In the midst of the political battle for the soul of America between the corrupt Biden regime and their allies, the Deep State, against the Republican-led House, there is as well a war in Ukraine that the Biden regime is intent on supporting, so far without putting any of our troops in harm's way. But this desperate White House is capable of taking the country in that direction without even a moment's hesitation or notice.
00:03:19.900You know, we talked about the Ukraine war a little bit every show.
00:03:23.300One of the reasons Ukraine is not going well to the United States is because Joe Biden's in charge.
00:03:27.400I think Biden, I think Obama himself actually said that anything that Biden touches turns to, you know, contents of his depends undergarment.
00:03:37.820So I think that it's very clear that those the unknown is what is left of our military regarding competence.
00:03:50.060Otherwise, I think the Chinese are convinced that Biden's weakness and frailty would result in a tepid or no response, no significant response in Taiwan.
00:04:02.340And there's also the issue of Russia and what Russia is willing to do and not do when at the end of this month, you're going to see the rainy season show up in Ukraine.
00:04:12.760You're going to see it's going to be just like Burning Man with tanks instead of hot chicks.
00:04:16.920And it's going to be the Russians are going to have an option to go back on the offensive, which is going to be a total defeat of the Biden foreign policy objectives for Ukraine.
00:04:30.160But I don't think the enemy quite understands how much we have left that could actually hurt them.
00:04:34.740Yeah, I have to say you've gotten my attention and frankly, concern me even more.
00:04:41.740Gordon, be gentle, you know, this the country right now has Joe Biden in the White House and Xi Jinping as his foremost enemy and a raft of others.
00:04:53.360Just, you know, you can tell they're salivating at an opportunity to harm the United States and harm us, if not mortally, significantly.
00:05:03.880You know, Joe Biden has this desperate desire to talk to China.
00:05:08.460And because of that, he has sent four senior cabinet officials to Beijing in a row, started with Anthony Blinken, the secretary of state in June.
00:05:18.920And it's ended with Gina Raimondo just about a week ago.
00:05:23.120And the way that Xi Jinping interprets this is that Joe Biden believes that America is subordinate to China.
00:05:30.260And the reason why the Chinese leader thinks that is during the millennial era, the era of Chinese emperors, you had vassals send their representatives to the Grand Celestial Court.
00:05:46.220And that means that Xi Jinping is seeing echoes of that era.
00:05:50.680And that's why I think Xi Jinping interprets Joe Biden as being weak.
00:05:54.520Well, we've given plenty of reason for any leader in this in this world to think he's weak because he is weak.
00:06:04.040The number I just referred to, 39 percent approval rating, the lowest since Jimmy Carter.
00:06:09.620This man is right now on his way to setting a new record for modern presidents, at least in terms of a lack of popularity and approval.
00:06:20.40069 percent of America just disproves of everything that this guy is doing, Tony.
00:06:29.700And we're talking about these the challenges, the threats, whether it's China.
00:06:44.900Their economy and the national left wing media is not covering this as they should.
00:06:50.600But China is in real, real economic trouble.
00:06:54.700And that that, to me, creates an even greater danger emanating from Beijing.
00:07:01.840I agree, Lou, and that their consumer price index is actually declined to the point of where I think it's too obvious to ignore that they are truly at the at the retail level,
00:07:13.160at the level of citizens living their daily lives.
00:07:16.760It's impacting the entire regime there.
00:07:19.340And that, to me, reflects on what happened with Argentina and the Falkland Islands.
00:07:25.940The Falkland Islands became a target of the Argentine government as a distraction from their internal failed economic policy.
00:07:33.440So I think in many ways there's a potential for that here, too.
00:07:36.740The other thing, Lou, I might mention, not to steal Gordon's thunder, is something that Gordon has mentioned before, I think, here on the show.
00:07:43.380The other thing that I think the Chinese PRC, CCP are looking at are the elections in Taiwan in January.
