Speaker 1: A Zone Media, Robert Evans here it could happen here,
Speaker 1: a podcast about things falling apart, And today I wanted
Speaker 1: to take some time to talk about Ukraine, and particularly
Speaker 1: to talk about the sort of cultural place that the
Speaker 1: Ukrainian resistance against Russia expanded invasion by Russia has taken
Speaker 1: in American politics and in American kind of political culture. Obviously,
Speaker 1: I am recording this within a few hours of another
Speaker 1: attempted assassination on former President Trump, this one by a
Speaker 1: guy who, among a confusing milange of other things, claimed
Speaker 1: to be a major advocate of Ukrainian sovereignty and that
Speaker 1: that was a major reason why he was angry at
Speaker 1: the Republicans and angry at former President Trump, and kind
Speaker 1: of that at least failed assassination attempt is sort of
Speaker 1: in line with a lot of derangement around Ukraine. And
Speaker 1: you can find this on the left and the right
Speaker 1: in the center. I've come to think that if you're
Speaker 1: trying to evaluate sort of how credible someone is as
Speaker 1: a geopolitical expert today, one of the best things you
Speaker 1: can do is kind of look back to early February
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two and see what sort of claims they
Speaker 1: were making about what was going to happen, whether or
Speaker 1: not Russia was actually going to go into Ukraine and
Speaker 1: expand their invasion. And that's obviously, you know, a bigger
Speaker 1: topic than I think we're going to get into today.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I find really interesting when
Speaker 1: I kind of analyze how particularly conservatives have turned on
Speaker 1: the Ukrainian cause is how kind of incomprehensible that seems,
Speaker 1: just based on the way in which I was raised
Speaker 1: by the conservatives in my life to think about Russia
Speaker 1: and to think about like Russian military aggression. You know,
Speaker 1: I grew up largely in the post Cold War era,
Speaker 1: but my parents were both like raised by Cold warriors.
Speaker 1: They mostly grew up on military bases, and I still
Speaker 1: grew up with an awful lot of the kind of
Speaker 1: Cold War shrapnel and my sort of ideological training. You know,
Speaker 1: the movie Read Dawn was a big part of my childhood.
Speaker 1: You know, some of those early James Bond movies where
Speaker 1: the Soviet Unions are still the bad guy. You know,
Speaker 1: this was all major stuff for me. So it's been
Speaker 1: particularly disorienting kind of watching Philo Russian attitudes infiltrate the
Speaker 1: right and US move from this idea of like these
Speaker 1: people are one way or the other kind of a
Speaker 1: geopolitical opponent of the United States, towards these people are
Speaker 1: almost existing in an idealized version of the society we
Speaker 1: bring around. It's been a cause of some whiplash for
Speaker 1: me and for I think a lot of people who
Speaker 1: were raised in that environment and then kind of came
Speaker 1: out of those ideological beliefs. And when we look at
Speaker 1: the kind of turnaround on the right about this stuff,
Speaker 1: one of the people who's been on the bleeding edge
Speaker 1: of this has been Vice presidential candidate JD.
Speaker 2: Vance.
Speaker 1: And in fact, Ukraine might mark the first place where
Speaker 1: Vance really came in ahead of the rest of his
Speaker 1: party on an issue they would all ultimately move in
Speaker 1: behind him on back In early twenty twenty two, in
Speaker 1: the immediate wake of Russia's expanded invasion, Vance told Steve
Speaker 1: Bannon in one of his many ill advised podcast interviews, quote,
Speaker 1: I don't really care what happens to Ukraine one way
Speaker 1: or the other now is This paragraph from an article
Speaker 1: by Ed Kilgore and New York Magazine makes clear Vance
Speaker 1: was swiftly followed by others. Quote then Congressman Madison Cawthorn
Speaker 1: parrooted Russian propaganda by saying, the Ukrainian government is incredibly
Speaker 1: corrupt and is incredibly evil and has been pushing woke ideologies,
Speaker 1: and his colleague Marjorie Taylor Green called the Ukrainians neo Nazis.
