Lawyer Bob Amsterdam represents the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. He says the brutality they face at the hands of the Ukrainian government is truly shocking.
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
149.71786
Summary
On Saturday, the House of Representatives approved $95 billion in American tax dollars in foreign aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. That package, that spending package, passed overwhelmingly, 316 to 94. That's $61 billion that went to Ukraine. And that's just a small portion of the $230 billion that Congress has already given the Ukrainian government. And it's possible not to be cynical that all of this money is being sent across the world to Ukraine because it's much easier for our ruling class to steal once it's off the books. But after the vote passed, overwhelmingly members of Congress showed just how closely we are now aligned with Ukraine by waving and cheering and displaying the flags of a foreign government inside the Congress. Do they really love Ukraine? Ask any person in that room, how many Ukrainian people have died in the war that you are paying them? And not one of them can answer the question, "How many Ukrainians have died?" They have no idea because they don't really care about the Ukrainians. So maybe it's not really about Ukraine. Maybe the real enemy is not the Russian government after all. It's not the other way around. Tucker Carlson's new book, "The Devil Next Door" is out now, and it's going to make you think twice about what you're supposed to do with your money and your time in the United States. If you don't like the truth, then you should listen to Tucker's podcast. Links From This Episode: Free Training From Tucker Carlson: How To Be More Honest And Fair And Honest About It On The Internet: His New Book "Tucker Carlson's New Book Out There" Is Out Now: Watch It On All Of That And More On His Podcast on His Podcast And More Here's The Truth About It And The Rest Of It On It And His Story On It, And It's Not Really That's Not Good And He's Not Gonna Say It, But He's Gonna Let That? And He'll Let Me Hear It On That And He Will Tell It And He Can't Say It And I Can't Wait To Hear It, So Let Me Say It? And So Much More And He Won't Let It And It Will Be More Than That, So He Can Be It, Too BECAUSE He Says It, He Can T Say It... And He Sells It, I'll Gasp And He Gives It And So It's Gotta Hear It? And He Also Has It,
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Welcome to the Tucker Carlson podcast. It's pretty obvious at this point that the corporate
00:00:15.060
media are dying quickly, but why? Because they lie. That's right. They lie and they died as a
00:00:24.220
result. But at tuckercarlson.com, we do not lie. We promise to bring you honest interviews and
00:00:29.120
commentary without fear. Here's our latest episode. On Saturday, the House of Representatives,
00:00:34.580
the legislative body that writes the laws for our bankrupt country, approved $95 billion in
00:00:41.500
American tax dollars in foreign aid to Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan. Taiwan, by the way, happens
00:00:47.280
to be one of the richest countries in the world. That package, that spending package, passed
00:00:51.960
overwhelmingly, 316 to 94. So let's narrow out a piece of it. That would be the $61 billion that
00:00:59.500
went to Ukraine. Now, so far, Congress has given the Ukrainian government nearly $174 billion in
00:01:08.900
munitions and so-called aid. Then you add another $60 billion that Joe Biden gave to Zelensky, and the
00:01:14.360
total is over $230 billion. And that's just the money that was publicly appropriated that we can
00:01:20.420
account for. There's a lot more than that. So let's take a look at what's in the package that
00:01:25.560
just passed on Saturday, the bankrupt country sent across the world to the Ukrainian government.
00:01:32.600
There's $14 billion to purchase weapons. There's $15 billion for military training and intelligence
00:01:37.760
sharing, since the U.S. intel agencies are running the Ukrainian intel agencies, even as they assassinate
00:01:43.840
people. Then there's $8 billion for the Ukrainian government. It's pensions for its bureaucrats,
00:01:49.060
$8 billion for its pensions. And then there's $300 million to help Ukraine secure its border.
00:01:55.360
None to secure our border, $300 million to help Ukraine secure its border. Just the priorities
00:02:00.580
are clear. That's all real. Before the vote, Nancy Pelosi went on the House floor to demand that our
00:02:05.720
colleagues keep the money flowing to Zelensky. If you vote any other way, you're somehow for rape.
00:02:11.420
Watch. I hope that our colleagues will choose democracy and decency rather than autocracy and
00:02:19.360
evil, because I fear that if you choose the Putin route, you will have blood on your hands. Blood of
00:02:27.340
the children, blood of their mothers, raped in front of their parents, raped in front of their children.
