Best of the Program ｜ Guest： Manny Marotta ｜ 2⧸28⧸22
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
157.45073
Summary
Pat Gray and Stu Bergeer join us to discuss the situation in Ukraine and what we should do about it. Plus, we talk about the impending nuclear crisis in the Middle East and what the U.S. should do to prepare for it.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
hey welcome to the podcast today we just have an honest conversation about what the hell is going
00:00:03.680
on i mean friday we left and we're like yeah that thing overseas you know ukraine or whatever
00:00:09.140
you know russia's really wants it and so they're well we should do something about it and today
00:00:14.860
we're we're facing defcon 2 defcon 2 defcon 1 is uh nuclear missiles have been launched or nuclear
00:00:23.940
war is imminent i don't know did things get pretty dicey quickly we talk about on today's podcast
00:00:31.700
you're listening to the best of the blend back program
00:00:42.720
we have pat gray joining us uh along with my executive producer stu bergeer
00:00:51.880
we're just talking about what's happening in the ukraine and what are we supposed to do about it
00:00:57.860
it's a hard question because the only thing we could do really to help them actually help them
00:01:04.540
remain free and independent is to send troops and we could send supplies yeah and we are we are
00:01:11.900
sending supplies but that's not going to stop the russian invasion i mean it might delay it for a
00:01:17.140
while but it's not going to stop it they'd need i think they'd need american forces to fight off
00:01:22.040
russia they're just you know they're one tenth the size of the russian army so is are there any
00:01:29.260
americans who want troops on the ground in ukraine i don't think so not very many heard many people
00:01:34.780
arguing for that though have you no it's just but it's it's kind of just it's nebulous what everybody
00:01:41.680
is i mean what do you want to do here's the thing we should demand that our government does
00:01:46.860
shut down the russian imports and the iranian imports of oil yeah the one thing he has not done
00:01:57.180
he hasn't touched their oil neither is europe i know and you know what would solve that is if he
00:02:04.220
wouldn't have shut down all of our oil and gas he shut down all of our oil and gas so now we can't
00:02:11.020
say to europe don't worry we got you covered we can't do it it'll take us eight months at least
00:02:17.180
to get back everything get back up online and you know what joe biden did this weekend
00:02:21.440
besides going to delaware uh what kind of ice cream did he have i don't i'm not sure it looked
00:02:28.660
like chocolate from the picture i saw yeah it's really good chips chocolate chips any in there was
00:02:33.600
a chocolate chocolate chip i don't know marshmallow in there i don't know i hope we find out for the
00:02:37.780
media this week so so once again we have uh shut down more oil processing uh plants we halted new
00:02:48.900
drilling oh wow over the weekend good that was a good move another good hell is that so the first
00:02:54.820
thing that we should do we're not doing anything until you start opening things up and all this
00:03:01.480
bogus pain that the americans are going to feel at the gas pump is not due to russia it is all due to
00:03:09.300
joe biden no period well no it's also due to russia if it wasn't for if it wasn't for russia it would
00:03:16.220
also it would be worse right um uh you know we could we if if they're selling more oil to our allies in
00:03:24.400
europe they're selling more oil uh than they did two weeks ago right but without the invasion we
00:03:31.040
wouldn't need the extra supply right the invade russia is still irresponsible for large chunks of
00:03:37.640
this however if you prepared for uncertainty by you know having a supply of of the basic fuels you need
00:03:47.680
uh and able to export those fuels to help the global market we'd certainly be in a much better
00:03:53.200
position everything that biden has done has made this worse uh so that is a huge part of this
00:03:58.540
i think though you you get to this point where what do you want to do do you want to do you want to
00:04:04.940
extend the massive the the most amount of pain possible to the russian economy to stop them here
00:04:12.700
is that our goal is is that essentially what we want to do like with these sanctions so i would like
00:04:18.700
to do everything some here's what i here's as president of the united states if i were president
00:04:22.920
here's what i would be saying first of all open up all of the spigots here 100 first thing should
00:04:29.100
be doing that anyway yeah open them up um and i'm not going to do that today the new ipcc report came
00:04:34.680
out saying climate change was worse than ever it's already happening shut up so there's no chance of
00:04:40.420