Speaker 1: Fox News's Tucker Carlson was a constant font of bitter
Speaker 1: hostility towards USAID for Ukraine. Now Cawthorne was and remains
Speaker 1: now a stooge. But I think it really is kind
Speaker 1: of drilling into the precise wording of his claim here,
Speaker 1: the fact that he's so focused on wokeness within the
Speaker 1: context of a conflict. But it seems much more serious
Speaker 1: than kind of the standard American culture war bullshit. A
Speaker 1: lot of why we're seeing this has to do with
Speaker 1: the fallout over the Russiagate culture war that consumed the
Speaker 1: Democrats during the first half of the Trump administration. This
Speaker 1: led to the enemy of the enemy as my friends
Speaker 1: sort of thinking among the right, and this was stoked
Speaker 1: consciously by Russian propaganda efforts. After Trump left office, these
Speaker 1: efforts were redoubled, especially after the war in Ukraine became
Speaker 1: an existential issue for Putin's regime. A good example of
Speaker 1: the more obvious sort of messaging is this Moscow Times
Speaker 1: article from May of twenty twenty three, with the title
Speaker 1: Russia to build migrant village for conservative American expats. Quote
Speaker 1: Timor Beslangarov, a migration lawyer at Moscow's Vista Foreign Business Support,
Speaker 1: claimed that around two hundred families wish to immigrate to
Speaker 1: Russia for ideological reasons. The reason is propaganda of radical values.
Speaker 1: Today they have seventy genders and who knows what will next.
Speaker 1: Ria Novosti quoted Bessangorov as saying, echoing President Vladimir Putin's
Speaker 1: frequently deployed grievances against Western countries, comparative gender freedom, and
Speaker 1: here we see it again, the focus on hatred of
Speaker 1: woke as a justification for solidarity with Russia. A sizable
Speaker 1: plurality of Americans still support the US sending aid to Ukraine,
Speaker 1: and the reality of Russia's invasion is hideous enough that
Speaker 1: the bulk of modern Russian propaganda in this country today
Speaker 1: seems to focus on the woke issue more than anything
Speaker 1: directly relevant to the war. As I write this, one
Speaker 1: of the top stories in the country is how a
Speaker 1: Tennessee based media network, Tenet Media, hired a bunch of
Speaker 1: American influencers like Tim Poole and Dave Rubin and paid
Speaker 1: them north of one hundred grand of video to make
Speaker 1: Russian propaganda. Now, Pool and Ruben and their fellows claim
Speaker 1: to be shocked, shocked that a foreign government was involved
Speaker 1: in all and deny acting as unregistered foreign agents or
Speaker 1: breaking the law in any way. We'll see how those
Speaker 1: claims look in few months. For now, I think it's
Speaker 1: illustrative to turn towards a wired analysis of the content
Speaker 1: of dozens of Tenant Media videos written by Tim Marshman
Speaker 1: and Drove Merota. It shows us the kind of propaganda
Speaker 1: that Russia found fruitful, inceeding to an American audience quote.
Speaker 1: This analysis does not show that in these videos the
Speaker 1: influencers were particularly fixated on the Ukraine War. The word
Speaker 1: Ukraine appears in the transcript sixty seven times, about as
Speaker 1: often as misinformation, Christianity, and Clinton. It does show the
Speaker 1: influencers stressing highly divisive culture war topics in the videos,
Speaker 1: which carried titles like trans widows are a thing, and
Speaker 1: it's getting all caps out of hand and race is
Speaker 1: biological but gender isn't question mark question mark question mark.
Speaker 1: The word trans appears one hundred and fifty two times
Speaker 1: and transgender ninety eight, So sixty seven times we see
Speaker 1: Ukraine appear in these transcripts, as opposed to well over
Speaker 1: two hundred times for trans and transgender together. Now, if
Speaker 1: you want a snapshot of just how absurd and divorced
Speaker 1: from reality the culture wars have gotten, the Russian government
Speaker 1: funding a clandestine influence operation considered stoking fears about trans
Speaker 1: people to have a higher rate of return than actually
Speaker 1: propagandizing directly about the war in Ukraine. As absurd as
Speaker 1: this sounds, these tactics have borne fruit, and I think
Speaker 1: the reason why it is simple, by building a sense of
Speaker 1: solidarity between bigoted American conservatives and what they see as
Speaker 1: a similarly conservative Russia. Now, obviously, the reality of the
Speaker 1: situation is that Russia is not exactly the country these
Speaker 1: people think it is. While it is true that the
Speaker 1: number of Russian adults who consider themselves at least somewhat
Speaker 1: religious skyrocketed after the fall of the uss Are from
Speaker 1: eleven percent or so to over fifty percent today, much
Speaker 1: of that is likely just explained by the change away
Speaker 1: from an expressly atheistic government. Even today, Pew Research notes quote,
Speaker 1: for most Russians, the return to religion did not correspond
Speaker 1: with a return to church. Across all three waves of
Speaker 1: ISSP data, no more than about one in ten Russians
Speaker 1: said they attend religious services at least once a month.