00:07:49.960So if you combine three factors, and I'd like to hear Gordon's, you know, chew me out if he thinks I'm wrong.
00:07:56.960But I think there are three factors that will be overlapping very rapidly within the next six months in January, which is, first off, the Taiwanese presidential elections.
00:08:05.480I think they're going to see that as a time of potential chaos that they could take advantage of.
00:08:13.240Secondly, the Biden continued failures across the board.
00:08:16.100By January, we're going to come to find, and I'm saying this with all due respect to those who have tried to win the war.
00:08:22.720The Ukrainian offensive will have failed, and the Russians will be back in the driver's seat deciding on what's going to happen.
00:08:29.980Again, the weakness shown by the Biden administration is going to reflect in other people interpreting what they may or may not do against the United States.
00:08:37.400And third is, as we just mentioned, the economic, internal economic issues, which may be even worse in China.
00:08:45.060And Xi may be looking for a large distraction, a better distraction than trying to demand that they unify Taiwan back with the home country and make it one China as part of their policy.
00:08:58.740So I think the maximum danger regarding a war between China, Taiwan, and China and us may well be towards January of next year.
00:09:08.380If they wait so long, and that raises the question, Gordon, there were so much bellicose bluster emanating from the PRC for so many months over the course of this past year.
00:09:25.500And now, in the last couple of months, there's been just nothing short of silence from the PLA, from the CCP, in terms of threatening.
00:09:37.180Suddenly, it looks like they're turning a little inward and reflecting on just how much they want to bluster, given the economic problems they're now facing.
00:09:46.600Yes, you know, you have a very interesting situation, because, you know, as you point out, Lou, internally, the economy looks like it's either growing at only 1% or 2%, not the 5.5% that they claim for the first half of the year.
00:10:02.060But it looks like it even can be contracting, because those trade numbers that you referred to, you know, show that for four straight months, exports have declined.
00:10:11.400But even more important, for 11 straight months, imports have declined, showing really a failure of domestic demand.
00:10:19.220You know, and Tony talked about the internal situation in Taiwan with the presidential election next January.
00:10:25.000There's a lot of moving parts right now.
00:10:28.560And one other thing, and that is, we're seeing symptoms of turbulence inside the Communist Party itself.
00:10:36.000There have been these extraordinary purges.
00:10:39.140There have been these reports of elders in the Communist Party rebuking Xi Jinping.
00:10:45.600We don't know what to make out of all this, but we can see that a lot is happening very quickly.
00:10:50.740And when that occurs, we know that the regime is in trouble.
00:10:54.300And as you point out, their best option could very well be to lash out to create some sort of foreign incident.
00:11:01.320We're talking with Gordon Chang and Tony Schaefer.
00:11:17.780How soon would there be war if there is to be war?
00:11:20.920It was clear as a bell just a couple of months ago that China wanted it, that Xi Jinping was going to have his war and on his terms.
00:11:32.280And suddenly the Biden administration, and I won't say this often, but I have to give them credit for starting to back up U.S.
00:11:41.380His interest in Taiwan and suggesting that we will indeed back Taiwan should China attack Taiwan.
00:11:50.360Yeah, I think that's the right policy.
00:11:52.820And to quote my old friend Don Rumsfeld, there's unknown unknowns and known unknowns.
00:11:58.760And the known unknown that you asked me the question about is, what will China do?
00:12:03.040And it's no, no, no, I think we just don't know.
00:12:05.640Gordon pointed out there's a number of factors which I think are going to be impacting directly on the Chinese leadership on how Xi and the other members of their politburo function and put together a plan going forward.
00:12:20.500And frankly, I think there's going to have to be even more economic damage internally before they act.
00:12:49.660One is buying it from us, which is an investment.
00:12:52.420And I think something that's long overdue.
00:12:54.920And, yeah, I think the Chinese have even commented recently within the last few days about this very issue, about the fact that Congress authorized this, Biden authorized this, and that the Taiwanese are going to be able to obtain significantly upgraded and effective technology, weapon systems, which will help defend them.
