The Tucker Carlson Show - Ukraine Is Selling American Weapons to Mexican Drug Cartels. Col. Daniel Davis on How to Stop It.

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00:00:14.900 Trump gets elected, not exclusively, but heavily on the promise.

00:00:18.680 No more of these nonsense wars that are draining the treasury, getting Americans killed, making America weaker globally.

00:00:23.980 There's no upside at all, particularly the war in Ukraine.

00:00:27.060 Donald Trump says, I'm going to do that.

00:00:28.420 I'm going to bring it to a close in like the first hours after becoming president.

00:00:32.000 I think he says that.

00:00:32.940 And the question to you who actually knows the answer is, how do you do that?

00:00:36.580 Yeah, well, how you bring the war to an end, this has been on the table since before the war started.

00:00:43.160 And Trump is going to have a much more difficult position now to bring that to fruition because of the horrific decisions made by the outgoing administration.

00:00:58.420 This war could easily have been avoided before it happened.

00:01:18.120 The Minsk agreements, I know a lot in the West like to say bad things about them.

00:01:21.480 But the fact is that we now know Angela Merkel, Hollande of France have both admitted that that was never supposed to be implemented.

00:01:29.480 They just wanted to, quote, stop Russia's invasion of the Donbass area.

00:01:33.700 That's what they said that it was for.

00:01:34.900 To buy them time, the Ukraine side time, so that they could defend against it. 0.68

00:01:39.360 It wasn't to implement.

00:01:40.520 And you know that's true because one of the central provisions that was agreed to by the Russians and the French and German and the Ukrainians was that the Ukrainians would change their constitution to have political autonomy and protections for the Russian-speaking people in the East.

00:01:55.400 That was one of the absolute central features of that Minsk agreement.

00:01:59.980 In the Belarus, in the Minsk.

00:02:01.520 In the Minsk agreements, yeah, in 2015.

00:02:03.520 And it was never done, ever.

00:02:05.580 So the Ukraine side didn't implement the most important provision of it.

00:02:09.380 They were also supposed to move back heavy weapons and all this kind of stuff, some of which happened.

00:02:13.500 And then both sides had minor incursions over the time with artillery that was going back and forth because the Russians are going, all right, we're not going to implement our part of this all fully until you get that central part.

00:02:24.700 And so they just talked about it all this time.

00:02:27.420 And all we had to do is say, okay, Minsk agreements had no NATO in it.

00:02:31.340 There was no NATO for Ukraine inside there.

00:02:33.280 It was just resolve this situation peacefully.

00:02:35.440 It didn't address NATO.

00:02:36.640 It didn't.

00:02:37.460 So it definitely didn't say that they were on the table.

00:02:39.720 It didn't talk about it.

00:02:40.800 So since 2008, that had been talked about by the West that they were going to come in.

00:02:44.720 But the Minsk agreement would have ended all the conflict that was on the line of contact for essentially an eight-year civil war before this one broke out.

00:02:52.600 All they had to do was just implement those.

00:02:55.960 And then now then Russia has no need to intervene because the whole issue has always been protection of the rights of the Russian people and the ethnic Russians living in eastern Ukraine and the protection on their border not to have NATO in it.

00:03:08.880 So if you get that off the table, now then there's plenty of room.

00:03:11.320 But then by 2021, which very few Westerners are even aware of, is in March of 2021, Zelensky signs this law that says they're going to now take back all of the temporarily occupied areas, especially Crimea, which is a no-go red line for the Russians, and by force if necessary.

00:03:30.700 Can you possibly describe why – and lots of Biden administration officials talked about taking back Crimea.

00:03:39.080 You say it's a no-go.

00:03:40.000 It's not even worth discussing.

00:03:41.180 Why is that?

00:03:41.720 What is Crimea?

00:03:42.580 Historically, Crimea was in Russia too.

00:03:45.120 I think it was – I can't remember the exact year that it was given to Ukraine by, I want to say, Nikita Khrushchev.

00:03:50.640 That's correct.

00:03:51.560 So he gave that to them then.

00:03:53.080 But it's historically, I mean, for centuries, been Russian.

00:03:55.820 The vast majority of people –

00:03:57.080 Khrushchev gave it to Ukraine when Khrushchev controlled Ukraine.

00:03:59.260 Right, when it was part of the Soviet Union, right?

00:04:01.540 Yeah, so it was just like moving things left and right within his controlling and holdings.

00:04:06.180 But the people in it were still ethnic Russians primarily.

00:04:09.500 And when they had this plebiscite, like 95 percent of the people voted to go into Russia after the coup that happened that unseated the legally elected government in Ukraine that Victoria Nuland and all these other people supported.

00:04:23.800 Then Putin said, well, I'm certainly not going to have a NATO country around Sevastopol where I have my Black Sea fleet.

00:04:30.940 So he said, we're going to annex this thing.

00:04:33.320 The people voted for it, and that's what he claimed.

00:04:35.280 Now, you can disagree that that was legitimate, but that's how they voted, and that's why.

00:04:39.360 Does anyone argue that Crimeans, the residents of Crimea, if allowed to vote on it again, would vote to join Ukraine?

00:04:48.440 Does anybody think that?

00:04:49.320 Does anyone argue that?

00:04:50.080 No.

00:04:50.560 No one argues that because they know it wouldn't be the case.

00:04:53.760 And life has improved for the Crimean population since Russia annexed it.

00:04:59.780 It's gotten a lot better, and it's gotten even better since the 2022 invasion because they got water back. 0.62

00:05:03.880 It's one of the big things there.

00:05:05.160 So none of them would ever want to go back into the Ukraine side. 0.97

00:05:08.720 So if you cared about democracy, you wouldn't try and steal Crimea from its people and give it to another government that they didn't want to join, right?

00:05:15.400 No, especially if you care about people getting to make their own decisions, which we claim to in other parts of the world that, yes, the will of the people should rule.

00:05:23.000 Unless, of course, it's somebody we don't like, which goes back to the whole thing that happened in February 2021.

00:05:29.100 I'm sorry, 2014, when we encouraged a coup and then supported the overthrow of the legally elected government because we didn't like what they were doing.

00:05:39.040 And we helped the other people who were going against it.

00:05:43.940 So everything that violated what we claimed to believe, we were supportive of at that time.

00:05:48.080 And that's not democracy in any way, shape, or form.

00:05:51.000 No, of course not.

00:05:51.620 But still, that's the problem, that we could have ended this war by doing the Minsk agreements.

00:05:57.500 Then in late 2021, and we know this for a fact because Jen Stoltenberg has admitted this stuff very publicly, that Putin said, hey, if we don't get a deal here, we're going to use force.

00:06:09.380 Jen Stoltenberg said for sure, yes.

00:06:11.960 And who was Stoltenberg?

00:06:13.020 He was the former Secretary General of NATO.

00:06:16.260 Right.

00:06:16.420 And so he has led the NATO up until just very recently when Mark Ruda took over.

00:06:20.180 But he said, yes, Putin told us that.

00:06:22.580 But of course, we didn't sign that.

00:06:23.920 We're not going to agree with that because no one can tell us who's going to join NATO.

00:06:26.640 So understand at that point, we – and of course, the United States was in complete agreement with this.

00:06:32.640 That war could have been avoided by simply saying what we all knew, NATO is never going to accept Ukraine.

00:06:39.480 There's no way we would ever do that.

00:06:41.280 But instead of saying that, we said the opposite.

00:06:43.700 They're going to come in.

00:06:44.700 And so Putin says, then you've made my decision for me.

00:06:47.960 I'm going to – we're going to take military action, which he said on December 22nd, 2021.

00:06:52.820 He said, we will take military-specific measures if this continues on.

00:06:57.600 And it certainly – we know what happened on February 22nd.

00:06:59.960 So we could have stopped the war from happening before. 0.60

00:07:02.440 And then two months in, we could have stopped it again at the Istanbul.

00:07:06.260 People certainly know a lot about that.

00:07:08.300 Putin mentioned that when you interviewed him about a year ago.

00:07:10.840 I think Sergey Lavrov even mentioned it when you talked to him about that, too.

00:07:14.160 They always say we're willing to talk.

00:07:16.420 Everybody has said it all the way through.

00:07:17.980 And that was shut down by Boris Johnson, former prime minister of Great Britain, acting on behalf of the Biden administration.

00:07:23.580 That is what we understand.

00:07:25.600 And Johnson has almost never – he's kind of waffled with it.

00:07:29.580 But he has said, you can't talk to Putin.

00:07:32.240 You can't have a negotiated settlement with him.

00:07:34.080 So whether he actually did it all or was with Biden, we don't know.

00:07:37.220 But we know for sure that that's what it is.

00:07:38.300 I tried to ask him directly, and he demanded a million dollars for the interview.

00:07:43.260 And I'm seeing him at the end of the month, and I hope I'll be able to interview him then.

00:07:46.660 Wow.

00:07:47.040 I'll be watching that one with great interest.

00:07:49.000 I don't have a million dollars in my checking account right now to pay Boris Johnson.

00:07:54.740 Yeah, but what he has said makes it very clear that that was his position.

00:07:58.460 No matter who it was, though, that did happen.

00:08:00.720 So just think about it.

00:08:02.260 How many Ukrainians – allegedly around a million are dead and probably double that or maybe even triple that wounded.

00:08:10.900 It's a staggering number.

00:08:12.900 None of them should have died.

00:08:14.620 All we had to do was just say what we already know, NATO's never going to invite Ukraine in, and the war would have been avoided. 0.92

00:08:21.260 Absolutely.

00:08:21.960 Because then there's no reason for Russia to ever have invaded in the first place. 0.73

00:08:25.360 Right.

00:08:25.860 Just like if Russia was talking about – I mean, I'm hypothetically here – wanting to have missiles, say, on Cuba or so.

00:08:32.720 We had a negotiation.

00:08:33.880 If they had kept the missiles there, we probably would have gone to war.

00:08:36.540 But we had a negotiation, and they moved them off.

00:08:38.680 So if we had said no NATO coming into Ukraine at that time, then Russia had no need to do anything.

00:08:45.040 They also would have backed off because it's in their interest to do so.

00:08:48.340 But we didn't.

00:08:49.460 So when we're talking about now, when we say, no, democracy and this unprovoked aggression, which we know wasn't true because we've admitted that it wasn't true, now then we have what we have here.