Speaker 1: The share of regular attenders monthly or more often was
Speaker 1: two percent in nineteen ninety one, nine percent in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety eight, and seven percent in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1: For reference, about thirty two percent of Americans currently attend church, synagogue, mosque,
Speaker 1: et cetera on a weekly basis. Now, this is down
Speaker 1: significantly from forty nine percent in nineteen fifty eight and
Speaker 1: does represent a low for church attendance in US history.
Speaker 1: But you can see we still beat the Russians in
Speaker 1: at least active religiosity by a factor of like five. Now,
Speaker 1: one of the modern bugbears of the right wing in
Speaker 1: the US is no fault divorce, which often gets wrapped
Speaker 1: up in conversations about wokeness.
Speaker 2: Here.
Speaker 1: Russia is also not a bastion of good old fashioned values.
Speaker 1: I'm going to quote from an article in Russia Beyond
Speaker 1: by Nikolay Schevchenko. In twenty sixteen, the ratio in Russian
Speaker 1: of divorces to new marriages that year was one to
Speaker 1: one point six, meaning that Russians divorce more often than
Speaker 1: they marry. In recent decades, over sixty percent of marriages
Speaker 1: in Russia ended in official separation. Now, there is precisely
Speaker 1: one issue where Russian culture is in reality more in
Speaker 1: line with the kind of culture American conservatives claim to desire,
Speaker 1: and that is in its treatment of LGBT people and
Speaker 1: ethnic minorities. The last years in Putin's Russia have seen
Speaker 1: a surge in hate crimes against queer Russians, as LGBT
Speaker 1: advocacy organizations have been declared illegal and punished by the government.
Speaker 1: This is the Russia our American right wing finds solidarity with,
Speaker 1: and we shouldn't forget that right when we're looking at
Speaker 1: to what extent do these people see Russia as kind
Speaker 1: of embodying the values they would like to bring to
Speaker 1: the United States. It has a lot less to do
Speaker 1: with actual religiosity, with good old fashioned family values, and
Speaker 1: a lot more to do with hate for specific groups
Speaker 1: of people. Going to talk about what that means within
Speaker 1: the context of US politics, in a little bit. But
Speaker 1: first here's some ads. So earlier this year, I headed
Speaker 1: to the Republican National Convention, and I had a lot
Speaker 1: on my mind there. But one of the things I
Speaker 1: was kind of interested in is hearing the way in
Speaker 1: which Conservatives talked about Ukraine when they felt like they
Speaker 1: were among friends. It was not uncommon to hear Ukraine
Speaker 1: referenced in conversations as a geopolitical enemy of the United States.
Speaker 1: And this is something I encountered a number of times,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to make sure it wasn't just a
Speaker 1: fluke of my own experiences there. And I assure you
Speaker 1: it was not. Michael Waitely, who Donald Trump picked to
Speaker 1: chair the RNC, appeared on Fox News in April and
Speaker 1: lumped Ukraine in with China and Iran as aggressive adversaries
Speaker 1: of the United States. Now, you know, we can quibble
Speaker 1: on that list for a number of reasons, but Ukraine,
Speaker 1: a country we are currently arming and training to fight
Speaker 1: in our stead, is just kind of absurd to describe
Speaker 1: as an aggressive adversary of the United States. Now, that
Speaker 1: very month, Congress voted on a foreign aid package, which
Speaker 1: caused a massive split in the Republican Party. The anti
Speaker 1: Ukraine side was led by voices like Marjorie Taylor Green,
Speaker 1: who told Steve Bannon, the Ukrainian government is attacking Christians.
Speaker 1: The Ukrainian government is executing priests. Russia is not doing that.
