.

01:34:06.520 But you keep trying to create moral justifications for why this instance is right and that instance

01:34:09.780 is wrong.

01:34:10.480 I think your better argument would be literally nothing matters.

01:34:13.340 All is fair and love and war.

01:34:14.460 And we're going to crush Russia.

01:34:15.480 And I'd say, OK, here's the deal.

01:34:17.300 Right.

01:34:17.580 Again, when you gave me the hypothetical of Kharkiv, right, and I said, no, because this

01:34:25.020 legitimate process, because, and this is a context I think you were ignoring, and I think

01:34:29.780 that makes me not inconsistent here, is that there is a form of duress, an extreme form

01:34:36.620 of duress, and they're actively being invaded by the group that Kharkiv wants to secede to.

01:34:43.020 Which is what Crimea did, right?

01:34:47.140 No.

01:34:48.660 What Crimea did was they were invaded by Russia.

01:34:53.580 Russia locked their parliament, right?

01:34:55.820 And they had guns.

01:34:56.660 When did Russia invade Crimea?

01:34:58.720 When did Russia invade Crimea?

01:35:00.580 The 22nd, maybe the 23rd?

01:35:04.380 It really, it really, there is some...

01:35:06.580 Did Russia have any military in Crimea before then?

01:35:08.560 Yes.

01:35:09.100 They had a base and they were leasing...

01:35:11.020 Was the base significant?

01:35:14.860 Define significant.

01:35:16.160 I mean, are you talking about like 10 troops?

01:35:18.280 Or are you talking about a million?

01:35:21.220 Neither of those.

01:35:22.240 If the U.S. built...

01:35:24.440 In Russia, again...

01:35:25.460 If the U.S. built a port in Taiwan and staged their entire Pacific fleet there with all their

01:35:32.680 flagships and 30,000 personnel, would we call that an occupation?

01:35:37.100 Did Taiwan invite us?

01:35:39.180 Yeah.

01:35:39.360 And we've been there...

01:35:41.200 So let's say we have 30,000 people in Taiwan.

01:35:44.620 Our flagship for our entire Pacific fleet is there.

01:35:47.380 All of our warships are based out of there.

01:35:49.220 And then we send in, I don't know, a few thousand more troops.

01:35:52.320 We would call that an invasion?

01:35:53.900 Of course not.

01:35:55.160 So what you're saying is that Sevastopol was occupied by Russia the whole time and wasn't

01:36:00.600 invaded because they already had their Black Sea fleet flagship there.

01:36:04.420 So it was their most significant port.

01:36:06.860 In fact, their only warm water port.

01:36:08.760 During the Crimean referendum, they, Russian troops, blockaded Ukrainian bases that were located

01:36:16.980 in Crimea so they couldn't stop them.

01:36:19.380 My point was this.

01:36:22.660 Crimea already housed thousands or tens of thousands of Russian personnel, naval personnel.

01:36:28.220 It didn't just have some ships.

01:36:29.980 It wasn't just a base.

01:36:31.080 It was the base.

01:36:32.220 It is the home of their Black Sea fleet.

01:36:34.560 It is where their flagship makes port.

01:36:36.560 It is their only warm water access.

01:36:38.360 This was not insignificant for Russia.

01:36:40.320 Russia didn't need to invade.

01:36:41.720 They were already there.

01:36:42.540 So the question about elections becomes, if you believe that Crimea was under duress,

01:36:48.120 and then I ask you about another region not under duress, but your position is, if they

01:36:52.280 are going to be joining an adversarial force that is actively in conflict with them, we

01:36:56.620 would not allow it.

01:36:57.540 It would not have mattered what the results of either election is.

01:37:00.300 It doesn't matter if Crimea is under duress or not.

01:37:02.440 I don't know why you can't just say that.

01:37:03.500 It's a simple answer.

01:37:04.560 Crimea can't secede because we won't let them, just like in 1991.

01:37:07.680 We didn't let them then.

01:37:08.740 We're not going to let them now.

01:37:09.800 End of story.

01:37:10.820 Determination doesn't matter.

01:37:11.680 There's no problem saying it.

01:37:13.420 Abraham Lincoln didn't let the South make self-determination.

01:37:16.400 So it's a simple argument.

01:37:18.020 That's what I'm trying to understand.

01:37:19.420 I don't see a cohesive moral worldview in the argument.

01:37:26.480 Let me see if I can explain this in a different way.

01:37:30.400 Okay.

01:37:32.120 I think that in cases where—like self-determination matters to a point.

01:37:38.520 I think that also the sovereignty of a nation matters as well.

01:37:43.280 Sometimes these things can come in conflict.

01:37:45.700 I tend to side with sovereignty over self-determination when it comes to these things.

01:37:51.360 But there are extreme instances where I think, you know what?

01:37:54.860 Self-determination is probably the way to go.

01:37:57.400 For example, if your people are being genocided and you want to break off and you're like, this is too much.

01:38:04.800 We cannot suffer this anymore.

01:38:06.960 Fair enough.

01:38:08.000 That's okay.

01:38:08.740 But to act as if the hypothetical you gave me did not map on or mapped on to what was happening in Crimea, it does not.

01:38:17.780 Well, it's actually just instead of going in circles, it's one for one.

01:38:22.520 If they're—

01:38:23.400 You keep saying it's one for one.

01:38:24.040 It's simply not.

01:38:24.940 I asked you, if there was an oblast that wanted to vote, should they be arrested?

01:38:29.180 You said, yes, they should.

01:38:31.120 So—

01:38:31.600 Again, because of the context that they were being invaded by a hostile foreign power.

01:38:35.340 Ukraine was under invasion with a civil war going on when Crimea issued their referendum.

