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Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.

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Speaker 2: Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election,

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Speaker 1: We need your help to build the future of independent

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Speaker 1: news media and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints

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Speaker 1: dot com. All right, let's get to media. Wanted to

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Speaker 1: make sure we covered this important story. It's genuinely crazy

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Speaker 1: some of the details. Let's put this up there on

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Speaker 1: the screen. So ABC News has agreed to pay fifteen

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Speaker 1: million dollars to Donald Trump's presidential library to settle a

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Speaker 1: defamation lawsuit. So the reason why this is so extraordinary

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Speaker 1: is that it almost never happens that you have defamation

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Speaker 1: lawsuits which are settled involving public officials. The reason why

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Speaker 1: is that the bar is so incredibly high to prove

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Speaker 1: defamation Nonetheless, ABC News agreed to this settlement on Saturday

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Speaker 1: after a quote unquote statement by George Stefanopolis that happened

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Speaker 1: on ABC News some months ago with respect to the

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Speaker 1: Egene Carrol case. Now, if you look actually into the details,

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Speaker 1: the settlement came right before there was a deposition that

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Speaker 1: was going to go through as well as discovery, which

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Speaker 1: would have required Stephanopolis turning over all of his emails,

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Speaker 1: deposition of all the people that were involved in the segment. Now,

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Speaker 1: the reason why, again I think it's just so crazy

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Speaker 1: is the fact that it even got to the deposition

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Speaker 1: phase is extraordinary. Almost in every other one of these

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Speaker 1: defamation cases it's thrown out, which means that the Trump

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Speaker 1: people had to rise to a bar where they all

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Speaker 1: at least we're able to say to a judge that

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Speaker 1: they could realistically prove malicious intent on behalf of Stephanoppolos.

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Speaker 1: So again, I know this is complicated and just in

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Speaker 1: plain speak as public as commentators here, whenever we're talking

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Speaker 1: about anybody who is a public official, especially an elected official,

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Speaker 1: for them to prove defamation against us, they have to

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Speaker 1: prove that not only did what we say was wrong,

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Speaker 1: but that we knew it was wrong when we said it,

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Speaker 1: and that we knew we were doing so specifically to

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Speaker 1: harm the reputation of that individual.

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Speaker 2: A slip of the tongue, right, or a slight miscap

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Speaker 2: which what he said was only a slight mischaracterization of

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Speaker 2: the truth. Like that is not sufficient unless you can

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Speaker 2: prove what's called actual.

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Speaker 1: Malice, exactly actual malice, which is I mean again, unless

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Speaker 1: you basically have it in writing and be like, hey.

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Speaker 2: I'm going Trump and I say that he met someone.

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Speaker 1: So it's like if I text you it was like, hey,

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Speaker 1: screw Donald Trump, I'm going to go on the show

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Speaker 1: and say today X Y and Z, even though I

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Speaker 1: know X Y and Z is false, that that is

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Speaker 1: what they mostly need to destroy you. And yet they

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Speaker 1: decided to settle. So two options. Either they're afraid and

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Speaker 1: they decided to pay them off, or it was true.

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Speaker 1: I'm starting to get to the point where at least

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Speaker 1: in terms of what they had, it must have been bad,

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Speaker 1: because you know, to pay fifteen million dollars to a

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Speaker 1: public official as a news organization is crazy. You're supposed

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Speaker 1: to fight this thing to the bitterest end to make

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Speaker 1: sure that there is so I think I think you

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Speaker 1: might have been guilty honestly because there's no other reason,

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Speaker 1: or they're just afraid. But I mean, even when we

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Speaker 1: think about quote unquote afraid, I mean think about the

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Speaker 1: precedent that's being set here for defamation. That's no, that's right.

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Speaker 1: That's why they must there's something in those emails that

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Speaker 1: they don't ever want them.

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Speaker 2: Whatever you think about this case, et cetera. And just

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Speaker 2: let me just lay out what he said and what

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Speaker 2: the truth is, because it shows you how sort of

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Speaker 2: like nitpicky this is, and how it's an easy miss

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Speaker 2: characterization for people to make. And I'm quite confident that

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Speaker 2: George Defnopolis, by the way, was not the only person

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Speaker 2: who is characterized it this way. So he said that

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Speaker 2: a jury in a civil case found Donald Trump liable

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Speaker 2: for rape and defamation. Okay, in reality, based on the

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Speaker 2: New York state law at that time, the jury found

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Speaker 2: him liable for sexual assault but not rape. Now, it

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Speaker 2: would have met the definition of rape at the federal level,

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Speaker 2: it would have met the definition of actually the newly

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Speaker 2: revised definition of rape at the New York state level,

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Speaker 2: but did not technically meet that definition at the time.

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Speaker 2: So if he had been one hundred percent accurate with

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Speaker 2: the legal standards, he would have said sexual assault and

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Speaker 2: not rape. But you see how like how close that is, right,

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Speaker 2: And so yeah, the assumption from anybody would be that

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Speaker 2: in a defamation case, when you're considering that this is

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Speaker 2: a public figure, when you're considering that even the judge

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Speaker 2: in this case said that it would have by this

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Speaker 2: sort of like colloquial parlance, met the definition of rape,

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Speaker 2: just not by the technical New York standard, you would

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Speaker 2: assume that this would be something that they would fight

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Speaker 2: and that they would ultimately be victorious because the bar

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Speaker 2: is so incredibly high now yours. I think you're right

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Speaker 2: that there are two choices here. Number one is that

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Speaker 2: they had something in Stephanoppolos's emails that was just absolutely terrible,

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Speaker 2: that they didn't want to come out.

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Speaker 1: Worth fifteen million bucks his annual salary, that they didn't

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Speaker 1: want to come.

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Speaker 2: And that they're contributing now to the Donald J. Trump

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Speaker 2: Presidential Library, which also looks disgusting. But anyway, either that

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Speaker 2: and or they are afraid of being at odds with

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Speaker 2: Donald Trump. And I tend to put more stock into

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Speaker 2: that one, because if you think about it. I mean,

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Speaker 2: Trump has been quite outspoken and many of his allies

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Speaker 2: quite outspoken about how they want to go up against

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Speaker 2: their media critics, how they want retribution against their media critics,

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Speaker 2: Steve Bannon going on and threatening Ari Melburn with some

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Speaker 2: sort of investigation, imprisonment, et cetera, et cetera. So I

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Speaker 2: don't think that they want to be I think this

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Speaker 2: could very well be another example. Basically, like Joe and

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Speaker 2: Mika making their truck down tomorrow lago, they don't want

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Speaker 2: to be at war with incoming Donald Trump administration. Not

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Speaker 2: only are they fearful, but they also feel like they'll

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Speaker 2: be the target of attacks, whether it's some sort of

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Speaker 2: investigation or just Donald Trump's verbal attacks. They'll be subject

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Speaker 2: to that, they'll lose whatever access they have to the

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Speaker 2: White House, and it will impinge on their ability to

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Speaker 2: like break stories and do their whole thing. And so

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Speaker 2: I think that there's a good likelihood as well that

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Speaker 2: they just were fearful of going into this administration actively

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Speaker 2: at war and in this legal battle with Donald J.

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Speaker 3: Trump.

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Speaker 2: I personally think that that's it could be a little

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Speaker 2: bit of both, but to me, that's the more likely

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Speaker 2: explanation of what's going on here.

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Speaker 1: Look, yeah, like you said, it could be all of

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Speaker 1: the above. I think I don't know. I think to

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Speaker 1: pay somebody a public official as the president fifteen million

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Speaker 1: bucks is nuts for any news organization. So I think

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Speaker 1: the only alternative is I think there was just something

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Speaker 1: going on in those emails. I just don't think there's

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Speaker 1: another explanation. There must have been some discussion that either

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Speaker 1: related to him being informed that he was misspeaking, or

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Speaker 1: maybe they could have proved that somebody was in his

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Speaker 1: ear at the time and he had spoken differently. Again, like,

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Speaker 1: these are all speculations, but the idea that you would

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Speaker 1: pay off as an incoming president for some of Stephanopoulos's

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Speaker 1: yearly salary shows extraordinary capitulation or extraordinarily liability.

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Speaker 2: And in either case it is extraordinary capitulation. Whether it's

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Speaker 2: out of fear or because there's something that's damaging in

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Speaker 2: Stephanopolis's Like, either way, it is extraordinary capitulation because it

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Speaker 2: does set a damning precedent for just you know, freedom

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Speaker 2: of the press. And as I said before, like this

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Speaker 2: was a very minor mischaracterization of what the civil jury

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Speaker 2: actually found Trump liable. For and so for them to

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Speaker 2: just like bend the knee on this is really crazy

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Speaker 2: and it does set, frankly, a scary precedent. We have

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Speaker 2: put T three up on the screen, which had some

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Speaker 2: of the reaction online to this, mostly from liberals who

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Speaker 2: were really obsessed, with a lot of US journalists too, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: journalists and liberals and prosecutors too, who were confused by

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Speaker 2: this direction. So you had Norm Ornstein who said, add

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Speaker 2: ABC to the basket of cowards in our media. Democratic

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Speaker 2: attorney Mark Eliots wrote me bent ring kissed and the

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Speaker 2: legacy news outlets chooses obedience. Reporter Oliver Willis chimed in

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Speaker 2: saying this is actually how democracy dies. Tech reporter Matt

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Speaker 2: Novak said, not good for the rest of us when

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Speaker 2: you do this shit, ABC, But that's probably half the

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Speaker 2: point from management's perspective.

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Speaker 1: Drewe.