Speaker 1: They're not attacking Christianity. Now, like most things, Green says,
Speaker 1: this is not quite accurate. The Guardian noted at the
Speaker 1: time quote. In fact, according to figures from the Institute
Speaker 1: for Religious Freedom a Ukrainian group, at least six hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty religious sites had been damaged or looted in
Speaker 1: Russia's invasion by December last year. Green received a speaking
Speaker 1: slot at the RNC, as did tech investor David Sachs,
Speaker 1: who spent some of his time on stage arguing that
Speaker 1: o'biden somehow provoked the Russians to invade Ukraine by talking
Speaker 1: about NATO expansion. Now, this is a claim you'll hear
Speaker 1: on some segments of the left too, and it tends
Speaker 1: to ignore that Russia invaded back in twenty fourteen after
Speaker 1: a revolution against a Kremlin backed president Yenikovich, threw their
Speaker 1: own plans in the region into disarray. Ukraine, to this day,
Speaker 1: despite the expanded invasion, is not a part of NATO,
Speaker 1: and Biden's administration has been leery not only of pushing
Speaker 1: for this, but of supplying Ukraine with long range weapons
Speaker 1: to strike inside Russian territory. The fact that Ukrainians and
Speaker 1: others did start discussing Ukrainian membership in NATO after almost
Speaker 1: a decade of war is certainly not among the things
Speaker 1: that we can blame the Biden administration for starting. As
Speaker 1: I trolled the RNC talking to attendees about their feelings
Speaker 1: on the war, I got a variety of responses. The
Speaker 1: most positive believe that Ukraine had been wronged, but that
Speaker 1: the war was unwinnable, so the US had to negotiate
Speaker 1: some kind of peace. Moore argued that the Ukrainians were
Speaker 1: somehow stealing usaid, which they imagined would be put to
Speaker 1: better use helping Americans. I found this an illogical position personally,
Speaker 1: given that our aid Ukraine has primarily taken the form
Speaker 1: of old weapons systems no longer in use by US
Speaker 1: troops unless you want to house homeless veterans in Bradley
Speaker 1: fighting vehicles. I don't really see how what we've sent
Speaker 1: Zelensky is much used to the kind of Americans who
Speaker 1: are actually suffering today. The most enlightening conversation that I
Speaker 1: had while I was at the Republican convention about their
Speaker 1: sentiments on Ukraine came when Garrison and I stumbled upon
Speaker 1: Rudy Giuliani, seated at the booth for some streaming network
Speaker 1: or another, exiled from the main stage of the event.
Speaker 1: I introduced myself to Rudy and we started off just
Speaker 1: talking about how surreal the mood was given the recent
Speaker 1: attempted assassination of the former president.
Speaker 3: He's a conquering your own history party. We would have
Speaker 3: been even without a Saturday. What's Saturday? It's surreal. I
Speaker 3: think people shoel the living through history. That image of
Speaker 3: him in rallying America, that's give be one of our
Speaker 3: ten historical great interest now.
Speaker 1: I included that because it's a fun snapshot of just
Speaker 1: how elated Republicans were that week, right before Biden dropped
Speaker 1: out and the whole election changed yet again on a dime.
Speaker 1: From here, Rudy and I moved to talking a bit
Speaker 1: about how badly the Secret Service had fucked up and
Speaker 1: protecting Trump, which is not really something I had a
Speaker 1: particular disagreement with, although I think Juliani was coming at
Speaker 1: it from more of a conspiratorial standpoint than I would.
Speaker 1: I think simple incompetence more or less explains everything that
Speaker 1: happened that day pretty well. This morphed in fairly short
Speaker 1: order into him ranting about how all of this was
Speaker 1: Biden's fault and how no one ever gets fired for
Speaker 1: incompetence in the Biden administration. He brought up Afghanistan and
Speaker 1: that is what led us finally to Ukraine.
Speaker 3: Ukraine would not have happened if he hadn't been a
Speaker 3: complete power at oldgraph.
Speaker 4: God isn't now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what proof is very simple, including invaded three times
Speaker 3: under the last four presidents. There's only one president he
Speaker 3: was scared of.
Speaker 4: It was Trump.
Speaker 3: He invaded under Bush, he invaded under Obama, he invaded
Speaker 3: under Biden. He didn't invade under Trump. So don't tell
Speaker 3: me he would have invaded under Trump.
Speaker 4: He had a chance to know what he did now.