00:09:01.140 And so all of these opportunities – and by the way, there was one more in November – this is one of the worst ones in my view.

00:09:07.400 In November of 2022, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, said, hey, by the way, if you want to negotiate a settlement, now is the time to do it.

00:09:16.360 Because remember, that was the one year where there were two big successes for the Ukraine army.

00:09:20.900 They drove Russia out of Kyrgyzstan City, and they drove them out of a huge swath of Kharkiv area in the north. 0.96

00:09:26.520 At that time, Russia was at its weakest point.

00:09:28.720 They had force-mobilized 300,000 people.

00:09:31.480 They were scrambling just to get uniforms in them, much less trained, et cetera, to stop the gap, to stop the bleeding up there.

00:09:37.200 And the Ukraine side had every advantage. 0.92

00:09:39.300 And Mark Milley publicly said, if you want to negotiate a settlement, now would be a good time.

00:09:45.180 Russia's at its weakest.

00:09:46.180 Ukraine's at its strongest.

00:09:47.580 He goes, I'm just saying, if you wanted it, now's the time.

00:09:50.220 He knew that they did – he knew that Russia, as bad as it had been battered, was still Russia. 0.86

00:09:55.580 Russia, they still had all the natural resources that they could ever need.

00:09:59.840 They had the military industrial capacity, which was already starting to gin up, and they had the manpower.

00:10:04.560 The population, exactly.

00:10:05.700 Everything that you need.

00:10:06.940 And the mentality, because they view this as an existential fight.

00:10:09.960 It's not like Vietnam was for us.

00:10:12.740 This is on their front door, and it is an existential fight.

00:10:15.140 So they will recover, and he knew that.

00:10:17.200 And so if you want to negotiate from a position of strength, which he said, Milley at the time, now is the time.

00:10:23.520 But no, we didn't.

00:10:24.860 Zelensky was now, I think, drunk with power because he's like, we beat them here.

00:10:29.120 We'll keep beating them.

00:10:30.640 But militarily, Tucker, this is one of the things that's so important.

00:10:33.860 Militarily, it was evident at the time that Ukraine couldn't win because Russia then – they withdrew from Kyrgyzstan City.

00:10:42.700 And it was talked about a humiliation for Russia at the time, but militarily, that was the wisest decision they could have made because it would have been hard to hold on to Kyrgyzstan City because of the river behind them.

00:10:52.780 So they moved 40,000 guys across the river, blew all the bridges so that now Ukraine can't follow that up. 0.97

00:10:58.360 And so they preserved all of that manpower and all of the experience that they had, and then they ended up using them elsewhere to build a fortified defensive series of about five different periods.

00:11:08.320 And Russia was really good at defensives. 0.86

00:11:10.480 So there was every reason to think –

00:11:12.700 They've had some practice.

00:11:13.640 They have had practice.

00:11:14.820 And even when I was serving during the Cold War, we studied the Russian tactics, and we knew how hard it would be.

00:11:20.220 I was in an armor unit.

00:11:21.340 So I knew how hard it would be to try to do an offensive against a dug-in Russian defensive line. 1.00

00:11:26.600 And so when I heard in 2023 that the Ukraine was going to have this big combined arms operation going into the Russian lines, I said, there's no way that they're going to do that.

00:11:35.600 But I've conducted operations like that before in Desert Storm with Doug McGregor and an armored CAV regiment.

00:11:42.020 I knew what it was like to go into prepared enemy defenses, and that was against a not very good unit.

00:11:46.940 But to go against the Russians when they had six months to prepare was suicide. 0.53

00:11:51.940 Our leaders should have recognized that.

00:11:54.080 Our secretary of defense should have recognized that.

00:11:56.100 But instead, they said, no, we're going to succeed.

00:11:59.340 We've trained them up.

00:12:00.680 We've given them all these thousands of military vehicles, millions of rounds of ammunition training, intelligence support.

00:12:06.940 You know, I think it was HIMARS at that time that we'd given them already, stingers, all kinds of stuff.

00:12:12.280 And I said, look, and I wrote about this ahead of time.

00:12:15.000 So this is not revisionist history.

00:12:16.620 I wrote ahead of time, this will fail, and here's why.

00:12:19.880 You have no Air Force.

00:12:21.620 Effectively, there's no Ukrainian Air Force.

00:12:23.160 You don't have enough air defense, and you don't have enough engineering support to penetrate these minefields.

00:12:28.840 And the most important one is you don't have the trained manpower.

00:12:32.520 It doesn't matter how many people they mobilize.

00:12:34.360 I know from Armory Cav how hard it is to maneuver in coordinated fashion across a broad front.

00:12:40.780 It's extremely difficult, and they had this much experience in doing that.

00:12:45.700 And you can't train that up in two or three months.

00:12:48.320 It just can't be done.

00:12:50.060 Our leaders should have known that, but instead they encouraged it.

00:12:53.340 And then you had, I'll never forget this one, David Petraeus at the end of May 2023 went on the BBC and said, I think that the Ukraine side is going to do this combined arms operation.

00:13:03.320 And he listed all the reasons why they're going to and the tanks and the Bradleys and all this stuff.

00:13:07.320 I think that they're going to penetrate the Russian lines.

00:13:09.820 The defensive lines will crumble, crack, and maybe even collapse, and they'll go to the Azov coast.

00:13:14.420 That's what he said on the eve of this thing.

00:13:17.020 And, of course, it worked out the way any rational analysis would have said was a complete disaster.

00:13:22.180 It never even penetrated the first line of defense.

00:13:24.620 So all of 2023 went to a predictable failure.

00:13:29.780 And so now then that was the next chance we had to end the suffering and say –

00:13:33.020 May I just ask you, you're describing the war as really a war between the United States and Russia.

00:13:39.220 You're saying that these are decisions that our military leadership made or should have made.

00:13:44.780 Is that –

00:13:45.200 That is what I'm saying.

00:13:46.220 Because the Ukrainian leadership and military, they don't have the historical experience.

00:13:51.220 They only existed for 30 years.

00:13:53.120 Right.

00:13:53.360 We've got all of this stuff going all the way back to World War II, World War I.

00:13:56.760 I mean, we've had all kind of institutional knowledge.

00:13:58.780 And without us, nothing happens.

00:14:01.740 Doesn't matter what Ukraine wants to do.

00:14:03.460 Without our willingness to give the information, the ammunition, the weapon systems, all of it, and to apparently help with some of the plans, they can't do anything.

00:14:13.280 So I just don't think – I mean, thank you.

00:14:15.780 Everything you're saying makes sense.

00:14:17.340 I think it's obvious once you think about it.

00:14:18.540 But too few do think about it.

00:14:20.320 And I think a lot of people have been lulled into this idea that there's this valiant –

00:14:24.600 Now, they may be valiant, but, you know, Ukrainian military that's fighting this war against a foreign aggressor, Russia, and sort of leaving out the key point, which is the strategy and the munitions come from the United States.

00:14:35.960 So this is a failure on the part of our military leadership as well.

00:14:39.620 But 100 percent.

00:14:41.340 Thank you.

00:14:41.860 It's avoided.

00:14:42.640 It was such an avoidable situation.

00:14:44.400 We knew better.

00:14:45.820 So when Ukraine loses, you can look at the Pentagon and say, nice job, guys, yet again.

00:14:49.360 That is exactly what I say.

00:14:51.400 And very quantifiable reasons why that is.

00:14:54.160 Though I will say it's not exclusively us because Zelensky deserves specific arguments and criticism because he continued to take these operations and actions.

00:15:08.580 However much who actually made the decisions is unclear, but he actually has a lot of the say over what they did, especially over how they employ them.

00:15:15.900 And so he sent his troops to do operations that really had no chance of success.

00:15:21.300 And especially – and he deserves – people claim that he's, you know, like this modern-day Winston Churchill kind of thing, right?

00:15:28.580 I mean, he got all this publicity in the first.

00:15:30.740 Well, Winston Churchill made some huge mistakes in early in his career, and because of that –

00:15:34.880 I was just thinking about Gallipoli.

00:15:36.820 Yeah, yeah, exactly.

00:15:37.760 Yeah, he had his Gallipoli.

00:15:38.460 I guess he is like Churchill, right?

00:15:40.000 Well, he was back then.

00:15:41.080 Yeah, he's that version of Churchill.

00:15:42.400 Good point.

00:15:43.460 But he learned from those mistakes, and so he did a bunch of things right in Second World War because he learned from his mistakes in most parts.

00:15:50.940 Italy is a separate issue.

00:15:52.060 That wasn't so – but he eventually did help with that.

00:15:55.440 Well, Zelensky doesn't have any of that experience at all.

00:15:58.140 And so he fought in this place called Severodonetsk, Lysychonsk, and even Mariupol early in the war, and in every case, he stayed too long.

00:16:06.760 So when his forces started – when it was clear that the Russian forces had moved in and into the outskirts of the city, they should have withdrawn to the next defensive line.

00:16:14.240 They should have been building subsequent defensive lines knowing that the Russians were going to eventually get there. 0.78

00:16:18.960 Make it as expensive as you can on every – go back, and then you'll have like, all right, well, back here we're not going to allow penetration or we have to bring the war to an end.

00:16:27.620 But instead, he just stayed there, and almost like Hitler in the end of World War II, not one inch. 0.83

00:16:33.100 So instead of pulling his forces back, he kept them in there, and they were methodically destroyed.

00:16:38.040 Now then you have to have new guys for the next city, and then they're destroyed.

00:16:41.680 And you see what happens, Tucker, is that you destroy the ability to have a coherent offensive or defensive because the guys who know how to fight who've learned die.

00:16:52.140 So now then you have to bring in new guys, and it's starting from scratch again.

00:16:55.400 And Bakhmut was the worst because they lost probably 10,000 people to defend a city that gave them no value.

00:17:01.780 They should have moved back to another area because here's the key.

00:17:04.680 So like Bakhmut is here, and it's tough to move into. 1.00

00:17:06.980 But if you had moved back here where there's a lot of open land and to the next defensive position, which high ground, then it would cost the Russians a lot more to move across this territory.

00:17:15.840 And they could have defended themselves better.

00:17:17.480 But instead they stayed there, then they lost thousands of men.

00:17:21.520 Avdivka, the same thing.

00:17:23.000 They keep repeating the same mistake over and over.