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Speaker 2: Former prosecutor Joyce Van said, I'm old enough to remember

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Speaker 2: to have worked on cases where newspapers vigorously defended themselves

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Speaker 2: against defamation cases instead of folding before the defendant was

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Speaker 2: even deposed. So again, quite a significant reaction to this,

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Speaker 2: and I do think it is a significant development and

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Speaker 2: quite surprise.

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Speaker 1: I was shocked to see it.

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Speaker 2: Yes, actually, once I read the details of what the

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Speaker 2: allegations were, the.

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Speaker 1: Only option is the insurance company told them to settle.

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Speaker 1: That's it. So I previously because I studied actually some

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Speaker 1: defamation cases. This is a case like many years ago

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Speaker 1: involving what's his name to catch a predator guy Chris Hansen. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Chris Hansen. There was a whole defamation case that was

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Speaker 1: against him. The insurance company, I believe, forced him to settle.

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Speaker 1: He's spoken out against it and he's like, I never

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Speaker 1: should have settled. He's like, I didn't agree with settling it,

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Speaker 1: but the insurance company forced basically NBC News to settle.

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Speaker 1: I guess that could be a theory. But you know,

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Speaker 1: in this case, at the very least, Stephanopolis and others

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Speaker 1: have not come out and said this was an insurance decision,

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Speaker 1: you know, because even at that time the NBC was

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Speaker 1: significantly criticized for settling that case that involved I forget

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Speaker 1: exactly what it was, either defamation or wrongful dat or

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Speaker 1: something like that was involved. It was a crazy case,

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Speaker 1: by the way you're going.

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Speaker 2: You know, it's also interesting, so there were also forced

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Speaker 2: to a pen an editor's note to the article about

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Speaker 2: like thing or whatever, and the editor's note is very nonspecific.

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Speaker 2: It says something just like ABC News regrets some of

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Speaker 2: the statements made by George Stefanopolis in the segment that's it.

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Speaker 1: It's like, really, it might be why as well, because

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Speaker 1: that's another thing people don't understand is that you have

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Speaker 1: to have recourse. So what happens is that Trump people

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Speaker 1: could reach out to you and they could say, hey,

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Speaker 1: we're going to sue you for defamation unless you issue correction.

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Speaker 1: So maybe they refuse to issue a correction.

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Speaker 2: Well, the editor's note was part of this.

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Speaker 1: Part of the settlement, so they never issue Weird.

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Speaker 2: It was I don't think. I don't know that I'm

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Speaker 2: not sure about, but it was weird to me that

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Speaker 2: the language was so like non general and nonspecific and

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Speaker 2: wasn't like the you know, George Defnopolis was wrong when

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Speaker 2: he said.

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Speaker 1: Blah blah blah.

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Speaker 2: Anyway, it is weird.

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Speaker 1: If you work at ABC, let us know because I

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Speaker 1: want to know more about this. Yeah, well, reach out

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Speaker 1: to Ken, reach out to me. Listen. I'll publish anything.

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Speaker 1: I'll publish whatever you guys want, as long as it's true, Crystal,

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Speaker 1: what are you taking a look at? Well, I'll ask

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Speaker 1: you one last question.

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Speaker 4: You don't like bitcoin, You wouldn't invest in bitcoin?

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Speaker 2: Do you invest in the stock market at this moment?

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Speaker 1: So? Not?

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Speaker 4: At this moment, I think it's high. So I have

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Speaker 4: not invested in the stock market at this moment. I

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Speaker 4: have in the past, but I have not at this moment.

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Speaker 4: I think it's high. A bitcoin, it just seems like

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Speaker 4: a scam. I was surprised, you know, with us it

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Speaker 4: was at six thousand and much lower. I don't like

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Speaker 4: it because it's another currency competing against the dollar. Essentially,

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Speaker 4: it's the currency competing against the dollar. I want the

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Speaker 4: dollar to be the currency of the world. That's what

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Speaker 4: I've always said.

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Speaker 2: So that was former President Trump in twenty twenty one

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Speaker 2: telling Fox Business that bitcoin seems like a scam and

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Speaker 2: voicing concern it could undermine the dollar. Min what a

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Speaker 2: little time a few hundred million dollars in campaign contributions

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Speaker 2: can do to change your mind. Because now, after receiving

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Speaker 2: the backing of a bunch of crypto aligned billionaires and

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Speaker 2: wealthy individuals, including Elon Musk, Trump is backing a plan

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Speaker 2: to funnel Smerican taxpayer assets into a scheme to further

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Speaker 2: enrich his coterie of oligarchs through a strategic bitcoin reserve.

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Speaker 2: In a conversation with Jim Kramer and the New York

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Speaker 2: Stock Exchange, Trump recently confirmed that plan to throw the

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Speaker 2: way to the US government behind bitcoin, placing the volatile

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Speaker 2: speculative asset on the same level as gold and as oil.

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Speaker 2: So how exactly would this all work will centtor Cynthia Loomis,

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Speaker 2: her self a significant bitcoin investor, has become crypto's top

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Speaker 2: proponent in Washington, has sketched out potential details. Basically, in

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Speaker 2: her view, they could pull some creative accounting with the

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Speaker 2: nation's gold reserves. Those reserves would be marked to current

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Speaker 2: market value. The resulting paper gains would be used to

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Speaker 2: finance bulk bitcoin purchases to the tune of two hundred

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Speaker 2: thousand a year for five straight years. As the Financial

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Speaker 2: Times explains today, the US government's gold is valued a

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Speaker 2: book cost of forty two dollars and twenty two cents

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Speaker 2: an ounce, making it worth eleven billion dollars. At current

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Speaker 2: market prices, it would be worth over six hundred and

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Speaker 2: fifty billion dollars. So if we've understood correctly, federal reserve

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Speaker 2: banks would be required to remit around six hundred and

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Speaker 2: forty billion dollars the US Treasury, and the Treasury could

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Speaker 2: use those funds to buy bitcoin. Now, this is, on

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Speaker 2: its face, a plan for extraordinary plundering of the public purse,

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Speaker 2: which would result in perhaps the largest upward transfer of

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Speaker 2: wealth in history.

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Speaker 1: Given that it.

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Speaker 2: Would primarily be a handful of bitcoin whales oo stand

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Speaker 2: to benefit. Because as unequal as our normal financial system is,

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Speaker 2: and it is plenty unequal, the crypto world is vastly

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Speaker 2: more unequal. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research,

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Speaker 2: the top point oh one percent of bitcoin holders control

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Speaker 2: twenty seven percent of all bitcoin and circulation. The top

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Speaker 2: two percent of all wallets hold over ninety percent of

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Speaker 2: all bitcoin. South Africa, which is considered the most unequal

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Speaker 2: country in the world and has a Genie coefficient of

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Speaker 2: somewhere around point sixty three that pales in comparison to

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Speaker 2: that of bitcoin, which is estimated to be around point

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Speaker 2: eighty eight. Now, the presence of a small group of

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Speaker 2: whales means, of course, that a handful of megal wealthy

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Speaker 2: investors stands to benefit from the US government showing up

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Speaker 2: with a virtually unlimited checkbook to buy up bitcoin. And

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Speaker 2: it also means that the price of bitcoin, which has

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Speaker 2: little actual value except as a high tech poker chip,

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Speaker 2: can be easily manipulated by a relatively small group of people.

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Speaker 2: Doesn't seem to me like we should be funneling trillions

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Speaker 2: into an asset that can be easily and maliciously manipulated.

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Speaker 2: Now you may have heard the crypto libertarian propaganda that

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Speaker 2: the great thing about these coins that they fly free

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Speaker 2: of any government manipulation, that they represent some kind of

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Speaker 2: new financial frontier, wild West fortune favors the brave, all

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Speaker 2: of that. So you might wonder why these bitcoin whales

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Speaker 2: would want Uncle sam meddling in their libertarian frontier currency.

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Speaker 2: Was Ryan Cooper at The American Prospect explains. The truth

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Speaker 2: is these crypto whales have a pretty major issue on

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Speaker 2: their hands, which is, quote, the bitcoin market is exceptionally

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Speaker 2: a liquid The last twenty four hours so roughly a

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Speaker 2: piddling six hundred and sixty thousand transactions in bitcoin and

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Speaker 2: something like seventy percent a bitcoin have not moved at

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Speaker 2: all in at least a year. That is made worse

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Speaker 2: by how expensive and slow bitcoin transactions are. By way

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Speaker 2: of comparison, Amazon, which has a similar market capitalization, has

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Speaker 2: seen about forty million daily trades of its stocks over

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Speaker 2: the last few days. As Ryan goes on to explain,

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Speaker 2: that means that in order for large bagholders to cash

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Speaker 2: out without totally crashing the market, they would have to

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Speaker 2: lure an unfathomably large number of new crypto suckers into

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Speaker 2: what is, at bottom, a giant Ponzi scheme. So they

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Speaker 2: came up with a much easier plan, which was to

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Speaker 2: funnel hundreds of millions of dollars into Trump's campaign, along

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Speaker 2: with many other Washington politicians besides of both parties, so

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Speaker 2: that all US taxpayers could be conscripted into the role of,

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Speaker 2: in Ryan's words, sacrificial lambs to a digital asset slaughterhouse. Effectively,

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Speaker 2: the US taxpayer will be forced to serve as the

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Speaker 2: useful idiot, the hapless bottom tier of the pyramid scheme,

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Speaker 2: allowing the whales to convert their illiquid digital tokens into

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Speaker 2: cold hard cash while we get stuck with the bill. Now,

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Speaker 2: this olive arch thievery is only the beginning of the

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Speaker 2: problems with the idea. However, a bitcoin strategic reserve means

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Speaker 2: funneling trillions into a famously volatile asset. In twenty twenty

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Speaker 2: one alone, bitcoin surge from thirty thousand dollars a coin

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Speaker 2: to sixty nine thousand dollars a coin, before crashing back

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Speaker 2: down to thirty thousand dollars. The idea of setting up

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Speaker 2: a strategic reserve with an asset that can lose half

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Speaker 2: its value in a matter of weeks is truly insane

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Speaker 2: and contrary to bitcoin lore that it could serve as

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Speaker 2: a significant store of value, function and effect as a currency.

