Speaker 1: Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George
Speaker 1: Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong, Joe Getty, Armstrong and Gatti
Speaker 1: and no He Armstrong and Hetty.
Speaker 2: Major questions about Trump's trade war with China and what
Speaker 2: is really going on. The President claiming that his administration
Speaker 2: is meeting with Chinese officials to try to get tariff's lowered,
Speaker 2: but that's not what the Chinese are saying.
Speaker 1: The Chinese are liars. Back to China in a moment, Yeah, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: always have been, always will be. I's just reading Ian
Speaker 1: Bremer's analysis of the whole tariff China thing. Is this
Speaker 1: is gonna cause China a great deal of pain short term.
Speaker 1: Ian says they're gonna benefit from a long benefit from
Speaker 1: it long term. But I don't know if there's gonna
Speaker 1: be a lot long term.
Speaker 3: So yeah, well, I tell you what. Let's go ahead
Speaker 3: and play the groovy theme first. It's uh, look inside
Speaker 3: the China Cabinet, Jack, cleverly.
Speaker 1: China, China.
Speaker 3: It's a series of stories about our greatest geopolitical adversary.
Speaker 1: Don't trust China. Oh I see that, don't I see?
Speaker 1: You're talking about the nation of China as opposed to
Speaker 1: like the uh. It is commonly referred to as China.
Speaker 3: Yes, you've caught on Yes, and it's quite a number
Speaker 3: of stories.
Speaker 1: Jack. Feel free to comment as you like. We can
Speaker 1: digress on anyone or just zip through either way. I
Speaker 1: thought this was interesting, and we'll begin briefly at least
Speaker 1: with tariffs. You know who's gonna get hit the hardest
Speaker 1: with the China tariff thing if it continues, which is
Speaker 1: al of a big if. Who knows is young parent.
Speaker 1: Everything strollers, cribs, toys, baby products is made in China.
Speaker 1: An astounding amount of the stuff I bought my Target
Speaker 1: stock after Sam was born. It was just like, how
Speaker 1: many times a week are we going to Target to
Speaker 1: buy things with a baby? But practically everything I'm sure
Speaker 1: was made in China. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So there are a few countries beside China, with their
Speaker 3: manufacturing prowess which is undeniable, that can efficiently meet the
Speaker 3: strictest baby product safety standards on Earth, the American safety standards.
Speaker 3: China's really good at building strollers that conformed all that stuff,
Speaker 3: and you know, you can get some crappy toy that
Speaker 3: will break the first time your kid plays with it
Speaker 3: from virtually anywhere you know.
Speaker 1: And I don't want to name any countries. I'm not
Speaker 1: here to disparage anybody, but Malaysia. You want, We're looking
Speaker 1: at you, Malaysia, oh boy.
Speaker 3: But if you want something sturdy and past the safety standards,
Speaker 3: you're probably going to look to China. So we shall
Speaker 3: see how that develops. Now onto more serious fair Clearly
Speaker 3: nobody knows about kin Men Island's island.
Speaker 1: I think it's an archipelago. It's several islands.
Speaker 3: Kin Men a Taiwanese archipelago about two miles off the
Speaker 3: Chinese coast. I'm reminded of recently reading The Cane Mutiny,
Speaker 3: which is about World War Two, in which a number
Speaker 3: of the battles and campaigns they referenced are familiar to
Speaker 3: any history buff And there's an old saying that war
Speaker 3: is how Americans learn geography. Well, we all might learn
Speaker 3: about kin Men, this series of islands between China and Taiwan.
Speaker 3: As the Chinese Navy and Coast Guard is getting increasingly
Speaker 3: belligerent about practically pulling onto their beaches.
Speaker 1: I know you weren't here a couple fridays ago when
Speaker 1: your nation needed you. You were watching a golf contest somewhere.
Speaker 1: But that's when I had Mike Liones on and his
Speaker 1: his take was, China goes to take Taiwan, They're just
Speaker 1: gonna take it. We're not a positioned to stop them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm reminded of a big brother bullying a little
Speaker 3: brother and bringing his fist right up to the kid's
Speaker 3: face and doing it again and again and again, and
Speaker 3: all it's going to take is for China to go
Speaker 3: ahead and slug the kid, if you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: They're absolutely poised and ready. Well, part of it is
Speaker 1: our lack of appetite for an actual war, which I
Speaker 1: completely understand and share. But he was talking about, well,
Speaker 1: if we did this and then China would probably attack
Speaker 1: the West coast, Like whoa, I mean, that's just so
Speaker 1: mind blowing as an American, the idea of California, you know,
Speaker 1: bombs falling in La or San Francisco, and she's just
Speaker 1: what the hell? But you know, look at the news
Speaker 1: in Ukraine.
