Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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Speaker 1: dot com. All right, let's get to media. Wanted to
Speaker 1: make sure we covered this important story. It's genuinely crazy
Speaker 1: some of the details. Let's put this up there on
Speaker 1: the screen. So ABC News has agreed to pay fifteen
Speaker 1: million dollars to Donald Trump's presidential library to settle a
Speaker 1: defamation lawsuit. So the reason why this is so extraordinary
Speaker 1: is that it almost never happens that you have defamation
Speaker 1: lawsuits which are settled involving public officials. The reason why
Speaker 1: is that the bar is so incredibly high to prove
Speaker 1: defamation Nonetheless, ABC News agreed to this settlement on Saturday
Speaker 1: after a quote unquote statement by George Stefanopolis that happened
Speaker 1: on ABC News some months ago with respect to the
Speaker 1: Egene Carrol case. Now, if you look actually into the details,
Speaker 1: the settlement came right before there was a deposition that
Speaker 1: was going to go through as well as discovery, which
Speaker 1: would have required Stephanopolis turning over all of his emails,
Speaker 1: deposition of all the people that were involved in the segment. Now,
Speaker 1: the reason why, again I think it's just so crazy
Speaker 1: is the fact that it even got to the deposition
Speaker 1: phase is extraordinary. Almost in every other one of these
Speaker 1: defamation cases it's thrown out, which means that the Trump
Speaker 1: people had to rise to a bar where they all
Speaker 1: at least we're able to say to a judge that
Speaker 1: they could realistically prove malicious intent on behalf of Stephanoppolos.
Speaker 1: So again, I know this is complicated and just in
Speaker 1: plain speak as public as commentators here, whenever we're talking
Speaker 1: about anybody who is a public official, especially an elected official,
Speaker 1: for them to prove defamation against us, they have to
Speaker 1: prove that not only did what we say was wrong,
Speaker 1: but that we knew it was wrong when we said it,
Speaker 1: and that we knew we were doing so specifically to
Speaker 1: harm the reputation of that individual.
Speaker 2: A slip of the tongue, right, or a slight miscap
Speaker 2: which what he said was only a slight mischaracterization of
Speaker 2: the truth. Like that is not sufficient unless you can
Speaker 2: prove what's called actual.
Speaker 1: Malice, exactly actual malice, which is I mean again, unless
Speaker 1: you basically have it in writing and be like, hey.
Speaker 2: I'm going Trump and I say that he met someone.
Speaker 1: So it's like if I text you it was like, hey,
Speaker 1: screw Donald Trump, I'm going to go on the show
Speaker 1: and say today X Y and Z, even though I
Speaker 1: know X Y and Z is false, that that is
Speaker 1: what they mostly need to destroy you. And yet they
Speaker 1: decided to settle. So two options. Either they're afraid and
Speaker 1: they decided to pay them off, or it was true.
Speaker 1: I'm starting to get to the point where at least
Speaker 1: in terms of what they had, it must have been bad,
Speaker 1: because you know, to pay fifteen million dollars to a
Speaker 1: public official as a news organization is crazy. You're supposed
Speaker 1: to fight this thing to the bitterest end to make
Speaker 1: sure that there is so I think I think you
Speaker 1: might have been guilty honestly because there's no other reason,
Speaker 1: or they're just afraid. But I mean, even when we
Speaker 1: think about quote unquote afraid, I mean think about the
Speaker 1: precedent that's being set here for defamation. That's no, that's right.
Speaker 1: That's why they must there's something in those emails that
Speaker 1: they don't ever want them.
Speaker 2: Whatever you think about this case, et cetera. And just
Speaker 2: let me just lay out what he said and what
Speaker 2: the truth is, because it shows you how sort of
Speaker 2: like nitpicky this is, and how it's an easy miss
Speaker 2: characterization for people to make. And I'm quite confident that
Speaker 2: George Defnopolis, by the way, was not the only person
Speaker 2: who is characterized it this way. So he said that
Speaker 2: a jury in a civil case found Donald Trump liable
Speaker 2: for rape and defamation. Okay, in reality, based on the
Speaker 2: New York state law at that time, the jury found
Speaker 2: him liable for sexual assault but not rape. Now, it
Speaker 2: would have met the definition of rape at the federal level,
Speaker 2: it would have met the definition of actually the newly
Speaker 2: revised definition of rape at the New York state level,
Speaker 2: but did not technically meet that definition at the time.
Speaker 2: So if he had been one hundred percent accurate with
Speaker 2: the legal standards, he would have said sexual assault and
Speaker 2: not rape. But you see how like how close that is, right,
Speaker 2: And so yeah, the assumption from anybody would be that
Speaker 2: in a defamation case, when you're considering that this is
Speaker 2: a public figure, when you're considering that even the judge
Speaker 2: in this case said that it would have by this
Speaker 2: sort of like colloquial parlance, met the definition of rape,
Speaker 2: just not by the technical New York standard, you would
Speaker 2: assume that this would be something that they would fight
Speaker 2: and that they would ultimately be victorious because the bar
Speaker 2: is so incredibly high now yours. I think you're right
Speaker 2: that there are two choices here. Number one is that
Speaker 2: they had something in Stephanoppolos's emails that was just absolutely terrible,
Speaker 2: that they didn't want to come out.
Speaker 1: Worth fifteen million bucks his annual salary, that they didn't
Speaker 1: want to come.
Speaker 2: And that they're contributing now to the Donald J. Trump
Speaker 2: Presidential Library, which also looks disgusting. But anyway, either that
Speaker 2: and or they are afraid of being at odds with
Speaker 2: Donald Trump. And I tend to put more stock into
Speaker 2: that one, because if you think about it. I mean,
Speaker 2: Trump has been quite outspoken and many of his allies
Speaker 2: quite outspoken about how they want to go up against
Speaker 2: their media critics, how they want retribution against their media critics,
Speaker 2: Steve Bannon going on and threatening Ari Melburn with some
Speaker 2: sort of investigation, imprisonment, et cetera, et cetera. So I
Speaker 2: don't think that they want to be I think this
Speaker 2: could very well be another example. Basically, like Joe and
Speaker 2: Mika making their truck down tomorrow lago, they don't want
Speaker 2: to be at war with incoming Donald Trump administration. Not
Speaker 2: only are they fearful, but they also feel like they'll
Speaker 2: be the target of attacks, whether it's some sort of
Speaker 2: investigation or just Donald Trump's verbal attacks. They'll be subject
Speaker 2: to that, they'll lose whatever access they have to the
Speaker 2: White House, and it will impinge on their ability to
Speaker 2: like break stories and do their whole thing. And so
Speaker 2: I think that there's a good likelihood as well that
Speaker 2: they just were fearful of going into this administration actively
Speaker 2: at war and in this legal battle with Donald J.