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Speaker 2: In reality, it has been nothing more than a speculative

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Speaker 2: and non productive asset. Somewhere around twenty percent of the

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Speaker 2: whole market has been lost for good. The primary use

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Speaker 2: outside of speculation appears to be mostly for money laundering,

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Speaker 2: drug dealing, and human trafficking. Why should the US government

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Speaker 2: spend real money on a digital casino instead of I

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Speaker 2: don't know, healthcare, education, infrastructure. The amount of risk involved

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Speaker 2: is honestly wild, and to be truthful, it's only escalating.

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Speaker 2: In fact, the advance of quantum computers has raised concerns

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Speaker 2: among crypto enthusiasts that these unfathomably powerful computers could be

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Speaker 2: used to crack the blockchain encryption on which cryptosecurity relies. Google,

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Speaker 2: you may have heard this, recently announced that its quantum

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Speaker 2: computer Willow, successfully completed a problem that would take current

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Speaker 2: supercomputers four years to solve than the entire age of

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Speaker 2: the universe. That breakthrough a loan created enough fear in

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Speaker 2: the crypto markets that it sparked a one point seven

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Speaker 2: billion dollar digital asset selloff. There's also a risk that,

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Speaker 2: is technology advances, bitcoin just simply becomes obsolete, surpassed by

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Speaker 2: superior technologies that evolve in the space, effectively rendering this

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Speaker 2: particular scheme worthless. After all, there is nothing particularly special

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Speaker 2: or durable about Bitcoin was just the first mover in

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Speaker 2: the field and is the most well known. Think of

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Speaker 2: it this way, of all the things the government could buy,

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Speaker 2: of all the prices it could artificially boost, which is

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Speaker 2: what this is, there is no good reason to pick

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Speaker 2: bitcoin outside of a desire to funnel trillions to your

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Speaker 2: campaign supporters. So basically, a bitcoin strategic reserve is a

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Speaker 2: world historic billionaire giveaway. Puts trillions of taxpayer dollars at risk,

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Speaker 2: and unlike reserves of physical goods, which can be kept

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Speaker 2: secure through physical security runs the risk of outright theft from.

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Speaker 1: High tech hackers.

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Speaker 2: What could possibly go wrong? As if that isn't enough,

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Speaker 2: creating a bitcoin strategic reserve is a massive step towards

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Speaker 2: further integrating bitcoin into the regular financial system, and this

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Speaker 2: is one of the major product projects of the incoming

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Speaker 2: Trump administration, based on his statements and based on staffing decisions,

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Speaker 2: a project that federal regulators in two new reports are

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Speaker 2: already sounding the alarm over so the Federal Reserve Bank

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Speaker 2: of New York. They are warning that the increasingly common

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Speaker 2: use of loans to finance crypto purchases has created a

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Speaker 2: lot of exposure throughout the entire financial system. Meanwhile, the

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Speaker 2: Office of Financial Research, another government agency, found a link

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Speaker 2: between crypto holdings and home and auto loans, in indication

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Speaker 2: that low income households are using crypto gains to take

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Speaker 2: out larger mortgages and finance more expensive cars, situation that

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Speaker 2: again could lead to disaster in the event of another

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Speaker 2: crypto crash. Previous downturns, that damage was pretty relatively limited,

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Speaker 2: relatively contained to just a few uniquely vulnerable banks and

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Speaker 2: of course the crypto holders themselves. Next time it could

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Speaker 2: be much more like the cascade effect that we all

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Speaker 2: move through back in two thousand and eight. In contrary

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Speaker 2: to libertarian propaganda, the crypto industry's goal in Washington is

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Speaker 2: to join the big Wall Street players, and being too

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Speaker 2: big to fail, they look set to get their wish

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Speaker 2: based on Trump administration picks. SEC chair currently is Gary Gensler,

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Speaker 2: He's been serious about regulating crypto while he is out. Instead,

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Speaker 2: Trump has picked Paul Atkins, a crypto booster who blamed

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Speaker 2: US regulators for ftx's collapse. Instead of you know, brazen fraud.

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Speaker 2: For Treasury, Trump picked Howard Lutnick. He's another crypto friendly

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Speaker 2: type whose firm has been a leader in allowing clients

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Speaker 2: to use bitcoin as collateral for loans, and Trump's aion

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Speaker 2: cryptos are David Sachs is part of the PayPal mafia

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Speaker 2: who believes that crypto will fulfill PayPal's desire to create

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Speaker 2: the quote new world currency. Strange goal, I would say

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Speaker 2: for an administration that is supposed to be America first,

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Speaker 2: And indeed, the use case that actually makes the most

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Speaker 2: sense to be for a crypto reserve is not for

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Speaker 2: the US, but for countries around the world. Who would

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Speaker 2: like to undermine US dollar head domeny and evade sanctions.

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Speaker 2: In fact, that is exactly what is fueling Putin's current

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Speaker 2: interest in bitcoin, and is the concern Trump was gesturing

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Speaker 2: at when he originally called crypto a scam to undermine

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Speaker 2: the dollar. But for us, there seems to be nothing

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Speaker 2: resembling a reasonable rationale. It's just all a smash and

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Speaker 2: grab operation to loot the public purse and further enrich

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Speaker 2: the already wealthy so Sager Strategic Bitcoin Reserve program.

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Speaker 1: And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,

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Speaker 1: become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com. Very

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Speaker 1: excited now to be joined by Scott Horton. He's the

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Speaker 1: author of an incredible new book. Let's put that beautiful

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Speaker 1: book jacket up there on the screen. What have we

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Speaker 1: got provoked? How Washington started the new Cold War with

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Speaker 1: Russia and the catastrophe in Ukraine. And even just looking

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Speaker 1: at this book, at this tome, I would say in

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Speaker 1: a good way, because it's extremely well researched and so detailed.

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Speaker 1: We have quotes up at the top. The most important

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Speaker 1: one to me is detailed by Professor John Meersheimer a

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Speaker 1: personal hero of mine as long as as well as

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Speaker 1: Scott now because of so much of his work. So Scott,

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Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us.

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Speaker 3: We appreciate you, very happy to be here. Good morning

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Speaker 3: to both of you.

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Speaker 1: Morning. And so Scott, tell us a little bit about

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Speaker 1: what inspired the book with the War in Ukraine, but

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Speaker 1: why you decided to put it out now, and in

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Speaker 1: particular some of the background in the history that a

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Speaker 1: lot of the American public may be unaware of whenever

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Speaker 1: it comes to the War in Ukraine.

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Speaker 5: Well, you know, I've been doing radio since ninety eight,

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Speaker 5: and I've been working with anti war dot Com since

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Speaker 5: about two thousand and four. And so just like with

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Speaker 5: my previous book enough already on the Middle East Wars,

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Speaker 5: and now with this one, I think what I bring

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Speaker 5: in terms of comparative advantage is just that I'm so

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Speaker 5: old now and I've been doing this for so long

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Speaker 5: in a row that I have continuity in the story.

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Speaker 5: I can tell the story all the way through, and

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Speaker 5: so a lot of times you can find some really

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Speaker 5: good commentary about different aspects of it. But I wanted

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Speaker 5: to take you from hw Bush and the end of

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Speaker 5: the Last Cold war and show essentially how American imperial

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Speaker 5: hubris led us straight to the path of future confrontation

436
00:22:06,960 --> 00:22:10,080
Speaker 5: with the Russian Federation and were really amounted to a

437
00:22:10,080 --> 00:22:12,640
Speaker 5: self fulfilling prophecy since the very same people who did

438
00:22:12,640 --> 00:22:14,960
Speaker 5: it were the very same people who warned what would

439
00:22:14,960 --> 00:22:17,280
Speaker 5: happen if they were allowed to do what they wanted

440
00:22:17,320 --> 00:22:17,560
Speaker 5: to do.

441
00:22:17,960 --> 00:22:18,200
Speaker 1: Yeah.

442
00:22:18,240 --> 00:22:21,240
Speaker 2: Well, the book title itself is a rebuke of the

443
00:22:21,480 --> 00:22:24,119
Speaker 2: media coverage in the narrative that has been provided to

444
00:22:24,119 --> 00:22:26,960
Speaker 2: the American people that this invasion from Russia just came

445
00:22:26,960 --> 00:22:30,320
Speaker 2: out of nowhere. It was quote unquote unprovoked. Give us

446
00:22:30,520 --> 00:22:33,639
Speaker 2: some of the highlights. Obviously, it's a lengthy book and

447
00:22:33,640 --> 00:22:35,800
Speaker 2: people need to read it to understand the full picture.