00:17:25.220 They've done it now in Turetsk, in Chasivyar, and they're doing the same thing, head up on Pokrovsk in the area down there.

00:17:32.420 Let's see, the one in the south there in the – not the Kupiansk area.

00:17:35.280 The one in the south was one of the worst too because the Ukraine side held out in that town for a year and a half in Vuladar. 0.97

00:17:44.980 But then the Russians learned a lot.

00:17:47.300 And so now that instead of going head on, they start flanking it, and it becomes evident you're going to lose it.

00:17:51.440 But again, they would not give the order to receive.

00:17:53.760 So they keep losing thousands upon thousands of trained people.

00:17:57.940 So now then they're talking about lowering the age to 18 so that they can bring more people in.

00:18:03.640 They're talking about it.

00:18:04.580 Actually, our incoming national security advisor is talking about it on television.

00:18:08.080 Who am I like?

00:18:08.820 So I'm not – it's not a personal attack.

00:18:11.000 But here U.S. policymakers have completely destroyed Ukraine.

00:18:14.260 They pushed this war.

00:18:15.140 They started this war.

00:18:16.120 I think it's very obvious that that's what happened.

00:18:18.100 You just described how.

00:18:19.780 And, you know, Ukraine has been devastated.

00:18:22.740 They – the Ukrainian parliament made it legal for outsiders, non-citizens to buy their land.

00:18:28.260 So they're going to lose their country physically, and a whole generation has been destroyed. 0.82

00:18:31.940 And now U.S. policymakers are saying it's your fault.

00:18:35.240 You need to lower conscription age to 18.

00:18:38.440 I mean, I don't – just as a Christian, I'm infuriated and repelled by that.

00:18:43.700 Like what is that? 0.77

00:18:44.800 I think it's one of the most disgusting things I've ever heard.

00:18:46.600 I'll tell you what I hope is really at play here.

00:18:49.320 No, I know what you're going to say.

00:18:50.520 What?

00:18:51.400 That this is tactical?

00:18:52.660 This is like trying to strike a tough pose to put the incoming administration in a better spot for negotiations?

00:18:58.080 No.

00:18:58.520 I think that it is the incoming administrations to put Zelensky in a position.

00:19:05.000 Yeah.

00:19:05.320 To say, look, if you want to do this, you have to go and put these people in here.

00:19:10.180 But you can't because it's so – this has been talked about for probably close to a year in Ukraine.

00:19:16.800 It keeps getting pushed back for the reasons that you just eliminated there.

00:19:19.840 It's just irrational.

00:19:20.760 Don't erect the country and kill more young people? 1.00

00:19:21.840 Right.

00:19:21.860 Why would you take another generation and sacrifice them for nothing? 0.91

00:19:25.540 And so it's – people are violently against that.

00:19:28.640 So he's putting them in a position, I think, I hope.

00:19:31.120 No, you're right.

00:19:31.920 But –

00:19:32.180 So that Zelensky will realize then now you have to have a negotiated settlement.

00:19:35.240 How about we don't talk that way?

00:19:36.340 Because it's repulsive.

00:19:37.640 Okay.

00:19:38.000 I agree with you.

00:19:38.760 Your advice is immoral.

00:19:39.520 I agree with you.

00:19:41.080 It is anguishing for me to hear.

00:19:43.280 Even if it is a negotiated position, I hope it works.

00:19:45.320 If that gets the war over, then okay.

00:19:47.960 But I fear that they may say, okay.

00:19:49.320 Why don't you say – look, I mean, why even include the Ukrainian leadership in these conversations?

00:19:56.460 I don't understand.

00:19:57.860 I mean, I do think we should apologize for what the Biden administration just did to Ukraine.

00:20:01.460 I think that is our fault or their fault.

00:20:04.140 But I don't know why going forward you would even – why would you have Zelensky, the, you know, Mr. Play the Piano with his dick guy? 0.98

00:20:11.060 What does he have to – no, I'm serious. 1.00

00:20:13.060 Like why – he's unelected.

00:20:15.200 He's not the democratically elected leader of Ukraine.

00:20:17.660 There has been – no, his term expired.

00:20:19.720 He has no moral right to run that country.

00:20:21.340 Well, see, and there's more truth to that than a lot of people might realize because Putin last month reiterated that point.

00:20:28.480 It's a fact.

00:20:29.240 We're willing to talk.

00:20:30.040 But we can't sign any deal with Zelensky because he's not a legitimate leader.

00:20:34.540 He went past his term.

00:20:35.800 He's not legally the president of the country.

00:20:37.460 That's right.

00:20:37.820 So we said until somebody gets in there, then we can sign a deal, but we can talk to the United States right now.

00:20:43.720 And so I think Trump's coming in.

00:20:45.600 Trump's not going to be tied to what Zelensky does like Biden apparently was.

00:20:49.580 I can't imagine he's going to.

00:20:52.720 Because we call all the cards.

00:20:54.640 And Russia says, yes, America has to.

00:20:56.480 I think Sergey Lavrov in the interview you had with him said the same thing.

00:21:00.400 We'll talk.

00:21:01.140 We're open to talk with the Trump administration.

00:21:04.200 We're willing to do that.

00:21:05.720 And the Biden administration could have done it at any point, and they refused to do it.

00:21:10.860 And now we have the wreckage that we have.

00:21:12.840 Yeah, we do.

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00:23:55.120 So, I'm sorry, I keep pulling you into, just trying to tell a story and answer the question.

00:24:01.240 I keep, you know, going into cul-de-sacs as usual.

00:24:05.000 But back to how this can be settled.

00:24:08.180 So, you just described why it's a very tough position for the incoming president.

00:24:12.580 How do you end this?

00:24:14.320 Well, and I didn't describe the worst part of it yet.

00:24:17.260 Because of everything we have done, and by the way, we set as an objective,

00:24:22.220 Biden did on the first day of the war in his speech to the United States,

00:24:26.460 and the Secretary of Defense, Austin, did so in April, was to weaken Russia.

00:24:32.620 That's what we said.

00:24:33.500 Ukraine must prevail.

00:24:35.220 Russia must fail.

00:24:36.240 I think that was the exact phrase that Biden used.

00:24:38.240 And Austin said that we have to weaken Russia.

00:24:41.100 That was our objective.

00:24:42.380 Instead.

00:24:42.960 Why would we want to weaken Russia?

00:24:44.180 Just to make it impossible to secure their nuclear arsenal and to make sure that, like,

00:24:49.340 some violent Muslim separatist group takes control of parts of the country?

00:24:52.940 Like, why would we want that?

00:24:53.980 Because we don't lack them.

00:24:55.120 Just because we don't lack Russia.

00:24:56.480 There's too many people in power still today in Washington that grew up in the Cold War

00:25:00.540 and were mourning the loss of the Soviet Union and the enemy.

00:25:05.640 We should have ended NATO.

00:25:06.620 I didn't like Muammar Gaddafi, but has Libya improved since he was murdered?

00:25:10.980 Oh, Lord, yeah.

00:25:11.780 They have slave markets in Tripoli.

00:25:14.040 So how's that a win for anyone?

00:25:15.680 Like, who are these people? 1.00

00:25:18.040 Like, how can people that stupid be in charge of anything? 1.00

00:25:20.780 Because they replicate themselves. 1.00

00:25:23.120 They're the ones that are in charge.

00:25:24.400 And so they don't let anybody else rise up, even to the lower and the mid-levels,

00:25:28.340 unless they give in to the way people think they're.

00:25:33.140 If you're not like me, forget it. 0.97

00:25:34.900 If you're talking about doing something that makes sense, that doesn't mean more war,

00:25:38.420 you're going to get rid of.

00:25:39.720 Look at Tulsi Gabbard.

00:25:40.640 They are terrified of having somebody of her quality in that position at DNI because they know she'll actually tell the truth.

00:25:48.020 She'll actually faithfully tell what the intelligence is as opposed to just slanting it so that the president gets wrong information 0.63

00:25:56.020 or slanted information that makes them think, yeah, you should go and use more military force, whatever it is.

00:26:01.100 So that's why these people are still in power today.

00:26:04.560 But, yeah, you're right.

00:26:05.560 There was no reason to want to weaken Russia.

00:26:07.760 We should have wanted to end the war. 0.94

00:26:09.760 And if we cared about the Ukrainian people, that's what we would have done. 0.97

00:26:13.600 We would have prevented it or at least ended it when it came in.

00:26:16.160 But instead, we wanted to weaken Russia. 0.80

00:26:17.680 So why not keep the war going? 0.81

00:26:19.640 Because the Ukrainian people are willing to do it.

00:26:21.880 Zelensky is willing to keep them going in there, even though any rational explanation could have shown the opposite.

00:26:27.140 OK, so we achieved the opposite.

00:26:28.640 Russia is now much stronger than it was in February 2022.

00:26:33.840 The Ukraine side is much weaker than it was.

00:26:36.480 We're much weaker than we were.

00:26:38.680 Just imagine, just fundamentally, how many thousands of armored vehicles have we sent to the Ukraine side?

00:26:45.080 How many interceptor missiles have we sent?

00:26:47.420 Almost all of our ATACMS missiles have been sent to Ukraine.

00:26:50.860 We don't even have a handful left.

00:26:52.880 What if we get into a war with somebody?

00:26:55.060 God forbid it should be China or North Korea or, you know, even more, God forbid, if it should be Russia. 0.68

00:27:00.880 What if we have to defend ourselves?

00:27:02.480 We have now just eaten into our capacity to even wage war.

00:27:07.740 And now then you have the Russian side has gone to the opposite side because they have now mobilized their industry.

00:27:14.000 They've now expanded their army by 50 percent from where it started.

00:27:17.400 They do have a lot of people that are have gotten experience in this army and lived.

00:27:22.560 And so now then their institution is growing even more capable.

00:27:25.580 So that's why this is so hard for Trump, because Putin is coming in saying he's willing to talk.

00:27:30.940 He's willing to have negotiations.

00:27:32.500 But he sets some pretty high standards.

00:27:34.920 I think when you talk to Putin in February of last year, he when you ask him what his terms were, he kind of went back.

00:27:41.280 He said, well, we've already talked about this in Istanbul.

00:27:43.120 So maybe something like that.