00:02:32.520
Yeah. Vote for this or you have blood on your hands. And by the way, that's a person who's gotten
00:02:37.260
stupendously rich, you wonder how, while serving in the United States Congress. But she's not sending
00:02:42.420
any of her own money to Ukraine. She's sending your money to Ukraine. So alongside this, the House
00:02:48.080
advanced legislation that would allow Biden to place frozen Russian assets in a special slush fund
00:02:53.160
specifically for Ukraine. That'd be $8 billion worth of material the U.S. government just stole
00:03:00.220
from Russian citizens without a trial. We don't like you. We're taking it. That money currently sits in U.S.
00:03:05.960
bank accounts. And it's possible not to be cynical that all of this money is being sent to Ukraine
00:03:12.660
because it's much easier for our ruling class to steal once it's offshore. So the bottom line here
00:03:19.780
is that we are at war with Russia and we're doing so on behalf of Ukraine. Now, why are we doing this?
00:03:26.360
There are several emergencies unfolding in the United States. Economic and indeed military were being
00:03:32.100
invaded. But you should not worry about this, says Congressman Jerry Connolly of Virginia, because
00:03:39.100
we're not actually sending money to a foreign country. Ukraine is America. Watch.
00:03:44.920
And today, we cannot disappoint those who seek what we have, freedom, the freedom to self-determine,
00:03:55.480
the freedom to decide their sovereignty and their alliances and their form of government.
00:04:04.100
Some say, well, we have to deal with our border first. The Ukrainian-Russian border is our border.
00:04:15.980
But after the vote passed, overwhelmingly, members of Congress showed just how closely we are now
00:04:24.020
aligned with Ukraine by waving and cheering and displaying the flags of a foreign government
00:04:49.220
Oh, they love Ukraine. But do they really love Ukraine? Ask any person in that room, how many
00:04:54.240
Ukrainian people, how many soldiers, how many civilians, how many Ukrainians have died in the
00:05:01.280
war that you are paying for? And not one of them can answer the question. They don't know how many
00:05:05.040
Ukrainians have died. They have no idea because they don't care. That's how much they love the
00:05:09.740
Ukrainians. So maybe it's not really about Ukraine. And if you're wondering, take a look at a tweet,
00:05:15.140
a statement sent out by a man called Nate McMurray. He's a Democrat from New York now running for
00:05:18.820
Congress. And he wrote this, Slava, Ukraine, die, MAGA, die. You lose. In other words, maybe the real
00:05:27.760
enemy is not the Russian government. Maybe it's you. But it wasn't the Democrats who made this possible.
00:05:34.260
It was the Republican Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson of Louisiana. And he forced this spending
00:05:41.060
bill through. He allowed it to come to a vote because he says he is a Christian and his Christian faith
00:05:47.760
requires that, requires funding war. After the vote, Mike Johnson was a little more specific
00:05:56.700
Three of our primary adversaries, Russia and Iran and China, are working together and they're being
00:06:02.200
aggressors around the globe. And they're a global threat to our prosperity and our security. Their
00:06:08.460
advance threatens their free world and it demands American leadership. If we turn our backs right now,
00:06:14.040
the consequences could be devastating. So this afternoon, the House acted and we sent over to the
00:06:19.820
Senate and it will be transmitted shortly, our supplemental national security legislation. I've said it
00:06:25.520
very simply. I'll say it once again. It's an old military adage, but we would rather send bullets to the
00:06:32.020
conflict overseas than our own boys, our troops. And I think this is an important moment, an important
00:06:39.000
opportunity to make that decision. We allowed the House to do that. And I expect the Senate will make
00:06:43.780
Every word a lie. Of course, we've already sent troops. There are American soldiers in Ukraine
00:06:48.180
right now and more on the way today. We are in a hot war with Russia and they're going to tell you
00:06:55.160
that in stages, not all at once. So where's Zelensky as all of this is going on? Well, it shouldn't
00:07:01.940
surprise you. He's not on the front lines. He's on American television laughing in your face. Here he is
00:07:06.820
on NBC right after the vote. Listen carefully to this. Zelensky says American taxpayers should be
00:07:12.300
grateful to send hundreds of billions of dollars from their bankrupt country that is currently being
00:07:17.860
invaded to his country where the money is being stolen. That's just the price of protecting democracy.