00:13:15.080And I don't believe the CCP, the PRC, the People's Liberation Army, is anywhere near adequate in coming against the United States on a one-to-one force-on-force war.
00:13:30.060So I think it's good that the Taiwanese are going to be getting weapons systems that the U.S. Army currently employs and other airframes, which the U.S. Air Force currently employs, as part of their defensive posture.
00:13:44.720And, again, it's more about us helping them defend themselves rather than us jumping in.
00:13:48.860And I think that's the right answer at this point.
00:13:51.420And, Gordon, we're looking at a situation in which China is expanding rapidly its influence around the globe, whether it's now having a partnership with the Vatican in selecting bishops, for crying out loud,
00:14:04.980whether it is either end of the Panama Canal, whether it is rare earth mining in Africa, they're everywhere.
00:14:15.640They're on the march around the world.
00:14:18.460And the United States seems inert and, even worse, losing influence, both economic and political.
00:14:26.800Yes, you know, this period reminds me of the 1970s, where you had Nixon and Kissinger saying, well, you know, we have to have this policy of detente because the Soviet Union is more powerful than we are.
00:14:39.280And there really was a loss of American influence because Americans themselves acted as if they did not have the power.
00:14:47.700The United States is an extremely powerful country.
00:14:51.260But, unfortunately, as you point out, you know, we've got a leader who is not exerting American power.
00:14:57.380And because of that, we're losing influence around the world.
00:15:01.240I mean, when we look at all sorts of these areas, Eastern Europe, North Africa, our own hemisphere, the United States, as you say, is inert.
00:15:10.640And because of that, the Chinese are on the march.
00:15:14.260You know, China should be in retreat because of what's happening internally.
00:15:17.180But, no, they're becoming much more aggressive and, in many ways, much more effective.
00:15:22.600And that is not a helpful development at all when it comes to U.S. policy in Asia.
00:15:30.020We are, right now, moving more forces to the region.
00:15:36.840And by that, I'm talking about the Indo-Pacific as well as Asia itself, trying to build a relationship with India, which seems to be in some sort of detente with China right now.
00:15:50.040Whether it is a pause of convenience or whether it does signal something in the way of closer relationships, let's find out.
00:15:58.620Your thoughts, Tony, on what the United States should be doing, because right now we're building fewer aircraft, delivering fewer fighter jets.
00:16:08.920We're watching a defense department that seems to be, despite all of the money that's being appropriated, to be spending it lavishly but not intelligently.
00:16:42.280So I believe it's a brief pause, Lou, in their animus against each other for two reasons.
00:16:48.800First, they are the two nations with the largest population in the world.
00:16:53.700So there's huge resource demands to maintain those populations that that the need of both nations for protein, for water, for resources is going to inevitably, in my judgment, lead to a hot war.
00:17:10.460Eventually, they've already had border conflicts.
00:17:13.140Well, some of those border conflicts will go back to water.
00:17:16.720The Himalayas is essentially the water faucet for a lot of resources, water coming down out of the mountains, going to these countries.
00:17:25.460So inevitably, there's going to be fights for natural resources.
00:17:29.780You're just not going to be able to continue to have these large populations growing without some source to feed them and give them water.
00:17:39.740The Chinese have spent as much on finding and maintaining sources of potable water as they do on their national security, on their defense department.
00:17:54.960I think, in the end, the Indian democracy actually is looking to move towards a more engaged, more interlocking relationship with the West regarding trade.
00:18:11.680And I think the Indians being a democracy would be a much better trading partner than the Chinese who are communists.
00:18:19.600And the Communist Party has worked to undermine our political and economic system for decades.
00:18:26.780So, you know, it's a pretty clear choice.
00:18:29.160Do we choose someone who actually wants to be a trading partner, who's someone who wants to destroy our fundamental diplomatic, our fundamental system of governance for purposes of, to Gordon's point, dominating us and making us subordinate?