Speaker 3: Trump.
Speaker 2: I personally think that that's it could be a little
Speaker 2: bit of both, but to me, that's the more likely
Speaker 2: explanation of what's going on here.
Speaker 1: Look, yeah, like you said, it could be all of
Speaker 1: the above. I think I don't know. I think to
Speaker 1: pay somebody a public official as the president fifteen million
Speaker 1: bucks is nuts for any news organization. So I think
Speaker 1: the only alternative is I think there was just something
Speaker 1: going on in those emails. I just don't think there's
Speaker 1: another explanation. There must have been some discussion that either
Speaker 1: related to him being informed that he was misspeaking, or
Speaker 1: maybe they could have proved that somebody was in his
Speaker 1: ear at the time and he had spoken differently. Again, like,
Speaker 1: these are all speculations, but the idea that you would
Speaker 1: pay off as an incoming president for some of Stephanopoulos's
Speaker 1: yearly salary shows extraordinary capitulation or extraordinarily liability.
Speaker 2: And in either case it is extraordinary capitulation. Whether it's
Speaker 2: out of fear or because there's something that's damaging in
Speaker 2: Stephanopolis's Like, either way, it is extraordinary capitulation because it
Speaker 2: does set a damning precedent for just you know, freedom
Speaker 2: of the press. And as I said before, like this
Speaker 2: was a very minor mischaracterization of what the civil jury
Speaker 2: actually found Trump liable. For and so for them to
Speaker 2: just like bend the knee on this is really crazy
Speaker 2: and it does set, frankly, a scary precedent. We have
Speaker 2: put T three up on the screen, which had some
Speaker 2: of the reaction online to this, mostly from liberals who
Speaker 2: were really obsessed, with a lot of US journalists too, Yeah,
Speaker 2: journalists and liberals and prosecutors too, who were confused by
Speaker 2: this direction. So you had Norm Ornstein who said, add
Speaker 2: ABC to the basket of cowards in our media. Democratic
Speaker 2: attorney Mark Eliots wrote me bent ring kissed and the
Speaker 2: legacy news outlets chooses obedience. Reporter Oliver Willis chimed in
Speaker 2: saying this is actually how democracy dies. Tech reporter Matt
Speaker 2: Novak said, not good for the rest of us when
Speaker 2: you do this shit, ABC, But that's probably half the
Speaker 2: point from management's perspective.
Speaker 1: Drewe.
Speaker 2: Former prosecutor Joyce Van said, I'm old enough to remember
Speaker 2: to have worked on cases where newspapers vigorously defended themselves
Speaker 2: against defamation cases instead of folding before the defendant was
Speaker 2: even deposed. So again, quite a significant reaction to this,
Speaker 2: and I do think it is a significant development and
Speaker 2: quite surprise.
Speaker 1: I was shocked to see it.
Speaker 2: Yes, actually, once I read the details of what the
Speaker 2: allegations were, the.
Speaker 1: Only option is the insurance company told them to settle.
Speaker 1: That's it. So I previously because I studied actually some
Speaker 1: defamation cases. This is a case like many years ago
Speaker 1: involving what's his name to catch a predator guy Chris Hansen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Chris Hansen. There was a whole defamation case that was
Speaker 1: against him. The insurance company, I believe, forced him to settle.
Speaker 1: He's spoken out against it and he's like, I never
Speaker 1: should have settled. He's like, I didn't agree with settling it,
Speaker 1: but the insurance company forced basically NBC News to settle.
Speaker 1: I guess that could be a theory. But you know,
Speaker 1: in this case, at the very least, Stephanopolis and others
Speaker 1: have not come out and said this was an insurance decision,
Speaker 1: you know, because even at that time the NBC was
Speaker 1: significantly criticized for settling that case that involved I forget
Speaker 1: exactly what it was, either defamation or wrongful dat or
Speaker 1: something like that was involved. It was a crazy case,
Speaker 1: by the way you're going.
Speaker 2: You know, it's also interesting, so there were also forced
Speaker 2: to a pen an editor's note to the article about
Speaker 2: like thing or whatever, and the editor's note is very nonspecific.
Speaker 2: It says something just like ABC News regrets some of
Speaker 2: the statements made by George Stefanopolis in the segment that's it.
Speaker 1: It's like, really, it might be why as well, because
Speaker 1: that's another thing people don't understand is that you have
Speaker 1: to have recourse. So what happens is that Trump people
Speaker 1: could reach out to you and they could say, hey,
Speaker 1: we're going to sue you for defamation unless you issue correction.
Speaker 1: So maybe they refuse to issue a correction.
Speaker 2: Well, the editor's note was part of this.
Speaker 1: Part of the settlement, so they never issue Weird.
Speaker 2: It was I don't think. I don't know that I'm
Speaker 2: not sure about, but it was weird to me that
Speaker 2: the language was so like non general and nonspecific and
Speaker 2: wasn't like the you know, George Defnopolis was wrong when
Speaker 2: he said.
Speaker 1: Blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: Anyway, it is weird.
Speaker 1: If you work at ABC, let us know because I
Speaker 1: want to know more about this. Yeah, well, reach out
Speaker 1: to Ken, reach out to me. Listen. I'll publish anything.
Speaker 1: I'll publish whatever you guys want, as long as it's true, Crystal,
Speaker 1: what are you taking a look at? Well, I'll ask
Speaker 1: you one last question.
Speaker 4: You don't like bitcoin, You wouldn't invest in bitcoin?
Speaker 2: Do you invest in the stock market at this moment?
Speaker 1: So? Not?
Speaker 4: At this moment, I think it's high. So I have
Speaker 4: not invested in the stock market at this moment. I
Speaker 4: have in the past, but I have not at this moment.
Speaker 4: I think it's high. A bitcoin, it just seems like
Speaker 4: a scam. I was surprised, you know, with us it
Speaker 4: was at six thousand and much lower. I don't like
Speaker 4: it because it's another currency competing against the dollar. Essentially,
Speaker 4: it's the currency competing against the dollar. I want the
Speaker 4: dollar to be the currency of the world. That's what
Speaker 4: I've always said.
Speaker 2: So that was former President Trump in twenty twenty one
Speaker 2: telling Fox Business that bitcoin seems like a scam and
Speaker 2: voicing concern it could undermine the dollar. Min what a
Speaker 2: little time a few hundred million dollars in campaign contributions
Speaker 2: can do to change your mind. Because now, after receiving
Speaker 2: the backing of a bunch of crypto aligned billionaires and
Speaker 2: wealthy individuals, including Elon Musk, Trump is backing a plan
Speaker 2: to funnel Smerican taxpayer assets into a scheme to further
Speaker 2: enrich his coterie of oligarchs through a strategic bitcoin reserve.