00:07:23.240
How long should Americans be expected to fund the war in Ukraine?
00:07:28.120
The Americans are not funding the war in Ukraine. They first and foremost protect freedom and democracy
00:07:45.700
all over Europe. And Ukraine is fighting. And Ukraine is sending its best sons and daughters
00:07:56.940
to the front line. And it reduces the price for all Europe, for all NATO. It reduces the price for
00:08:07.520
Yeah. So we're funding freedom and democracy when we send hundreds of billions of dollars to Ukraine.
00:08:14.680
Now, of course, if we were defending democracy, we would ask the American people what they think.
00:08:18.800
And if a majority of them opposed this, we wouldn't do it because that's the fundamental democratic
00:08:23.960
principle. You serve the people you rule because it's their country and they're in charge.
00:08:31.220
But of course, that's not at all what's happening. And it does raise the question once again,
00:08:34.980
if we're defending democracy in Ukraine, is Ukraine a democracy, a country that canceled its presidential
00:08:41.700
elections. Well, let's see. In Ukraine, right now, tonight, Christians are being persecuted by the
00:08:47.980
state we're paying for. For the crime of belonging to the wrong religion, priests are getting thrown
00:08:52.900
in jail. Churches are being seized by the government. Your tax dollars, 60 billion more, thanks to Mike
00:08:59.260
Johnson, are funding all of this. So it's very hard to get information about what is actually happening
00:09:04.760
in Ukraine because the big media outlets lie about it deciduously and have for more than two years.
00:09:09.320
But one of the most reliable and honest voices on this question is a man called Bob Amsterdam,
00:09:14.200
a little background on Bob Amsterdam. He is a lawyer. He represents the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
00:09:21.000
He is not a Ukrainian Orthodox Christian. He is, in fact, Jewish. I think he's probably pretty liberal.
00:09:28.160
He's not pro-Russia. He is, in fact, banned from going to Russia. A couple of his friends were murdered
00:09:33.300
in Russia. He is not acting on behalf of the Russian government or even, for faith reasons,
00:09:39.120
Ukrainian Orthodox Church. He is one of the rare American attorneys who believes still,
00:09:45.340
even in 2024, that human rights are worth protecting. Telling the truth is important.
00:09:50.200
And he has returned in the last month from Ukraine, and we thought it'd be worth asking him,
00:09:55.220
what's it actually like there? We are honored to have, once again, Bob Amsterdam. Bob,
00:09:59.060
thanks so much for coming on. So give us, I'll stand back and allow you to give us the overview
00:10:04.840
of what is happening in Ukraine right now. Well, thank you, Tucker. And to be transparent,
00:10:12.260
I supported the bill because it is the parishioners of our church who are on the front line,
00:10:18.300
and they need all the help they can get. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church is a church that is guided and bound by
00:10:26.920
God's words. It is a church that is a thousand years old, and its priests are dedicated to Christ's
00:10:35.980
teachings and, in fact, separated themselves completely from the Russian Orthodox Church
00:10:44.360
in 2022 after the full-scale invasion. And I want to make it very clear. There are studies in Ukraine
00:10:52.920
that demonstrate that our church is exactly as nationalistic and patriotic as the new state
00:11:01.040
church that was founded five years ago. However, elements within the government have declared war
00:11:09.920
on the UOC, and they have persecuted mercilessly priests, clerics, parishioners.
00:11:18.400
And I knew that it was a tremendous risk to go to Ukraine after having spoken out
00:11:27.440
so strongly against this attack. But I had to go because I had to make sure that given the amount
00:11:34.160
of money the Ukrainians are spending defaming anyone who contradicts their version of reality,
00:11:40.880
I had to make sure that I saw what was happening on the ground.
00:11:45.560
And after 10 days in Ukraine, I can tell you that there is not a hint of democracy.
00:11:54.360
The country is run by an organization called the SBU, the secret police, heavily infiltrated even today
00:12:02.280
by Russia. The parliamentary members, I met with eight, they are under incredible pressure
00:12:12.040
from the secret police. In fact, they were all interviewed and interrogated after I left.