00:18:46.760But, you know, like so many of what seem to us to be easy choices over the course of time has not been easy for our globalist elite foreign policy or foreign service diplomatic core.
00:19:02.580Henry Kissinger, you raised him earlier.
00:19:05.320Henry Kissinger, I once asked at dinner, if he ever once thought about victory in Vietnam.
00:19:15.720I asked him once why he didn't want to develop a relationship with India as a countervailing force, which is always important in economics.
00:19:27.060And John Kenneth Galbraith, it was one of his favorite metrics, if you will.
00:19:32.260He just dismissed India at the time that he was also absolutely driving with every force of his being a greater, brighter future for communist China.
00:19:46.360It made no sense because whatever else India was, despite its relationship with Russia, which did create some complications, they basically are a, you know, they had to build on British colonialism, which was both devastating to them, but also laid a foundation for a future that they are now grasping.
00:20:06.920We're coming right back with Tony and Gordon.
00:20:09.960Stay with us here on The Great America Show.
00:20:23.880That influence that we were talking about of China in all sorts of ways around the globe, to hear the Pope actually say that they are going to have a joint commission on the appointment of bishops was staggering.
00:20:41.340Particularly the Pope being so critical of U.S. Catholic conservatives.
00:20:46.200This is, again, an ideological alignment between the Vatican and a Marxist communist nation.
00:20:54.600Yes, and the thing about the Pope is that he had that 2000 agreement with Beijing about the Catholic Church in China.
00:21:03.020The Chinese immediately violated that agreement, and they violated it over appointment of bishops.
00:21:09.120And then the Vatican then renews the agreement with China, and that has caused a lot of consternation among American Catholics, as well as Catholics around the world,
00:21:20.420because they realized that there is really no basis of accommodation between the church, believing in God, and a communist party that is determinately atheistic, and one which is attacking not only Catholicism, not only Christianity, but all religion.
00:21:39.020So, this is a fundamental mistake on the part of the Pope, where he tries to come to an accommodation with communist China.
00:21:48.740And so, all we can say is that maybe the Pope is not who we think he is.
00:21:55.100Well, I'm starting to think that most officials are not what we think they are around the globe.
00:22:00.140And the name Tony Blinken comes immediately to mind, pledging a billion dollars more for Ukraine, including 300, and I love this, including 300 million for law enforcement.
00:22:11.740I mean, this is, it's like an operetta.
00:22:16.980The uniforms mean nothing, they just, do they sing?
00:22:20.900In the case of Blinken, does he simply deliver?
00:22:24.220Who gave him the authority to pledge anything to anyone at any time?
00:22:30.700Where is the Congress, and why is this, why is this administration ruling by fiat without opposition from even the Republican Party, let alone any faction that happened to be moderate, which obviously most, there would be a very small number of Democrats.
00:23:30.000And at the same time they're doing this, Biden won't visit Palestine, Ohio.
00:23:34.180Well, the devastation there makes this completely idiotic photo op down in Florida.
00:23:42.100And then to this day, despite the fact that everybody's called this out on both sides of the aisle, they're only giving $700 per family in Maui for those who lost everything.
00:23:54.060And when you contrast that with literally buckets of money going to Ukraine, I don't know how anybody who is an American, I don't care what party you are, how people can allow this massive spending to a corrupt nation who is going to ultimately lose the war because of their incompetence and our leadership's incompetence.
00:24:18.980And ignoring the plight of citizens in Maui to the devastation they're living.
00:24:25.020I don't know how anybody accepts that.
00:24:26.800And a lot of us speak out, Lou, but the very people in charge aren't willing to hold Biden accountable to these great failures of policy.
00:24:34.180Well, I think that there's a great demonstration, a metaphor created by Mitch McConnell, who finds himself paralyzed for at least 30 seconds in the middle of remarks to the press on two occasions,
00:24:50.480And after being examined by a doctor who came up with what I think is a line of malarkey, but nonetheless, he comes out in his first statement of all the statements he could make in all the world.