01:38:39.640 They're not different circumstances.

01:38:40.960 I think what you're missing, Wick, is that according to the Ukrainians, their argument—hold on.

01:38:45.560 Their argument is that they were getting—

01:38:46.660 Not in the same way you're being.

01:38:47.340 Their argument was that they were getting invaded by Russia in 2014 in the East.

01:38:51.140 That was the Ukrainian—that's the current Ukrainian position.

01:38:53.760 They were being—there were border skirmishes and they were being—

01:38:58.220 No, no, no, no.

01:38:58.680 Ukraine maintained that Russia actually did invade well before the formal 2020 invasion.

01:39:03.700 And in Luhansk and Donetsk, the fighting was largely from Russian troops.

01:39:07.320 Russian troops, yes.

01:39:08.440 Right.

01:39:08.680 So when Crimea seceded, Ukraine was dealing with a Russian incursion into their territory

01:39:16.140 in what Ukraine referred to as a civil war.

01:39:19.060 So when I was in Kiev, this is how it was referred to.

01:39:23.340 And when I returned in 2017, they said, no, no, we don't call it that anymore.

01:39:28.000 We're now referring it to just separatist conflict and everything seems to be much better now.

01:39:31.860 And then, of course, after Trump's first term, 2022, Russia ends up invading.

01:39:36.320 So they were using hyperbolic rhetoric at first.

01:39:39.560 The view of the people in Kiev, and this is relatively anecdotal, as I interviewed them

01:39:44.120 in these protest movements, was that when the fighting emerged in Luhansk and Donetsk,

01:39:48.280 it was the beginning of civil war, which they referred to as civil war.

01:39:50.960 When I came back three years later, they said, we don't call it that anymore.

01:39:54.000 It's just a separatist movement, but it's largely being put down.

01:39:56.480 Because they realized probably, and the space of time, they realized probably during that

01:40:01.820 space of time that they had overreacted, they had used hyperbolic language, they had

01:40:06.460 tuned down.

01:40:07.020 But again, we can recognize that the invasion in 2022 is a fundamentally different thing

01:40:13.140 and a different scale than whatever what was happening in 2014.

01:40:17.540 Correct?

01:40:18.000 Can you acknowledge that?

01:40:19.220 The scale of invasion from 2022 was substantially worse.

01:40:22.060 It was substantially different, yeah.

01:40:23.680 And the separatists, the Russians supported incursions in the East.

01:40:27.920 In 2014, yes.

01:40:29.200 In 2014, you had limited intervention from the Russians.

01:40:34.300 In 2022, you had a hardcore invasion by Russia.

01:40:37.640 Yes.

01:40:37.860 These are different things.

01:40:39.100 Indeed.

01:40:39.400 The scale matters.

01:40:40.340 Right.

01:40:40.860 So that's why, again, these are non-analious.

01:40:43.340 So then you're saying that if the Russians didn't go into Crimea, Crimea could have voted

01:40:47.220 to secede and you would have respected it.

01:40:49.600 Depends on the context.

01:40:50.760 Again, I think-

01:40:53.000 We're trying to find out what your position is.

01:40:54.980 So when can someone vote to secede?

01:40:58.160 Again, if they're being genocided, if they're- again, there are certain lines.

01:41:03.220 And I can't give you a specific one.

01:41:05.100 What if they're denied to vote?

01:41:06.500 What if an area is disenfranchised?

01:41:09.160 Should they be able to leave?

01:41:10.520 How many times?

01:41:12.340 Just generally speaking, the president they elected was removed, or I guess in the U.S.

01:41:16.080 case, we're not allowed to vote.

01:41:17.200 How much of your representation needs to be denied before you say, hey, look, you have

01:41:22.740 a right to form your own country?

01:41:23.860 Because the U.N. has talked about this.

01:41:26.200 And if you have an area without self-determination, that's one of the justifications for independence

01:41:31.180 for that area.

01:41:32.660 There was several litigated cases about this, including some islands in between Finland

01:41:36.940 and Sweden.

01:41:37.440 We could have that discussion, but unfortunately, we can't, because Russia interceded in a way

01:41:42.160 that made it impossible for us to ever know whether or not Crimea would secede naturally

01:41:47.640 or not.

01:41:47.840 We can't have that conversation because Crimea tried to leave, and Ukraine said no.

01:41:53.260 Actually, it's not the military, the National Guard.

01:41:54.940 I didn't know this.

01:41:55.640 I keep trying to explain this to you.

01:41:57.340 95, but we're talking about 2014.

01:41:59.000 Right.

01:41:59.400 And what this demonstrates is that when Crimea tries to leave, they get swatted down.

01:42:03.440 And in 2014, when they tried to leave, they were like, hey, we're going to have a vote,

01:42:07.880 and they invited the OSCE.

01:42:09.200 The OSCE refused because of Kiev.

01:42:11.160 But actually, I think this is particularly more egregious because after the fall of the

01:42:14.760 Soviet Union, Ukraine had no claim over Crimea.

01:42:16.840 They just claimed it.

01:42:18.120 I'm not here to argue that was right or wrong.

01:42:21.160 Fair enough.

01:42:22.020 Indeed.

01:42:22.380 It just appears that the Republic of Crimea, as they deemed it, and the people of Crimea

01:42:26.400 have a substantially different worldview than the rest of Ukraine.

01:42:30.300 They viewed themselves as autonomous.

01:42:31.420 And Ukraine decided to crush them, remove their laws, and send them to the National Guard

01:42:37.040 to actually shut down their attempts at sovereignty.

01:42:39.500 In 95, had there been an incident there?

01:42:42.440 Fair enough.

01:42:43.040 But we're talking about 2014.