Speaker 2: In a conversation with Jim Kramer and the New York
Speaker 2: Stock Exchange, Trump recently confirmed that plan to throw the
Speaker 2: way to the US government behind bitcoin, placing the volatile
Speaker 2: speculative asset on the same level as gold and as oil.
Speaker 2: So how exactly would this all work will centtor Cynthia Loomis,
Speaker 2: her self a significant bitcoin investor, has become crypto's top
Speaker 2: proponent in Washington, has sketched out potential details. Basically, in
Speaker 2: her view, they could pull some creative accounting with the
Speaker 2: nation's gold reserves. Those reserves would be marked to current
Speaker 2: market value. The resulting paper gains would be used to
Speaker 2: finance bulk bitcoin purchases to the tune of two hundred
Speaker 2: thousand a year for five straight years. As the Financial
Speaker 2: Times explains today, the US government's gold is valued a
Speaker 2: book cost of forty two dollars and twenty two cents
Speaker 2: an ounce, making it worth eleven billion dollars. At current
Speaker 2: market prices, it would be worth over six hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty billion dollars. So if we've understood correctly, federal reserve
Speaker 2: banks would be required to remit around six hundred and
Speaker 2: forty billion dollars the US Treasury, and the Treasury could
Speaker 2: use those funds to buy bitcoin. Now, this is, on
Speaker 2: its face, a plan for extraordinary plundering of the public purse,
Speaker 2: which would result in perhaps the largest upward transfer of
Speaker 2: wealth in history.
Speaker 1: Given that it.
Speaker 2: Would primarily be a handful of bitcoin whales oo stand
Speaker 2: to benefit. Because as unequal as our normal financial system is,
Speaker 2: and it is plenty unequal, the crypto world is vastly
Speaker 2: more unequal. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research,
Speaker 2: the top point oh one percent of bitcoin holders control
Speaker 2: twenty seven percent of all bitcoin and circulation. The top
Speaker 2: two percent of all wallets hold over ninety percent of
Speaker 2: all bitcoin. South Africa, which is considered the most unequal
Speaker 2: country in the world and has a Genie coefficient of
Speaker 2: somewhere around point sixty three that pales in comparison to
Speaker 2: that of bitcoin, which is estimated to be around point
Speaker 2: eighty eight. Now, the presence of a small group of
Speaker 2: whales means, of course, that a handful of megal wealthy
Speaker 2: investors stands to benefit from the US government showing up
Speaker 2: with a virtually unlimited checkbook to buy up bitcoin. And
Speaker 2: it also means that the price of bitcoin, which has
Speaker 2: little actual value except as a high tech poker chip,
Speaker 2: can be easily manipulated by a relatively small group of people.
Speaker 2: Doesn't seem to me like we should be funneling trillions
Speaker 2: into an asset that can be easily and maliciously manipulated.
Speaker 2: Now you may have heard the crypto libertarian propaganda that
Speaker 2: the great thing about these coins that they fly free
Speaker 2: of any government manipulation, that they represent some kind of
Speaker 2: new financial frontier, wild West fortune favors the brave, all
Speaker 2: of that. So you might wonder why these bitcoin whales
Speaker 2: would want Uncle sam meddling in their libertarian frontier currency.
Speaker 2: Was Ryan Cooper at The American Prospect explains. The truth
Speaker 2: is these crypto whales have a pretty major issue on
Speaker 2: their hands, which is, quote, the bitcoin market is exceptionally
Speaker 2: a liquid The last twenty four hours so roughly a
Speaker 2: piddling six hundred and sixty thousand transactions in bitcoin and
Speaker 2: something like seventy percent a bitcoin have not moved at
Speaker 2: all in at least a year. That is made worse
Speaker 2: by how expensive and slow bitcoin transactions are. By way
Speaker 2: of comparison, Amazon, which has a similar market capitalization, has
Speaker 2: seen about forty million daily trades of its stocks over
Speaker 2: the last few days. As Ryan goes on to explain,
Speaker 2: that means that in order for large bagholders to cash
Speaker 2: out without totally crashing the market, they would have to
Speaker 2: lure an unfathomably large number of new crypto suckers into
Speaker 2: what is, at bottom, a giant Ponzi scheme. So they
Speaker 2: came up with a much easier plan, which was to
Speaker 2: funnel hundreds of millions of dollars into Trump's campaign, along
Speaker 2: with many other Washington politicians besides of both parties, so
Speaker 2: that all US taxpayers could be conscripted into the role of,
Speaker 2: in Ryan's words, sacrificial lambs to a digital asset slaughterhouse. Effectively,
Speaker 2: the US taxpayer will be forced to serve as the
Speaker 2: useful idiot, the hapless bottom tier of the pyramid scheme,
Speaker 2: allowing the whales to convert their illiquid digital tokens into
Speaker 2: cold hard cash while we get stuck with the bill. Now,
Speaker 2: this olive arch thievery is only the beginning of the
Speaker 2: problems with the idea. However, a bitcoin strategic reserve means
Speaker 2: funneling trillions into a famously volatile asset. In twenty twenty
Speaker 2: one alone, bitcoin surge from thirty thousand dollars a coin
Speaker 2: to sixty nine thousand dollars a coin, before crashing back
Speaker 2: down to thirty thousand dollars. The idea of setting up
Speaker 2: a strategic reserve with an asset that can lose half
Speaker 2: its value in a matter of weeks is truly insane
Speaker 2: and contrary to bitcoin lore that it could serve as
Speaker 2: a significant store of value, function and effect as a currency.
Speaker 2: In reality, it has been nothing more than a speculative
Speaker 2: and non productive asset. Somewhere around twenty percent of the
Speaker 2: whole market has been lost for good. The primary use
Speaker 2: outside of speculation appears to be mostly for money laundering,
Speaker 2: drug dealing, and human trafficking. Why should the US government
Speaker 2: spend real money on a digital casino instead of I
Speaker 2: don't know, healthcare, education, infrastructure. The amount of risk involved
Speaker 2: is honestly wild, and to be truthful, it's only escalating.