00:27:44.580 Well, because we didn't take it and then we allowed long range weapons to be used by Americans into to Russia. 0.57

00:27:51.500 Putin said that deal's now off the table.

00:27:53.640 Now, on June 14th, he listed a new set of deal, which is all for the Oblast, all of it, even the territory that Ukraine still owns.

00:28:00.860 So now it's not going to be that deal before because that would have been just the Donbass area, just the Luhansk and Donetsk.

00:28:06.380 Now it's going to be bigger.

00:28:08.100 But then Biden didn't accept that either.

00:28:10.400 And so now then, with all the price that Russia has paid there and the strength, they don't have to negotiate. 0.61

00:28:16.120 This is so important to understand.

00:28:18.320 Ukraine has to negotiate to survive.

00:28:21.360 We have to negotiate to get the war over.

00:28:23.480 Putin doesn't.

00:28:24.500 If he doesn't get the deal he wants, he'll just keep rolling until he does.

00:28:28.520 And I believe that the likelihood is that they would take all the way up to the Dnepa River, even if it took another six, nine months of fighting.

00:28:35.520 I don't see any way that they're going to stop fighting here.

00:28:38.000 And they've said so.

00:28:38.760 They've said we're not – Lavrov, about three weeks ago, said no kind of ceasefire.

00:28:44.280 We're not going to do a pause because that would just help the other side there.

00:28:47.320 We're going to keep fighting, and we'll negotiate.

00:28:49.840 We'll talk, but we're not going to stop fighting.

00:28:51.880 So there's no ceasefire that's going to be involved because that would help the Ukraine side. 0.64

00:28:56.420 So to the river, which is a considerable distance from where they are.

00:29:00.140 But see, here's the –

00:29:01.260 So how far does that put them from the capital city?

00:29:03.620 Well, the Dnepa goes into Kiev.

00:29:07.000 I'm aware.

00:29:07.540 That's why I'm asking that.

00:29:08.680 So I think that the likelihood is that Odessa and Kharkiv cities are probably not going to remain on the western side if Trump doesn't come in and give Putin everything he wants on the first day.

00:29:22.880 And I perceive – and I certainly don't know this.

00:29:26.200 No, I haven't talked to Putin, so I don't know.

00:29:28.600 But I perceive that he's set these lines here on the 14 June lines, which were all of those four oblasts because there's large swaths that Ukraine still owns.

00:29:37.120 It would be so hard, maybe even impossible, politically, domestically for Trump to give away areas that Ukraine hasn't lost in the war and agree to that.

00:29:47.840 And so if Trump, with the Kellogg plan or whatever, they try to say they want NATO put off or they want the current line of contact to be the dividing line, then Russia will just say, okay, we tried to negotiate with you.

00:30:01.300 We didn't.

00:30:01.560 And they'll just keep going until they get to the Dnepa River because we can't stop them.

00:30:05.140 But if Trump says, okay, well, I'm going to get tough and I'll give more stuff to you than Biden did, well, first, we don't have it.

00:30:13.980 But second, it doesn't matter because they don't have the manpower to use it.

00:30:17.040 We literally don't have it.

00:30:18.180 We don't.

00:30:18.800 And, Tucker, if Trump said, all right, well, I'm going to go in big.

00:30:21.540 I'm going to take the 1st Armored Division, 1st Infantry Division, 1st Cav Division, all of that equipment, the whole set, and just give it powerful divisions that we have there and just hand it to the Ukrainians. 1.00

00:30:32.140 They don't have the manpower to use it.

00:30:33.660 They would still lose just as much.

00:30:35.440 But then you also have a problem, which is this.

00:30:39.440 Donald Trump just ran for office on the promise, no more counterproductive wars.

00:30:45.280 And so if his first act as president in office is to arm Ukraine, I don't see how that works, honestly.

00:30:55.200 I can see where he would have that temptation, and I know that he's going to have that suggestion from many of his supporters.

00:31:03.380 Because I've been reading about him already because I say we've got to show him he's tough.

00:31:07.000 Well, not his supporters, the neocons in Washington.

00:31:12.120 Fair point.

00:31:12.760 Yes, that is exactly what I mean.

00:31:13.980 I don't know how many Trump voters are for that, like right around the table probably.

00:31:16.580 Yeah, they're definitely not because they know.

00:31:18.980 They can see what we're talking about here.

00:31:21.200 It's nothing but a losing prospect.

00:31:23.260 Why pay more to lose?

00:31:24.720 So why is it our – how do we get involved in this?

00:31:27.680 Because the two guys get to fight down the street and I, like, bankrupt my family and put their lives at risk to – like what?

00:31:33.520 That is exactly what we're talking about here.

00:31:35.660 Yeah.

00:31:36.000 And it's much worse because – and also we're bankrupting ourselves while we're enabling that family to die even more.

00:31:41.580 Exactly.

00:31:42.060 And more of them.

00:31:42.660 So it's immoral and irrational in my view.

00:31:44.900 So – but here's the problem that Trump's political enemies here – and I've already seen it.

00:31:50.740 Biden has absolutely set this up.

00:31:52.280 He just said last week that I have created all this great situation here where my – our enemies are weaker and our friends are stronger.

00:32:00.040 And I'm handing this over to Trump.

00:32:01.660 You had Secretary Blinken say, you know what, we have –

00:32:05.100 Secretary Blinken's a criminal, by the way. 0.99

00:32:07.000 And if he retains his security clearance after January 20th, I'm going to every single day raise the alarm.

00:32:13.880 I mean there's no way that Tony Blinken should have a security clearance after Trump is inaugurated.

00:32:19.820 But I know he's going to – it's super simple.

00:32:22.120 Just pull Tony Blinken's security – Tony Blinken is a – you know, I think was running the U.S. government, hurting this country more than maybe any other single person in my lifetime.

00:32:31.900 And that man deserves to – should be held to account for what he did.

00:32:36.640 I 100 percent agree.

00:32:38.220 And his exit interview showed why.

00:32:41.060 He actually told that interviewer last week that we have put Ukraine in a stronger position militarily, economically, and domestically.

00:32:49.720 Are you serious?

00:32:50.600 Oh, yeah.

00:32:51.080 He says straight up, and we have them on a sustained path to continue improving.

00:32:54.840 And then he said, but if Trump comes in and they negotiate an end, that's up to them.

00:32:59.220 Those are lies. 1.00

00:32:59.920 He's a liar. 1.00

00:33:00.520 100 percent. 1.00

00:33:01.140 And I know because I travel a lot.

00:33:02.400 And, you know, last weekend I had a meeting at, you know, in a ski resort in the Alps, which is probably the most expensive town in the world.

00:33:10.040 I was not there to ski for the record.

00:33:12.340 But the whole town is Ukrainian.

00:33:14.040 You know, all the visitors are Ukrainian.

00:33:15.200 And they're rolling into air maize and dropping a million dollars in an afternoon.

00:33:19.020 Okay?

00:33:19.520 So it's all through Europe you see this.

00:33:21.340 The richest people are the Ukrainians.

00:33:22.840 That money is ours.

00:33:23.660 It belongs to me and you and every other American taxpayer.

00:33:25.960 That's where it's going.

00:33:26.740 Second fact, fact, not guess, fact is the Ukrainian military is selling a huge percentage, up to half of the arms that we send them.

00:33:34.440 Half.

00:33:35.620 And I'm not guessing about this.

00:33:36.600 I know that for a fact, a fact, okay?

00:33:38.960 Not speculation.

00:33:40.580 And they're selling it.

00:33:41.880 And a lot of it's winding up with the drug cartels on our border.

00:33:45.000 So this is a crime what's happening.

00:33:50.020 Our intel agencies are fully aware of this.

00:33:52.220 You tell me they're not profiting from this.

00:33:53.640 Of course, you think the CIA is not profiting from this?

00:33:55.460 Yes, they are.

00:33:55.980 I can't prove that, but I believe that.

00:33:58.160 What?

00:33:58.240 They don't know this.

00:33:58.820 I know this, but they don't know this.

00:34:00.100 They know this.

00:34:01.420 And no one is saying it.

00:34:03.160 Like, no American seems aware of this.

00:34:04.980 We're sending these arms to Ukraine, billions of billions, hundreds of billions of dollars, and it's being stolen and sold to our actual enemies.

00:34:11.860 Like, what the?

00:34:12.700 I'm trying not to swear.

00:34:13.560 What is this?

00:34:14.820 Yeah, well, the reason why is because you have Zelensky, it was about three weeks ago, I think, was specifically asked this question.

00:34:20.960 So he went at some length in one of his interviews to say, oh, no, absolutely not.

00:34:24.580 There's no truth to that at all.

00:34:26.240 We've implemented all these things.

00:34:27.800 I know that, but the media just reported what he said.

00:34:30.720 The New York Times could get on the web and order Ukrainian weapons.

00:34:33.940 That's a fact.

00:34:34.780 I'm not guessing.

00:34:35.420 It's a fact.

00:34:36.540 They could do that today.

00:34:37.820 Like, everyone who wants to know what's going on knows.

00:34:41.160 And yet they're telling me, oh, 70,000 Ukrainians have died.

00:34:44.320 70,000?

00:34:45.020 Really, you think that's the number?

00:34:46.460 Everything about this is a lie.

00:34:47.660 And Tony Blinken, of course, because he's running the U.S. government, knows that it's all a lie.

00:34:51.820 And so for him to say that out loud is evil.

00:34:54.900 Like, that's truly deceptive, I think.

00:34:57.720 Oh, 100 percent.

00:34:59.600 It is because it is in a direct contradiction to reality on the ground.

00:35:03.160 They're selling weapons to the drug cartels?

00:35:06.120 Are you kidding?

00:35:06.860 This is a nightmare.

00:35:08.600 I don't understand.

00:35:09.440 Why is nobody reporting?

00:35:10.300 How come I know that?

00:35:11.980 Yeah, that's one of the bigger questions.

00:35:13.860 So the New York Times doesn't know that?

00:35:15.220 Yeah.

00:35:15.600 I think they do.

00:35:16.320 I mean, how could they not?

00:35:18.180 I mean, this stuff is all over the place.

00:35:19.700 And this has been an open secret for almost the duration of this.

00:35:23.100 Yes.

00:35:23.360 And sometimes they put a little caveat headline and then move on to whatever's next.

00:35:27.200 And no one says the implication of, wait, this stuff could come back to bite us on our own border.