01:42:44.700 So the people who live there and have been there since then who wanted termination don't

01:42:47.880 matter?

01:42:48.720 They absolutely do.

01:42:49.780 And something did happen in 2014, right?

01:42:52.440 When Kiev forced its constitution upon them, they played by the rules set by Kiev, right,

01:42:58.100 set by the government, and then 2014 rolls around, and the government breaks its own rules,

01:43:02.660 right?

01:43:03.520 Like, you want us to play—you want Crimeans to play by the constitution, and then you

01:43:07.680 break the constitution and then surprise that they want to leave.

01:43:09.920 I want Russia not to interfere in the—

01:43:12.760 I know you want them to be unable to protect themselves.

01:43:15.660 That's what we're talking about.

01:43:16.060 I want Russia not to be able to interfere in this.

01:43:18.920 Because that's the only way—

01:43:20.000 That's not with military force.

01:43:20.940 That is the only way that the oppression will lead.

01:43:22.500 Not with military force.

01:43:23.420 That is absolutely not the only way.

01:43:25.220 I think we'd be doing the audience a disservice if we didn't actually give the real reasons

01:43:29.460 for the war, which I think yours are largely emotional, moral, and one-dimensional.

01:43:35.160 Russia is not invading Ukraine because they want to restore the Russian Empire, though.

01:43:38.200 Vladimir Putin has stated he does want to bring back the Soviet Union.

01:43:41.900 He hasn't said it exactly as that.

01:43:43.240 That's not the reason for the invasion of Ukraine.

01:43:44.720 The invasion of Ukraine is specifically because Russia has one warm water port into the Black

01:43:49.000 Sea, which is in Sevastopol, that costs billions to produce.

01:43:51.720 It's the home of their Black Sea fleet, and it's where they do the principal exports through

01:43:54.840 the Bosphorus Strait and through the Suez Canal.

01:43:57.880 Meaning if Russia loses access to Crimea, they're not going to be doing any trade with North Africa

01:44:01.300 or the Mediterranean, and they'll get cut off from India and the rest of the Arabian Sea

01:44:06.720 and the Indian Ocean.

01:44:08.060 This means that Russia has no choice politically but to make sure they secure Crimea by any means

01:44:13.480 necessary.

01:44:13.860 After the Euromaidan protests and the ousting of Yanukovych, there was a large movement that

01:44:19.340 was pro-EU, which meant Crimea would have fallen to the hands of European Union forces, NATO

01:44:24.900 interests.

01:44:25.680 So Russia obviously then says, referendum, oh, it's us now, which, yeah, I agree, I don't

01:44:30.400 think is legit.

01:44:31.360 But Russia is not going to give up their only Black Sea warm water port.

01:44:35.360 Some have argued, why don't they just build it in Novoroslisq or whatever, or Sochi?

01:44:39.760 They're not going to rebuild their entire military infrastructure.

01:44:43.000 That seems ridiculous.

01:44:44.500 Certainly they could, but this would mean that the next 30 or 40 years, they're cut off from

01:44:48.020 the Black Sea, and their principal export, of course, is going to be energy, which ain't

01:44:51.120 going to happen.

01:44:51.980 A large portion of their exports, of course, are natural gas into Europe, which props up

01:44:55.560 the Russian economy.

01:44:56.940 That's through Gazprom.

01:44:58.100 Gazprom has a natural gas monopoly in Europe, and Gazprom runs through Ukraine.

01:45:02.720 Russia is another means of delivery of natural gas into Europe.

01:45:05.520 That's through Germany with Nord Stream.

01:45:06.580 Of course, we now know, according to Germany, or it is accused, that Ukraine blew up the

01:45:11.960 Nord Stream 2 pipeline, sabotaging Russia's ability to export natural gas to Europe, for

01:45:16.140 which was propping up their economy.

01:45:17.440 So the reason why Russia invaded the eastern regions of Ukraine and secured only Luhansk,

01:45:23.380 Donetsk, Mariupol, Kurson, and portions of Zaporizhia is so that they can secure a land

01:45:29.300 bridge access to Crimea so they do not get cut off from their exports.

01:45:32.300 They had a bridge that stretched from Russia through Kirch into Ukraine, but it was bombed

01:45:37.520 by Ukrainian forces, presenting the West with the exact reason why Russia secured the

01:45:42.860 eastern region and why they're not waging a sustained front through Belarus.

01:45:46.740 It also explains why when people make the argument that Russia wants Ukraine so it can invade

01:45:50.780 the rest of these countries is a lie, because these people don't even know that Kaliningrad

01:45:53.580 exists.

01:45:54.760 And once you tell people that Russia actually borders the north of Poland and the south of

01:45:58.180 Lithuania, they say that's impossible.

01:45:59.620 And then you explain that Russia is an obelisk in the Baltic called Kaliningrad and say,

01:46:02.900 I had no idea that existed.

01:46:03.860 Right.

01:46:04.180 That argument goes out the window.

01:46:05.800 If Russia gets cut off from the Black Sea, they're going to lose 40 percent of their economy

01:46:10.140 overnight.

01:46:11.200 There is nothing, nothing that will stop Russia from fighting a war to secure this region.

01:46:15.680 That is why this war is happening.

01:46:17.340 Now, certainly Vladimir Putin does want the Soviet Union back.

01:46:20.220 He's not going to get it.

01:46:21.460 It's not going to happen.

01:46:22.440 That's why he's been largely disinterested in the expansion of NATO into Estonia and Latvia.

01:46:27.800 He's allied with Belarus.

01:46:29.720 Sure.

01:46:30.740 There's a concern if the war expands.

01:46:32.600 Maybe Belarus will carve out a piece of Lithuania and Poland to create a land bridge

01:46:36.920 into Kaliningrad, which I really doubt.