Speaker 2: In fact, the advance of quantum computers has raised concerns
Speaker 2: among crypto enthusiasts that these unfathomably powerful computers could be
Speaker 2: used to crack the blockchain encryption on which cryptosecurity relies. Google,
Speaker 2: you may have heard this, recently announced that its quantum
Speaker 2: computer Willow, successfully completed a problem that would take current
Speaker 2: supercomputers four years to solve than the entire age of
Speaker 2: the universe. That breakthrough a loan created enough fear in
Speaker 2: the crypto markets that it sparked a one point seven
Speaker 2: billion dollar digital asset selloff. There's also a risk that,
Speaker 2: is technology advances, bitcoin just simply becomes obsolete, surpassed by
Speaker 2: superior technologies that evolve in the space, effectively rendering this
Speaker 2: particular scheme worthless. After all, there is nothing particularly special
Speaker 2: or durable about Bitcoin was just the first mover in
Speaker 2: the field and is the most well known. Think of
Speaker 2: it this way, of all the things the government could buy,
Speaker 2: of all the prices it could artificially boost, which is
Speaker 2: what this is, there is no good reason to pick
Speaker 2: bitcoin outside of a desire to funnel trillions to your
Speaker 2: campaign supporters. So basically, a bitcoin strategic reserve is a
Speaker 2: world historic billionaire giveaway. Puts trillions of taxpayer dollars at risk,
Speaker 2: and unlike reserves of physical goods, which can be kept
Speaker 2: secure through physical security runs the risk of outright theft from.
Speaker 1: High tech hackers.
Speaker 2: What could possibly go wrong? As if that isn't enough,
Speaker 2: creating a bitcoin strategic reserve is a massive step towards
Speaker 2: further integrating bitcoin into the regular financial system, and this
Speaker 2: is one of the major product projects of the incoming
Speaker 2: Trump administration, based on his statements and based on staffing decisions,
Speaker 2: a project that federal regulators in two new reports are
Speaker 2: already sounding the alarm over so the Federal Reserve Bank
Speaker 2: of New York. They are warning that the increasingly common
Speaker 2: use of loans to finance crypto purchases has created a
Speaker 2: lot of exposure throughout the entire financial system. Meanwhile, the
Speaker 2: Office of Financial Research, another government agency, found a link
Speaker 2: between crypto holdings and home and auto loans, in indication
Speaker 2: that low income households are using crypto gains to take
Speaker 2: out larger mortgages and finance more expensive cars, situation that
Speaker 2: again could lead to disaster in the event of another
Speaker 2: crypto crash. Previous downturns, that damage was pretty relatively limited,
Speaker 2: relatively contained to just a few uniquely vulnerable banks and
Speaker 2: of course the crypto holders themselves. Next time it could
Speaker 2: be much more like the cascade effect that we all
Speaker 2: move through back in two thousand and eight. In contrary
Speaker 2: to libertarian propaganda, the crypto industry's goal in Washington is
Speaker 2: to join the big Wall Street players, and being too
Speaker 2: big to fail, they look set to get their wish
Speaker 2: based on Trump administration picks. SEC chair currently is Gary Gensler,
Speaker 2: He's been serious about regulating crypto while he is out. Instead,
Speaker 2: Trump has picked Paul Atkins, a crypto booster who blamed
Speaker 2: US regulators for ftx's collapse. Instead of you know, brazen fraud.
Speaker 2: For Treasury, Trump picked Howard Lutnick. He's another crypto friendly
Speaker 2: type whose firm has been a leader in allowing clients
Speaker 2: to use bitcoin as collateral for loans, and Trump's aion
Speaker 2: cryptos are David Sachs is part of the PayPal mafia
Speaker 2: who believes that crypto will fulfill PayPal's desire to create
Speaker 2: the quote new world currency. Strange goal, I would say
Speaker 2: for an administration that is supposed to be America first,
Speaker 2: And indeed, the use case that actually makes the most
Speaker 2: sense to be for a crypto reserve is not for
Speaker 2: the US, but for countries around the world. Who would
Speaker 2: like to undermine US dollar head domeny and evade sanctions.
Speaker 2: In fact, that is exactly what is fueling Putin's current
Speaker 2: interest in bitcoin, and is the concern Trump was gesturing
Speaker 2: at when he originally called crypto a scam to undermine
Speaker 2: the dollar. But for us, there seems to be nothing
Speaker 2: resembling a reasonable rationale. It's just all a smash and
Speaker 2: grab operation to loot the public purse and further enrich
Speaker 2: the already wealthy so Sager Strategic Bitcoin Reserve program.
Speaker 1: And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,
Speaker 1: become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com. Very
Speaker 1: excited now to be joined by Scott Horton. He's the
Speaker 1: author of an incredible new book. Let's put that beautiful
Speaker 1: book jacket up there on the screen. What have we
Speaker 1: got provoked? How Washington started the new Cold War with
Speaker 1: Russia and the catastrophe in Ukraine. And even just looking
Speaker 1: at this book, at this tome, I would say in
Speaker 1: a good way, because it's extremely well researched and so detailed.
Speaker 1: We have quotes up at the top. The most important
Speaker 1: one to me is detailed by Professor John Meersheimer a
Speaker 1: personal hero of mine as long as as well as
Speaker 1: Scott now because of so much of his work. So Scott,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 3: We appreciate you, very happy to be here. Good morning
Speaker 3: to both of you.
Speaker 1: Morning. And so Scott, tell us a little bit about
Speaker 1: what inspired the book with the War in Ukraine, but
Speaker 1: why you decided to put it out now, and in
Speaker 1: particular some of the background in the history that a
Speaker 1: lot of the American public may be unaware of whenever
Speaker 1: it comes to the War in Ukraine.
Speaker 5: Well, you know, I've been doing radio since ninety eight,
Speaker 5: and I've been working with anti war dot Com since
Speaker 5: about two thousand and four. And so just like with
Speaker 5: my previous book enough already on the Middle East Wars,
Speaker 5: and now with this one, I think what I bring
Speaker 5: in terms of comparative advantage is just that I'm so
Speaker 5: old now and I've been doing this for so long
Speaker 5: in a row that I have continuity in the story.
Speaker 5: I can tell the story all the way through, and
Speaker 5: so a lot of times you can find some really
Speaker 5: good commentary about different aspects of it. But I wanted
Speaker 5: to take you from hw Bush and the end of
Speaker 5: the Last Cold war and show essentially how American imperial
Speaker 5: hubris led us straight to the path of future confrontation
Speaker 5: with the Russian Federation and were really amounted to a
Speaker 5: self fulfilling prophecy since the very same people who did
Speaker 5: it were the very same people who warned what would
Speaker 5: happen if they were allowed to do what they wanted
Speaker 5: to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, the book title itself is a rebuke of the
Speaker 2: media coverage in the narrative that has been provided to
Speaker 2: the American people that this invasion from Russia just came
Speaker 2: out of nowhere. It was quote unquote unprovoked. Give us
Speaker 2: some of the highlights. Obviously, it's a lengthy book and
Speaker 2: people need to read it to understand the full picture.