them embracing that philosophy got it i'm saying if i were president here's what i would do first thing
00:04:45.480
open them up uh the second thing i would do is i would be on the air all the time like reagan used to
00:04:54.220
speaking right directly to the ukrainian people and i would be saying ukrainian people
00:05:00.700
you you are being seen by the entire world we're watching you we're praying for you we're standing with
00:05:10.660
you and we are sending as much aid as we can that means that we will help you with with uh systems
00:05:19.080
and bullets but it is also we are standing ready with the red cross to help you so your families
00:05:28.540
aren't just slaughtered and left to die we are with you continue to to rise up that would make a huge
00:05:37.020
huge difference it did in poland remember with the collapse of the cold war uh with reagan sending
00:05:42.880
those messages directly into poland that made a huge difference we don't have a zelensky or a beck
00:05:48.840
though to make those speeches we have a guy who fumbles through every sentence and is lucky to get
00:05:53.440
through his ice cream so that he we have no ability to do that which is a huge problem i'm not criticizing
00:05:58.940
your approach there i'm saying it would be great if we had that ability we do not we do not okay um
00:06:04.860
the the the next thing you disagree with that uh no no um but we're not even trying no we're not
00:06:10.960
even trying um the the next thing uh that i would do is i would be trying to encourage anybody that is
00:06:22.780
in a position to take the position in russia uh i'd be just encouraging them or and it might be just
00:06:32.020
through squeezing their financial accounts go kill that guy go kill that guy you know um uh what's
00:06:40.480
his name um marco rubio uh said over the weekend i wish i could tell you more but all i can tell you is
00:06:48.260
the old putin wouldn't act like this there's something different about this putin and what
00:06:53.500
he's referring to is this idea that that putin may have a brain tumor you don't know that's what
00:07:00.340
you're you're not saying that for him you're saying that's the speculation that's the speculation
00:07:04.320
okay so um we if that's true we should be out with that we should be saying that the guy
00:07:15.280
we know through intel has a brain tumor that in itself would help destabilize russia russia the
00:07:24.480
ruble is about to collapse down it's the worst day again today yeah uh since i guess 1998 they
00:07:32.100
had a real collapse of the ruble it's worse than that today okay so wow it's it's about to collapse
00:07:37.800
the the russian people are already on the street saying no war you release information that is
00:07:46.460
credible that he has a brain tumor and there's a brain tumor uh rumor intelligence whatever
00:07:54.420
it is is that is that saying the tumor is affecting his decision making or decision he's seeing the
00:08:00.240
end of his life and trying to make a move before it's too late decision making okay although i think
00:08:04.300
it could be both could be both so what what else i mean so do you do the swift uh situations cut
00:08:12.980
them off from international banking do you uh yes yes do you launch a no fly zone over every out of
00:08:20.420
your mind are you out of your mind so you let russian uh you know i i don't put american planes
00:08:28.820
up there against a nuclear power that is already said they're they're engaged with nukes that they
00:08:36.540
are ready to use their nukes they're at defcon 2 as well we're gonna put our guys to police that so
00:08:43.180
then our guys are shooting down russian planes that's world war three immediately what about travel
00:08:49.840
you do you well is it maverick and goose do we have our best out there we only have iceman
00:08:56.280
really yeah okay no he's pretty good though yeah he's pretty good but he's not he's no man
00:09:00.600
he didn't make it through the whole movie yeah i think goose died he couldn't even eject properly
00:09:05.080
goose died yeah couldn't even eject out of a plane properly without banging his head on the ceiling
00:09:09.300
moron sorry rest in peace do you guys do you guys do a fly zone well no i wouldn't i don't think
00:09:19.740
we're doing any of that right like the question is are you letting uh you know our aircraft
00:09:25.260
prevented from flying over russia i'm talking about not even military aircraft i'm talking about
00:09:32.000
aircraft containing with all sorts of supplies and cargo and important things like these things are
00:09:37.760
are going all over the globe all the time they're all avoiding ukraine right now
00:09:42.300
if i were if i were a pilot exactly and we've seen your pilot today we are definitely not flying
00:09:48.720
over ukraine we've seen a a a tendency over the years for russia to just have some incidents with
00:09:56.400