448
00:22:36,200 --> 00:22:38,960
Speaker 2: But give us some of the milestones on the road

449
00:22:39,160 --> 00:22:42,320
Speaker 2: to this quote unquote unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

450
00:22:43,200 --> 00:22:45,000
Speaker 5: Okay, Well, first of all, at the end of the

451
00:22:45,040 --> 00:22:48,040
Speaker 5: last Cold War, the Americans knew they were lying. I mean,

452
00:22:48,080 --> 00:22:50,200
Speaker 5: I really thought it was Bill Clinton, but it really

453
00:22:50,240 --> 00:22:52,720
Speaker 5: was George H. W. Bush and his team. Before Bill

454
00:22:52,760 --> 00:22:55,520
Speaker 5: Clinton ever came to town. They were telling the Russians

455
00:22:55,560 --> 00:22:57,679
Speaker 5: what they needed to hear to get them to acquiesce

456
00:22:57,720 --> 00:23:00,439
Speaker 5: to American plans. While all along they were planning on

457
00:23:00,520 --> 00:23:04,600
Speaker 5: expanding the NATO military alliance into Eastern Europe. They told

458
00:23:04,600 --> 00:23:06,760
Speaker 5: the Russians and look, we're going to have We're going

459
00:23:06,840 --> 00:23:10,399
Speaker 5: to use what had already existed since seventy five, the

460
00:23:10,440 --> 00:23:13,240
Speaker 5: Conference on Security and Cooperation Europe now known as the

461
00:23:13,440 --> 00:23:17,359
Speaker 5: Organization the OSSEE. We're going to use that, and we

462
00:23:17,400 --> 00:23:19,560
Speaker 5: won't have an alliance anymore because there's no enemy. So

463
00:23:19,600 --> 00:23:22,960
Speaker 5: we'll have a security partnership and you and Ukraine and

464
00:23:23,000 --> 00:23:25,359
Speaker 5: the rest will all be members of it together with us.

465
00:23:25,880 --> 00:23:27,680
Speaker 3: And so this was the promise.

466
00:23:27,720 --> 00:23:31,159
Speaker 5: And you know, as long as NATO was a military alliance,

467
00:23:31,240 --> 00:23:33,199
Speaker 5: they promised not to expand to east. And I know

468
00:23:33,240 --> 00:23:36,840
Speaker 5: that's disputed, but I'm right about it. And you can

469
00:23:37,440 --> 00:23:40,159
Speaker 5: check my notes in the book and see the argument.

470
00:23:40,280 --> 00:23:42,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've gone through I've gone through it as well. Yeah, no, continue, continue,

471
00:23:42,840 --> 00:23:44,159
Speaker 1: you're absolutely though so.

472
00:23:44,359 --> 00:23:47,080
Speaker 5: And then in the Bill Clinton years, you had the

473
00:23:47,119 --> 00:23:51,080
Speaker 5: shock therapy economic policy, you had the Balkan wars in

474
00:23:51,200 --> 00:23:55,119
Speaker 5: Bosnia and in Kosovo, and then you had the NATO

475
00:23:55,200 --> 00:23:59,000
Speaker 5: expansion and really was I think three weeks after the

476
00:23:59,080 --> 00:24:02,879
Speaker 5: ink was dry on the new NATO expansion Treaty, they

477
00:24:02,960 --> 00:24:06,560
Speaker 5: launched the war against Serbia, which was over Russia's dead body.

478
00:24:06,640 --> 00:24:08,040
Speaker 3: Basically Boris Yeltsen.

479
00:24:08,160 --> 00:24:10,159
Speaker 5: His entire government had a fit over it, but there

480
00:24:10,200 --> 00:24:12,399
Speaker 5: was essentially nothing they could do about it. Then w

481
00:24:12,520 --> 00:24:15,480
Speaker 5: Bush comes to town, and you know, Putin is new too.

482
00:24:15,560 --> 00:24:18,359
Speaker 5: Putin's been in power for a year. Bush is also

483
00:24:18,400 --> 00:24:20,359
Speaker 5: brand new, and so they sort of try to do

484
00:24:20,400 --> 00:24:21,000
Speaker 5: a reset.

485
00:24:21,240 --> 00:24:22,760
Speaker 3: Putin calls Bush.

486
00:24:22,840 --> 00:24:25,359
Speaker 5: He's the first foreign leader called Bush on September eleventh,

487
00:24:25,400 --> 00:24:27,440
Speaker 5: But just a couple of months later, Bush tears up

488
00:24:27,840 --> 00:24:33,560
Speaker 5: the for me, the Anti Ballistic Missletry, the ABM Treaty,

489
00:24:33,760 --> 00:24:36,080
Speaker 5: and in effect also tore up the start to Treaty,

490
00:24:36,080 --> 00:24:38,479
Speaker 5: which hadn't been ratified yet but was in process, and

491
00:24:38,520 --> 00:24:42,240
Speaker 5: that start to Treaty, his father's treaty would have banned

492
00:24:42,320 --> 00:24:46,360
Speaker 5: multiple independently targetable re entry vehicles, which matters a lot,

493
00:24:46,440 --> 00:24:50,080
Speaker 5: but anyway. Bush also did the Color Code of revolutions

494
00:24:50,560 --> 00:24:54,800
Speaker 5: and including over through the government of Ukraine in two

495
00:24:54,840 --> 00:24:58,520
Speaker 5: thousand and four and in two thousand and eight, over

496
00:24:58,560 --> 00:25:01,200
Speaker 5: the best advice of all of not just the Foreign

497
00:25:01,240 --> 00:25:04,560
Speaker 5: policy establishment but his own government, the National Security Council,

498
00:25:04,640 --> 00:25:08,359
Speaker 5: the CIA, the Ambassador, and all of his staff at

499
00:25:08,400 --> 00:25:11,320
Speaker 5: the embassy in Moscow, and even the Secretary of State

500
00:25:11,359 --> 00:25:15,520
Speaker 5: and Secretary of Defense Rice and Gates all told Bush

501
00:25:15,760 --> 00:25:17,639
Speaker 5: not to do it, or at least I don't know

502
00:25:17,640 --> 00:25:20,200
Speaker 5: what Rice and Gates told him, but they certainly agreed

503
00:25:20,240 --> 00:25:21,639
Speaker 5: that it was a bad idea to do it.

504
00:25:21,680 --> 00:25:23,639
Speaker 3: And we all know, we should know.

505
00:25:23,720 --> 00:25:27,080
Speaker 5: Everyone should find at WikiLeaks the yet means yet memo

506
00:25:27,440 --> 00:25:29,919
Speaker 5: by our current CIA director William Burns, who was then

507
00:25:30,040 --> 00:25:34,119
Speaker 5: w Bush's ambassador to Russia, warning Rice why not to

508
00:25:34,200 --> 00:25:36,560
Speaker 5: offer NATO membership to Ukraine. And by the way, this

509
00:25:36,680 --> 00:25:40,000
Speaker 5: whole time, even the expansionist hawks, never mind, you know,

510
00:25:40,080 --> 00:25:42,720
Speaker 5: libertarian non interventionists like me or Ron Paul or something

511
00:25:42,760 --> 00:25:45,840
Speaker 5: like that, but even people like Brazinski and Kissinger, who

512
00:25:45,880 --> 00:25:49,560
Speaker 5: were out front in pushing foreign NATO expansion, had always

513
00:25:49,560 --> 00:25:51,679
Speaker 5: said all along, well, of course, we'll have to make

514
00:25:51,720 --> 00:25:54,800
Speaker 5: a special case for Ukraine. We'll have to ensconce permanent

515
00:25:54,840 --> 00:25:56,960
Speaker 5: neutrality for Ukraine. Will have to come up with the

516
00:25:57,040 --> 00:26:02,760
Speaker 5: Vienna Austria option or you know, the Finland option for

517
00:26:02,880 --> 00:26:05,760
Speaker 5: neutrality for Ukraine, just like we had in the last

518
00:26:05,760 --> 00:26:08,440
Speaker 5: Cold War to prevent not like we had for Ukraine,

519
00:26:08,440 --> 00:26:10,080
Speaker 5: but like we had for Austria and Finland in the

520
00:26:10,119 --> 00:26:12,840
Speaker 5: last Cold War in order to prevent a fight over it,

521
00:26:12,880 --> 00:26:16,120
Speaker 5: because the country is so crucial to Russia, and even

522
00:26:16,160 --> 00:26:18,480
Speaker 5: though so many of the people, especially in the west

523
00:26:18,480 --> 00:26:21,680
Speaker 5: of the country really want out from under Russia's domination

524
00:26:21,840 --> 00:26:24,119
Speaker 5: and would rather move west. So instead of having a

525
00:26:24,160 --> 00:26:26,880
Speaker 5: fight to the death over it, we should compromise upfront.

526
00:26:27,040 --> 00:26:29,320
Speaker 3: But then they never did that. They never followed through.

527
00:26:29,440 --> 00:26:32,280
Speaker 5: Then Bush also did the anti ballistic missile systems in

528
00:26:32,400 --> 00:26:33,240
Speaker 5: Romanian Poland.

529
00:26:33,359 --> 00:26:34,439
Speaker 3: Now this sounds fine.

530
00:26:34,720 --> 00:26:37,080
Speaker 5: I don't care if my government has anti ballistic missiles

531
00:26:37,080 --> 00:26:39,600
Speaker 5: all day, right, what's the problem? It sept that there

532
00:26:39,680 --> 00:26:42,040
Speaker 5: was a reason that Nixon tried to get this treaty

533
00:26:42,119 --> 00:26:43,640
Speaker 5: done in the first place, and did get it done

534
00:26:43,680 --> 00:26:46,280
Speaker 5: in the first place, was because it's just arms racing.