00:35:31.960 Well, yeah, we saw that in the 80s with the Majedin, of course. 1.00

00:35:35.560 How are you going to have commercial air travel around the world?

00:35:37.340 By the way, if they're missile systems, you know, handheld missiles, you know, you can shoot down a commercial airline pretty easily with a lot of this stuff.

00:35:45.060 That's what it's designed to do.

00:35:46.320 And if it's in the hands of separatist groups, terror groups, drug cartels, which it is now, how do you have a civilization?

00:35:52.820 How do you have global air travel?

00:35:54.000 I don't get it.

00:35:55.780 Well, yeah.

00:35:56.180 I mean, I pray that remains a potential and not something that actually gets manifest, but it's out of our hands.

00:36:02.340 And that's the problem.

00:36:03.180 But how can you send hundreds of billions of dollars of aid and weapons to a country and then not keep track of what happens to it?

00:36:10.940 I can only speculate that they just don't care about that.

00:36:13.980 If it ends up – if some of it ends up hurting Russia, then cool. 0.70

00:36:18.340 And I think that's the extent of it.

00:36:19.540 Well, they're also sponsoring terror attacks inside Russia, a lot of them.

00:36:21.520 Yeah.

00:36:21.740 So, since when does the U.S. government sponsor terror attacks?

00:36:25.320 Like, this is our government.

00:36:26.840 Well, of course, we just put a different tag on it.

00:36:29.080 Well, no, we're just helping the Ukrainian side fight its war against the Russian aggression.

00:36:32.800 You're assassinating people.

00:36:33.440 That's – yeah.

00:36:34.200 No, I mean, and as I think you've talked about before, Dugan's daughter who was caught up in that.

00:36:39.320 Oh, and a lot of other people.

00:36:40.040 Yeah, certainly.

00:36:41.260 Yeah.

00:36:41.700 Yeah, in general.

00:36:42.720 Again, not speculating this at all.

00:36:45.180 I know.

00:36:46.120 Firsthand.

00:36:46.680 Yeah.

00:36:46.740 So, anyway, sorry to get upset.

00:36:50.860 It's – the Blinken stuff is like – it's beyond.

00:36:53.740 Yeah.

00:36:53.980 And then Austin did the same thing about six days ago, to be specific, where he says, we have given Ukraine everything we can and we still – he's saying this still.

00:37:02.800 At this point, we can't let Ukraine lose the war. 0.74

00:37:06.220 That liar. 1.00

00:37:06.800 That liar. 1.00

00:37:07.880 The war is already lost. 0.98

00:37:09.220 Oh, I know.

00:37:09.580 Past tense.

00:37:10.480 There is no possibility to even maintain anything.

00:37:13.220 For him to say that is to continue the fiction that they – so that – and here's why I think all this is happening – so that when Trump comes in and whatever he ends up negotiating, it's Trump's fault.

00:37:24.160 We had Ukraine set up.

00:37:25.520 We were doing everything we could, and then Trump comes in and hands it back to Putin.

00:37:28.960 That's why I think it's going to be so hard for Trump to do what makes sense and what's rational because he's going to come under withering attack from the political left.

00:37:37.280 I mean it's just going to happen.

00:37:38.120 I think, you know, you're effective.

00:37:40.840 You can exercise power to the extent that you're willing to exercise that power and to the extent that you're willing to ignore, you know, your faithless critics.

00:37:52.020 Like who actually cares what they say?

00:37:53.820 Who cares?

00:37:54.920 Do you know what I mean?

00:37:55.620 And that's what I hope Trump does.

00:37:57.260 I hope he says, yeah, y'all are the ones that set all the stage for this.

00:38:00.920 I hope he's clarified on what he can do.

00:38:01.940 He just committed genocide in Eastern Europe. 0.99

00:38:03.760 Like shut up. 1.00

00:38:04.920 Yeah. 1.00

00:38:05.540 Who cares what you think?

00:38:06.580 A million people.

00:38:07.340 Oh, why no?

00:38:07.760 We're talking World War I.

00:38:09.340 We lost in World War I and World War II combined about a half a million people.

00:38:14.360 Yeah, exactly.

00:38:15.200 That is two world wars, and they have doubled that in all probability.

00:38:19.480 And now then we're not even talking about how many have lost limbs, how many have severe PTSD that will take the rest of their lives to recover.

00:38:26.320 They've lost generations of people.

00:38:27.660 I think like 22 million people have fled the country.

00:38:31.420 That's what we've produced, Tucker.

00:38:33.120 That's what we've built, and that's how prideful it is for America to say what we've generated.

00:38:39.040 That is condemning.

00:38:40.140 I was so distressed when I heard the incoming National Security Advisor, who I really like personally.

00:38:46.040 I think he's a good man, actually.

00:38:47.580 But he used the term democracy to describe what's happening in Ukraine or our motives in Ukraine.

00:38:52.600 I mean, that is so dishonest.

00:38:54.840 That is so false.

00:38:55.860 I don't know.

00:38:56.320 Maybe he believes it.

00:38:57.080 But that is just not true.

00:38:58.740 Right.

00:38:58.960 And I don't think there's any evidence that it's true at all.

00:39:00.700 The opposite is true.

00:39:01.620 Right.

00:39:01.760 It's a tyranny that's banned forms of Christianity. 0.80

00:39:04.700 Yes.

00:39:05.200 Yeah.

00:39:06.140 Political opponents, any opposition media, everything, just jailed all these people.

00:39:11.120 Murdering people, a lot of people, too.

00:39:13.820 Again, not guessing. 0.98

00:39:14.740 So, okay.

00:39:15.520 Sorry.

00:39:15.920 My answer.

00:39:16.300 Okay.

00:39:16.680 So what should – thank you for being patient.

00:39:19.940 What's – so given everything you've described, what should the incoming administration do?

00:39:24.900 I think that Trump should come in and try to get this resolved as fast as possible and rationally understand that the June 15th line that Putin laid out is the best that he can possibly get.

00:39:35.560 And just – and he's going to have to put a good face on it.

00:39:38.680 He can't just come in and literally say, okay, whatever you want is fine.

00:39:40.960 We'll just sign here.

00:39:42.260 But there are some other – there's some leverage we can do elsewhere that's like, hey, look, we can even remove some of these sanctions on Russia as long as we get this in return for it.

00:39:51.060 And, you know, some increase – some security guarantees that Russia's not going to do anything beyond this, et cetera, which is going to be hard because they have the capacity should they want to go further than the Dnepa River.

00:40:02.340 But I think that he should just say, hey, this is the best we're going to get right here.

00:40:06.660 I'm going to end this war as soon as we can on these lines right here because it would – all we're going to do is get more Ukrainians killed if we keep delaying this. 1.00

00:40:15.320 So we're going to get this done here.

00:40:16.580 We're going to start the process of letting the Ukraine side recover and just to help them rebuild.

00:40:23.140 Europe needs to handle the lion's share of that, not the United States.

00:40:27.580 But we can help diplomacy, you know, build that with diplomacy.

00:40:31.400 Especially the Eastern Europeans, let them build up their own national security and defense, get bigger on there, not the United States, not put more money in NATO. 0.83

00:40:40.420 But the Europeans need to handle that. 0.98

00:40:42.120 That's one of the big things here.

00:40:43.520 And then the other thing is we just have to acknowledge this is where the lines are going to be because that's already a reality on the ground.

00:40:50.620 If you get that over with now, then we can start the next hard thing, which is to rebuild relations with Russia going forward.

00:40:56.900 And I know many don't want to do that, but Russia is going to exist into the – perpetual into the future. 0.93

00:41:02.020 Why are we supposed to hate Russia exactly?

00:41:03.640 Because these people can't escape the Cold War that we won in 1990.

00:41:08.180 But, like, why – as long as Bill Kristol is chirping his vile little lies in your head, like, you're never going to get anything done.

00:41:15.760 Like, why don't you just ignore them?

00:41:16.840 Like, Russia should not be our enemy.

00:41:18.600 There's no reason.

00:41:19.400 And you showed that so graphically with both the Lavrov and the Putin interviews.

00:41:24.040 They're very reasonable.

00:41:25.180 They're not doing things that are – they're not asking us to –

00:41:27.800 It's a civilized country.

00:41:29.260 And now it's aligned with China in a larger, much larger military and economic block than NATO.

00:41:36.520 So, by the way, we just destroyed the European economy by blowing up Nord Stream.

00:41:40.600 No one's ever been held accountable for that.

00:41:42.180 I don't know how the Europeans are going to pay for Ukraine reconstruction when we wreck their economy by blowing up their natural gas pipeline, but whatever.

00:41:49.020 You don't want – we have lost our preeminence because of this.

00:41:54.900 Yes.

00:41:55.100 And now Russia is aligned with China.

00:41:56.960 Like, that's, you know, big picture.

00:41:58.540 China.

00:41:58.940 That's the headline.

00:41:59.540 An actual military alliance with North Korea.

00:42:01.840 Oh, yeah.

00:42:02.160 And the cooperation with Iran as well.

00:42:04.620 Of course.

00:42:04.800 All those things.

00:42:05.340 And the BRICS.

00:42:05.920 Like you say, that is the wreckage of this outgoing administration.

00:42:09.720 That's what they have produced.

00:42:10.900 None of those things existed prior to October 22 when we started making Russia weaker.

00:42:15.920 We have made them stronger in every capacity.

00:42:18.140 If you stayed in the United States for the past four years, you didn't leave, and you didn't read any non-American, non-U.S. media, you have no idea.

00:42:25.200 No clue.

00:42:25.940 Right.

00:42:26.000 You have no idea that any of this happened.

00:42:27.500 You would think that it was 1997, and this was, you know, we had a unipolar world, and we're in charge of everything, and the blue passport's a big deal and all this stuff.

00:42:34.960 You'd have no idea.

00:42:36.740 And that freaks me out.

00:42:38.160 Yeah.

00:42:38.560 People don't know.

00:42:39.400 They should know.

00:42:39.900 If they did know, I mean, you know, they'd be upset at the damage, pointless damage done to this country.

00:42:45.520 They'd be upset, and I hope that's – that's why I'm so grateful for your show here that you separated from the mainstream media because now then you're putting it to millions of people.

00:42:53.020 They get this information that they aren't getting in any of these other places.