00:12:18.120
A number of them had previously been subjected to interrogations.
00:12:22.920
The priests I met, I met a number of them who had been beaten and interrogated in the past.
00:12:31.960
And in fact, one of them, after my meeting with him had his home raided the next day and he was dealt
00:12:39.160
with so harshly, he suffered a heart attack. The, you know, I was followed everywhere. Ukraine not only
00:12:47.960
has shut the media, but they have become a font of disinformation. They just received, well, in fact,
00:12:55.400
they just spent three and a half million dollars in Washington to tell Americans that everything
00:13:01.880
they're doing to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church isn't happening. And that in fact, it's the Russians who
00:13:08.600
are persecuting Christians and not them. To which I say, any persecution of Christians is wrongful. But it is,
00:13:16.520
it is to Ukraine that professes democracy and freedom. And it is Ukraine that has absolutely
00:13:26.840
no semblance of rule of law, that is terrorizing its own business community separately, targeting
00:13:34.200
wealthy people for expropriation, especially if they have any religious connection to our church. And it is Ukraine
00:13:41.640
that is actively setting the SBU secret police on individuals like myself who speak out on behalf
00:13:51.160
of this religion. And let me tell you, since the passage of the bill in the House, Ukraine has gone into
00:14:00.120
full war mode against my church. They are launching a massive PR campaign internally and again in Washington,
00:14:09.320
attacking the church, attacking me, attacking everyone connected with the church because they can't stand
00:14:16.760
the truth to come out. So what is shameful about our, you know, American conduct is what Robert Destro,
00:14:25.240
the former undersecretary for human rights said, which is that some of this targeting of the church came
00:14:30.920
from Washington, that it was partially planned because Washington saw our church, which had a spiritual
00:14:38.280
connection to Russia as somehow being a threat. And I, and I want to stress that, that our church is
00:14:46.040
Ukrainian. Many of the men on the front line are members of our church who sit there and watch day by day
00:14:54.120
as secret police wearing death masks come and steal their religious home. Imagine how they feel
00:15:03.160
what knowing that their parents and their families are losing their places of worship. And if a new bill
00:15:10.760
is passed, bill 8371, they won't even be able to gather to pray because the churches will be taken from
00:15:19.560
them, but it may even be a crime for them to meet and pray. This unlimited attack on this historic church
00:15:29.160
is unconscionable. And I am absolutely heartbroken that American Christians have not taken up this
00:15:36.360
fight. It's disgraceful. And I've expressed that directly to the Speaker of the House who says he's
00:15:42.040
a Christian. How can you pay for the persecution of Christians with U.S. tax dollars?
00:15:45.880
Tucker says it best. The credit card companies are ripping Americans off and enough is enough.
00:15:56.840
This is Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas. Our legislation, the Credit Card Competition Act,
00:16:02.920
would help in the grip Visa and MasterCard have on us. Every time you use your credit card,
00:16:08.760
they charge you a hidden fee called a swipe fee, and they've been raising it without even telling you.
00:16:13.880
This hurts consumers and every small business owner. In fact, American families are paying $1,100
00:16:21.240
in hidden swipe fees each year. The fees Visa and MasterCard charge Americans are the highest in the
00:16:27.880
world, double candidates and eight times more than Europe's. That's why I've taken action, but I need
00:16:33.880
your help to help get this passed. I'm asking you to call your senator today and demand they pass the
00:16:40.440
credit card competition act. Paid for by the Merchants Payments Coalition. Not authorized by
00:16:45.320
any candidate or candidates committee. www.merchantspaymentscoalition.com.
00:16:49.800
Hillsdale College offers many great free online courses, including a recent one on Marxism,
00:16:55.960
socialism, and communism. Today, Marxism goes by different names to make itself seem less dangerous.
00:17:02.200
Names like critical race theory, gender theory, and decolonization. No matter the names,
00:17:07.400
this online course shows it's the same Marxism that works to destroy private property and that
00:17:12.520
will lead to famines, show trials, and gulags. Start learning online for free at
00:17:18.840
Tucker4Hillsdale.com. That's Tucker, F-O-R, Hillsdale, dot com.