Speaker 3: It happens in various places around the world, right, So wait,
Speaker 3: there's more. So China claims its Coast Guard is carrying
Speaker 3: out routine law enforcement, but the real purpose is clearly
Speaker 3: to challenge Taiwan's your stiction over its own islands. The
Speaker 3: patrols create opportunities for escalation if China wants to send
Speaker 3: a message blah blah blah, it's a dangerous game, especially
Speaker 3: with American special forces stationed right now on kin Men.
Speaker 3: So China could demand that the US and Taipei demilitarize
Speaker 3: the islands, betting that mister Trump would withdraw the troops
Speaker 3: and urge Taiwan to give away the island rather than
Speaker 3: less risk a larger confrontation. So we have some of
Speaker 3: our best and brightest there right now as China is
Speaker 3: menacing the very beaches of ten Men.
Speaker 1: I don't want to get sidetracked on this completely, but
Speaker 1: can you imagine the cultural change that would happen in America?
Speaker 1: I think for generations if bombs were falling in La
Speaker 1: San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, wherever from Choh. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean that would be so it'd be a wake up
Speaker 1: to me and I expect this sort of thing in
Speaker 1: my lifetime. For most people who just can't even imagine
Speaker 1: that ever happening, it'd be holy crap. We're we're vulnerable too,
Speaker 1: just like every other human on earth.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, really since the War of eighteen twelve, I
Speaker 3: mean it's I mean, the Civil War, it's hardly been
Speaker 3: an issue we think about it all other than a
Speaker 3: couple of fairly minor submarine incursions in w W two.
Speaker 3: But yeah, the idea of the fighting being on our
Speaker 3: homeland or the bombings or whatever, Yeah, it's crazy. Moving along,
Speaker 3: China has moved to formally end all Christian missionary activities.
Speaker 3: The Chinese Communist Party is imposing severe restrictions on Christians
Speaker 3: in the country because they are godless commis and utterly
Speaker 3: evil to their core Chinese in short.
Speaker 1: Sir, Yes, yes, that's true. That's true.
Speaker 3: So in lighter fair, because virtually everything's lighter fair. There's
Speaker 3: Coffee has become incredibly popular in China in the last
Speaker 3: few years.
Speaker 1: There's a giant coffee craze. Did they not drink it before?
Speaker 1: Did the Chinese just discover coffee?
Speaker 3: They're all about tea, that's right, all the tea in China.
Speaker 3: Perhaps you've heard the expression, so they mentioned these coffee wars. Now,
Speaker 3: between all the coffee shops that have sprung up, what
Speaker 3: they're trying to do is come up with the latest
Speaker 3: hot flavor, and they open the article with this Beijinger
Speaker 3: drinking Starbucks mochas to power through the day.
Speaker 1: Today she downs Americanos doused in pineapple juice and lattes
Speaker 1: blended with French butter. What a pineapple coffee or a
Speaker 1: butter latte? But wait, jacket made with French butter? I
Speaker 1: would try that.
Speaker 3: Roasted duck plums cheese, the bizarre bruise feeling China's coffee
Speaker 3: war crowbeeks you just get You get an espresso shop
Speaker 3: and you stir it with the crow beaks. Wow, roasted
Speaker 3: duck flavored coffee Niac, Let's see you got phizzy Americano
Speaker 3: made with Apple's lime, butter, latte, grapes, butter.
Speaker 1: I didn't know. I guess I should have assumed that
Speaker 1: there were Starbucks in China, but duck flavored? Dude, put
Speaker 1: back the duck coffee. I would like to know. Does
Speaker 1: the Starbucks in China have unlocked bathrooms? Do they have
Speaker 1: a civilized enough society where you can have a bathroom
Speaker 1: like every business in America was until a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago. What are you?
Speaker 3: Tucker Carlson now praising totalitarian regimes because their bathrooms are cleaner.
Speaker 1: Please. It's an interesting question though. Moving along.
Speaker 3: There, it is finally, thank you, Michael, better late than ever. Huh.
Speaker 3: Chinese students on US campuses are ensnared in a political standoff.
Speaker 3: Some say their visas have been revoked. In recent weeks.
Speaker 3: Beijing is warning other nationals to reconsider study plans in America.
Speaker 3: This is a topic I would like to hammer over
Speaker 3: and over again. How and we're gonna get into it
Speaker 3: more later and if not today, next week. How major
Speaker 3: universities are absolute.
Speaker 1: It's a harsh word, folks. Forgive me absolute sluts for
Speaker 1: foreign money, specifically China and cutter the Chinese communists and
Speaker 1: the Katari Islamists.
Speaker 3: They are Islamic supremacists. They just wear Western suits and
Speaker 3: go at it a different way. They have so thoroughly
Speaker 3: addicted some of our major universities to their money.
Speaker 1: They dare not teach against them. Their lap dogs.