00:42:55.700 I love America.

00:42:56.420 I live here.

00:42:56.940 I am American.

00:42:57.380 Exactly.

00:42:57.520 My ancestors came here a long time ago, and they're all buried here.

00:43:00.520 I'm not going anywhere.

00:43:01.580 I love the United States.

00:43:02.780 And so to see a bunch of people who have no interest in the United States whatsoever destroy it, it's like it drives me crazy.

00:43:10.240 I don't know why – I don't know.

00:43:12.020 That's my only motive.

00:43:13.260 Oh, you love Putin. 1.00

00:43:14.400 Oh, fuck off. 1.00

00:43:15.040 I love Putin. 1.00

00:43:16.820 Right, right.

00:43:18.640 There's no reason to antagonize a nuclear superpower when they're happy to just cooperate with us and actually help us in the Western European countries with cheap energy so that they can develop their economies.

00:43:30.200 Why do you want to harm that?

00:43:31.320 Well, it's also like it's a Christian country, and so why wouldn't we be allies with them?

00:43:36.260 Why would we drive them into a permanent alliance?

00:43:39.060 I mean, Lavrov told me it's a permanent alliance with China.

00:43:41.320 Game over.

00:43:42.240 Game over.

00:43:42.460 Look at a map.

00:43:43.220 Get a map someday.

00:43:44.000 Like, look at it.

00:43:45.240 You know, you want to move Russia west. 0.93

00:43:47.800 And it's – of course, it's not a fully Western country, and the Mongols invaded it. 0.98

00:43:51.680 It's like a complicated country, but it is in some deep sense Western because it's Christian, mostly Christian.

00:43:56.860 So why wouldn't they be on our side?

00:43:59.380 Because certain people in the U.S. government hate that idea.

00:44:02.460 They hate Russia because it is Christian. 1.00

00:44:04.000 They loved it when it was atheist. 1.00

00:44:05.420 They loved it.

00:44:06.020 They defended it.

00:44:07.100 Their ancestors, you know, were agents for it.

00:44:09.180 You know what I mean?

00:44:09.760 And the entire American left was working on behalf of Stalin at one point.

00:44:14.200 But now they hate it?

00:44:15.280 What's the difference?

00:44:16.600 Because it's –

00:44:17.120 I don't know, but it's to our harm.

00:44:18.380 And that's –

00:44:18.680 It's a Christian country now, not an atheist country.

00:44:20.660 Yes.

00:44:21.740 That's my view.

00:44:22.940 Whatever.

00:44:23.580 I mean – anyway, excuse me.

00:44:25.720 So do you think that Trump can do that?

00:44:28.260 And, like, what would this settlement look – what settlement do you think the Russians would accept?

00:44:33.420 What do you think the new administration can actually pull off given the enormous political pressure on them from its enemies?

00:44:40.440 If Trump takes your advice there and just says, I don't care what anybody else thinks.

00:44:44.960 See, I'm – this is what I'm going to – this is what's good for America.

00:44:47.540 This is what I was elected to do.

00:44:48.660 Then he's going to say, all right, we're going to acknowledge the June 15th line, and it's going to be those four regions there.

00:44:54.400 And that's where we'll – the Ukraine side will pull back to those lines, et cetera.

00:44:59.700 We will declare no NATO.

00:45:01.860 We're never going to go in there.

00:45:03.140 We were never going to go in there.

00:45:05.040 So we'll just acknowledge reality.

00:45:07.220 Bottom line here, no NATO, and there's – that's not going to happen on the border here.

00:45:11.300 And then let's start seeing how we can rebuild relations to our advantage.

00:45:15.920 And we – like you said, the stuff with China and this other stuff, that's irreparable.

00:45:20.100 We can't fix that, but we can.

00:45:21.980 And again, back to your interview with Lavrov, he still desires that.

00:45:26.880 He even called us a great country.

00:45:28.480 I listened to that again earlier today from your interview.

00:45:30.960 He called America a great country.

00:45:33.080 We're demonizing them, and he still is calling us a great country that they want to have relations with.

00:45:37.760 So Trump can exploit that and say, we're going to start repairing that to our advantage and to our benefit because there is still advantage to have.

00:45:44.280 And instead of going down any other path, I don't know if he'll do it, but he can do it by just – because he's the president.

00:45:50.160 He gets to call the shots.

00:45:51.520 So we'll see what he does.

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00:47:21.000 Yeah, I mean, I think it would, you know, take every member of Congress, 535 House and Senate,

00:47:31.640 and send them for a week to Moscow, then send them to Beijing, then send them to Delhi,

00:47:37.520 and ask them, which of these cities would you live in?

00:47:40.660 Which has a population that, you know, has more in common with Americans?

00:47:44.100 And it's not even close, actually.

00:47:46.000 It's not even close.

00:47:46.600 And so your alliances should be built on shared interests, but also shared attitudes and history and shared goals.

00:47:53.780 And they're a natural ally of ours.

00:47:57.520 And, you know, the East is not. 0.81

00:47:59.360 It's just a fact.

00:48:00.560 And they fundamentally like us.

00:48:03.200 The people like us.

00:48:04.420 Putin and Lavrov are the most pro-Western Russian leaders we'll see in my lifetime, actually.

00:48:09.340 The people who will replace them will not have those same attitudes.

00:48:12.520 And this is just self-harm, what we're hurting ourselves.

00:48:15.660 Yeah, and, you know, to those people who, and I saw a lot of them complaining against you after you,

00:48:20.420 especially if you went to Putin, and they're saying, you know, it's Putin apologists.

00:48:23.380 And I would say to them, you show me a map of the last three years, physically and also calendar-wise,

00:48:29.720 and you show me where we're better off today because we followed the path that you said.

00:48:33.820 We did turn them into an enemy.

00:48:35.340 And how have we improved because of that?

00:48:37.440 A million people are dead here.

00:48:38.960 We've lost all this energy here.

00:48:40.340 Our economy has been severely constrained, all because you won't acknowledge reality.

00:48:46.420 Is Tony Blinken mad at Russia or something?

00:48:48.780 Yeah.

00:48:49.360 Yeah.

00:48:50.440 No, our country is held hostage by people who hate America, obvious.

00:48:54.360 I mean, obviously.

00:48:54.840 Even if they don't, maybe they think they like America, but they're harming us. 0.83

00:48:58.940 They're worse than the Russians are. 1.00

00:49:00.680 That's the perversion of this.

00:49:02.220 They are harming American interests left and right, making our own military weaker.

00:49:06.120 We are weaker today if we have to fight than we were in February 2022.

00:49:10.260 Okay, so this is an area in which you have deep expertise.

00:49:12.420 I don't have any expertise.

00:49:13.620 Where are we right now from a standpoint of military readiness?

00:49:18.800 We have made ourselves substantially less good than we used to be.

00:49:24.060 So I fought in an armored warfare in 1991, and we were at our preeminent power

00:49:29.220 because we had been training for a potential Cold War clash all this time.

00:49:32.760 And so we had the force structure, we had the training, we had the institutionalized training,

00:49:37.140 we had all the different levels, everything you can ever want, we had it at that time.

00:49:41.520 Well, then all of a sudden we win the Cold War.

00:49:44.100 And then after 9-11, we completely get rid of all that institutional knowledge we had,

00:49:49.820 and now we're starting to fight, you know, Arabs in the Middle East.

00:49:53.960 And so you had the Iraq War, you had the Afghan War, which dragged on for one and two decades each,

00:49:59.040 and we're doing counterinsurgency stuff. 0.99

00:50:01.060 And now we have these stupid bases all over the place. 0.99

00:50:03.920 Every time you send a guy there, that means he's not training for our core requirement to defend America. 0.99

00:50:08.580 That's why I'm hopeful that probably the new Secretary of Defense, Pete Hexeth,

00:50:12.380 he said he's focused on national defense, on our borders and our skies,

00:50:16.080 and to rebuild the military to make them lethal war fighters, which is what we need to get back to.

00:50:21.560 It's all women now, right? 1.00

00:50:22.740 I mean, I just keep reading all these stories about how they couldn't meet recruitment goals,

00:50:25.800 so we're just having women fight our wars. 1.00

00:50:27.160 Well, it's not all women, the problem is, what is true is that in one of this DEI stuff, whatever,

00:50:34.780 and they wanted to give women opportunity, they gave them women opportunity everywhere,

00:50:38.100 even when they weren't physically capable of doing so, so they lowered the standards.

00:50:41.620 But it's not just physical.

00:50:42.720 There's, like, women, I'm sure, better drone operators than men. 0.99

00:50:45.200 I have no trouble believing that.

00:50:46.300 I mean, I have mostly female staff. 1.00

00:50:49.120 I think they're smarter and more capable than I am.

00:50:51.820 That's why I've hired them.

00:50:52.780 You know, I'm not against women at all.

00:50:54.420 Of course.

00:50:55.280 I think it's a moral problem.

00:50:56.980 You have a home invasion.

00:50:59.080 You're lying in bed with your wife. 0.99

00:51:00.440 Do you say to your wife, hey, you get this one?

00:51:02.440 Right.

00:51:03.080 No, no, no.

00:51:03.420 The point of war, the point of having a military is to defend your women and children.

00:51:08.040 There's no other reason.

00:51:09.400 I don't understand.

00:51:10.680 So you have women fight your wars for you? 1.00

00:51:12.300 You're disgusting. 1.00

00:51:13.760 I think that. 1.00

00:51:14.460 I know everyone's like, oh, shut up. 1.00

00:51:15.460 You hate women. 1.00

00:51:15.960 Actually, I love women. 1.00

00:51:17.240 And I hate anyone who would put a woman in combat.

00:51:19.460 But in this day and age, you can't. 1.00

00:51:21.260 Who gives a shit what the feminist thing? 1.00

00:51:22.480 You can't say. 1.00

00:51:22.660 They're insane. 0.99

00:51:23.220 They've wrecked our society.

00:51:25.240 Like, at some point, if you start the Iraq War or you start feminism, you start something 0.97

00:51:29.480 that's like the transgender brain virus, something that so clearly hurt a lot of people, the 1.00

00:51:34.300 Ukraine War, aren't you disqualified from weighing in on, like, future issues? 0.93

00:51:38.980 Unfortunately, no. 0.99

00:51:39.880 Hey, you know, Iraq War guy, shut up. 0.99

00:51:42.140 Hey, Gloria Steinem, you know, dying alone, unmarried and childless. 1.00

00:51:46.300 I think you kind of proved it doesn't work, right?