00:17:26.360
Are you aware of any, and I just want to state for the third time, neither of us speaking right
00:17:33.800
now is orthodox. I don't know much about it. So it's not like I'm defending my own church. You're
00:17:38.600
not. But why can't Christian leaders, Christian legislators in the United States speak up and say,
00:17:44.280
that's just wrong and we're not going to send money to a foreign country to build a tyranny as they have
00:17:50.440
and persecute Christians? Like, why is that hard? You know, it's interesting. I actually defended
00:17:55.320
this church 40 years ago in one of my first cases where we fought the KGB that was trying to take
00:18:02.440
over a church in Canada. So I've studied orthodoxy over the years and there is absolutely no reason
00:18:10.120
why any Christian of any denomination would hesitate at all. And in fact, it's important for you to know
00:18:16.920
that the majority of orthodox denominations recognize our church and they do not recognize
00:18:23.720
the state church. The state church is heavily patriotic, heavily nationalistic. Our church
00:18:30.840
is focused solely on God. It is focused solely on the spiritual realm.
00:18:36.680
So you said that this legislation passes Saturday and today's Monday, the real crackdown on the church
00:18:47.000
begins. It sounds like there's a connection between those two facts.
00:18:51.400
Oh, listen, we've been working for weeks to file a document, which I'm going to announce on your show.
00:18:57.400
We're filing a document with the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.
00:19:01.880
This is going to be available publicly to everyone. It's a lengthy document that urges the United
00:19:08.520
States government to find Ukraine a country of particular concern because of their attacks on
00:19:13.880
religious freedom. The Holy Synod of the Church of England has condemned Ukraine. Not only that,
00:19:21.720
the United Nations continuously condemns Ukraine for their attacks on Christians. So why it takes
00:19:28.920
the Church of England to stand up, but American churches and evangelists have not, that again is a
00:19:38.520
So you said you were for the bill that passed on Saturday. I'm glad you said that. Of course,
00:19:43.480
you and I disagree on that, which I think gives you more credibility in this conversation.
00:19:48.200
But let me ask you about the connection between the secret police force that you say effectively
00:19:53.720
runs Ukraine now and the US intel services. We know that they have assassinated people,
00:19:59.560
a number of people, including America. They've tried to assassinate Americans. I can say that conclusively.
00:20:04.360
Could they be doing those kinds of things without the knowledge of the US government?
00:20:10.440
No. And as I said, there is an argument that I don't want to spend time on today. There is an
00:20:16.200
argument that the US government is in a way behind an attack on Christians. It goes down to some
00:20:24.760
decisions that were made in 2014 about the danger of the church. And let me be clear, Putin does
00:20:32.600
instrumentalize the Russian Orthodox Church. In our case, that instrumentalization does not occur.
00:20:41.160
Our leaders have been very specific and clear about it. They are Ukrainian patriots. I was shocked by how
00:20:47.880
many of them didn't even speak Russian. But most important to understand is we are a church. We are not
00:20:58.680
political players. Bishop Onufri is a man of God. Our leaders are men of God. And they only want to
00:21:07.560
tend to their flock. And important to note, our church is a church that set up 70 parishes outside
00:21:15.640
of Ukraine to tend to refugees. And the man who set up those parishes is under investigation and
00:21:22.840
interrogation and harassment today. That father is under harassment because he dared speak out at a
00:21:31.000
meeting of the Council of European Churches and tell that council what the truth was. And he was
00:21:39.160
immediately detained. He was immediately harassed by the secret police. And no Western newspaper has
00:21:47.480
covered the power of the secret police. And it is to your credit that you've allowed us on to speak
00:21:53.960
to facts that no one seems to understand in the West. And very few people who are not hard partisans
00:22:01.880
have gone to Ukraine, actually. And it's dangerous to go to Ukraine. For me, it would be much more
00:22:07.960
dangerous than going to Moscow, I would say. And so I wonder what it feels like when you're there. I mean,
00:22:14.520
we keep hearing it's this beacon of freedom in the region, in the world. That's why we're sending
00:22:18.680
hundreds of billions of dollars. Does it feel like a free country when you're there?