01:46:39.160 But this idea that they only are taking this specific portion, they in the early days of

01:46:44.280 the war, they had troops in Kiev that they were rolling into Kiev.

01:46:48.520 They tried to take it all.

01:46:51.140 They were stopped from doing that.

01:46:53.020 They have since decided, hey, this is probably only what we can hold on to.

01:46:59.540 And frankly, I don't know if they can hold on to it for much longer.

01:47:03.040 You can play chess.

01:47:03.580 Right?

01:47:03.860 Yes.

01:47:04.660 Sometimes in chess, you make a move to force your opponent to defend an area of the board

01:47:08.080 you don't actually want.

01:47:09.440 Sometimes.

01:47:10.200 But there's no evidence that this is the case.

01:47:12.220 It certainly is.

01:47:13.080 All of the evidence.

01:47:14.160 All of the evidence.

01:47:15.000 And I'm going to say this as disrespectfully as I can.

01:47:17.100 Please do.

01:47:17.780 When you can't actually name the oblasts that are under occupation, I question what you actually

01:47:21.380 know about the region.

01:47:21.960 Fair enough.

01:47:23.080 You can question that.

01:47:24.560 But here's the thing.

01:47:25.700 You don't know the names of the places he actually invaded.

01:47:29.520 He invaded all of Ukraine, as I said.

01:47:32.140 Name the oblasts.

01:47:33.340 We've already said them once.

01:47:34.460 I said them again just a minute ago.

01:47:35.560 Say them again.

01:47:36.480 This name the oblasts.

01:47:37.880 Name the oblasts game that you're playing.

01:47:39.860 A game of why did Vladimir Putin invade these places?

01:47:44.420 Why did he invade these places?

01:47:45.660 Because he wants all of Ukraine.

01:47:47.180 So what did he invade?

01:47:48.280 Did he invade Lutsk?

01:47:49.840 He tried to.

01:47:50.720 If he could, he would.

01:47:51.960 He tried to invade Lutsk.

01:47:53.060 He's tried to invade Kiev.

01:47:54.560 He's tried.

01:47:55.040 Again, he sent forces across into Ukraine's territory.

01:48:00.240 They went as far as they could until they were stopped.

01:48:03.440 But they weren't stopped in the eastern regions.

01:48:05.200 They weren't stopped in the eastern regions.

01:48:09.420 They were pushed back to the eastern regions.

01:48:11.780 No, they invaded actually from every direction.

01:48:13.980 They invaded from the east and from the north through Belarus.

01:48:16.680 Sure.

01:48:18.160 But they will, again, they gained a lot of territory.

01:48:22.320 Ukraine has taken a lot back.

01:48:24.000 What economic value does Russia have from securing Lviv?

01:48:26.180 What economic value?

01:48:30.060 It might have logistical value.

01:48:32.200 I think the challenge largely is, you know, the lack of understanding in conflict makes it difficult for a lot of people to understand the requirements of warfare and the targets that have to be secured first.

01:48:54.060 That's why in the Gulf War, we just dumped all their petroleum out.

01:48:57.920 When you cut a nation off from their energy source, nothing else matters, which is why in sci-fi they often make the joke all of these movies are dumb because if aliens actually ever came here, they'd blow up North Dakota first.

01:49:08.120 They'd take out our frack fields, eliminate our ability to power anything that we do.

01:49:12.520 The reason why Russia invaded in every direction likely has to do with any standard first grade level of chess.

01:49:21.000 Sometimes you want to distract your opponent in one direction while secretly moving in an area where you want to secure it, which is why when Ukraine actually started to wage their counteroffensive, Russia did not retreat from the Donbass.

01:49:32.160 In fact, the reason why it's largely considered that Ukraine's lost is because Russia has already secured the entire Donbass eastern region, stretching down into Crimea, securing their Black Sea access.

01:49:41.740 If the first thing NATO forces did was carpet bomb the east and flatten all Russian forces and cut them off from the Black Sea, Russia's economy would be decimated.

01:49:50.880 Do you think that Ukraine has lost the war?

01:49:53.020 Yes.

01:49:53.560 Yes.

01:49:54.060 Well, CENTCOM disagrees with you.

01:49:56.540 No wrong.

01:49:57.160 CENTCOM disagrees with you.

01:49:58.360 The Supreme Allied Commander of NATO disagrees with you.

01:50:01.460 They're losing.

01:50:02.560 Forgive me.

01:50:03.440 No, they lost.

01:50:04.060 Forgive me.

01:50:04.640 Forgive me.

01:50:05.240 Forgive me.

01:50:05.800 Forgive me if I trust professional military men who have waged war over a podcaster.

01:50:13.840 Indeed.

01:50:14.620 So we'll appeal to authority and then I'll make the actual—

01:50:17.460 Appeal to authority?

01:50:18.080 Do you know why I'm appealing to this authority?

01:50:19.700 And then I'll actually make the argument.

01:50:21.280 The reason why Ukraine lost the war is because 7 million Ukrainians fled.

01:50:24.960 They're drafting young women and elderly men.

01:50:27.180 They haven't lost the war.

01:50:28.040 And they're utilizing Western forces to keep fighting, which means Ukraine's no longer a factor in this conflict.

01:50:34.020 It's NATO versus Russia.

01:50:35.820 I want to—

01:50:36.960 Hold on, because I have to address this.

01:50:39.220 I have to address this.

01:50:40.300 This lost the war.

01:50:41.380 This idea that they have lost the war is just not—

01:50:47.380 The facts are against you.

01:50:50.560 Ukraine is fighting the war against Russia.