Speaker 1: I responded by pointing out that Giuliani's time frame was
Speaker 1: a little off. Well, but I mean I was there
Speaker 1: in twenty fifteen, and my friends who were in the
Speaker 1: Ukrainian military were still fighting under Trump.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: The invasion, Yeah, was still happening. It was just not
Speaker 1: at the current level that it's at. Rudy went on
Speaker 1: to blame Obama for not having given weapons to Ukraine
Speaker 1: in a timely fashion.
Speaker 4: In fact, Poroshenko, who.
Speaker 3: Is a corrupt pal of Biden's, told me, yeah, they
Speaker 3: were my friends, but I didn't get any guns until
Speaker 3: Trump came in.
Speaker 4: They wanted me to win with t shootings and steff.
Speaker 4: He said, I never knew what side they were on.
Speaker 4: Obama never gave them offs. We gave him money.
Speaker 1: Now, this is again not accurate. By December of twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: the US had provided Ukraine with about one point five
Speaker 1: billion dollars in aid since the twenty fourteen invasion. This
Speaker 1: did include weapons including javelin, anti tank missiles and armored vehicles,
Speaker 1: which is why they had some of these weapons when
Speaker 1: the expanded Russian invasion occurred. Rather than loosening the purse
Speaker 1: strings as Russian aggression continued, President Trump withheld three hundred
Speaker 1: and ninety one million dollars in aid to try and
Speaker 1: get a political favor from Zelenski. We're going to continue
Speaker 1: with Rudy Giuliani and my conversation, but first here's a
Speaker 1: little bit more ads and we're back. So after Giuliani
Speaker 1: made his claim that the United States didn't send any
Speaker 1: weapons over to Ukraine until Trump was president, he said this.
Speaker 3: He let Biden handle the money, the last guy in
Speaker 3: the world that should be only money to Ukraine now
Speaker 3: and Ukraine's gotten.
Speaker 4: Two hundred billion and nobody let us order it.
Speaker 3: This is the acknowledge to be the most corrupt, second most,
Speaker 3: third most corrupt country in the world. The fact that
Speaker 3: they were invaded by Russia doesn't make them honest. It
Speaker 3: makes them the victim. Doesn't make them honest. And you
Speaker 3: pour a couple hundred billion in there without controls? What
Speaker 3: am I a jackass? I can't figure out what's happening
Speaker 3: and you don't win.
Speaker 4: Now much more do you have? You can? That's aw
Speaker 4: hundred billion now.
Speaker 1: Rudy, like most Republicans on this issue, always describes the
Speaker 1: aid we've sent to Ukraine as it's cash. I find
Speaker 1: it interesting that he claims Ukrainian corruption is also somehow
Speaker 1: to blame for US not auditing the aid we sent. Now,
Speaker 1: there are issues with how the US Defense Department has
Speaker 1: audited some of the aid going to Ukraine, but those
Speaker 1: are issues with the Defense Department. In fact, it came
Speaker 1: out in January of twenty twenty four that the United
Speaker 1: States failed to audit about a billion dollars worth of
Speaker 1: military aid to Ukraine. Now, first off, this is not cash,
Speaker 1: as Juliani repeatedly insinuates. It's all weapons, and there's no
Speaker 1: evidence that any of these weapons were ever sold to
Speaker 1: another country or used outside of Ukraine. They simply weren't
Speaker 1: audited the way that they ought to have been because
Speaker 1: the Pentagon fired all of the people who should have
Speaker 1: been auditing this aid. Right, this is a pretty common
Speaker 1: issue with the Pentagon. You can look back to Iraq
Speaker 1: and the sheer amount of aid that was sent to
Speaker 1: Iraq and then kind of disappeared in the ether because
Speaker 1: they just didn't have anyone paying attention to it. Obviously,
Speaker 1: because that happened under Republican administration, Juliani isn't concerned at
Speaker 1: all about it. But he is deeply concerned about this
Speaker 1: kind of fantastical two hundred billion dollars that he believes
Speaker 1: has been shotgunned out to Ukrainian mobsters. And here's Rudy again.
Speaker 1: As our conversation continued.
Speaker 4: Biden has US consigned to a war without animate in Ukraine.
Speaker 3: He doesn't even dare to suggest an end because he's
Speaker 3: afraid of confrontation with Russia.
Speaker 4: So he's just going to get more people killed.
Speaker 3: I mean, there probably isn't an American president that said
Speaker 3: more people killed other than a war than bud.