Speaker 3: And one in four one in every four international student
Speaker 3: comes in the US comes from China, one in four.
Speaker 3: And the US has been running a large service surplus
Speaker 3: with China for years, partly because of the billions of
Speaker 3: dollars that Chinese households spend on schooling in the US.
Speaker 3: It is an enormous like hairin pipeline cash, they pay
Speaker 3: full freight. And yeah, so anyway, both the young Chinese
Speaker 3: communist boys and girls and their overlords are panicking a
Speaker 3: little bit, and their university overlords. Because it's been such
Speaker 3: a mutually beneficial scam, China gets to import a lot
Speaker 3: of would be spies, whether willing or unwilling. The universities
Speaker 3: get to piles and piles of money, and.
Speaker 1: We get to you know, cash into our system. I
Speaker 1: don't know why you had to drop the S bomb,
Speaker 1: but to make your point spies.
Speaker 3: Slut Oh oh it was I thought it was a
Speaker 3: powerful metaphor.
Speaker 1: No, a couple more the universities be doing the walk
Speaker 1: of shame here in a couple of years and happened.
Speaker 3: To a well, yeah they will. But instead of wearing
Speaker 3: last night's.
Speaker 1: Clothes and questioning their lives decision, life's decision again, they're
Speaker 1: infiltrated with Chinese spies and they're addicted to the cash.
Speaker 1: There's no way to be It's more like being a
Speaker 1: crack hoe than a shame. Yeah, yes, shame lady.
Speaker 3: It's more like being a crack hoe than you know,
Speaker 3: a coh heed who got a bit loose last night.
Speaker 1: Walking down the street carrying your shoes, make up a
Speaker 1: mess looking for more students, and I will keep this brief.
Speaker 3: Chinese scientists in America come under new wave of suspicion,
Speaker 3: FBI scrutiny and visa revocations are worrying STEM researchers as
Speaker 3: China looks to recruit them to come home.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, a lot of the researchers are either spies
Speaker 1: or they're going to be spies the minute Beijing calls
Speaker 1: and says, hey, we need you to send us a
Speaker 1: copy of that paper you're working on. That's the problem.
Speaker 3: And finally this there are strong indications that you remember
Speaker 3: the doge thing when they're laying off a bunch of people,
Speaker 3: and that was the biggest problem in the world for
Speaker 3: about a cup of duck flavored coffee.
Speaker 1: Set the duck back.
Speaker 3: Chinese intelligence maybe trying to recruit fired US officials. An
Speaker 3: advisory says that foreign agencies are posing his consulting firms,
Speaker 3: think tanks, and other organizations to connect with former government
Speaker 3: employees who may or may not be disgruntled and looking
Speaker 3: for some sort of work.
Speaker 1: So the Chinese equivalent of the CIA is saying, hey,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 3: What, we really we've admired your work for a long
Speaker 3: long time, or starting a think tank, we'd love to.
Speaker 1: Have little of your expertise. And I've read about this
Speaker 1: study this for years. How they get you.
Speaker 3: They have you doing completely innocent stuff, and then they
Speaker 3: have you doing stuff that has just the tinge of
Speaker 3: I'm I'm sure I'm supposed to well, and then they
Speaker 3: ask you to do something a little more improper, and
Speaker 3: then you're a full on espionage agent and you have
Speaker 3: such a trail of oh my god, did I do that?
Speaker 1: Behind you? You're on the hook. That's a look inside
Speaker 1: the China cabinet. I didn't realize you're just coming around
Speaker 1: to call feed there in China. That'll be a big
Speaker 1: deal for you know, a lot of your big coffee
Speaker 1: companies around the world. You know, Colombia has got to
Speaker 1: be excited about that. You're comb peruse. Yes, yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: you were into the NFL draft. I'm into the pope draft,
Speaker 1: the cardinal draft, uh for who's going to be the
Speaker 1: next pope? Among other things. On the way, stay here, Hey.
Speaker 4: The telephones in this city will be changed to dial service.
Speaker 4: And all telephone numbers will be changed. Before calling any number,
Speaker 4: first secure the number from your new directory, Then remove
Speaker 4: the receiver and listen for the dial tone. It sounds
Speaker 4: like this with the receiver off the hook, dial the
Speaker 4: desired number. Be sure to allow the dial to freely
Speaker 4: return to its normal possession. And this is the ringing segmental.
Speaker 4: If the line is busy, you'll hear this busy signal.
Speaker 1: That's from nineteen thirty six. What I was just trying
Speaker 1: to figure out in my head what age would you have?
Speaker 1: What's the cutoff for having had that experience? Michael, you
Speaker 1: just turned fifty. Have you used a rotary phone?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I did, Like you're a little kid. Yeah, so I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: like forty five and under, you've probably never used a
Speaker 1: rotary phone.