01:50:53.100 Ukrainians are fighting and dying on the front lines.

01:50:55.940 How many flood the country?

01:50:57.540 And North Korean troops and maybe Chinese troops at this point, too.

01:51:01.660 So, Ukraine is no longer a factor in this conflict except for the territory.

01:51:06.260 Indeed.

01:51:07.080 Ukraine, as a governmental structure, has lost the war.

01:51:10.800 Has Putin achieved its goal of demilitarization?

01:51:13.720 Has Putin achieved its securing of the—

01:51:15.760 Answer my question.

01:51:16.500 Has Putin achieved its goal of demilitarizing Ukraine?

01:51:21.940 Yes or no?

01:51:22.920 Yes.

01:51:23.400 Have you ever looked at the battle map?

01:51:30.060 If they were demilitarized, then who is killing all these Russians?

01:51:35.880 If they—

01:51:37.060 Ghosts.

01:51:37.960 If they didn't demilitarize, how is it that the Ukraine battle map shows that they saved—secured the entire land bridge to Crimea?

01:51:44.600 Again, their goal is to annex Ukraine.

01:51:48.160 See, that's made up.

01:51:51.380 Putin has said this.

01:51:52.580 No, he didn't.

01:51:53.940 Again, demilitarize, denazify.

01:51:57.760 You can't do either one unless you occupy Ukraine.

01:52:00.420 So, you've assumed what the end goal of those things are going to be.

01:52:03.800 You're assuming the end goal is the Crimean land bridge.

01:52:06.500 I'm not assuming it.

01:52:07.280 Yes, you are.

01:52:08.080 Do you think occupation necessarily means annexation?

01:52:09.840 Okay, first, let's pause here and say, you exclaiming, yes, you are, is not an argument.

01:52:15.280 Neither is you saying, nuh-uh.

01:52:17.800 Because you asked me, did they demilitarize?

01:52:20.260 Yes, they own their stated goal.

01:52:23.320 They own it.

01:52:24.400 They've secured the Black Sea.

01:52:26.000 Demilitarization.

01:52:26.800 And they've demilitarized the entire land bridge into Crimea, which is their asset.

01:52:30.180 Not demilitarization of a land bridge into Crimea, the demilitarization of Ukraine.

01:52:33.560 That's an assumption you're making.

01:52:34.820 It's not an exception I'm making.

01:52:36.260 It's the stated goal of Putin.

01:52:37.380 Which was general demilitarization and denazification of the eastern region.

01:52:40.900 Of all of Ukraine.

01:52:42.800 Sure, you can make that assumption, but Vladimir Putin sent troops into Luhansk and Donetsk because of Azov Battalion.

01:52:48.880 He sent troops everywhere to try to take all of Ukraine.

01:52:50.260 Not in 2014.

01:52:52.440 Not in 2014.

01:52:53.600 Not in 2014.

01:52:54.260 The stated goal of denazification had to do with the Azov Battalion on the eastern front.

01:52:58.220 But we're talking about 2022 now.

01:53:00.040 That's when he wanted denazification and demilitarization.

01:53:02.080 So then what has he said since then when he changed?

01:53:03.820 This current conflict.

01:53:05.400 So what has he said as of then then?

01:53:08.260 As of then then?

01:53:09.400 Denazification was 2014.

01:53:10.620 What did he say in 2022?

01:53:11.980 In 2022, the two goals were...

01:53:13.840 No, no, no.

01:53:14.080 That was 2014.

01:53:16.520 Denazification was the Azov Battalion on the eastern front.

01:53:18.880 Do you not know this?

01:53:20.380 He said the...

01:53:21.160 Again.

01:53:21.780 When?

01:53:22.240 In February of 2022.

01:53:24.920 Uh-huh.

01:53:25.180 Before he went into Ukraine.

01:53:26.840 Right.

01:53:27.120 He said that they had...

01:53:27.900 And when was the first time he said it?

01:53:29.860 He may have said it before, but he's saying it again.

01:53:32.440 He's repeating that now.

01:53:33.700 So he was referring to which region?

01:53:36.240 The denazification of Ukraine.

01:53:37.940 He believes that the whole structure of Ukraine is filled with Nazis.

01:53:42.060 And he has had Russian times and people have said that.

01:53:45.100 He has compared Zelensky to a Nazi.

01:53:46.200 You can take a look at the actual economics of the region.

01:53:49.640 You can take a look at the actual companies that run their exports.

01:53:52.160 Or you can listen to what Putin has said.

01:53:54.280 Which is vague nothingness.

01:53:57.340 And what Putin has done when, again, he sent troops everywhere into Ukraine.

01:54:03.380 Could you imagine if NATO operated only on military strategy based upon what they've heard Putin say in interviews?

01:54:09.220 They have intelligence that, again, they say that Ukraine is not losing this war.

01:54:15.540 They have stopped, largely, Russia from winning this war.

01:54:19.400 That's what NATO says.

01:54:20.660 And why does Russia control the land bridge?

01:54:22.140 Looking at a podcaster, right, and saying, oh, look, there's a land bridge there.

01:54:26.760 I have post hoc rationalized.

01:54:28.580 Hmm, how can I make sure that no matter what happens, Putin is winning?

01:54:32.740 What do I do for a living?

01:54:33.980 Yeah.

01:54:34.400 I podcast as well.

01:54:35.400 So no one should listen to what you have to say about this.

01:54:37.240 But they should listen to the EUCOM commander.

01:54:39.620 And what about any other experts on the issue in foreign policy?

01:54:42.440 Name one.

01:54:43.880 Name, you name one.

01:54:44.940 Sure.

01:54:45.560 I will name General Christopher G. Cavoli.

01:54:49.640 And what's his position?