Speaker 1: It's interesting you describe it as them not winning, because
Speaker 1: I do have trouble. I know, in the lead up
Speaker 1: to the expanded invasion of February twenty twenty two, the
Speaker 1: expectation from most of the people in our military and
Speaker 1: most people internationally, was that the Ukrainian military was going
Speaker 1: to fold in a manner of days. And they're now
Speaker 1: back to about seventeen percent of the country under Russian occupation,
Speaker 1: which isn't a massive escalation over where it was previously
Speaker 1: because they pushed well, because they pushed the Russians out
Speaker 1: of Kiev.
Speaker 4: Well, will that end the war? Russia can keep seven
Speaker 4: pay percent.
Speaker 2: I don't think the Ukrainians are willing to send the
Speaker 2: war that.
Speaker 3: The war is one when you achieve the objective that
Speaker 3: has you stopped conducting war.
Speaker 4: They're not even close to them.
Speaker 3: The only way Ukraine says it will stop fighting is
Speaker 3: if Russia is pushed out of Ukraine. They haven't been
Speaker 3: able to do that. So they're not winning the war.
Speaker 3: I mean, nor are they presenting a plan that we're
Speaker 3: funding to do that. We're not planning, we're not funding.
Speaker 3: We're just endlessly giving them money to keep the status quo.
Speaker 3: We do not have a plan to win them or
Speaker 3: end it. So I mean when I Tom Towell used
Speaker 3: to say the worst thing about American foreign policy under unrealistic,
Speaker 3: somewhat left leaning liberals is war without end. When you
Speaker 3: go into a war, you've got to be willing to
Speaker 3: commit yourself and you've got to be willing to win
Speaker 3: it quick, otherwise you're gonna lose it. And you know
Speaker 3: when we started, when we started losing wars, that's the
Speaker 3: policy we fall.
Speaker 1: But if you compare where Ukraine is at right now
Speaker 1: to the wars the United States has gotten involved in
Speaker 1: in the century, Iraq, you know, around a decade or
Speaker 1: so close to twenty years for Afghanistan. Ukraine is two
Speaker 1: years since the expanded invasion, and you know, war, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a massive international conflict between a much smaller
Speaker 1: nation and a larger one. When I talk to Ukrainians
Speaker 1: and they I asked them, what do you think you
Speaker 1: need to actually win this? One of the things they
Speaker 1: repeatedly say is the ability to strike Russian assets inside Russia.
Speaker 4: Who doesn't give him?
Speaker 2: Who doesn't? Yeah, I'm just wonder more minutes to go.
Speaker 4: Who prevents person?
Speaker 2: Definitely, the Biden administration hasn't allowed that.
Speaker 4: He tells us he wants them to win.
Speaker 1: Do you do you think why would you be supportive
Speaker 1: under a new Republican administration of allowing Ukraine to strike
Speaker 1: inside Russia?
Speaker 3: I would be supportive of sitting down and having a
Speaker 3: realistic conversation about a plant.
Speaker 4: First thing I do is audit the money we gave.
Speaker 1: Now, of course, Rudy can't support that, so he pivoted
Speaker 1: back to arguing that we need to audit Ukraine to
Speaker 1: quote find out what happened to the money we gave him,
Speaker 1: him being Zelensky. And again I pointed out that we
Speaker 1: aren't giving him money to We're sending over weapons. Nevertheless,
Speaker 1: our conversation continued. Now, the vast majority of the two
Speaker 1: hundred billion that's been sent over, though, is in munitions,
Speaker 1: like we're not talking about. Have you have you found
Speaker 1: it in the American industry that there has been American
Speaker 1: in the American industry.
Speaker 4: You want to find the American military industrial complex. What
Speaker 4: I want to think is a lot of weeks of
Speaker 4: money in the American.
Speaker 1: But I'm not concerned about money though, because what I
Speaker 1: what we happened, The money doesn't get to there's no
Speaker 1: javelins winding up outside of Ukraine.
Speaker 2: There's no a gt MS winding up out money.
Speaker 1: They're they're mostly getting weaponry though, they're getting Bradley's, they're
Speaker 1: getting Abrams tanks, they're getting.
Speaker 4: Those things.
Speaker 2: Where have they sold them?
Speaker 4: But they've been caught three times selling selling Where selling weapons?
Speaker 3: Where I'd have to go back and look, But they've
Speaker 3: been caught three times selling plus they.