aircraft crossing over there exactly right yeah so they we've already europe is already shutting down
00:10:03.060
we're not letting any russian flights go anywhere near us they're shutting those things down eventually
00:10:08.580
you get to a point where no one can fly anywhere and we have all sorts of problems with the supply
00:10:13.500
chain which i might remind you we already have significant issues with uh so that's another
00:10:18.480
thing on top of all of this to consider you know that that's the problem with the the gas and oil
00:10:24.560
stuff too now i i tend i tend to be on the side of make this as difficult as possible and quickly and
00:10:30.780
quickly and hope that it's enough for internally russia to rise up and say get this guy out of here
00:10:36.280
because it's it's not if this goes poorly in ukraine it is not without it's not uh out of the realm of
00:10:43.600
real possibilities that they will just get sick of this and uh one of these oligarchs or or just the
00:10:49.800
people throw these guys out and throw them out of the russian people are not for this now not that he
00:10:55.340
cares about the russian people he doesn't care at all he doesn't care at all however if the oligarchs
00:11:00.200
and everybody sees that the the population is going unstable and it is also hurting them
00:11:06.720
yeah they probably put a bullet in his head let's stop this okay you're you're making our business
00:11:14.800
for what what are you doing yeah for what that's another part of this no one knows what he's after
00:11:20.640
you know i mean yes he's saying stuff like he's after the collapse of the west i really do it's you
00:11:25.420
don't think this is about him putting the band back together this is i just want ukraine territory
00:11:28.840
it's ours we should have it i think he'd like to put the band back together but he if he can do
00:11:34.400
remember how did how did reagan collapse the soviet empire uh part one was with the the big lie about
00:11:43.320
star wars the star wars defense system and he made them spend themselves into oblivion to oblivion
00:11:49.680
okay what would this do to the west what is what is just swift doing to the west we're having to print
00:11:58.680
billions if not trillions of dollars more okay we're already having an inflation problem we have
00:12:05.660
to now print billions if not trillions of dollars more to bail out all of the western banks that have
00:12:12.180
any kind of loans with russia so that's not going to help our economic situation if we do go to war
00:12:20.860
are we financially in the situation where we could afford an out and out war we would collapse pretty
00:12:28.820
quickly now they would say well so will russia but if putin is as crazy as it seems he is
00:12:38.060
hell-bent on something we don't understand that it makes logical sense to him
00:12:43.680
it that logic may be yeah but i'm the one remembered for taking down the west
00:12:50.820
and then all of this will be will be easy to grab because all we have to do is appeal to their
00:13:00.340
nationalism and their energy needs and we got that i mean i i'm probably wrong i'm probably wrong
00:13:10.040
i think the issue here is it's so hard to explain there there doesn't none of this seems reliable like i
00:13:15.700
you know watching this stuff this weekend i started thinking is it possible we're just getting
00:13:20.020
sort of this pro-ukrainian side of this right where not not not as far as like who's right or wrong
00:13:27.320
i mean that's clear but the side of maybe russia isn't struggling as much as as we're being told
00:13:35.260
and you are so pro-putin i'm not i mean i hope that's not it but i would it's it's one of the
00:13:40.860
it doesn't make any sense that russia would would be doing the things that they're doing so i wonder are
00:13:46.620
we getting the true story now that being said unless he wants that black sea port so badly yeah that he's
00:13:53.220
he's willing to thumb his nose at the entire world no but it's it's more than that he's not even
00:13:58.340
fighting he's fighting like joe biden he is yeah i would expect this if ronald reagan or donald trump
00:14:06.520
were going into war it would not be fought like this would you agree we would let them have it and
00:14:13.860
take it as quickly as we could we'd use all of our resources you don't want to be you know you want
00:14:20.900
to take the breath away from the ukrainians well they're not doing that they're fighting like joe
00:14:27.000
biden would fight it now maybe that's because putin does have a brain tumor or it's crazy or whatever i
00:14:32.340
don't know but if he's not why is he fighting this way why is he why i don't know it just doesn't feel
00:14:43.900
right oh we've talked a lot of times though uh and maybe it's just as simple as this is how wars are
00:14:49.240
fought now and because you know the elites got together 80 years ago and decided all those rules
00:14:57.700