01:54:52.060 He's the supreme allied commander of NATO forces.

01:54:55.720 No, no, Ukraine.

01:54:57.620 That includes Ukraine because he's in Europe.

01:55:00.200 So my point was Ukraine lost the war because Ukraine's government is no longer a factor.

01:55:04.780 It's a NATO versus Russia conflict.

01:55:07.240 Hold on.

01:55:07.700 By all means, cite NATO and the NATO support, the NATO weapons, the NATO intelligence.

01:55:12.640 And we agree.

01:55:13.580 NATO is at war with Russia in the Ukrainian territories.

01:55:17.180 If NATO withdrew its forces, right, or not forces, I'm sorry, if it stopped arming Ukraine,

01:55:25.520 certainly that would be a very bad day for Ukraine.

01:55:28.860 Like they rely in a large way on NATO.

01:55:32.180 But Ukraine is the one fighting and using those weapons.

01:55:36.280 Ukraine is the one that's deciding how to do that.

01:55:39.020 Ukraine is the one that's drawing up the battle maps, that's drawing and deciding the targets to hit.

01:55:44.760 Except for the Black Sea Fleet.

01:55:47.100 What do you mean?

01:55:48.320 It was NATO intelligence and U.S. special forces.

01:55:51.900 We use NATO intelligence to strike at Ukraine.

01:55:55.260 I mean, come on, like telling a Ukrainian to press launch doesn't change the fact that the U.S. delivered weapons to have fired at the Black Sea Fleet.

01:56:02.420 That's like a weird argument.

01:56:04.000 Do you not think that Ukraine wanted the Black Sea Fleet gone?

01:56:07.500 Of course they did.

01:56:08.340 Of course they did.

01:56:09.140 And?

01:56:09.360 My point is that Ukraine as a government is not a factor in this conflict.

01:56:14.140 So if I sell you a gun, okay, and you take that gun, and you go, and you pull the trigger, did I shoot the target or did you?

01:56:22.900 If you give me a gun.

01:56:24.660 Answer my question.

01:56:25.420 I am.

01:56:26.120 If you give me a gun and tell me to shoot a guy, guess who goes to prison?

01:56:30.480 If I'm not telling you to shoot a guy.

01:56:32.240 The United States told them.

01:56:33.940 I'm not telling you which guy to shoot.

01:56:35.220 The United States did.

01:56:37.860 It is NATO.

01:56:40.060 Let's be fair.

01:56:40.720 It includes Europe, too.

01:56:41.880 Do you think – how many targets do you think that NATO specifically decides for Ukraine to –

01:56:47.060 All of them.

01:56:47.720 All of them?

01:56:48.180 I disagree.

01:56:48.860 Where's your evidence?

01:56:50.020 In Joe Biden threatening to withhold aid unless they agreed to the targets that the United States wanted.

01:56:55.860 No.

01:56:56.240 What Biden did was he said, you can't target certain things in Russia.

01:57:01.320 Which is what I just said.

01:57:04.360 That is not what they said, what you just said.

01:57:06.460 These are different things.

01:57:07.700 Saying, hey, here are the targets you can't strike is a remarkably different thing than, hey, we want you to hit here, here, and here.

01:57:15.600 Ukraine might listen to advice that NATO gives it, but Ukraine is deciding its targets on its own.

01:57:23.900 And if you think that that's not the case, then please provide some evidence.

01:57:28.000 I did.

01:57:28.220 You have yet to do so.

01:57:29.100 Joe Biden said –

01:57:29.780 What they've done is provide rhetoric that does not –

01:57:32.280 Was it true that Joe Biden restricted the targets Ukraine can make?

01:57:35.000 Yes.

01:57:35.480 Is it true that NATO provided the intelligence and the targets for their weapons for Ukraine to target in the Black Sea?

01:57:42.280 Probably, yes.

01:57:42.940 It is a fact, yes.

01:57:45.120 NATO troops and U.S. troops in Poland have been the ones training the troops, and you've got the international coalition of volunteers that are doing a lot of fighting on ground.

01:57:53.780 I understand that they are doing far more targeting than just the things that were in the Black Sea.

01:57:59.020 Sure.

01:57:59.180 That they have targeted things that –

01:58:00.820 Let's try this.

01:58:01.900 If NATO was uninvolved from Ukraine, would they still be fighting?

01:58:04.920 In different ways, but yes.

01:58:06.940 Like insurgency.

01:58:08.500 Probably.

01:58:09.120 Yeah, there'd be no war.

01:58:11.480 It'd be a guerrilla war, but it would be a war nonetheless.

01:58:15.640 Insurgency, guerrilla war, but Russia would largely occupy and control Ukraine.

01:58:19.680 That's your position, right?

01:58:21.260 It's hard to say.

01:58:22.320 It's much more likely that that's the case, yes.

01:58:24.240 I don't see why it wouldn't be the case, considering Russia already controls the land bridge to Crimea.

01:58:28.440 I mean, clearly, they've seized the Eastern Front.

01:58:31.120 Again, controlling the land bridge to Crimea wasn't their goal?

01:58:35.360 That's not what I said.

01:58:35.880 It's not their stated goal.

01:58:36.700 I said they have this, and if the Ukraine was not supplied –

01:58:39.120 No, you said that Ukraine already lost.

01:58:41.300 And if the Ukraine was not –

01:58:42.500 You said Ukraine already lost.

01:58:43.260 I'm going to slow down for a second so we can actually have a conversation.

01:58:45.440 Please.

01:58:46.280 The Eastern Front is controlled by Russia.

01:58:48.420 If Ukraine was not supplied with weapons by the West, Russia would take more of Ukraine, no?

01:58:53.580 It is likely that to be the case.