00:22:23.240
No. I mean, and you're talking to somebody who's traveled in Russia defending opponents of Putin,
00:22:30.040
which I still do. I still defend opponents, even though I'm banned. But exactly the opposite. I was
00:22:38.120
followed everywhere. Talk about disinformation. A TV crew set upon me after I had a meeting with
00:22:45.800
the government and then put on TV that I represented the Russian patriarch as opposed to the Ukrainian
00:22:52.040
patriarch. And also, by the way, gave out my hotel location. So no, it felt like, you know,
00:22:59.880
this was a full-on intimidation. And, you know, I regularly represent opposition groups. I'm banned in
00:23:06.280
seven countries for representing opposition groups and fighting for human rights. And I will tell you
00:23:13.320
that it is rare to feel the level of oppression and fear. And I've never seen parliamentarians
00:23:21.160
as cowed and as frightened as I saw in the Rada of Ukraine. So all of this talk of democracy is complete
00:23:29.160
farce and how we continue to listen to this and how we don't try to build up Ukrainian institutions
00:23:37.480
and why our business people are talking about investing in Ukraine without getting guarantees
00:23:42.600
about rule of law. All of this defies imagination.
00:23:49.560
How does it, I mean, how does it make you feel that the U.S. State Department, the administration,
00:23:53.480
the Congress too, but the U.S. government basically takes over Ukraine. We're paying for the pensions.
00:23:58.280
So, I mean, that's a high level of control. And this is what we get? We get an authoritarian state
00:24:05.960
that assassinates people and where legislators are afraid?
00:24:09.560
Listen, you know, to be very frank about it, I'm also a student of history. And, you know,
00:24:17.000
I keep going back to what we did in the 50s, which was, you know, basically decide we were going to
00:24:23.880
support autocrats and he may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch. I think the issue for us
00:24:31.960
is I would have thought by now we'd have learned that what we need to invest in are institutions. And,
00:24:38.440
you know, our government has forgotten the concept of rule of law. We've sanctioned everybody and
00:24:43.400
their brother who looks or smells Russian, even if they're opponents of Vladimir Putin.
00:24:49.560
We have lost the sense of rule of law. And by the way, the Ukrainians sanctioned people so they can
00:24:55.480
steal their assets and so they can make sure political opponents stay silent or they'll lose
00:25:02.440
their means of support. In fact, somebody is on trial, a guy named Shiloh, he is on trial in Ukraine
00:25:09.800
for vast corruption and no one's talking about his relationship to the presidential administration.
00:25:15.800
So this ongoing predation, corporate raiding, raiding of churches, which the Ukrainians have pioneered,
00:25:23.880
this illegal raiding of churches is something I've never seen. And if you go to our website,
00:25:30.280
save the UOC, you will see hundreds and hundreds of churches and parishioners crying and screaming and
00:25:38.440
priests being beaten. And these are our allies. These are the people we're funding, which we aren't
00:25:46.120
even man enough to have the leverage to say, you know, could you stop beating up Christians for a
00:25:51.240
little while? And could you perhaps protect minorities? I mean, I won't, I can't even begin to tell you
00:25:58.440
the number of journalists who have told me it's okay with them that these churches are being stolen because,
00:26:05.800
you know, your guys are Russian sympathizers. My God! Firstly, they're not. Secondly, you know what?
00:26:14.200
Even if, God forbid, there were a few there were, you use the courts and investigations and the
00:26:22.120
presumption of innocence. You don't close down a thousand-year-old church and sentence millions of
00:26:30.200
Ukrainians to losing their houses of worship during a time of war.
00:26:35.800
And look, in a free country, you don't punish people. You're not allowed to punish people for
00:26:41.800
their attitudes. You punish them for their actions. So if they're working against the Ukrainian state,
00:26:47.960
I think the Ukrainian state has a right to protect itself from that. But if they have bad attitudes
00:26:52.440
in a free country, there's nothing you can do about it because you can't criminalize a person's
00:26:57.240
conscience. Let's talk about attitude. You know, God, God save them. Of the 60 clergy who had been killed
00:27:06.520
in this war, half were UOC. The only priest on trial in Moscow today is a UOC priest who was assisting
00:27:16.760
the Ukrainians. None of this gets mentioned. None of this gets discussed. Why? And let's be very clear,
00:27:23.880
we're dealing with Tammany Hall politics. We're not dealing with fear of Russians. The Zelensky
00:27:29.640
government has lost part of its electoral base in the East and now has to basically appeal more
00:27:38.280
to the West and the more nationalist elements. So this is sort of a grudge match. And they're
00:27:44.280
going to take down this church. They're going to view it as a victory to take down this church
00:27:49.400
and defeat Christ's children because they think they'll pick up votes. That's how cynical this is.