i think are out the window right now i do i think we're headed to a new world order but let's i'd like
00:15:04.660
to hear your opinion 888-727-BECK can you explain this what's going on 888-727-BECK coming up in a
00:15:15.300
couple of minutes we're going to be talking to a freelance journalist who just escaped ukraine on
00:15:21.140
foot and one of uh one of the brave parliamentary ministers from ukraine that is still in ukraine
00:15:32.100
we're going to be talking to them in about a half hour from now so uh
00:15:40.280
where do we go from here do you think was anyone concerned about the
00:15:49.880
uh the defcon 2 thing oh yeah well i mean the russians basically came out and said hey we're
00:15:58.240
we're on full alert for our nuclear weapons putin said that yeah and he's threatened everybody that
00:16:03.460
it would if anybody intervenes here that you're going to get the worst experience you've had in
00:16:10.040
your history or something to that effect alluding to the fact that you know you're going to get a
00:16:15.320
nuclear launch against you and we didn't respond with that same standard right now we we didn't
00:16:20.940
go go to that level and you know of course the press is like look at the restraint from joe biden
00:16:26.060
look at this amazing restraint all right they can spit it can't they amazing restraint to to not say
00:16:34.760
back oh yeah well our nukes are bigger than yours that's basically what that's insanity right we do not
00:16:40.300
want to get into a nuclear war that's let's avoid that yeah i'm throwing it out there but let's avoid
00:16:45.700
it if we can that would be great i and i think that's i mean he launches one nuke even if it was
00:16:51.880
like a bunker buster nuke you know that we've talked about using in the past they go deep in
00:16:56.760
the earth they don't have the fallout and radiation etc etc even if it was that the world would go crazy
00:17:02.840
he immediately loses if he does that and why would he do that when just what three years ago he said
00:17:10.320
the next war is not going to be fought with nukes it's going to be fought with ones and zeros
00:17:14.920
maybe he really has changed and there's something to these rumors of him becoming much more erratic
00:17:20.560
um i don't know and also he could just be saying things right he hasn't he hasn't done this but we
00:17:26.740
saw uh last time uh everyone was like well i don't you know in ukraine was like ah he's not going to
00:17:32.120
come across this border and there he is so yeah you know i mean as you always say glenn when people
00:17:38.180
and crazy people say crazy things you should take them at their word and defcon 2 is taking him
00:17:43.720
at his word defcon 2 means that our troops are at their highest level in in europe they have to be
00:17:52.680
ready to engage the enemy within six hours i am surrounded by a new family of people who have
00:17:59.860
their life back because of relief factor i'm one of them i was uh in pained and got to the point to
00:18:08.200
where i just i couldn't do it anymore i did anybody else feel like you know i just i can't get up
00:18:14.360
another day um we have our life back because of relief factor it's not a television commercial
00:18:21.660
it's uh it's a group of real people with real results that had real pain try it yourself
00:18:30.840
relief factor this guy when he started completely bald look at him now doesn't do anything for your
00:18:37.460
hair but it but it will help you get out of pain give it a shot try the three-week quick start
00:18:44.120
doesn't work move on but we're here to tell you it works relief factor.com
00:18:56.040
this is the glenn beck program we're glad you're here thank you so much for listening um we have
00:19:06.640
manny morota uh on he is he's gonna we're having problems with our phone system our software systems
00:19:13.440
have gone down putin um but so we're trying to get our phones back online um we'll have him on as
00:19:21.500
soon as we possibly can um you know the one thing i think it is important to think of is that i think
00:19:28.380
there's a lot of democrats and leftists a lot of people who just could that have trump derangement
00:19:35.860
syndrome um that see the ukrainians as a substitute for them and putin is trump
00:19:46.500
so i think they they see themselves because how else could you be for the ukrainian people
00:19:55.240
and this fight against the power um you know or is to cross the border and yet you'd be for
00:20:02.120
you know throwing people in from january 6th and not have them even see a trial yet how is it
00:20:10.320
you're for justin trudeau silencing people and saying that a peaceful protest how can you be for the
00:20:16.700
protesters in ukraine and it doesn't make sense unless you see the ukrainian people as yourself
00:20:25.260
and you're a democrat or a uh a lefty and you see them fighting against their
00:20:33.840
donald trump i mean i guess they'd argue that they think their side is just in these matters