01:58:55.800 And they would have done it much, much quicker, yes?

01:58:57.840 Probably so.

01:58:58.580 Right.

01:58:58.860 My point is Ukraine would not be involved in a war were it not for the West.

01:59:02.740 It's a proxy war between NATO and Russia.

01:59:05.260 Ukraine is not a factor in this conflict.

01:59:07.260 Ukraine would have been flattened in weeks by Russia.

01:59:09.560 Again, Ukrainians are the ones fighting and dying.

01:59:12.560 And to say that they're not a factor in this conflict, we don't have NATO forces, NATO troops on the ground fighting and dying.

01:59:20.560 Is the U.S. on the ground in –

01:59:22.880 Not fighting and dying.

01:59:24.760 They're training people, obviously.

01:59:26.740 And you have volunteers.

01:59:27.700 You have volunteers from the U.S. who have decided to join up with Ukraine.

01:59:32.520 But it is a fundamental different thing than having NATO forces.

01:59:36.740 Do you think that outside of the United States and Russia, the rest of the world sees American soldiers on the ground as just volunteers?

01:59:48.220 Outside the United States and – can you repeat that?

01:59:51.520 I'm sorry.

01:59:51.980 So let's take a country, Madagascar.

01:59:54.620 Sure.

01:59:55.020 Do you think the people of Madagascar see U.S. troops fighting in Ukraine and go, they're not U.S. troops, they're volunteers?

02:00:00.080 Or do you think they say, wow, United States citizens are fighting a war in Ukraine?

02:00:04.420 United States citizens is remarkably different than United States military troops.

02:00:08.040 Do you think foreign countries view that as U.S. involvement or just random private volunteers?

02:00:12.220 We are absolutely involved in the war.

02:00:14.760 But we are not involved in the war by U.S. military troops having – fighting against Russians right now.

02:00:21.940 We aren't.

02:00:22.540 U.S. veterans and PMCs are on the ground and U.S. special forces are on the ground.

02:00:26.140 Okay, but they are not involved in the fighting.

02:00:28.480 What they're doing is they're helping to train –

02:00:31.580 Special forces involved in the fighting.

02:00:32.400 Ukrainian forces.

02:00:33.500 They are involved in the fighting.

02:00:35.300 Are you saying right now that there are U.S. special forces that are currently engaged in hot conflict, kinetic conflict with Russian troops right now?

02:00:47.280 How would you define involvement in kinetic conflict?

02:00:49.680 Shooting at them.

02:00:50.820 No.

02:00:51.540 Okay.

02:00:51.920 But U.S. special forces are actively involved in the conflict right now in Ukraine.

02:00:57.600 I don't deny that.

02:00:58.760 Right.

02:00:59.000 So the –

02:00:59.540 Again, there are lines.

02:01:02.680 And one of the lines is are you involved in a hot kinetic conflict where U.S. troops or special forces are shooting at Russian forces right now?

02:01:12.320 And that's simply not the case.

02:01:14.120 It is.

02:01:15.100 You can't –

02:01:15.680 Provide evidence.

02:01:16.440 Are there American citizens who have previously served in the military on the ground in Ukraine shooting at people?

02:01:21.240 Previous serving in the military is not the same as being an active military member.

02:01:26.160 Yes or no?

02:01:27.840 Yes.

02:01:28.420 They are.

02:01:28.800 Who are we taking orders from?

02:01:30.700 Ukraine.

02:01:31.480 And who's giving the intelligence and the weapons to Ukraine?

02:01:35.160 NATO.

02:01:35.640 Do you think that any sane person outside of the United States looks at that and says, don't worry, guys, the U.S. is not involved because those guys aren't formally under the direction of Americans?

02:01:44.960 Do you think my argument is that the U.S. isn't involved in this?

02:01:47.600 My argument here and the whole reason I'm here is to advocate for further U.S. involvement in the form of aid in weapons and training.

02:01:52.920 Do you think the U.S. should intervene with troops on the ground?

02:01:55.560 No.

02:01:56.320 I don't think we've reached that line.

02:01:57.660 So then what is the end goal then?

02:01:59.240 The end goal is to stimmy Russia's imperial ambitions to help Ukraine maintain its sovereignty in the best way we can.

02:02:06.980 Look, I'm not a Nostradamus.

02:02:09.220 I don't have a crystal ball.

02:02:10.400 I don't know who's actually going to win this war.

02:02:13.200 But I think that we have an interest in making sure that Ukraine gets as good a peace deal as it can out of this, that at the end of the war, however this ends, that Ukraine is in a much better position than Russia is.

02:02:28.720 That should be the goal.

02:02:30.880 Will we achieve it?

02:02:31.700 I don't know, but we should strive to do so.

02:02:36.600 Donald Trump right now says that he wants a peace agreement between both nations.

02:02:40.620 Do you see a reality where we get a peace agreement and Russia gives back the territories it seized?

02:02:48.560 Not currently, no.

02:02:51.020 So should the conflict end today, who would have won?

02:02:56.160 I don't think there would be a winner right now.

02:02:58.720 Well, no.

02:03:00.240 Russia expanding its territory is not a victory for Russia?

02:03:02.380 I'll correct myself.

02:03:03.960 I think that Ukraine continued to exist as a fundamentally strong nation, right?

02:03:09.840 I think that's a victory for Ukraine.

02:03:11.820 Even though they lose the eastern region?

02:03:13.100 It's a Pyrrhic victory.

02:03:14.000 It's, again, like, it's hard to—they wouldn't have lost.

02:03:18.180 They would have stopped Russia from winning.

02:03:20.760 You don't think that it's a victory for Russia to control the eastern region into Crimea?