535
00:26:46,560 --> 00:26:49,560
Speaker 5: The more anti ballistic missiles you make, the more missiles

536
00:26:49,560 --> 00:26:51,880
Speaker 5: I make, and vice versa the other way. At that time,

537
00:26:51,880 --> 00:26:54,159
Speaker 5: we already had tens of thousands of h bombs and

538
00:26:54,400 --> 00:26:57,920
Speaker 5: ICBMs on each side. There's no point in continuing to escalate.

539
00:26:58,200 --> 00:27:01,679
Speaker 5: And as we can see, when Bush installed the anti

540
00:27:01,720 --> 00:27:04,680
Speaker 5: ballistic missile systems, the Russians just increased their number of

541
00:27:04,680 --> 00:27:07,840
Speaker 5: offensive missiles. Rather than try to reciprocate with their own

542
00:27:07,920 --> 00:27:11,880
Speaker 5: super expensive and unworkable design, they just made more offensive missiles.

543
00:27:12,200 --> 00:27:14,760
Speaker 5: But there's another problem, which is their launched from dual

544
00:27:14,880 --> 00:27:17,720
Speaker 5: use launchers, the MK forty one or the Mark forty

545
00:27:17,760 --> 00:27:20,920
Speaker 5: one missile launcher, which can also host Tomahawk cruise missiles,

546
00:27:21,000 --> 00:27:23,560
Speaker 5: which can be tipped with hydrogen bombs. And this is

547
00:27:23,720 --> 00:27:28,440
Speaker 5: of course in violation of Bill Clinton's promises in the

548
00:27:28,480 --> 00:27:30,719
Speaker 5: Founding Act of nineteen ninety seven, where he said, yes,

549
00:27:30,720 --> 00:27:33,000
Speaker 5: we're going to expand NATO further east, but we promise

550
00:27:33,080 --> 00:27:34,800
Speaker 5: not to move our military equipment in there.

551
00:27:34,880 --> 00:27:35,960
Speaker 3: But then he did anyway.

552
00:27:36,040 --> 00:27:39,040
Speaker 5: Oh, I said substantial, and I don't count this as substantial,

553
00:27:39,080 --> 00:27:41,600
Speaker 5: he said. But this is a real problem because it

554
00:27:42,680 --> 00:27:46,520
Speaker 5: was in essence tearing up the inf Treaty, or at

555
00:27:46,600 --> 00:27:49,360
Speaker 5: least violating the spirit of it and putting it in jeopardy.

556
00:27:49,359 --> 00:27:51,520
Speaker 5: And this was Ronald Reagan's Great Treaty from nineteen eighty

557
00:27:51,560 --> 00:27:54,800
Speaker 5: seven that kept all short and medium range missiles out

558
00:27:54,840 --> 00:27:55,400
Speaker 5: of Europe.

559
00:27:55,520 --> 00:27:56,600
Speaker 3: We saw nuclear.

560
00:27:56,320 --> 00:28:00,200
Speaker 5: Bombs there, but only air delivered airplane delivered bomb. We

561
00:28:00,240 --> 00:28:03,359
Speaker 5: have no nuclear missiles in Europe, and that could change

562
00:28:03,400 --> 00:28:06,040
Speaker 5: now because the inf Treaty is dead, and it was

563
00:28:06,080 --> 00:28:08,880
Speaker 5: actually Donald Trump who finally tore it up his last

564
00:28:08,960 --> 00:28:12,280
Speaker 5: year in office. Then Barack Obama comes in, and there's

565
00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:14,159
Speaker 5: a lot to it. Of course, the war in Libya

566
00:28:14,240 --> 00:28:17,920
Speaker 5: is a huge one, another aggressive war by NATO, going

567
00:28:17,960 --> 00:28:21,240
Speaker 5: around the UN Security Council again to do that. But

568
00:28:21,480 --> 00:28:24,480
Speaker 5: the worst thing of it all was the Maidan Revolution,

569
00:28:24,600 --> 00:28:27,600
Speaker 5: the so called Revolution of Dignity in twenty fourteen. And

570
00:28:27,640 --> 00:28:30,359
Speaker 5: people say, oh, you're denying the agency of the people

571
00:28:30,400 --> 00:28:32,560
Speaker 5: on the ground. Well, look, I mean the reality is

572
00:28:32,640 --> 00:28:35,040
Speaker 5: Ukraine is a small, poor country and America is the

573
00:28:35,040 --> 00:28:38,800
Speaker 5: global superpower. So when the Empire drops a few tens

574
00:28:38,880 --> 00:28:41,440
Speaker 5: or hundreds of millions of dollars into your protest movement,

575
00:28:41,680 --> 00:28:42,760
Speaker 5: that makes all the difference.

576
00:28:42,960 --> 00:28:43,720
Speaker 3: Just imagine for.

577
00:28:44,080 --> 00:28:48,040
Speaker 5: One moment the occupy movement of a decade ago or

578
00:28:48,760 --> 00:28:52,800
Speaker 5: January sixth, only now you have Chinese or Russian agents

579
00:28:52,840 --> 00:28:56,960
Speaker 5: out there with, you know, supplying. Not just everybody focuses

580
00:28:57,000 --> 00:28:59,240
Speaker 5: on the sandwiches and cookies. It's not that new one

581
00:28:59,280 --> 00:29:01,400
Speaker 5: was there passing out cookies. It's that what was she

582
00:29:01,480 --> 00:29:04,280
Speaker 5: doing there at all? She was there blatantly supporting the

583
00:29:04,320 --> 00:29:07,280
Speaker 5: revolution and telling the people America's on your side. She

584
00:29:07,320 --> 00:29:10,280
Speaker 5: had Senators Chris Murphy and John McCain with her, and

585
00:29:10,720 --> 00:29:13,360
Speaker 5: they spent tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars

586
00:29:13,440 --> 00:29:16,600
Speaker 5: on the NGOs that supported the entire carnival to keep

587
00:29:16,600 --> 00:29:19,520
Speaker 5: the thing going for three solid months until they could

588
00:29:19,520 --> 00:29:23,640
Speaker 5: get there. First their deal to force the president to

589
00:29:23,680 --> 00:29:27,240
Speaker 5: agree to new elections, which led to the street puts out,

590
00:29:27,280 --> 00:29:30,400
Speaker 5: which was accomplished by local Nazi forces on the ground.

591
00:29:30,520 --> 00:29:33,000
Speaker 5: And this is another one that's important, and I go through.

592
00:29:33,040 --> 00:29:35,720
Speaker 5: I beat this dead horse beyond any reason in the book,

593
00:29:35,960 --> 00:29:37,440
Speaker 5: so I know the burden of proof is on me.

594
00:29:37,760 --> 00:29:41,120
Speaker 5: I know everyone says that this is all just Russian propaganda,

595
00:29:41,280 --> 00:29:42,880
Speaker 5: but I think we all. If you went to a

596
00:29:42,960 --> 00:29:45,800
Speaker 5: government school, even in my era, then you probably have

597
00:29:45,920 --> 00:29:49,000
Speaker 5: heard of the fact that when the Nazis invaded the

598
00:29:49,040 --> 00:29:52,760
Speaker 5: Soviet Union, some people in the border countries welcomed them.

599
00:29:52,880 --> 00:29:54,040
Speaker 3: Yes, because they'd been.

600
00:29:54,000 --> 00:29:56,800
Speaker 5: Enslaved under Soviet Communism is the worst thing that ever

601
00:29:56,840 --> 00:29:59,200
Speaker 5: happened to them. And when the Nazis came, some people

602
00:29:59,280 --> 00:30:02,400
Speaker 5: sided with them, and that includes in Ukraine. But the

603
00:30:02,400 --> 00:30:04,920
Speaker 5: people who sided with the Nazis in Ukraine, they were

604
00:30:05,040 --> 00:30:08,680
Speaker 5: really bad guys. It wasn't just oh people from out West,

605
00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:14,240
Speaker 5: they were already Nazis. The people there were already organized

606
00:30:14,240 --> 00:30:16,680
Speaker 5: groups of Nazis that came and swore their loyalty to

607
00:30:16,760 --> 00:30:19,800
Speaker 5: Hitler and served him in the war. Then those same

608
00:30:19,840 --> 00:30:22,960
Speaker 5: forces were supported by the CIA during the Cold War

609
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:24,920
Speaker 5: through the end of the nineteen fifties as part of

610
00:30:24,920 --> 00:30:27,760
Speaker 5: a stay behind type operation. People are probably familiar with

611
00:30:27,760 --> 00:30:30,240
Speaker 5: Gladio that's in Western Europe, but this is the same

612
00:30:30,360 --> 00:30:35,240
Speaker 5: kind of thing, supporting stay behind forces during the Cold War.

613
00:30:35,560 --> 00:30:39,680
Speaker 5: And then after that the fighting fell apart and ended

614
00:30:39,880 --> 00:30:44,400
Speaker 5: in the fifties America, the CIA and whatever still supported

615
00:30:44,600 --> 00:30:48,320
Speaker 5: all the Ukrainian exile groups in the United States and Canada,

616
00:30:48,680 --> 00:30:52,080
Speaker 5: many of which were founded by Nazi exiles and expats

617
00:30:52,200 --> 00:30:55,120
Speaker 5: who had escaped after World War Two, and then even

618
00:30:55,160 --> 00:30:58,360
Speaker 5: beginning in the eighties with Glasnos and Perstroika, but especially

619
00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:00,800
Speaker 5: in the nineties and then after two thousand and four,

620
00:31:01,600 --> 00:31:04,600
Speaker 5: uh these groups poured a ton of money in to

621
00:31:04,880 --> 00:31:08,120
Speaker 5: re establish all these Nazi militias and to rewrite the

622
00:31:08,120 --> 00:31:10,479
Speaker 5: whole history of Ukraine, to try to make George Washington

623
00:31:10,520 --> 00:31:12,680
Speaker 5: and Nathaniel Green out of these guys because they had

624
00:31:12,720 --> 00:31:14,840
Speaker 5: no real heroes to be the founders of their state.