00:27:56.200
It has nothing to do with the Russian threat because if there was a real Russian threat,
00:28:01.800
they produce evidence. They are unable to produce evidence. So they produce sanctions,
00:28:07.320
which they administer with absolutely no cause and no evidence.
00:28:12.200
I want to ask you about where the money's going. So Saturday night, I happened to have dinner with
00:28:18.200
some Ukrainians, Ukrainian-born Ukrainian speakers, very nice people. And they have raised money for
00:28:24.440
the last two years to send to troops in Ukraine. And they go back and forth from between the U.S.
00:28:29.480
and Ukraine. And they told me that there are no bandages in frontline field hospitals in Ukraine.
00:28:36.680
And that the basic necessities, mittens, holsters for sidearms, all of which they have supplied,
00:28:42.680
are not there. And so it raises the question, if you're getting hundreds of billions of dollars to
00:28:47.880
support your troops, why don't the troops have bandages in their field hospitals?
00:28:52.280
You know, Tucker, I will tell you, I haven't studied
00:28:57.480
this deeply other than a number of my clients have had their assets stolen for absolutely no legitimate
00:29:03.640
reason other than the government that has people there that likes and covet their assets.
00:29:09.800
But I will tell you that Ukrainian corruption before the war was at some of the highest levels
00:29:16.040
known to mankind. So nothing about the distribution of funds after the war would surprise me. In fact,
00:29:23.000
there's an EU audit that actually talks about the grotesque level of corruption and war profiteering.
00:29:30.040
So again, one of the things I would say about any aid to Ukraine is I hope it is monitored.
00:29:36.280
I hope there are audits. I hope somebody is watching where the money is going so that it goes
00:29:42.200
to the troops. I know that they spent three and a half million dollars to try to justify their closure
00:29:48.440
of these churches and deflect attention from that. They used three and a half million bucks recently,
00:29:54.920
which should have gone to the troops, should have gone to defending their homeland. They used that to
00:30:00.920
carpet bomb Washington and people like me who were defending the church.
00:30:06.280
So in other words, your tax dollars are being used to defame you through sleazy PR agencies and
00:30:12.440
lobbyists in Washington. That's what you're saying?
00:30:14.840
Oh, absolutely. And I mean, it's happening daily, but you know, they're defaming me. That's okay. But
00:30:21.160
defaming the church, defaming men of God who are facing arrest. Some journalists for the Ukrainian
00:30:30.120
church are facing life sentences for reporting the truth about the activities of the government in
00:30:39.000
seizing churches and jailing priests. These young men, they are in a cell, a cell right now,
00:30:46.920
where there are 20 beds for 28 men. They don't, they have to revolve their sleeping. These,
00:30:53.720
their crime is they've reported on church seizures.
00:31:02.040
It's a, what, what you're saying is shocking. Last question, where the hell is the State Department,
00:31:07.400
which is supposed to be monitoring human rights?
00:31:10.280
Let me tell you, as I said, we're filing this, we're filing this in the next few days.
00:31:19.960
We hope the State Department will wake up. I've certainly met with them. I've certainly seen that
00:31:26.600
they are, you know, entirely drinking the Kool-Aid. We've developed a bit of a cult of personality
00:31:34.200
about the leadership in Ukraine. I've noticed. And it is time for our reporters to wake up
00:31:41.240
and start reporting on the Shiloh case, the levels of corruption that are going on, and obviously the
00:31:48.040
attack on this church. Bob Amsterdam, you're a brave man. And I appreciate your telling us all of this.
00:32:00.760
Thanks for listening to the Tucker Carlson podcast. If you liked it, be sure to hit subscribe and leave
00:32:05.240
a review. And remember, we only released some of our interviews as podcasts. The only place you can
00:32:10.280
get all of it, including past episodes, is tuckercarlson.com. And we hope you will.