00:51:47.820 Just by your own life. 1.00

00:51:49.060 Shut up. 0.99

00:51:49.620 Like, I don't understand why people with a long track record of failure get to talk 0.99

00:51:56.140 about, you know, what we do next.

00:51:58.460 Do you have to go any further than David Petraeus, former CIA director, the architect of the disaster

00:52:03.600 in Afghanistan, to this day is still putting a mic on his face.

00:52:07.340 Ben Hodges, the worst analyst I've ever seen, still to this day, and I'm talking like two

00:52:12.740 or three days ago, is still saying Ukraine can win and eventually get back Crimea.

00:52:17.560 It's totally attached to reality, but they keep putting the mic in front of them.

00:52:21.160 That's what needs to change.

00:52:22.620 Recognize the failure and don't put your mic in front of that guy.

00:52:25.260 I do think that's the central problem in the United States is that we do not punish anything,

00:52:31.440 really.

00:52:31.860 We only punish disobedience to the regime, but nothing else is ever punished.

00:52:36.260 So you can be like, you know, the worst fire captain in the Western United States and let

00:52:41.480 your city burn.

00:52:42.060 And it's like, you go, girl, or whatever.

00:52:45.200 But I just do think there's something repulsive about sending women to go defend your country. 1.00

00:52:52.300 Where are the men?

00:52:52.960 That's your job is to defend and provide.

00:52:55.300 That is your job.

00:52:56.680 And that's not my opinion.

00:52:58.180 That's nature.

00:52:59.300 And there's never been a society, a functional society in which men weren't required to defend

00:53:03.540 and sustain, you know, work to protect the women and children.

00:53:09.020 That's the whole point.

00:53:09.660 This is less than the Titanic.

00:53:10.840 That's Western civilization in a sentence.

00:53:12.480 And we've just inverted it.

00:53:14.180 And like, hey, ladies, go, go defend us while we stay home and game and get high or whatever. 1.00

00:53:18.540 Like, I just find it repulsive.

00:53:19.660 Like, there's nothing closer than that.

00:53:20.860 Well, you know, and one of the reasons for that is because that we have lowered the standards

00:53:25.340 so much that a lot of the good guys, they don't want to come in.

00:53:28.140 Like some of your staff members I've talked to, those are the good guys, right?

00:53:30.820 But a lot of those kind of people, now they don't want to come into this force because

00:53:34.380 it's like your standards are low.

00:53:36.300 And I see you're not serious about it.

00:53:37.900 You keep saying the guys who won the Second World War are somehow too immoral to serve

00:53:42.460 in the military now?

00:53:43.920 And that the fat guy who runs the military, I can't even remember, it was Millie, Mark

00:53:46.500 Millie, you know, with a chest full of medals. 0.99

00:53:48.560 That guy's like, oh, white rage, white men are bad. 0.98

00:53:50.720 Really? 0.98

00:53:51.200 Who won the Second World War?

00:53:52.960 Do you have Google?

00:53:53.740 Look at the pictures.

00:53:55.160 I think it was white men, actually.

00:53:56.500 They're the ones who beat Hitler. 0.99

00:53:57.380 So why don't you shut up, Tubby? 0.96

00:53:58.960 So if you can't recruit enough men like that, then you have to recruit something. 0.93

00:54:03.860 So that's why we're lowering the standards.

00:54:05.540 Like, I love women. 1.00

00:54:06.180 But I just think it's, I mean, just think about it for a second.

00:54:08.940 What is the point of having an army? 0.96

00:54:10.960 It's so people don't show up and rape your wife, carry off your daughters, murder your 0.98

00:54:15.600 children. 0.99

00:54:15.900 Like, that's the only point, actually.

00:54:18.260 See, that hasn't been exposed yet, though.

00:54:20.120 And I fear that one day we will have to fight a peer or a near peer.

00:54:25.500 And we haven't since, really, you can say Korea, maybe Vietnam, but none since then,

00:54:31.600 where we fought anybody who was any good.

00:54:33.140 So you can have anybody, honestly.

00:54:35.920 You know, even our base is so good that we can beat, you know, the Taliban. 0.99

00:54:40.040 Well, we can tactically beat the Taliban in any engagement with our military.

00:54:44.500 So there's nobody in Iraq that could have beat us, et cetera. 0.97

00:54:46.780 But if we had to fight, I'm just telling you, if we had to fight the Russian army right 0.88

00:54:50.780 now, like war broke out tomorrow and all of a sudden we have to send in our divisions,

00:54:54.580 I think we would probably get hammered.

00:54:57.060 Well, obviously.

00:54:58.180 I mean, not even just because of the stuff that you're talking about there, which will

00:55:01.500 also be exposed, but because we don't have the combat experience that they do.

00:55:05.640 And we're still locked in like the 1991 or 2003 Iraq war, and the Russians have gone way 0.88

00:55:10.620 beyond that.

00:55:11.060 And we're way behind on that.

00:55:12.760 But all these things would be exposed.

00:55:14.840 And then until then, they're not exposed.

00:55:16.720 And still then, we still are the greatest military power on earth.

00:55:19.360 And who's to say differently, graphically?

00:55:21.960 So the Ukrainians took out a bunch of Russian bombers, long range bombers on an airfield

00:55:28.240 with drones early in the war.

00:55:30.360 And I thought to myself, wow, you know, this war, which I don't know, are we studying this

00:55:36.000 like carefully?

00:55:37.400 I mean, I guess we're running it, but are we taking its lessons?

00:55:39.360 It shows that, you know, drone technology has got to change our calculations about where

00:55:44.600 we spend our money, right?

00:55:45.840 So how many aircraft carriers do you need in a world with drones?

00:55:49.040 I don't know the answer to these questions, but is anyone smart thinking about this?

00:55:52.540 Well, I think about it a lot.

00:55:55.020 And in fact, I saw whatever, we're building two new aircraft carriers right now, and they're

00:55:59.120 already naming them what they're going to be.

00:56:00.420 And I'm like, did y'all not watch what happened to the Black Sea Fleet, the Russian Black 0.99

00:56:04.460 Sea Fleet, because of naval drones?

00:56:06.780 I mean, dude, they were sent to the bottom of the ocean.

00:56:08.900 We would get hammered if we had to fight.

00:56:11.940 That's World War II level. 0.55

00:56:13.800 We're not at World War II anymore.

00:56:15.520 And look, to your point there.

00:56:16.540 If you're already named, one's called the George Bush, I think.

00:56:18.500 Yeah, yeah.

00:56:19.220 And Clinton.

00:56:20.140 Bill Clinton is the other one.

00:56:21.340 I'm now making that up.

00:56:22.320 That's what's being reported.

00:56:23.560 Bill Clinton, the draft dodger as an aircraft carrier. 0.53

00:56:25.560 Unbelievable.

00:56:26.040 We've reached like peak parity.

00:56:29.040 But why are we building aircraft?

00:56:30.720 I mean, look, you know, you're the retired colonel, but it does seem like we should pause and

00:56:35.240 ask like, what, you know, what are we learning from what's happening in Ukraine?

00:56:38.900 Yeah.

00:56:39.940 Well, that's what I was going to say.

00:56:41.400 I was a little surprised that Russia didn't start off on a higher level tactically than

00:56:45.820 it did in February 22.

00:56:47.080 They were behind the curve for a long period of time because Armenia and Azerbaijan had

00:56:52.500 a war in 2020 where all of this stuff was put on full display for the first time in large

00:56:56.880 scale.

00:56:57.560 The Armenian armor was hammered from the Azerbaijanis because they used the long range drones. 1.00

00:57:02.420 They had missiles.

00:57:03.080 They had drones.

00:57:04.020 And then they were able to bring them in and vector in other targets.

00:57:07.620 So it's not that Doug McGregor wrote about 1997.

00:57:10.680 They employed for the first time.

00:57:12.600 And I thought when I saw that, OK, this is now changed warfare.

00:57:15.880 No one's going to fight the old one anymore because you see how powerful drones are.

00:57:19.760 And the Russians didn't. 0.90

00:57:20.980 Well, here's the problem.

00:57:22.040 We still haven't.

00:57:23.720 And now that not just the 2020 and it was a really short conflict.

00:57:26.960 We've had now three years and we're tinkering around the edges with stuff.

00:57:30.080 There have been some changes, but it's like about this much when you need this much.

00:57:34.920 If we had to fight Russia today, even everything we've observed for the last three years, we 0.97

00:57:39.420 are not up to the standard.

00:57:40.940 We are way behind the ball and we would die in, I think, large numbers.

00:57:44.100 So, I mean, this is like what we're watching does seem to have like lots of precedent in history.

00:57:49.560 But the most obvious is the British army that spends the entire 19th century fighting all

00:57:53.320 these colonial wars against the Pashtuns and the mutant, you know, the mutinous forces 1.00

00:57:58.540 in India and, you know, every with the Zulus and they win most of those engagements. 1.00

00:58:05.680 And then they have this peer to peer war in the First World War.

00:58:10.420 And it commences with like British cavalry charges into machine gun fire.

00:58:14.560 And, you know, it would destroy Britain.

00:58:16.040 And it's never been a great power really since then.

00:58:18.680 It's pretended to be, but it's not.

00:58:19.800 It's wrecked the country forever and destroyed the British Empire, that war, First World War. 0.59

00:58:24.840 And everyone makes fun of them for that.

00:58:26.260 Like you didn't keep track of what real war was as you were like killing all the villagers

00:58:30.720 around the world.

00:58:31.680 And let me tell you, 25 years later, it was the French army's turn.

00:58:35.240 They were the preeminent power on the European continent.

00:58:38.300 And then they were destroyed in a month.

00:58:41.160 Oh, I know.

00:58:41.640 When the Germans came in using modern technology, modern tactics and new doctrine that they were. 0.99

00:58:48.240 And everyone knew, the Germans knew that they were better, but they had to go fight anyway. 1.00

00:58:52.860 But because they were still in the World War I mentality, that's what happened to them.

00:58:56.880 So you have, yeah, British from World War I, French from World War II.

00:59:00.900 Are we going to be the next in line?

00:59:02.240 Well, I mean, because it is, the parallels are pretty obvious.