Speaker 2: But give us some of the milestones on the road
Speaker 2: to this quote unquote unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
Speaker 5: Okay, Well, first of all, at the end of the
Speaker 5: last Cold War, the Americans knew they were lying. I mean,
Speaker 5: I really thought it was Bill Clinton, but it really
Speaker 5: was George H. W. Bush and his team. Before Bill
Speaker 5: Clinton ever came to town. They were telling the Russians
Speaker 5: what they needed to hear to get them to acquiesce
Speaker 5: to American plans. While all along they were planning on
Speaker 5: expanding the NATO military alliance into Eastern Europe. They told
Speaker 5: the Russians and look, we're going to have We're going
Speaker 5: to use what had already existed since seventy five, the
Speaker 5: Conference on Security and Cooperation Europe now known as the
Speaker 5: Organization the OSSEE. We're going to use that, and we
Speaker 5: won't have an alliance anymore because there's no enemy. So
Speaker 5: we'll have a security partnership and you and Ukraine and
Speaker 5: the rest will all be members of it together with us.
Speaker 3: And so this was the promise.
Speaker 5: And you know, as long as NATO was a military alliance,
Speaker 5: they promised not to expand to east. And I know
Speaker 5: that's disputed, but I'm right about it. And you can
Speaker 5: check my notes in the book and see the argument.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've gone through I've gone through it as well. Yeah, no, continue, continue,
Speaker 1: you're absolutely though so.
Speaker 5: And then in the Bill Clinton years, you had the
Speaker 5: shock therapy economic policy, you had the Balkan wars in
Speaker 5: Bosnia and in Kosovo, and then you had the NATO
Speaker 5: expansion and really was I think three weeks after the
Speaker 5: ink was dry on the new NATO expansion Treaty, they
Speaker 5: launched the war against Serbia, which was over Russia's dead body.
Speaker 3: Basically Boris Yeltsen.
Speaker 5: His entire government had a fit over it, but there
Speaker 5: was essentially nothing they could do about it. Then w
Speaker 5: Bush comes to town, and you know, Putin is new too.
Speaker 5: Putin's been in power for a year. Bush is also
Speaker 5: brand new, and so they sort of try to do
Speaker 5: a reset.
Speaker 3: Putin calls Bush.
Speaker 5: He's the first foreign leader called Bush on September eleventh,
Speaker 5: But just a couple of months later, Bush tears up
Speaker 5: the for me, the Anti Ballistic Missletry, the ABM Treaty,
Speaker 5: and in effect also tore up the start to Treaty,
Speaker 5: which hadn't been ratified yet but was in process, and
Speaker 5: that start to Treaty, his father's treaty would have banned
Speaker 5: multiple independently targetable re entry vehicles, which matters a lot,
Speaker 5: but anyway. Bush also did the Color Code of revolutions
Speaker 5: and including over through the government of Ukraine in two
Speaker 5: thousand and four and in two thousand and eight, over
Speaker 5: the best advice of all of not just the Foreign
Speaker 5: policy establishment but his own government, the National Security Council,
Speaker 5: the CIA, the Ambassador, and all of his staff at
Speaker 5: the embassy in Moscow, and even the Secretary of State
Speaker 5: and Secretary of Defense Rice and Gates all told Bush
Speaker 5: not to do it, or at least I don't know
Speaker 5: what Rice and Gates told him, but they certainly agreed
Speaker 5: that it was a bad idea to do it.
Speaker 3: And we all know, we should know.
Speaker 5: Everyone should find at WikiLeaks the yet means yet memo
Speaker 5: by our current CIA director William Burns, who was then
Speaker 5: w Bush's ambassador to Russia, warning Rice why not to
Speaker 5: offer NATO membership to Ukraine. And by the way, this
Speaker 5: whole time, even the expansionist hawks, never mind, you know,
Speaker 5: libertarian non interventionists like me or Ron Paul or something
Speaker 5: like that, but even people like Brazinski and Kissinger, who
Speaker 5: were out front in pushing foreign NATO expansion, had always
Speaker 5: said all along, well, of course, we'll have to make
Speaker 5: a special case for Ukraine. We'll have to ensconce permanent
Speaker 5: neutrality for Ukraine. Will have to come up with the
Speaker 5: Vienna Austria option or you know, the Finland option for
Speaker 5: neutrality for Ukraine, just like we had in the last
Speaker 5: Cold War to prevent not like we had for Ukraine,
Speaker 5: but like we had for Austria and Finland in the
Speaker 5: last Cold War in order to prevent a fight over it,
Speaker 5: because the country is so crucial to Russia, and even
Speaker 5: though so many of the people, especially in the west
Speaker 5: of the country really want out from under Russia's domination
Speaker 5: and would rather move west. So instead of having a
Speaker 5: fight to the death over it, we should compromise upfront.
Speaker 3: But then they never did that. They never followed through.
Speaker 5: Then Bush also did the anti ballistic missile systems in
Speaker 5: Romanian Poland.
Speaker 3: Now this sounds fine.
Speaker 5: I don't care if my government has anti ballistic missiles
Speaker 5: all day, right, what's the problem? It sept that there
Speaker 5: was a reason that Nixon tried to get this treaty
Speaker 5: done in the first place, and did get it done
Speaker 5: in the first place, was because it's just arms racing.
Speaker 5: The more anti ballistic missiles you make, the more missiles
Speaker 5: I make, and vice versa the other way. At that time,
Speaker 5: we already had tens of thousands of h bombs and
Speaker 5: ICBMs on each side. There's no point in continuing to escalate.
Speaker 5: And as we can see, when Bush installed the anti
Speaker 5: ballistic missile systems, the Russians just increased their number of
Speaker 5: offensive missiles. Rather than try to reciprocate with their own
Speaker 5: super expensive and unworkable design, they just made more offensive missiles.
Speaker 5: But there's another problem, which is their launched from dual
Speaker 5: use launchers, the MK forty one or the Mark forty
Speaker 5: one missile launcher, which can also host Tomahawk cruise missiles,
Speaker 5: which can be tipped with hydrogen bombs. And this is
Speaker 5: of course in violation of Bill Clinton's promises in the
Speaker 5: Founding Act of nineteen ninety seven, where he said, yes,
Speaker 5: we're going to expand NATO further east, but we promise
Speaker 5: not to move our military equipment in there.