00:20:41.440
right their side is right on january 6th their side is right on canada their side is right on the
00:20:47.160
battle between the big boogeyman there is their version of putin donald trump that would i mean
00:20:53.660
because i'm against putin oh yeah and i'm for the ukrainian people and and how is it that we're
00:20:59.320
being told we're somehow or another for putin we're not we're clearly not now what's going on uh let's go
00:21:06.820
to uh manny the phones are working now manny mirota he is a freelance journalist uh he actually flew
00:21:14.800
from pittsburgh uh to uh ukraine to cover the lead up to the war with russia and he got caught up
00:21:23.580
in it he is now in poland after a very long walk hello manny how are you i'm doing well thank you
00:21:32.200
for having me on the show you you bet um glad that you're out safe um can you tell us what it was
00:21:39.620
was like over there when the alarms first started going off and you knew oh man we're in trouble
00:21:45.960
oh yeah absolutely i mean up until the invasion nobody knew that anything was wrong and then
00:21:52.660
suddenly on the morning of the invasion we woke up uh to the sound of air raid sirens and it turned
00:21:58.660
out that cities all over the country were being bombed and our city could have been next uh i was
00:22:03.140
in lviv which was a western ukrainian city we went outside and we heard people speaking on loudspeakers
00:22:07.960
saying uh find shelter help the elderly stockpile water it was uh it was rather scary i mean the whole
00:22:15.300
country began at once to panic and it was one day literally one day nothing's really happening
00:22:21.980
to oh my gosh here it is oh yeah yeah for the longest time the ukrainians um denied that anything
00:22:30.900
was happening because they wanted to preserve i mean they wanted to preserve their sovereignty they
00:22:34.840
want to preserve their country and so uh they said putin won't invade and we all believed him and uh we
00:22:41.460
all believed ukraine and it uh it really seemed like putin would not invade and then this really
00:22:46.660
came upon us suddenly um it really suddenly uh russian army was in uh ukraine bombings were happening
00:22:53.320
and of course uh now thousands of people have died in this war with ukraine uh war with russia
00:22:58.840
so tell us i mean because we're seeing uh social media and we're seeing unbelievable uh heroism uh on the
00:23:10.620
part of the ukrainian people and the president of ukraine um it seems like they're not willing to go
00:23:17.180
anywhere is is that the truth of what's happening absolutely absolutely i mean from what i saw from the
00:23:25.820
ukrainian people they will defend their sovereignty until the very end um ukraine is a relatively newly
00:23:31.960
independent country 1992 they've uh freed themselves from the soviet union and now they are trying to
00:23:38.320
defend themselves in the greatest possible sense it's only been 30 years since they've become newly
00:23:42.460
independent and now ukraine is trying to establish its own uh identity in europe and trying to keep
00:23:48.640
itself free from you know the reins of russia uh coming back to retake it and so uh the ukrainian
00:23:55.060
people are going to defend every street every home every alley uh every inch of ukrainian soil they
00:24:01.000
can and they are enthusiastic about it uh like you've never seen because they remember what life
00:24:07.820
is like under russia i mean i i can't believe that putin thinks that they would remember things that
00:24:13.460
they would forget things like the holodomor quickly right you know what i mean you tend to have a long
00:24:20.340
memory on stuff like that absolutely and the whole uh the holodomor is part of the national memory of
00:24:27.300
ukraine and they mourn it all the time and everywhere there are monuments to it in nearly every major city
00:24:32.280
and of course life under the rest of the soviet times was terrible for the ukrainian uh there were
00:24:38.360
repression uh there were oppressions you couldn't uh practice free speech um you had to stay in line
00:24:44.520
with the party you couldn't establish the ukrainian identity you had to to be a part of the russian
00:24:49.040
identity and so ukrainians are worried about that happening again i spoke to several ukrainians
00:24:53.520
who lived under the soviet union uh older ukrainians and they were just terrified that it would be
00:24:59.180
something like that again that russia would exert power over ukraine once again so when you're walking
00:25:04.840
out you had about 50 miles right that's 70 kilometers yeah thereabouts uh it was like i believe the exact
00:25:13.040
amount was uh 43 miles and 74 kilometers uh was the exact was the exact number but yeah a very long
00:25:20.020
walk and it wasn't just me it was thousands of ukrainians oftentimes elderly oftentimes children