Speaker 2: Have Now this was just a lie.
Speaker 1: Ukraine has not been caught selling US weapons. Rudy only
Speaker 1: claims they have been because he's consumed a huge amount
Speaker 1: of Krimlin funded media that has been arguing since twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two that US weapons sent to Ukraine will end
Speaker 1: up on the black market. There's no outside evidence that
Speaker 1: shows that this has happened. And in fact, Elias Yusef,
Speaker 1: a research analyst for the security think tank the Stimpson Center,
Speaker 1: recently told Business insider, I don't think we've seen any
Speaker 1: real diversion, particularly outside the country of weapons. That article continues.
Speaker 1: Pro Russian media has aired similar claims of a mass
Speaker 1: diversion of arms meant for the front line, some citing
Speaker 1: a retracted CBS report that included a source claiming only
Speaker 1: thirty percent of weapons sent to Ukraine made it to
Speaker 1: the battlefield. One conspiracy inclined website, purportedly citing anonymous Ukrainians,
Speaker 1: claimed the weapons are stolen to such a degree that
Speaker 1: Ukraine as of August had already lost the war because
Speaker 1: of the black market diversion. Now, in the months since
Speaker 1: that claim was made that Ukraine had lost the war
Speaker 1: because they had given up all of their weapons, they
Speaker 1: took a bunch of those weapons and invaded Russia, punching
Speaker 1: a hole through their lines and taking a considerable amount
Speaker 1: of territory in the Kursk region, which they occupy to
Speaker 1: an extent today. As it's always the case with guys
Speaker 1: like Julian, reality doesn't matter here. It's about repeating the
Speaker 1: same talking points until you get a journalist ignorant enough
Speaker 1: to take them as true. And it's the kind of
Speaker 1: thing where if you're not up on all of the
Speaker 1: different claims being made on the right and all of
Speaker 1: the claims about corruption and money being siphoned off and
Speaker 1: taken by mobsters, then you're not going to be able
Speaker 1: to properly argue with them, right, Like, if you don't
Speaker 1: really know what you're talking about, you might seed the
Speaker 1: point to Juliani that there have been at least three
Speaker 1: cases of the Ukrainians caught selling American weapons overseas. Now,
Speaker 1: when you look into what you see that this is
Speaker 1: primarily a claim that spreads on right wing Facebook pages
Speaker 1: and there's not really any evidence of a sizeable diversion.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't really matter. What matters is in the
Speaker 1: moment being able to kind of spread a point out
Speaker 1: to the extent that nobody really questions you want. And
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's the kind of thing that happens
Speaker 1: a lot in politics, and it's the kind of thing
Speaker 1: that is probably pointless to really address, right Like me
Speaker 1: arguing with Rudy Giuliani got him hot and flustered and
Speaker 1: kind of pissed off, and certainly got me frustrated. But
Speaker 1: I don't think it accomplished much. And I really I
Speaker 1: think kind of the thing that you have to accept
Speaker 1: when you're looking at sort of right wing lies about
Speaker 1: what's happening in Ukraine or the lies being told right
Speaker 1: now about you know, Springfield, Ohio and the Haitian migrant
Speaker 1: population over there. There's really very little point in actually
Speaker 1: confronting these people directly about the disinformation that they put out,
Speaker 1: because it's not really a case where they care about
Speaker 1: the truth one way or the other. It's a matter
Speaker 1: of you've kind of lost the fight if you care
Speaker 1: at all about trying to prove reality to them, you know.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of a bummer note to end this on.
Speaker 1: But I guess I don't really have anything optimistic to say.
Speaker 1: I just thought you'd be interested in my little conversation
Speaker 1: with Rudy Giuliani and some of the talking points that
Speaker 1: are continuing to spread up along their ride. So you know,
Speaker 1: at the very least, maybe the next time you wind
Speaker 1: up in an argument this Thanksgiving with your uncle about Ukraine,
Speaker 1: you'll be kind of wary for some of the arguments
Speaker 1: he's going to bring out, you know, to the extent
Speaker 1: that that does anybody any good until next time. I'm
Speaker 1: Robert Evans, and this is it could Happen here. If
Speaker 1: you want to see these sources for this episode and
Speaker 1: do some reading yourself, they're in the show notes, so
Speaker 1: just check them out there and we will be back tomorrow.
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