Speaker 3: But then he did anyway.
Speaker 5: Oh, I said substantial, and I don't count this as substantial,
Speaker 5: he said. But this is a real problem because it
Speaker 5: was in essence tearing up the inf Treaty, or at
Speaker 5: least violating the spirit of it and putting it in jeopardy.
Speaker 5: And this was Ronald Reagan's Great Treaty from nineteen eighty
Speaker 5: seven that kept all short and medium range missiles out
Speaker 5: of Europe.
Speaker 3: We saw nuclear.
Speaker 5: Bombs there, but only air delivered airplane delivered bomb. We
Speaker 5: have no nuclear missiles in Europe, and that could change
Speaker 5: now because the inf Treaty is dead, and it was
Speaker 5: actually Donald Trump who finally tore it up his last
Speaker 5: year in office. Then Barack Obama comes in, and there's
Speaker 5: a lot to it. Of course, the war in Libya
Speaker 5: is a huge one, another aggressive war by NATO, going
Speaker 5: around the UN Security Council again to do that. But
Speaker 5: the worst thing of it all was the Maidan Revolution,
Speaker 5: the so called Revolution of Dignity in twenty fourteen. And
Speaker 5: people say, oh, you're denying the agency of the people
Speaker 5: on the ground. Well, look, I mean the reality is
Speaker 5: Ukraine is a small, poor country and America is the
Speaker 5: global superpower. So when the Empire drops a few tens
Speaker 5: or hundreds of millions of dollars into your protest movement,
Speaker 5: that makes all the difference.
Speaker 3: Just imagine for.
Speaker 5: One moment the occupy movement of a decade ago or
Speaker 5: January sixth, only now you have Chinese or Russian agents
Speaker 5: out there with, you know, supplying. Not just everybody focuses
Speaker 5: on the sandwiches and cookies. It's not that new one
Speaker 5: was there passing out cookies. It's that what was she
Speaker 5: doing there at all? She was there blatantly supporting the
Speaker 5: revolution and telling the people America's on your side. She
Speaker 5: had Senators Chris Murphy and John McCain with her, and
Speaker 5: they spent tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars
Speaker 5: on the NGOs that supported the entire carnival to keep
Speaker 5: the thing going for three solid months until they could
Speaker 5: get there. First their deal to force the president to
Speaker 5: agree to new elections, which led to the street puts out,
Speaker 5: which was accomplished by local Nazi forces on the ground.
Speaker 5: And this is another one that's important, and I go through.
Speaker 5: I beat this dead horse beyond any reason in the book,
Speaker 5: so I know the burden of proof is on me.
Speaker 5: I know everyone says that this is all just Russian propaganda,
Speaker 5: but I think we all. If you went to a
Speaker 5: government school, even in my era, then you probably have
Speaker 5: heard of the fact that when the Nazis invaded the
Speaker 5: Soviet Union, some people in the border countries welcomed them.
Speaker 3: Yes, because they'd been.
Speaker 5: Enslaved under Soviet Communism is the worst thing that ever
Speaker 5: happened to them. And when the Nazis came, some people
Speaker 5: sided with them, and that includes in Ukraine. But the
Speaker 5: people who sided with the Nazis in Ukraine, they were
Speaker 5: really bad guys. It wasn't just oh people from out West,
Speaker 5: they were already Nazis. The people there were already organized
Speaker 5: groups of Nazis that came and swore their loyalty to
Speaker 5: Hitler and served him in the war. Then those same
Speaker 5: forces were supported by the CIA during the Cold War
Speaker 5: through the end of the nineteen fifties as part of
Speaker 5: a stay behind type operation. People are probably familiar with
Speaker 5: Gladio that's in Western Europe, but this is the same
Speaker 5: kind of thing, supporting stay behind forces during the Cold War.
Speaker 5: And then after that the fighting fell apart and ended
Speaker 5: in the fifties America, the CIA and whatever still supported
Speaker 5: all the Ukrainian exile groups in the United States and Canada,
Speaker 5: many of which were founded by Nazi exiles and expats
Speaker 5: who had escaped after World War Two, and then even
Speaker 5: beginning in the eighties with Glasnos and Perstroika, but especially
Speaker 5: in the nineties and then after two thousand and four,
Speaker 5: uh these groups poured a ton of money in to
Speaker 5: re establish all these Nazi militias and to rewrite the
Speaker 5: whole history of Ukraine, to try to make George Washington
Speaker 5: and Nathaniel Green out of these guys because they had
Speaker 5: no real heroes to be the founders of their state.
Speaker 5: So their heroes are a bunch of Hitler's servant Nazis.
Speaker 5: All the costs perpetrating Nazis are the groups that did
Speaker 5: the putsch that overthrew the government in twenty fourteen and
Speaker 5: then were put to use fighting the people of the
Speaker 5: East when they refused to accept the new ku junta
Speaker 5: in the war, and the Dawnbass when it broke out.
Speaker 5: So I'll skip Trump and rush Agate for a minute,
Speaker 5: but we all and I'll just say this about Trump,
Speaker 5: his own government told the New York Times. You can
Speaker 5: read it Keith Guessing and the New York Times. The
Speaker 5: Quiet Americans is the article, and they say Donald Trump
Speaker 5: is like the captain of a ship. He's holding the wheel,
Speaker 5: but it's not attached to anything. And so there was
Speaker 5: his government had their own Russia policies. We saw with
Speaker 5: the impeachment and all that. But then I'm rambling on.
Speaker 5: Wrap this up here. In the year twenty twenty one,
Speaker 5: Joe Biden's first year in office, he came in and this.
Speaker 3: Is just his basic psychology. It's also the.
Speaker 5: Way the entire empire thinks to everything is a simple
Speaker 5: historical analogy, because none of them ever really read anything
Speaker 5: or know anything, so they always go for these simple
Speaker 5: historical claims. And Joe Biden's you know, framework for understanding
Speaker 5: the entire situation was putin is Hitler and he's Winston Churchill.
Speaker 5: And what you do with bullies is you punch them
Speaker 5: in the nose and you force them to back down,
Speaker 5: and you always stand up to them, and this and
Speaker 5: that and the other thing. But you know, over at Harvard,
Speaker 5: Stephen Waltz said, actually you're applying the wrong model. This
Speaker 5: is like, you know, these guys that winch of Georgetown
Speaker 5: and where they have, you know, the textbook formulas already
Speaker 5: for this stuff. And he says, look, you're going on
Speaker 5: the Hitler appeasement model, but you shouldn't be. You should
Speaker 5: be going on the other page is the spiral model,
Speaker 5: where the other side actually has real concerns and you could, yes,
Speaker 5: appease them to use a bad word to prevent a
Speaker 5: word crisis from breaking out, and it wouldn't be the
Speaker 5: wrong thing to do, particularly when a country like Ukraine
Speaker 5: is so much more important to Russia than it is
Speaker 5: to the United States. And so but they refused to
Speaker 5: look at it that way. They looked at it in
Speaker 5: fact that you see, Biden did nothing but escalate more arms.