00:25:03.900Mitch McConnell decides that we need to get money.
00:25:06.680Joe Biden needs to get more money to the Ukrainians faster.
00:25:15.660It's just mindlessness on the part of the Republican leadership on Capitol Hill.
00:25:20.520Whether it's Kevin McCarthy, whether it's Mitch McConnell, John Thune, John Barrasso, you know, and that cast of sophomorics that they call leadership in the U.S. Senate.
00:25:33.100Lou, I understand the Ukraine war is not being prosecuted well.
00:25:37.560And Joe Biden's failure of leadership is evident.
00:25:40.120There is a bigger story here, though, and that is that China sees this not as a battle between Russians and Ukrainians, but they see it as a proxy war for the future.
00:25:51.980And that is between China and the United States.
00:25:54.880So we've got to find some way to win this thing.
00:25:59.740But if we don't, I believe that Xi Jinping will think that he can then move against Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, maybe India, and we're going to see a wider war.
00:26:09.360The reason why this is so important is because there is a war, of course, in Eastern Europe that everybody knows about.
00:26:16.860But there's also a war in North Africa that China and Russia are prosecuting.
00:26:21.940They are fueling insurgencies that are looking like wars.
00:26:25.860They are toppling governments one right after the other.
00:26:30.440And if we have war not only in Eastern Europe, but also in North Africa, and we have a war in East Asia, then that's World War III.
00:26:40.480And so we're going to be living in a world which – and we're going to have to be fighting it because if there's a war in East Asia, China is going to almost certainly attack the United States on the first day.
00:26:51.200It's not going to be a decision, oh, do we defend Taiwan?
00:26:53.980It's going to be, what do we do about the Chinese attacks on American forces in Okinawa and on Guam, sovereign American territory?
00:27:02.100And by the way, the Chinese are actually thinking of going after Hawaii.
00:27:06.060So this is getting far more serious than most Americans realize.
00:27:10.280Well, I would say that the Americans would realize in a very quick hurry that if they took Hawaii, that we would be at war.
00:27:16.980But, Gordon, I have to say, this is a little neocon of you, if I may say.
00:27:22.040The idea of fighting a war to prevent a war, I mean, peace through strength, and if we have to kill these son of a guns, we'll have to do that for peace.
00:27:34.940I mean, I don't – you and I very seldom disagree, but on this, I not only disagree, but I do so vehemently.
00:27:42.480I am sick and tired of us sending off American soldiers to lands that have no interest to the United States, that we would prosecute a war to prevent a war with China?
00:28:01.180Let's fight a war with China, if we must, but for our own interests, our own survival, and not for some distant, remote nonsense that puts U.S. soldiers – by the way, we have them – in 160 countries around the world.
00:28:39.220Yeah, but what we have right now, Lou, is the result of a complete failure of American policy over the course of two decades, probably three decades.
00:28:50.160And now we are presented only with the world's worst choices.
00:28:54.400Now, if we had better policies before, we would have peace.
00:28:58.780This is – basically, if we had Reagan, peace through strength, we'd never be in this position.
00:29:04.500But the catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan convinced Putin that he could move against Ukraine.
00:29:10.780Putin also has designs on Poland and the Baltics.
00:29:14.020We have seen him pressure them even during the Ukraine war.
00:29:40.760This is the situation that we have put ourselves.
00:29:44.180Well, we is a very narrow – is a big word for very few people.
00:29:49.320The Marxist party in this country had the audacity, the ignorance to put two impaired politicians into the top two positions of power in the United States.
00:30:06.900Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, no one in this country could convince me that either one of them have an average IQ or are even remotely competent.
00:30:16.240Yet that's what the Democrat party did because they have a cabal of Marxist leftists that they want to run the country.
00:32:55.380I'm simply looking at this as an equation of numbers based on the strategic failure of this administration.
00:33:02.100So and I understand what you're saying, Gordon, because of the perception of the loss.