02:03:25.240 I think that it shows that they have not achieved their stated military objectives in the conflict.

02:03:31.800 So I would consider that a loss.

02:03:33.340 So you think that Donald Trump is correct in negotiating this end because it would mean Ukraine won?

02:03:39.140 It depends on how Donald Trump's negotiating.

02:03:41.220 Right now, the war stops as is, and the territory's held by Russia.

02:03:44.540 Oh, everyone just stops fighting?

02:03:46.480 Is that a victory for Ukraine and the United States and NATO?

02:03:49.500 It's not a loss.

02:03:51.560 But you said the sovereignty and maintenance of Ukraine would be a victory.

02:03:54.760 Yes.

02:03:55.320 And Russia's not really winning because they're not completing their stated goal.

02:03:58.740 They're just expanding their territory a little bit.

02:04:02.700 Yeah.

02:04:03.480 I accept.

02:04:04.660 Let's right now end the war where it is.

02:04:06.700 Russia can keep the eastern regions.

02:04:08.420 Ukraine wins.

02:04:10.280 Russia—

02:04:11.800 Ukraine won.

02:04:12.580 It's over.

02:04:12.940 I agree a little bit with what you're saying and a little bit with Wick, what Wick is saying.

02:04:16.680 I wouldn't say that Ukrainians have lost.

02:04:18.880 I am kind of on the position that they're losing.

02:04:21.300 If there is a peace right now and the only change is that the currently occupied territories

02:04:27.080 go to Russia, I think it would be a sort of like a partial victory for Russia.

02:04:31.860 But really, I think the other thing that is necessary for it to be a complete victory

02:04:35.720 would be some kind of guarantee that Ukraine would not join NATO.

02:04:39.440 I think that's the main thing they're really looking for here.

02:04:41.520 If the position right now is Ukraine wins by securing their sovereignty and Russia loses

02:04:46.180 by not expanding their goal, then I think we should be in agreement that the war ends

02:04:49.260 today and Ukraine won.

02:04:51.300 If that's what the Ukrainian people want, I would be supporting that.

02:04:55.760 Look, here, at the end of the day—

02:04:56.440 Well, there we go.

02:04:56.880 We're in agreement.

02:04:57.720 If Ukraine—

02:04:58.800 I just don't think Russia would accept that.

02:05:00.420 It's not about if they would accept it.

02:05:01.860 The question is right now, if this is the means of victory and everyone agrees, then

02:05:05.700 why not take it?

02:05:06.460 Rubio says, we end it now.

02:05:08.400 Russia keeps what they got.

02:05:09.280 That sounds like you think Ukraine wins.

02:05:11.480 I'm happy to see the fighting stop.

02:05:13.100 This means the U.S. saves money.

02:05:14.260 We're no longer involved in a conflict.

02:05:15.820 Ukraine remains Ukraine but loses some territory.

02:05:18.080 Russia doesn't expand into Ukraine.

02:05:19.340 Everybody loses a little bit, but it's a victory for the West.

02:05:22.760 Yeah.

02:05:23.300 If it ended as it is right here, it would absolutely be a victory for the West.

02:05:27.400 No doubt.

02:05:28.740 Well, all right then.

02:05:29.220 Guys, this has been fun, but we are over time.

02:05:31.700 So did you want to shout anything out before we head out?

02:05:34.020 Sure.

02:05:35.060 WICTV on YouTube and Twitch, at WHICK-TV.

02:05:41.520 We host cross-ideological debates all the time.

02:05:45.240 Thank you for having me.

02:05:46.320 It's been fun.

02:05:47.520 Right on.

02:05:48.560 Yeah.

02:05:49.120 I'm Lactoy.

02:05:50.240 You can find me at LactoyTV, Twitch, X, and YouTube.

02:05:54.120 You know, this is a good conversation.

02:05:57.240 I did want to get into a little bit more as to the humanitarian issues that are happening

02:06:01.480 in Ukraine.

02:06:02.000 Rest in peace, Gonzalo Lira.

02:06:04.320 But I talk a lot about that, so.

02:06:07.340 Right on.

02:06:08.140 Well, everybody, we're going to send you over to hang out with Jeremy Hambly at the quartering.

02:06:11.720 So thanks for tuning in to the show.

02:06:13.760 We're going to wind it down.

02:06:14.380 But we are back tonight at 8 p.m.

02:06:16.300 Timcast IRL.

02:06:17.280 Check it out.

02:06:17.700 It's going to be fun.

02:06:18.880 You can follow me on X and Instagram at Timcast.

02:06:21.000 Of course, we're back next week.

02:06:22.120 But stay tuned.

02:06:22.620 May 3rd is our official Culture War Debates Live with an audience.

02:06:27.760 Then you're actually going to hear laughing, clapping, booing, and all that stuff.

02:06:30.500 I think that'll make things a lot more fun.

02:06:31.980 Thanks for hanging out, everybody.

02:06:32.720 And we will see you all tonight.

02:07:02.720 Bye-bye.

02:07:03.720 Bye-bye.

02:07:05.720 Bye-bye.

02:07:06.280 Bye-bye.

02:07:07.220 Bye-bye.

02:07:12.220 Bye-bye.

02:07:12.900 Bye.

02:07:13.240 Bye.

02:07:13.400 Bye.

02:07:13.800 Bye-bye.

02:07:15.720 Bye.

02:07:17.980 Bye-bye.

02:07:19.120 Bye.

02:07:19.860 Bye.

02:07:20.380 Bye-bye.

02:07:25.540 Bye-bye.

02:07:26.640 Bye-bye.

The Culture War - Tim Pool - April 11, 2025

America First or Supporting Ukraine War, DEBATE w⧸ Whick & Lactoid

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