Speaker 5: He had the State Department and Defense Department promise further
Speaker 5: integration in to NATO and interoperability with our military. They
Speaker 5: refused to negotiate with good faith when Putin introduced the treaty.
Speaker 5: They talk about the treaty now like it's completely insane. Oh,
Speaker 5: he says that we should move all our military forces
Speaker 5: back to where there were in nineteen ninety seven. Yeah,
Speaker 5: but that was the blood oath that Bill Clinton had
Speaker 5: signed and promised. That's not eighteen ninety seven, that's just
Speaker 5: nineteen ninety seven. That it wasn't exactly a treaty. I
Speaker 5: covered this in the book. They refused to sign a
Speaker 5: real treaty over it. But still that was the promise,
Speaker 5: and it was not the kind of tree that America
Speaker 5: should have just signed on the bottom line to.
Speaker 3: But it was.
Speaker 5: Negotiable, but the Biden government didn't want to negotiate.
Speaker 3: And we all know why.
Speaker 5: They said it to David Sanger, the most important establishment
Speaker 5: guy at the New York Times out of all of them.
Speaker 5: He wrote it in there, America seeks to lock Russia
Speaker 5: into a long term struggle in Ukraine. If they're going
Speaker 5: to do it, we're gonna not do whatever we can
Speaker 5: to end the war. We're gonna do whatever we can
Speaker 5: to extend the war to bog them down and bleed
Speaker 5: them to bankruptcy. They in booked the Afghan model from
Speaker 5: the nineteen eighties. Never mind the two thousands through twenty twenties.
Speaker 5: We don't want to talk about that. The Afghan model
Speaker 5: from the nineteen eighties where Rambo three helped the mujaiden
Speaker 5: in al Qaeda fight against the Soviet Union proto al
Speaker 5: Qaeda then, and so that was what led to the
Speaker 5: war was Biden said you better not. But he refused
Speaker 5: to negotiate in good faith or accommodate Russian legitimate security
Speaker 5: concerns in any way whatsoever.
Speaker 3: And let me just one more sentence here.
Speaker 5: The book is titled Provoked, it's not titled justified. I'm
Speaker 5: from Texas. I don't give a damn. I just said
Speaker 5: this first. I don't give a damn about Russia. The
Speaker 5: book is not about Russia's point of view, other than
Speaker 5: the idea that what they call st prategic empathy, that
Speaker 5: Americans need to understand the Russian point of view so
Speaker 5: that we can do the smart thing for what's good
Speaker 5: for our country.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Scott, let me ask you this. I'm inclined to
Speaker 2: see things your way, and I always appreciate your analysis.
Speaker 2: But what people will point to is, you know, on
Speaker 2: the eve of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Putin gave
Speaker 2: this long stem winder address and his justifications. They gestured
Speaker 2: to some of the things that you're talking about, but
Speaker 2: they also did sketch out this sort of like grand
Speaker 2: vision of empire, restoring Russia to its previous greatness, you know,
Speaker 2: from a territorial perspective, et cetera. And so that's part
Speaker 2: of what's been used for people to say, listen, if
Speaker 2: you don't stop in the Ukraine, he does have these
Speaker 2: greater ambitions for others to reclaim other parts of Europe
Speaker 2: that were previously part of the Russian Empire. What is
Speaker 2: your response to that? Do you think that that desire
Speaker 2: plays it all into his ambitions and is a reasonable
Speaker 2: case for people to make on the other side, No.
Speaker 5: I think it's overstated, essentially because what he's doing in
Speaker 5: there is lamenting the loss of Russian populations that were
Speaker 5: quote unquote left behind or you know, they're they're called
Speaker 5: them a beached diaspora because their country receded and they
Speaker 5: were left there, right. And so, but the thing is
Speaker 5: where Russian, where ethnic Russians rights are not in jeopardy,
Speaker 5: there's not really a conflict, right, So if you look
Speaker 5: at it from his point of view, and you know,
Speaker 5: even Joe Biden called them the most pro pro Western
Speaker 5: Russian president ever, he was doing everything he could to
Speaker 5: try to integrate with the West, with Europe, with Western
Speaker 5: Christian civilization broadly defined, and that was of the highest importance.
Speaker 5: And so even going back to independence in nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 5: there was a question whether Russia might actually invade and
Speaker 5: take the Dawn Bass and Crime back from Ukraine. Right then,
Speaker 5: it was just the Commis who drawn the line where
Speaker 5: they drew it back in nineteen twenty one and Khrushchev
Speaker 5: with PRIMEA in fifty four. But they decided at the
Speaker 5: time their relationship with the United States of America and
Speaker 5: the rest of the West was the most important thing,
Speaker 5: that was the priority. So the question is really what
Speaker 5: changed Putin's calculation to make it worth it for him
Speaker 5: to go this far. And the answer is George Bush
Speaker 5: and Barack Obama overthrew the government in Kiev twice in
Speaker 5: ten years.
Speaker 3: And then Obama, I.
Speaker 5: Mean John Brennan went to Kiev and two days later
Speaker 5: they launched the war, and Forbes magazine everybody covered it
Speaker 5: at the time. There's no question that was at Obama's
Speaker 5: insistence that they launched this war, and then America supported it.
Speaker 5: And even after our European allies had worked out the
Speaker 5: Minsk to Peace agreement in February twenty fifteen, the American
Speaker 5: government refused to pressure Kiev to implement it.
Speaker 3: They tried to change the deal.
Speaker 5: No, Russia has to leave entirely, every last soldier has
Speaker 5: to give up even control of the Ukrainian Russian border
Speaker 5: to Ukrainian forces first and only then will they hold
Speaker 5: elections and all this stuff.
Speaker 2: Well, that's the other question I have for you, Scott,
Speaker 2: is like, did American leaders just get more stupid or
Speaker 2: more arrogant, like because there seemed to have in the
Speaker 2: past been more of an understanding of as you put,
Speaker 2: Ukraine's is kind of like redline. Okay, yes we're lying,
Speaker 2: we know we're going to expand NATO, but of course
Speaker 2: we're not going to expand NATO to Ukraine needs to
Speaker 2: be unaligned. This is just too important. And then somewhere
Speaker 2: along the way that's just abandoned. So is it a
Speaker 2: lack of knowledge, is it a lack of studying? Is
Speaker 2: it just this sort of superpower arrogance? What do you
Speaker 2: ascribe this decline too?