00:25:25.180
uh and they're the ones who are the true heroes of the story that the vulnerable members of society
00:25:30.480
were walking out of ukraine this huge distance and what did what did you what was your conversation like
00:25:38.040
my conversation with the ukrainians yeah on that walk what did you learn yeah well i spoke with a
00:25:46.240
wide variety of ukrainians i spoke with children i spoke with uh young men i spoke with old women i
00:25:51.480
spoke with a variety of people and they all had uh they were all first of all they were all unified by
00:25:56.600
their fear of being taken over by russia and that's why everyone was walking out but everybody was of
00:26:01.640
course uh committed to protecting ukraine as well uh and their plan was to to reform on the
00:26:08.020
other side of the border and uh to fight for ukraine eventually um and so the children of course were
00:26:14.500
afraid the children didn't know why they were leaving the children didn't know why they were
00:26:18.300
forced out of their beds by this invasion why they had to march out into the cold why they had to go
00:26:22.920
without food and water because these people didn't have food and water for the entire walk um and it was
00:26:28.900
just this long and grueling trek and so the elderly people as i mentioned to you before they remembered
00:26:33.780
soviet times they were mentioning that this could happen again and that's why they were trying to
00:26:39.180
to avoid that um and so they were they were among of course the young men who would have to go fight
00:26:46.080
uh very soon into the walk they were they were conscripted into the army and uh it was it was just
00:26:52.580
this wide conglomeration of people united by a fear and a hatred of russian domination
00:26:57.600
when you got to poland you're in poland now are you not i'm in poland i'm speaking from krakow poland
00:27:05.260
right now uh wow uh when you got to poland what did that feel like what did the refugees go through
00:27:13.380
it was just an incredible sense of liberation among the refugees to be in a country that of course was
00:27:21.120
not being invaded but also a country uh that was still sort of living under the specter of russian
00:27:27.420
domination and now we're in poland which is a free country a country that has its own long history of
00:27:33.060
repression by russia um and there's a sort of solidarity between the poles and the ukrainians
00:27:38.520
and the poles have been very receptive to the ukrainian refugees uh because of this brotherhood
00:27:43.180
that they have uh because of their shared path of repression by uh russia and so the poles are taking
00:27:49.020
the ukrainians in uh in private homes in hotels in guest houses uh tens of thousands hundreds of
00:27:57.140
thousands of ukrainians are staying and the poles are welcoming them well and it's just this great
00:28:02.180
sense of relief but the job isn't done until the war is over of course tell me about two two tweets
00:28:07.720
that you made one uh you said we made friends with a 24 year old named max who was pulled out of the
00:28:13.620
caravan as he talked with us i had time to get his number before conscription and he left with a grin
00:28:19.060
of utter disbelief i'll never forget that face and the next one was a woman screamed for the army to
00:28:25.260
spare her husband from conscription a soldier slapped her and took her husband things seem really
00:28:30.920
desperate tell me about this yes well first i'll tell you about max um so during the long walk
00:28:37.940
obviously as i mentioned i spoke to many ukrainians and one of them was this uh 24 year old uh as i
00:28:45.060
mentioned 24 year old named max uh maxim was his name um and we walked together for quite a long time
00:28:52.820
uh we learned about each other he's pretty much my age so uh we had a lot to relate to with each other
00:28:58.460
even though we grew up on you know opposite sides of the atlantic um and so we sort of made friends
00:29:03.980
and then uh towards the end of the walk in the last 10 kilometers uh an army a ukrainian army officer
00:29:11.760
came along and said all men aged 18 to 60 step out of this caravan right now you're going to be
00:29:17.360
conscripted to the army and at first max the nipple you could have to go
00:29:20.600
and then the man yelled at him specifically and he just looked at me with this this truck this grin
00:29:27.180
of uh as i mentioned disbelief and he stepped out of line and uh i didn't see him for uh the rest of
00:29:35.720
the walk of course uh but by the way he did get back in touch with me um so i've been in contact with
00:29:41.020
him since then and he is uh safe and he's in western ukraine right now and he is not currently fighting
00:29:47.140
the russians so uh i'm glad to hear from him the second story though is uh the second story is a lot
00:29:53.740