625
00:31:15,080 --> 00:31:17,400
Speaker 5: So their heroes are a bunch of Hitler's servant Nazis.

626
00:31:17,680 --> 00:31:23,040
Speaker 5: All the costs perpetrating Nazis are the groups that did

627
00:31:23,080 --> 00:31:26,000
Speaker 5: the putsch that overthrew the government in twenty fourteen and

628
00:31:26,040 --> 00:31:28,600
Speaker 5: then were put to use fighting the people of the

629
00:31:28,640 --> 00:31:31,240
Speaker 5: East when they refused to accept the new ku junta

630
00:31:32,160 --> 00:31:34,120
Speaker 5: in the war, and the Dawnbass when it broke out.

631
00:31:34,440 --> 00:31:38,400
Speaker 5: So I'll skip Trump and rush Agate for a minute,

632
00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:40,000
Speaker 5: but we all and I'll just say this about Trump,

633
00:31:40,560 --> 00:31:42,719
Speaker 5: his own government told the New York Times. You can

634
00:31:42,760 --> 00:31:44,560
Speaker 5: read it Keith Guessing and the New York Times. The

635
00:31:44,640 --> 00:31:47,360
Speaker 5: Quiet Americans is the article, and they say Donald Trump

636
00:31:47,400 --> 00:31:49,719
Speaker 5: is like the captain of a ship. He's holding the wheel,

637
00:31:49,920 --> 00:31:53,600
Speaker 5: but it's not attached to anything. And so there was

638
00:31:53,720 --> 00:31:56,040
Speaker 5: his government had their own Russia policies. We saw with

639
00:31:56,080 --> 00:31:59,760
Speaker 5: the impeachment and all that. But then I'm rambling on.

640
00:32:00,200 --> 00:32:02,880
Speaker 5: Wrap this up here. In the year twenty twenty one,

641
00:32:03,440 --> 00:32:07,200
Speaker 5: Joe Biden's first year in office, he came in and this.

642
00:32:07,280 --> 00:32:09,520
Speaker 3: Is just his basic psychology. It's also the.

643
00:32:09,440 --> 00:32:13,080
Speaker 5: Way the entire empire thinks to everything is a simple

644
00:32:13,200 --> 00:32:16,200
Speaker 5: historical analogy, because none of them ever really read anything

645
00:32:16,280 --> 00:32:18,360
Speaker 5: or know anything, so they always go for these simple

646
00:32:18,480 --> 00:32:22,760
Speaker 5: historical claims. And Joe Biden's you know, framework for understanding

647
00:32:22,760 --> 00:32:26,200
Speaker 5: the entire situation was putin is Hitler and he's Winston Churchill.

648
00:32:26,600 --> 00:32:28,440
Speaker 5: And what you do with bullies is you punch them

649
00:32:28,440 --> 00:32:29,840
Speaker 5: in the nose and you force them to back down,

650
00:32:29,840 --> 00:32:31,200
Speaker 5: and you always stand up to them, and this and

651
00:32:31,200 --> 00:32:34,360
Speaker 5: that and the other thing. But you know, over at Harvard,

652
00:32:34,440 --> 00:32:37,479
Speaker 5: Stephen Waltz said, actually you're applying the wrong model. This

653
00:32:37,520 --> 00:32:39,560
Speaker 5: is like, you know, these guys that winch of Georgetown

654
00:32:39,600 --> 00:32:43,520
Speaker 5: and where they have, you know, the textbook formulas already

655
00:32:43,560 --> 00:32:45,400
Speaker 5: for this stuff. And he says, look, you're going on

656
00:32:45,440 --> 00:32:47,720
Speaker 5: the Hitler appeasement model, but you shouldn't be. You should

657
00:32:47,720 --> 00:32:50,360
Speaker 5: be going on the other page is the spiral model,

658
00:32:50,760 --> 00:32:54,680
Speaker 5: where the other side actually has real concerns and you could, yes,

659
00:32:55,280 --> 00:32:59,760
Speaker 5: appease them to use a bad word to prevent a

660
00:32:59,760 --> 00:33:02,320
Speaker 5: word crisis from breaking out, and it wouldn't be the

661
00:33:02,320 --> 00:33:05,120
Speaker 5: wrong thing to do, particularly when a country like Ukraine

662
00:33:05,320 --> 00:33:07,959
Speaker 5: is so much more important to Russia than it is

663
00:33:07,960 --> 00:33:10,520
Speaker 5: to the United States. And so but they refused to

664
00:33:10,520 --> 00:33:12,360
Speaker 5: look at it that way. They looked at it in

665
00:33:12,360 --> 00:33:15,720
Speaker 5: fact that you see, Biden did nothing but escalate more arms.

666
00:33:15,880 --> 00:33:18,600
Speaker 5: He had the State Department and Defense Department promise further

667
00:33:18,640 --> 00:33:22,720
Speaker 5: integration in to NATO and interoperability with our military. They

668
00:33:22,760 --> 00:33:26,320
Speaker 5: refused to negotiate with good faith when Putin introduced the treaty.

669
00:33:26,480 --> 00:33:29,360
Speaker 5: They talk about the treaty now like it's completely insane. Oh,

670
00:33:29,600 --> 00:33:32,000
Speaker 5: he says that we should move all our military forces

671
00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:34,520
Speaker 5: back to where there were in nineteen ninety seven. Yeah,

672
00:33:34,520 --> 00:33:36,800
Speaker 5: but that was the blood oath that Bill Clinton had

673
00:33:36,840 --> 00:33:40,240
Speaker 5: signed and promised. That's not eighteen ninety seven, that's just

674
00:33:40,360 --> 00:33:43,920
Speaker 5: nineteen ninety seven. That it wasn't exactly a treaty. I

675
00:33:43,960 --> 00:33:45,640
Speaker 5: covered this in the book. They refused to sign a

676
00:33:45,680 --> 00:33:48,240
Speaker 5: real treaty over it. But still that was the promise,

677
00:33:48,600 --> 00:33:52,040
Speaker 5: and it was not the kind of tree that America

678
00:33:52,040 --> 00:33:53,640
Speaker 5: should have just signed on the bottom line to.

679
00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:54,680
Speaker 3: But it was.

680
00:33:54,680 --> 00:33:57,360
Speaker 5: Negotiable, but the Biden government didn't want to negotiate.

681
00:33:57,400 --> 00:33:58,280
Speaker 3: And we all know why.

682
00:33:58,400 --> 00:34:01,400
Speaker 5: They said it to David Sanger, the most important establishment

683
00:34:01,440 --> 00:34:03,200
Speaker 5: guy at the New York Times out of all of them.

684
00:34:03,280 --> 00:34:06,440
Speaker 5: He wrote it in there, America seeks to lock Russia

685
00:34:06,560 --> 00:34:09,839
Speaker 5: into a long term struggle in Ukraine. If they're going

686
00:34:09,920 --> 00:34:12,560
Speaker 5: to do it, we're gonna not do whatever we can

687
00:34:12,600 --> 00:34:14,480
Speaker 5: to end the war. We're gonna do whatever we can

688
00:34:14,640 --> 00:34:17,160
Speaker 5: to extend the war to bog them down and bleed

689
00:34:17,160 --> 00:34:19,319
Speaker 5: them to bankruptcy. They in booked the Afghan model from

690
00:34:19,320 --> 00:34:22,000
Speaker 5: the nineteen eighties. Never mind the two thousands through twenty twenties.

691
00:34:22,000 --> 00:34:23,839
Speaker 5: We don't want to talk about that. The Afghan model

692
00:34:23,840 --> 00:34:26,640
Speaker 5: from the nineteen eighties where Rambo three helped the mujaiden

693
00:34:26,680 --> 00:34:29,719
Speaker 5: in al Qaeda fight against the Soviet Union proto al

694
00:34:29,800 --> 00:34:32,759
Speaker 5: Qaeda then, and so that was what led to the

695
00:34:32,800 --> 00:34:37,360
Speaker 5: war was Biden said you better not. But he refused

696
00:34:37,360 --> 00:34:41,719
Speaker 5: to negotiate in good faith or accommodate Russian legitimate security

697
00:34:41,719 --> 00:34:43,480
Speaker 5: concerns in any way whatsoever.

698
00:34:43,800 --> 00:34:45,919
Speaker 3: And let me just one more sentence here.

699
00:34:46,160 --> 00:34:49,680
Speaker 5: The book is titled Provoked, it's not titled justified. I'm

700
00:34:49,680 --> 00:34:51,520
Speaker 5: from Texas. I don't give a damn. I just said

701
00:34:51,520 --> 00:34:53,600
Speaker 5: this first. I don't give a damn about Russia. The

702
00:34:53,640 --> 00:34:56,799
Speaker 5: book is not about Russia's point of view, other than

703
00:34:57,440 --> 00:35:01,680
Speaker 5: the idea that what they call st prategic empathy, that

704
00:35:01,760 --> 00:35:04,560
Speaker 5: Americans need to understand the Russian point of view so

705
00:35:04,600 --> 00:35:06,759
Speaker 5: that we can do the smart thing for what's good

706
00:35:06,800 --> 00:35:07,640
Speaker 5: for our country.

707
00:35:07,719 --> 00:35:08,120
Speaker 3: That's it.