00:59:04.840 I mean, you know, whatever, you don't want to be mean or anything, but the truth is,

00:59:09.360 fighting, you know, third world nations is different from fighting, you know,

00:59:14.220 technologically advanced, you know, nations that have satellite stations and stuff.

00:59:18.520 And so, yeah, I'm really worried.

00:59:22.480 Did you think?

00:59:23.040 Because Russia's talked openly about if they get into conflict with us,

00:59:25.560 our satellites are the first thing coming down.

00:59:27.180 They've said that recently I'm talking about.

00:59:29.000 And I'm telling you, we don't even know how to fight without all of our connectivity.

00:59:34.080 And the Russians do because they've learned how to. 0.99

00:59:36.480 And that's another factor that if we get into a fight, I think that we're going to get hammered.

00:59:43.600 Do you think, so the real question is, do smart people at the Pentagon,

00:59:48.340 like, are they, throw away all the procurement stuff and the defense contractor pressure and all that,

00:59:52.200 which is like, seems determinative and a lot of the time.

00:59:55.560 But like, is anyone just thinking about this?

00:59:57.400 Does anyone have the power to change the way the U.S. military force works?

01:00:02.040 Now, I retired in 2015, so I can't speak of anything beyond that.

01:00:05.060 But I can tell you that a lot of my experience prior to that,

01:00:07.280 when I was in the Future Combat Systems program at Fort Bliss, Texas, in the early 2000s,

01:00:13.120 you had the senior leaders that were totally disconnected from reality.

01:00:16.760 All these exercises and tests that they claim were showing how this new modern force is going to be fantastic.

01:00:22.720 It was all video and fake because the tests were lied.

01:00:26.320 All the guys, I was a major at the time, all of them, like the major below, the guys who were physically doing this stuff,

01:00:31.740 we knew it was absurd.

01:00:33.380 And so we told people.

01:00:34.740 But to my context earlier in this conversation, those guys don't get promoted.

01:00:39.340 The guys that get promoted who signed off on this fake test results here.

01:00:44.960 I know it's your Colonel Davis, not General Davis.

01:00:47.100 Well, indeed.

01:00:48.160 I'm probably lucky to get Colonel, but that's a separate issue.

01:00:50.560 So what is, I mean, I just know from living, I know very little about the military, but I've been around it a lot.

01:00:56.220 And I know from living in Washington, you know, you do run into tons of smart majors and colonels,

01:01:01.260 but like flag officer, no.

01:01:03.200 Like, what is that?

01:01:04.000 What is that?

01:01:04.700 What, the leap from colonel to general, what does it require?

01:01:08.400 And how do they manage to weed out all the smart, free-thinking people?

01:01:12.260 Because in order to become a general, you have to have the approval of the generals.

01:01:17.320 That's how, technically, the president designates these people.

01:01:20.720 But in reality, they just, the president signs off on whatever, and then the Senate signs off on whoever the generals approve of.

01:01:26.780 So they don't approve of anyone that doesn't already play the game.

01:01:30.040 That is one of the big things that I think needs to be reformed, because that's why I say they replicate each other.

01:01:35.180 So nobody gets up into that upper echelon.

01:01:37.380 And I just got to say, and I hate to use this example, but H.R. McMaster, who was the former National Security Advisor,

01:01:43.880 I fought under him in Desert Storm.

01:01:46.340 He was my direct commander at the time, and he was fantastic under fire.

01:01:49.460 He was brilliant, and I had the highest respect for him.

01:01:52.300 For 20 years, we were close friends all the way through until we both went to Afghanistan in 2011, 2010, 2011 at the same time.

01:02:01.500 And then all of a sudden, he gets promoted by David Petraeus.

01:02:04.360 After he had not been promoted several times before that, Petraeus gets him promoted, and now he becomes general.

01:02:09.880 And almost overnight, he starts sounding like Petraeus.

01:02:13.480 And stuff that he and I had talked about before that's like, you know, there's so much, this is unreal, untrue.

01:02:18.420 This is not going to work.

01:02:19.480 All of a sudden, now he's saying it.

01:02:20.900 He was put in charge during that time of the anti-corruption process for the Afghan government.

01:02:26.340 And he claimed over and over how they were making progress and all this stuff.

01:02:29.560 And as we talked about earlier in this show, that never happened.

01:02:31.920 But then since that time, now that he's going on and saying all kinds of stuff like, yes, he needs to, you know, he's anti-Russian and all this.

01:02:38.680 He became like them.

01:02:39.940 And so now he's just another one of them.

01:02:41.740 He got absorbed.

01:02:42.660 And all the stuff that happened before that, when he was the one who was talking on the outside, I don't understand.

01:02:47.600 He was, I mean, even I knew who he was.

01:02:49.820 And again, I don't follow this that closely.

01:02:51.400 But he was famous for his, well, intellectual horsepower, but also curiosity, honesty.

01:02:58.640 Like he was a well-known guy.

01:03:00.320 Right.

01:03:01.260 Yeah.

01:03:01.720 The Battle of 7-3 Easting that he was in command of was, I mean, they still study it today in West Point.

01:03:07.660 And for good reason, because he was, it was tremendous.

01:03:10.460 But something happened to him after he got promoted from colonel to brigadier general.

01:03:14.840 Well, just like swimming in a, in the filthy pool of power politics or what, what do you think?

01:03:22.080 I can, I really, because we literally never spoke after that time.

01:03:25.720 What?

01:03:26.060 It was really sad.

01:03:27.040 We had a good friendship up until that time, but then we broke in 2011, never spoke again.

01:03:32.820 So I don't have any idea what may or may not be the case.

01:03:35.340 I just see him on TV all the time.

01:03:36.720 So I don't know.

01:03:39.320 Wow.

01:03:40.340 How do you feel about the national security team being assembled?

01:03:44.440 I am a huge fan of Tulsi Gabbard.

01:03:47.480 I think I had recommended and sent, I mean, I don't have a lot of influence, but to people

01:03:53.880 who have the knowledge, I suggested she would have been a better secretary of state, maybe 1.00

01:03:58.340 even secretary of defense, because I think her mind is brilliant and her focus on America

01:04:03.480 and keeping America safe.

01:04:04.760 If you look at everything she's done and said, consistently through her career is always

01:04:08.900 focused on what's going to benefit America.

01:04:10.660 And she's smart and knows how to do it. 0.99

01:04:12.400 I hope that Pete Hegseth does what he said he was going to do in his opening statement

01:04:16.840 that he revitalizes the national security, the Defense Department, and picks up the war

01:04:23.100 fighting ethos mentality, holds people accountable, passes.

01:04:27.240 And I hope he does all those things.

01:04:28.500 If he does, then I think we're going to be in a lot better shape.

01:04:31.020 And Mike Walz, I've also been concerned by some of the statements he has made.

01:04:37.560 But if President Trump is calling the shots, I think he'll do what President Trump tells

01:04:42.320 him.

01:04:42.480 We'll just have to hope and see with that.

01:04:43.980 But those are the main ones in there.

01:04:47.020 And so some of the, oh, Bridge Colby is another really good situation there, a good person

01:04:52.260 there.

01:04:52.660 So I think that having him in a position right now is going to be very good.

01:04:55.580 So there's a number of people right now in the Trump team here that he's going to start

01:04:59.620 with that was a huge anchor that he didn't have in 2016.

01:05:04.480 So I'm hopeful that he can move forward.

01:05:06.140 How hard is it to reform the Pentagon?

01:05:08.800 It's enormously difficult.

01:05:10.660 I don't want to underestimate how that is because it is absolutely built on no change.

01:05:16.180 It wants to perpetuate.

01:05:17.220 Because all those generals I just talked about who have been replicated are still in control

01:05:21.260 of that.

01:05:21.620 So it's going to be really hard.

01:05:23.220 I tell you what I would love to see.

01:05:24.880 I would love to see Trump come in and do what he did or what President Roosevelt did just

01:05:29.700 before World War II, where he had the Army Chief of Staff come in and say, you know what?

01:05:34.540 We're going to review everybody here.

01:05:36.340 And anybody who's not pulling their weight or is not modernized, they're going to get

01:05:39.960 low.

01:05:40.320 They're going to get rid of them.

01:05:41.500 And I think it was like hundreds of senior colonels and generals were retired from the service.

01:05:47.260 And then they elevated new people who could get the job done, who were smart,

01:05:51.200 Stalin did that with gunfire.

01:05:54.120 I don't want that path, but I do want the George Marshall path.

01:05:59.040 No, but I mean, look, what did the winning side do in both cases in the U.S. and in the

01:06:03.660 Soviet Union?

01:06:04.680 They got new leadership.

01:06:06.320 Yeah, because guys who aren't performing need to get out of the way.

01:06:09.120 No, I agree.

01:06:10.100 And by the way, I'm not calling for a purge of the U.S. military by force or anything

01:06:13.020 like that, but I think it needs a peaceful purge.

01:06:15.720 It does.

01:06:16.700 Strongly so.

01:06:17.240 Because these guys all have an incentive to maintain the status quo, and they will,

01:06:21.160 I think, push against anything Hexeth does if they're all left in power.

01:06:25.620 So I kind of think that he does need that.

01:06:26.720 So really it comes down to what it always comes down to, which is how the information

01:06:30.720 is presented to the public through the media who are working every day assiduously with

01:06:37.900 their allies and paymasters in the federal bureaucracy.

01:06:41.560 And if you care what they think, you will achieve nothing.

01:06:44.160 They will control you.

01:06:45.500 And if you don't care what they think, then you have a chance at eliminating corruption

01:06:48.500 and righting the country.

01:06:50.140 Because you look at what history is going to say.

01:06:52.240 Biden did all the things you mentioned.

01:06:53.760 He got along with everybody.

01:06:54.900 Everybody loved him.

01:06:55.820 But history will condemn him and all his leaders.

01:06:59.020 Trump will face heat up in the front.

01:07:00.760 But if he does these things, then history will love him if it improves our country.

01:07:04.960 And that's what I hope we see.

01:07:07.660 Colin Davis, thank you very much.

01:07:08.920 That was great.

01:07:10.680 Thank you.

The Tucker Carlson Show - February 10, 2025

Ukraine Is Selling American Weapons to Mexican Drug Cartels. Col. Daniel Davis on How to Stop It.

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