Speaker 5: I think the fundamental dishonesty of government employees. They can
Speaker 5: never be held accountable in any way. You know, in
Speaker 5: private this business, you lose money, you get fired, right,
Speaker 5: doesn't matter what your excuse is. Your division is hemorrhaging
Speaker 5: cash flows and you're gone. In government, they're just never
Speaker 5: accountable for anything. I think, you know Sager mentioned John Mehersheimer.
Speaker 5: I think he gets this right. You know, it's better
Speaker 5: than anyone. Is that What really happened was when the
Speaker 5: revolution blew up in their face and they lost Crimea
Speaker 5: in twenty fourteen. Then they invented this whole narrative about
Speaker 5: how Putin wants to recreate the Empire and recreate the
Speaker 5: Soviet Union, and that you know, only America can stop
Speaker 5: him now and all of this stuff, because otherwise they
Speaker 5: would have to admit that their plan backfire if you
Speaker 5: listen to the Newland Piot phone call where they're planning
Speaker 5: who should be the new prime minister and stage managing
Speaker 5: the entire you know, protest movement.
Speaker 3: Essentially what they.
Speaker 5: Say, they go, we got to glue it, we got
Speaker 5: to stick it, we got to midwife it, we got
Speaker 5: to make it sale. We got to push this thing
Speaker 5: through before Putin can torpedo it.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 5: They know that they're smart, they know they're getting away
Speaker 5: with it, but they don't get away with it.
Speaker 3: Doesn't work. As soon as they overthrow the government.
Speaker 5: There the previous three presidents sign a letter saying now's
Speaker 5: the time to kick the Russians out of the Sevestipol
Speaker 5: naval base, cancel the Arkiev pack, and kick the Black
Speaker 5: Sea Fleet out of Crimea. And so Putin said, actually no,
Speaker 5: and he told his sailors and marines to go outside
Speaker 5: and stand on street corners and a big coupde maine
Speaker 5: and seize the thing.
Speaker 3: But again he didn't do that until America forced the issue.
Speaker 5: So even if he woke up every morning really lamenting
Speaker 5: the fact that the far eastern regions of Ukraine were
Speaker 5: no longer part of the Russian Empire, for him to
Speaker 5: go so far as to launch a war over It
Speaker 5: was not based on romantic notions, but was based on,
Speaker 5: as he explained in his declarations of war, legitimate security concerns. Again,
Speaker 5: I'm not saying enough that I would agree to justify
Speaker 5: what he did. But when he talked about listen, if
Speaker 5: you put these same missile launchers in Arkiv, then you'll
Speaker 5: have h bomb's ten minutes from Moscow or less.
Speaker 3: If he said there is.
Speaker 5: He said this numerous times, but in a dispute with
Speaker 5: a back and forth with a French he started yelling
Speaker 5: at her and he said, listening, lady, if Ukraine joins NATO,
Speaker 5: you guys all say that Crimea still belongs to Ukraine,
Speaker 5: but I say belongs to Russia. So that means if
Speaker 5: they attack Crimea and my forces in Crimea and I
Speaker 5: defend Crimea, you're gonna say that I'm the aggressor and
Speaker 5: kick in Article five and then we go to nuclear
Speaker 5: war and we all die. Do you want to war
Speaker 5: between Russia and France because that's what you're talking about?
Speaker 5: And the lady goes, uh, yeah. When you put it
Speaker 5: like that, it really doesn't make much sense. That's why
Speaker 5: it's against American law, and it's against the NATO treaty
Speaker 5: to bring in a new member that has an ongoing
Speaker 5: border dispute, because it's exactly the kind of conflict that
Speaker 5: you want to avoid. And anyone could just look at
Speaker 5: the map of Europe. We got no business the North
Speaker 5: Atlantic Treaty Organization on the northeastern coast of the Black Sea.
Speaker 5: I mean, you thought Turkey was pushing it. At least
Speaker 5: they're in the med and this makes no sense. And
Speaker 5: by the way, you know, I quote in my book
Speaker 5: to ruin the book for everyone. At the end of
Speaker 5: the I quote Robert Kagan himself, Victoria Neulan's husband, saying,
Speaker 5: you know what, on second thought, Ukraine doesn't matter to
Speaker 5: America at all. The Soviet Union occupied it that whole
Speaker 5: time and it never bothered us.
Speaker 3: He calls it the good old days. I heartily disagree
Speaker 3: with that, but.
Speaker 5: He's right that, no, it does not matter who has
Speaker 5: sovereignty ultimately over the Donbass and Nova Rossia and Crimea
Speaker 5: at all. And as far as the disruption to the
Speaker 5: global rules based liberal world order, well that's just a
Speaker 5: bunch of crap. That's a euphemism for the world Empire.
Speaker 5: Seen that is to break the law whenever they want.
Speaker 5: They want to break off Kosovo from Serbia, they can
Speaker 5: do that if they want to break off South Sudan,
Speaker 5: or if they want to break off northern western Sahara,
Speaker 5: if they want to give the gol On Heights to
Speaker 5: Israel and do whatever they want. Oh, but you know,
Speaker 5: in this case it's different because it's not the Americans
Speaker 5: doing it.
Speaker 1: There you go, Scott, where fortunately we have to go
Speaker 1: to be able to wrap the show. Highly recommend the book.
Speaker 1: As you guys can tell, Scott is a walking psychopace,
Speaker 1: even more encyclopedic in this guy so provoked. We're all
Speaker 1: the link down in the description and we hope to
Speaker 1: have you back soon.
Speaker 2: Marcott, did you have to look up any of this
Speaker 2: or it was just all right up here? Because I
Speaker 2: get the sense you could just know I'm talking about
Speaker 2: in your book. Yeah, yeah, I can imagine you're just
Speaker 2: writing this all out, just like head to keyboard.
Speaker 5: The truth is it started out as a speech that
Speaker 5: I wrote in an hour in twenty twenty, and then
Speaker 5: it grew a little bit, grew a little bit.
Speaker 2: Good to see you, sir, great Scott, Thank you for
Speaker 2: your wealth of knowledge.
Speaker 1: We appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Well, appreciate you guys too, Yeah, of course.
Speaker 1: Wow, a wealth of knowledge, that's the only way to
Speaker 1: put it. Thank you guys so much for watching. We
Speaker 1: appreciate you. I have a great show for everybody tomorrow
Speaker 1: and we'll see you that