708
00:35:08,400 --> 00:35:11,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, Scott, let me ask you this. I'm inclined to

709
00:35:11,920 --> 00:35:15,080
Speaker 2: see things your way, and I always appreciate your analysis.

710
00:35:15,160 --> 00:35:17,600
Speaker 2: But what people will point to is, you know, on

711
00:35:17,680 --> 00:35:21,080
Speaker 2: the eve of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Putin gave

712
00:35:21,160 --> 00:35:26,600
Speaker 2: this long stem winder address and his justifications. They gestured

713
00:35:26,640 --> 00:35:28,319
Speaker 2: to some of the things that you're talking about, but

714
00:35:28,360 --> 00:35:31,160
Speaker 2: they also did sketch out this sort of like grand

715
00:35:32,040 --> 00:35:37,640
Speaker 2: vision of empire, restoring Russia to its previous greatness, you know,

716
00:35:37,640 --> 00:35:41,319
Speaker 2: from a territorial perspective, et cetera. And so that's part

717
00:35:41,320 --> 00:35:43,480
Speaker 2: of what's been used for people to say, listen, if

718
00:35:43,520 --> 00:35:45,319
Speaker 2: you don't stop in the Ukraine, he does have these

719
00:35:45,360 --> 00:35:48,800
Speaker 2: greater ambitions for others to reclaim other parts of Europe

720
00:35:48,840 --> 00:35:52,960
Speaker 2: that were previously part of the Russian Empire. What is

721
00:35:52,960 --> 00:35:55,200
Speaker 2: your response to that? Do you think that that desire

722
00:35:55,280 --> 00:35:58,560
Speaker 2: plays it all into his ambitions and is a reasonable

723
00:35:58,560 --> 00:36:01,760
Speaker 2: case for people to make on the other side, No.

724
00:36:01,640 --> 00:36:06,040
Speaker 5: I think it's overstated, essentially because what he's doing in

725
00:36:06,080 --> 00:36:11,279
Speaker 5: there is lamenting the loss of Russian populations that were

726
00:36:11,440 --> 00:36:14,839
Speaker 5: quote unquote left behind or you know, they're they're called

727
00:36:14,840 --> 00:36:20,399
Speaker 5: them a beached diaspora because their country receded and they

728
00:36:20,440 --> 00:36:24,960
Speaker 5: were left there, right. And so, but the thing is

729
00:36:25,600 --> 00:36:29,440
Speaker 5: where Russian, where ethnic Russians rights are not in jeopardy,

730
00:36:30,080 --> 00:36:34,520
Speaker 5: there's not really a conflict, right, So if you look

731
00:36:34,560 --> 00:36:36,400
Speaker 5: at it from his point of view, and you know,

732
00:36:36,480 --> 00:36:39,280
Speaker 5: even Joe Biden called them the most pro pro Western

733
00:36:39,360 --> 00:36:42,480
Speaker 5: Russian president ever, he was doing everything he could to

734
00:36:42,520 --> 00:36:45,879
Speaker 5: try to integrate with the West, with Europe, with Western

735
00:36:46,200 --> 00:36:51,680
Speaker 5: Christian civilization broadly defined, and that was of the highest importance.

736
00:36:52,280 --> 00:36:55,200
Speaker 5: And so even going back to independence in nineteen ninety one,

737
00:36:55,760 --> 00:36:58,160
Speaker 5: there was a question whether Russia might actually invade and

738
00:36:58,239 --> 00:37:01,680
Speaker 5: take the Dawn Bass and Crime back from Ukraine. Right then,

739
00:37:02,000 --> 00:37:03,960
Speaker 5: it was just the Commis who drawn the line where

740
00:37:03,960 --> 00:37:06,799
Speaker 5: they drew it back in nineteen twenty one and Khrushchev

741
00:37:07,120 --> 00:37:10,440
Speaker 5: with PRIMEA in fifty four. But they decided at the

742
00:37:10,480 --> 00:37:13,880
Speaker 5: time their relationship with the United States of America and

743
00:37:13,880 --> 00:37:16,200
Speaker 5: the rest of the West was the most important thing,

744
00:37:16,640 --> 00:37:20,120
Speaker 5: that was the priority. So the question is really what

745
00:37:20,280 --> 00:37:23,080
Speaker 5: changed Putin's calculation to make it worth it for him

746
00:37:23,080 --> 00:37:25,479
Speaker 5: to go this far. And the answer is George Bush

747
00:37:25,480 --> 00:37:27,880
Speaker 5: and Barack Obama overthrew the government in Kiev twice in

748
00:37:27,960 --> 00:37:28,560
Speaker 5: ten years.

749
00:37:28,880 --> 00:37:30,359
Speaker 3: And then Obama, I.

750
00:37:30,280 --> 00:37:32,879
Speaker 5: Mean John Brennan went to Kiev and two days later

751
00:37:32,920 --> 00:37:35,880
Speaker 5: they launched the war, and Forbes magazine everybody covered it

752
00:37:35,920 --> 00:37:38,640
Speaker 5: at the time. There's no question that was at Obama's

753
00:37:38,680 --> 00:37:42,080
Speaker 5: insistence that they launched this war, and then America supported it.

754
00:37:42,360 --> 00:37:45,680
Speaker 5: And even after our European allies had worked out the

755
00:37:45,719 --> 00:37:49,760
Speaker 5: Minsk to Peace agreement in February twenty fifteen, the American

756
00:37:49,800 --> 00:37:52,600
Speaker 5: government refused to pressure Kiev to implement it.

757
00:37:52,719 --> 00:37:53,879
Speaker 3: They tried to change the deal.

758
00:37:53,960 --> 00:37:58,239
Speaker 5: No, Russia has to leave entirely, every last soldier has

759
00:37:58,360 --> 00:38:01,680
Speaker 5: to give up even control of the Ukrainian Russian border

760
00:38:01,719 --> 00:38:04,160
Speaker 5: to Ukrainian forces first and only then will they hold

761
00:38:04,160 --> 00:38:05,160
Speaker 5: elections and all this stuff.

762
00:38:05,320 --> 00:38:07,960
Speaker 2: Well, that's the other question I have for you, Scott,

763
00:38:08,040 --> 00:38:10,400
Speaker 2: is like, did American leaders just get more stupid or

764
00:38:10,440 --> 00:38:13,279
Speaker 2: more arrogant, like because there seemed to have in the

765
00:38:13,320 --> 00:38:17,000
Speaker 2: past been more of an understanding of as you put,

766
00:38:17,080 --> 00:38:19,520
Speaker 2: Ukraine's is kind of like redline. Okay, yes we're lying,

767
00:38:19,600 --> 00:38:21,319
Speaker 2: we know we're going to expand NATO, but of course

768
00:38:21,320 --> 00:38:23,520
Speaker 2: we're not going to expand NATO to Ukraine needs to

769
00:38:23,520 --> 00:38:26,120
Speaker 2: be unaligned. This is just too important. And then somewhere

770
00:38:26,239 --> 00:38:30,440
Speaker 2: along the way that's just abandoned. So is it a

771
00:38:30,520 --> 00:38:33,799
Speaker 2: lack of knowledge, is it a lack of studying? Is

772
00:38:33,840 --> 00:38:36,680
Speaker 2: it just this sort of superpower arrogance? What do you

773
00:38:36,719 --> 00:38:39,520
Speaker 2: ascribe this decline too?

774
00:38:40,840 --> 00:38:44,920
Speaker 5: I think the fundamental dishonesty of government employees. They can

775
00:38:45,040 --> 00:38:47,440
Speaker 5: never be held accountable in any way. You know, in

776
00:38:47,440 --> 00:38:50,279
Speaker 5: private this business, you lose money, you get fired, right,

777
00:38:50,360 --> 00:38:53,600
Speaker 5: doesn't matter what your excuse is. Your division is hemorrhaging

778
00:38:53,719 --> 00:38:57,600
Speaker 5: cash flows and you're gone. In government, they're just never

779
00:38:57,640 --> 00:39:02,000
Speaker 5: accountable for anything. I think, you know Sager mentioned John Mehersheimer.

780
00:39:02,080 --> 00:39:04,600
Speaker 5: I think he gets this right. You know, it's better

781
00:39:04,640 --> 00:39:09,120
Speaker 5: than anyone. Is that What really happened was when the

782
00:39:09,160 --> 00:39:12,320
Speaker 5: revolution blew up in their face and they lost Crimea

783
00:39:12,520 --> 00:39:17,400
Speaker 5: in twenty fourteen. Then they invented this whole narrative about

784
00:39:17,400 --> 00:39:20,239
Speaker 5: how Putin wants to recreate the Empire and recreate the

785
00:39:20,239 --> 00:39:23,759
Speaker 5: Soviet Union, and that you know, only America can stop

786
00:39:23,840 --> 00:39:25,680
Speaker 5: him now and all of this stuff, because otherwise they

787
00:39:25,719 --> 00:39:29,279
Speaker 5: would have to admit that their plan backfire if you

788
00:39:29,320 --> 00:39:33,600
Speaker 5: listen to the Newland Piot phone call where they're planning

789
00:39:33,600 --> 00:39:36,480
Speaker 5: who should be the new prime minister and stage managing

790
00:39:36,719 --> 00:39:38,720
Speaker 5: the entire you know, protest movement.

791
00:39:39,040 --> 00:39:40,120
Speaker 3: Essentially what they.

792
00:39:39,960 --> 00:39:41,799
Speaker 5: Say, they go, we got to glue it, we got

793
00:39:41,800 --> 00:39:44,359
Speaker 5: to stick it, we got to midwife it, we got

794
00:39:44,360 --> 00:39:46,799
Speaker 5: to make it sale. We got to push this thing

795
00:39:46,920 --> 00:39:49,480
Speaker 5: through before Putin can torpedo it.