00:33:08.360I get it because I'm a Reagan guy and I understand perception management.
00:33:12.420You know, Bud McFarlane and others are my friends and mentors.
00:33:14.800But there's nothing we can do to change the trajectory of the war based on the fact you have, as you point out, a completely incompetent, feckless leader in the form of Joe Biden and all of his minions.
00:33:27.540And Victoria Nuland, Jake Sullivan were the bad, the wrong guys.
00:33:32.560If you wanted to win, they should not have been in charge.
00:33:59.660I think there's enough of a of a solid iron core to the military that is still there beneath the soft chiffon plastic that the Biden administration has tried to put on top of it.
00:34:12.060But that's what we need to do is remind them that if you do act against Taiwan, if you do act against our interests, there will be consequences that you don't fully understand.
00:34:22.820And Reagan was great with that of implying threats, making sure that they didn't quite know what we're going to do, but do something.
00:34:28.740And that may have to be done by individuals who are not in government right now.
00:34:32.840But I think that's our only option to deter China, because Biden can't do it.
00:34:37.580And I just don't think there's no indications we're going to see any victory in Ukraine anytime soon.
00:34:43.280And with that, we've got time for just one more comment from each of you, because I'm going to say this is an American.
00:34:50.860And the reason I do this show is because I believe we do have choices as Americans.
00:34:56.100We do not surrender our volition or our independence ever.
00:35:01.660And we certainly can't surrender it to the demands of foreign powers who seek who seek us and our power to intervene.
00:35:13.280We have a fifth of our fighting men right now in the eastern flank of Europe right now.
00:35:20.220And it's absolutely insane that we are there.
00:35:25.460What is rational about anything that is being done?
00:35:29.180Their rationality went out the door on January 21st of 2017.
00:35:34.820We have a choice and we better damn well be making them and standing up for it and talking straight.
00:35:40.240This is not a country that it was designed in any way by our founders to be intervening in foreign conflicts that are not of a national interest, our national interest.
00:35:54.400And I would fight anyone in this country who thinks that we should be sending our troops forward into conflicts.
00:36:03.460I happen to agree 100 percent with President Trump.
00:36:06.640It is time to withdraw our forces from abroad and and and without any question, work on this country's destiny, not that of others.
00:36:50.160Everything you said about President Trump.
00:36:52.200I agree with everything you say about President Biden.
00:36:55.020But we do not have a choice at this point because of bad policy.
00:37:00.740Unfortunately, we've got aggressors on the move, China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and they have made it clear that their goal is to destroy the United States of America.
00:37:13.040I think that the significant factors, as Gordon point out, are the Chinese have declared that they are going to be the dominant power in the world, period.
00:37:50.280At the time, I was on the transition team, so I figured that would probably have not reflected well on President Trump and the incoming team.
00:37:59.120And so, but my point being is that we have recognized that there is a sincere enemy, if you can call it sincere.
00:38:08.200They're very sincere in their desire to dominate the planet.
00:38:11.200We have to understand that and accept that at face value.
00:38:13.400And I don't think the Biden administration has come to terms with that, or not as much as they should.
00:38:18.900I do believe we have military strength, but that strength has been subordinated to the woke politics of DEI and the Biden administration.
00:38:30.440And it may well invite enemies to challenge us.
00:38:33.980And I think that's the path we're on right now.
00:38:36.900Challenges and threats we'll always have.
00:38:38.560But our own destiny still remains in our hands as the most powerful nation on Earth.
00:38:43.840And to think that we would squander it because our feckle allies in Europe cannot match either economically or militarily their responsibilities to a nation that rests on their border that is under assault by Russia is madness in and of itself.
00:39:04.100But there is, as we've discussed today, a lot of madness in this world.
00:39:08.760I would like to see us restore our nation to sanity as quickly as possible.
00:39:13.080And we thank you both for joining in that effort.
00:39:17.360Gordon Chang, Tony Schaefer, thanks so much for being with us here on The Great America Show.