sadder um as you mentioned it's this brutal account of uh of a man being taken away from his wife
00:30:00.900
um what happened in that occasion is as i mentioned to you uh zelinski ordered that all men aged 18 to 60
00:30:08.060
had to be conscripted to the to the ukrainian army and so um this caused a lot of uh fathers to be
00:30:15.640
taken away from their children husbands to be taken away from their wives brothers from sisters
00:30:20.040
and sons from mothers and one of these couples i won't forget and it's the one that's mentioned in
00:30:26.020
the tweet uh the husband and the wife they began arguing with the soldier i don't want to go i can't
00:30:30.840
go i have to protect my wife because these these men were often caregivers for their families they had
00:30:35.820
to protect their families as they crossed the border and so this man was just trying to protect his
00:30:40.000
family and the wife was pleading with the soldier she was uh on her knees at one point and she was
00:30:45.880
standing up and she was crying and um he was pretty not empathetic about it and he uh he hit her
00:30:53.100
and he uh they took the husband away and it was it was just this tragic scene and it was not
00:31:01.200
isolated either this happened a hundred times in just the time that i was there and i'm sure it's
00:31:06.940
happened one thousand more times so is your feeling that most are going because they want to defend
00:31:14.300
their country but there are a few that that are like i i got to protect my family or are most of the
00:31:21.140
ukrainians serving because they have to i mean they're caught between a rock and a hard place here
00:31:27.940
uh they want um to protect their families of course and their families safety is their top priority but
00:31:35.100
then also they love their country deeply and they want to serve their country as well and so some men
00:31:39.520
have taken the choice where they prioritize the solidarity of their country over the um the
00:31:45.960
sovereignty of the country may say uh over uh the temporary um their their temporary safety their
00:31:53.140
temporary uh being alive so they prioritize the sovereignty of the country and then there's this
00:31:58.000
other group who who wants to keep their family safe right and these are two very different groups
00:32:02.880
and they both have noble uh intentions yeah and they're just caught in this tragic situation
00:32:14.640
i don't know if you have read the lyrics of the ukrainian national anthem
00:32:31.120
but i found myself looking them up this weekend they come the original line from a poet in 2003
00:32:41.280
is ukraine has not yet died neither her glory nor her freedom and they've changed that just a little bit
00:32:51.220
ukraine is not yet dead nor its glory and freedom luck will still smile on us brother ukraine
00:33:01.100
our enemies our enemies our enemies will die as dew does in the sunshine and we too brothers
00:33:08.300
we'll live happily in our land we'll not spare uh either our souls or our bodies to get freedom
00:33:18.660
and we will prove that we are brothers brothers of kozak kin
00:33:25.380
that's pretty awesome where ours is asking us hey does that flag still wave
00:33:35.040
it talks about the past theirs talks about the future and it starts with hey we're not dead yet
00:33:45.420
i don't think i want to go up against a nation where they're singing their anthem and they're like
00:33:53.740
hey we're not dead yet and we're not going to give up our souls or our bodies for this thing called freedom
00:33:59.220
i think they probably mean it they know the price to be paid they know how precious freedom really is
00:34:14.220
they know how many people in their own country have paid the price have been silenced by force
00:34:24.420
you know at the beginning of the program today i said that i wasn't sure that i understood what was
00:34:32.240
happening in ukraine and russia something doesn't feel right to me
00:34:38.180
but i do understand one thing that is happening in the ukraine
00:34:44.220
and i think it's happening all around the world
00:34:47.780
it's clear to me that the flame of freedom is now burning brighter
00:34:55.760
the flicker of freedom always lives inside each human heart
00:35:39.960
it was burning when the rebels tossed the tea into the harbor
00:35:47.500
as the founders signed the declaration of independence
00:35:55.380
when brother rose against brother to free slaves
00:36:01.540
in the horrors of the trenches of the first world war
00:36:05.960
it was alive as we stormed the beaches of normandy
00:36:24.640
it was there when a lone man stood against the tanks in tianaman square
00:36:33.180
as a lone man stood against the tanks in ukraine
00:36:47.720
we see it as they gather their weapons and stand
00:36:55.420
while cleaning the glass in their living room window
00:37:12.920
we feel it as thousands of germans gather in support
00:38:27.420
the more star systems will slip through your fingers