796
00:39:50,320 --> 00:39:50,520
Speaker 3: Right.

797
00:39:50,600 --> 00:39:53,160
Speaker 5: They know that they're smart, they know they're getting away

798
00:39:53,160 --> 00:39:54,160
Speaker 5: with it, but they don't get away with it.

799
00:39:54,280 --> 00:39:56,480
Speaker 3: Doesn't work. As soon as they overthrow the government.

800
00:39:56,520 --> 00:39:59,680
Speaker 5: There the previous three presidents sign a letter saying now's

801
00:39:59,680 --> 00:40:02,239
Speaker 5: the time to kick the Russians out of the Sevestipol

802
00:40:02,320 --> 00:40:05,440
Speaker 5: naval base, cancel the Arkiev pack, and kick the Black

803
00:40:05,480 --> 00:40:09,040
Speaker 5: Sea Fleet out of Crimea. And so Putin said, actually no,

804
00:40:09,719 --> 00:40:11,760
Speaker 5: and he told his sailors and marines to go outside

805
00:40:11,800 --> 00:40:13,839
Speaker 5: and stand on street corners and a big coupde maine

806
00:40:13,880 --> 00:40:14,879
Speaker 5: and seize the thing.

807
00:40:15,360 --> 00:40:18,880
Speaker 3: But again he didn't do that until America forced the issue.

808
00:40:19,480 --> 00:40:22,280
Speaker 5: So even if he woke up every morning really lamenting

809
00:40:22,360 --> 00:40:27,680
Speaker 5: the fact that the far eastern regions of Ukraine were

810
00:40:27,719 --> 00:40:30,640
Speaker 5: no longer part of the Russian Empire, for him to

811
00:40:30,680 --> 00:40:32,920
Speaker 5: go so far as to launch a war over It

812
00:40:33,040 --> 00:40:36,759
Speaker 5: was not based on romantic notions, but was based on,

813
00:40:37,160 --> 00:40:41,200
Speaker 5: as he explained in his declarations of war, legitimate security concerns. Again,

814
00:40:41,239 --> 00:40:44,200
Speaker 5: I'm not saying enough that I would agree to justify

815
00:40:44,400 --> 00:40:46,680
Speaker 5: what he did. But when he talked about listen, if

816
00:40:46,680 --> 00:40:50,439
Speaker 5: you put these same missile launchers in Arkiv, then you'll

817
00:40:50,440 --> 00:40:54,000
Speaker 5: have h bomb's ten minutes from Moscow or less.

818
00:40:54,640 --> 00:40:56,000
Speaker 3: If he said there is.

819
00:40:56,120 --> 00:40:58,279
Speaker 5: He said this numerous times, but in a dispute with

820
00:40:58,320 --> 00:41:01,720
Speaker 5: a back and forth with a French he started yelling

821
00:41:01,719 --> 00:41:06,280
Speaker 5: at her and he said, listening, lady, if Ukraine joins NATO,

822
00:41:07,480 --> 00:41:10,360
Speaker 5: you guys all say that Crimea still belongs to Ukraine,

823
00:41:10,719 --> 00:41:13,359
Speaker 5: but I say belongs to Russia. So that means if

824
00:41:13,400 --> 00:41:16,799
Speaker 5: they attack Crimea and my forces in Crimea and I

825
00:41:16,880 --> 00:41:20,440
Speaker 5: defend Crimea, you're gonna say that I'm the aggressor and

826
00:41:20,560 --> 00:41:22,720
Speaker 5: kick in Article five and then we go to nuclear

827
00:41:22,760 --> 00:41:24,359
Speaker 5: war and we all die. Do you want to war

828
00:41:24,440 --> 00:41:27,200
Speaker 5: between Russia and France because that's what you're talking about?

829
00:41:27,520 --> 00:41:30,880
Speaker 5: And the lady goes, uh, yeah. When you put it

830
00:41:30,960 --> 00:41:33,200
Speaker 5: like that, it really doesn't make much sense. That's why

831
00:41:33,239 --> 00:41:36,040
Speaker 5: it's against American law, and it's against the NATO treaty

832
00:41:36,040 --> 00:41:37,880
Speaker 5: to bring in a new member that has an ongoing

833
00:41:37,880 --> 00:41:41,080
Speaker 5: border dispute, because it's exactly the kind of conflict that

834
00:41:41,120 --> 00:41:43,520
Speaker 5: you want to avoid. And anyone could just look at

835
00:41:43,520 --> 00:41:45,759
Speaker 5: the map of Europe. We got no business the North

836
00:41:45,800 --> 00:41:50,239
Speaker 5: Atlantic Treaty Organization on the northeastern coast of the Black Sea.

837
00:41:51,000 --> 00:41:53,040
Speaker 5: I mean, you thought Turkey was pushing it. At least

838
00:41:53,080 --> 00:41:55,799
Speaker 5: they're in the med and this makes no sense. And

839
00:41:55,840 --> 00:41:58,239
Speaker 5: by the way, you know, I quote in my book

840
00:41:58,280 --> 00:41:59,759
Speaker 5: to ruin the book for everyone. At the end of

841
00:41:59,760 --> 00:42:03,680
Speaker 5: the I quote Robert Kagan himself, Victoria Neulan's husband, saying,

842
00:42:03,719 --> 00:42:06,200
Speaker 5: you know what, on second thought, Ukraine doesn't matter to

843
00:42:06,239 --> 00:42:09,680
Speaker 5: America at all. The Soviet Union occupied it that whole

844
00:42:09,680 --> 00:42:11,160
Speaker 5: time and it never bothered us.

845
00:42:11,160 --> 00:42:14,120
Speaker 3: He calls it the good old days. I heartily disagree

846
00:42:14,160 --> 00:42:14,960
Speaker 3: with that, but.

847
00:42:16,840 --> 00:42:19,640
Speaker 5: He's right that, no, it does not matter who has

848
00:42:19,719 --> 00:42:24,280
Speaker 5: sovereignty ultimately over the Donbass and Nova Rossia and Crimea

849
00:42:24,360 --> 00:42:27,560
Speaker 5: at all. And as far as the disruption to the

850
00:42:27,560 --> 00:42:30,560
Speaker 5: global rules based liberal world order, well that's just a

851
00:42:30,600 --> 00:42:33,200
Speaker 5: bunch of crap. That's a euphemism for the world Empire.

852
00:42:34,560 --> 00:42:37,600
Speaker 5: Seen that is to break the law whenever they want.

853
00:42:37,640 --> 00:42:40,239
Speaker 5: They want to break off Kosovo from Serbia, they can

854
00:42:40,280 --> 00:42:42,040
Speaker 5: do that if they want to break off South Sudan,

855
00:42:42,200 --> 00:42:44,920
Speaker 5: or if they want to break off northern western Sahara,

856
00:42:45,200 --> 00:42:46,880
Speaker 5: if they want to give the gol On Heights to

857
00:42:46,960 --> 00:42:49,880
Speaker 5: Israel and do whatever they want. Oh, but you know,

858
00:42:49,960 --> 00:42:52,200
Speaker 5: in this case it's different because it's not the Americans

859
00:42:52,280 --> 00:42:52,600
Speaker 5: doing it.

860
00:42:52,960 --> 00:42:55,440
Speaker 1: There you go, Scott, where fortunately we have to go

861
00:42:55,840 --> 00:42:57,879
Speaker 1: to be able to wrap the show. Highly recommend the book.

862
00:42:57,880 --> 00:43:00,000
Speaker 1: As you guys can tell, Scott is a walking psychopace,

863
00:43:00,560 --> 00:43:03,359
Speaker 1: even more encyclopedic in this guy so provoked. We're all

864
00:43:03,400 --> 00:43:05,960
Speaker 1: the link down in the description and we hope to

865
00:43:05,960 --> 00:43:06,480
Speaker 1: have you back soon.

866
00:43:06,520 --> 00:43:08,200
Speaker 2: Marcott, did you have to look up any of this

867
00:43:08,360 --> 00:43:10,400
Speaker 2: or it was just all right up here? Because I

868
00:43:10,440 --> 00:43:12,600
Speaker 2: get the sense you could just know I'm talking about

869
00:43:12,680 --> 00:43:14,640
Speaker 2: in your book. Yeah, yeah, I can imagine you're just

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00:43:14,680 --> 00:43:17,360
Speaker 2: writing this all out, just like head to keyboard.

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Speaker 5: The truth is it started out as a speech that

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00:43:20,239 --> 00:43:23,600
Speaker 5: I wrote in an hour in twenty twenty, and then

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00:43:23,640 --> 00:43:25,799
Speaker 5: it grew a little bit, grew a little bit.

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00:43:26,680 --> 00:43:29,320
Speaker 2: Good to see you, sir, great Scott, Thank you for

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00:43:29,360 --> 00:43:30,080
Speaker 2: your wealth of knowledge.

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00:43:30,120 --> 00:43:30,839
Speaker 1: We appreciate it.

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00:43:31,280 --> 00:43:33,080
Speaker 3: Well, appreciate you guys too, Yeah, of course.

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00:43:33,320 --> 00:43:35,920
Speaker 1: Wow, a wealth of knowledge, that's the only way to

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00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:37,880
Speaker 1: put it. Thank you guys so much for watching. We

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00:43:37,920 --> 00:43:39,720
Speaker 1: appreciate you. I have a great show for everybody tomorrow

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00:43:39,719 --> 00:43:40,239
Speaker 1: and we'll see you that