Speaker 3: I can still remember our first push button phone.
Speaker 1: Is that what you'd call it? Right? And I was
Speaker 1: kind of thinking that's about the time Chinese crap came
Speaker 1: into our lives, or foreign crap anyway. I mean, man,
Speaker 1: those old timey phones were a piece of happy duty,
Speaker 1: indestructible equipment. As I've said many times, those old AT
Speaker 1: and T phones, you could beat an ox to death
Speaker 1: with it, and then call your grandmother Barbara. They were
Speaker 1: solid man. And then like you get into the nineties
Speaker 1: and you had cordless phones, just the cheapest, lightest, thinnest,
Speaker 1: crappiest plastic on earth. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3: Oh boy, Mike, Green was the phone in your kitchen
Speaker 3: when you were a teenager hoping a girl might call
Speaker 3: you or call you back? I can picture it because
Speaker 3: I stared at it so much.
Speaker 1: I never had any hope of that. But yeah, by
Speaker 1: the way, green, any kind of yellow, mustard yellow was ours.
Speaker 1: But uh yeah, if you're gonna have a phone conversation,
Speaker 1: it was going to be in the kitchen because that's
Speaker 1: where the phone was on the cord. Well, that was
Speaker 1: your problem. No girl's gonna call a mustard yellow phone.
Speaker 1: Oh if only that was my only problem? How much
Speaker 1: time I got, Michael, Did I use up all my
Speaker 1: time already? No, you're still fanciful, None of no stock.
Speaker 1: It's easy to be. Nostalgia's an interesting thing, trying to
Speaker 1: separate things that may have actually been better from it
Speaker 1: just feels better because it's what was happening when you
Speaker 1: were younger, and separating those two things is difficult. But sure,
Speaker 1: there were many advantages to the there's a phone, you know,
Speaker 1: in the center of our lives. That's where everybody's going
Speaker 1: to have their communication. I mean, your wife isn't who's
Speaker 1: she been texting for the last half hour. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's none of that going on. Everything was just more
Speaker 1: easily controlled there, Yeah, I suppose so. Yeah.
Speaker 3: On the other hand, the advent of the answering machine
Speaker 3: reduced stress a.
Speaker 1: Lot changed everything. But just from some of the stuff
Speaker 1: we were doing yesterday about marriages and contempt and all
Speaker 1: these different sorts of things. Pre how did people have
Speaker 1: even have dalliances back in the day where you couldn't
Speaker 1: call on the phone, you couldn't send a message or again,
Speaker 1: send a letter meet me. It's a little more carcasome.
Speaker 1: But it had to be better, right, I think it
Speaker 1: had to be better.
Speaker 3: But harniness and bad decisions still found a way to
Speaker 3: win jack even back then.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: Trump some interesting things to say about Russia and Ukraine.
Speaker 1: That is coming to a head possible. We've got a
Speaker 1: lot of that coming up, Armstrong and Getty.
Speaker 5: The Trump administration has put forward a peace proposal that
Speaker 5: would prohibit natal membership for Ukraine and force Ukraine to
Speaker 5: give up land that Russia has see since it's invasion,
Speaker 5: in addition to giving up CRIMEA. Ukrainian president Vladimir Zelensky
Speaker 5: has rejected the current proposal, saying we will negotiate, we
Speaker 5: will not surrender.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we got a lot more on that. There's there's
Speaker 1: a tremendous amount happening around Russia and Ukraine. It's it's
Speaker 1: gonna go one way or the other, like now, like
Speaker 1: this week, or this weekend or maybe today. Trump has
Speaker 1: an interview in Time magazine whatever that is now that
Speaker 1: we can talk a little bit about. But here's some
Speaker 1: from Trump and asked a variety of questions about this yesterday.
Speaker 1: It's just run through these in order. Michael. Right after that,
Speaker 1: he used the words Vladimir stop.
Speaker 6: That seemed like a slightly different message of personal message.
Speaker 6: What is your level of frustration with President Putin at
Speaker 6: this point?
Speaker 7: I wasn't happy with it, and we're in the midst
Speaker 7: of token peace and missiles were fired that I was
Speaker 7: not happy with it.
Speaker 6: Will you consider additional sanctions towards Russia?
Speaker 1: Or what will you.
Speaker 6: Do if President Putin does not respond?
Speaker 1: Were a week?
Speaker 7: I want to see what we get.
Speaker 1: Happy deal? Yeah, and then then the New York So
Speaker 1: Trump tweets out yesterday Vladimir stop and all capitals with
Speaker 1: exclamation points. This is not helping. The New York Post
Speaker 1: characterized that as Trump blasts putin, ah, that's uhou. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't say that's exactly what happened now, I mean it
Speaker 1: was all caps. I'll give you that. That was one
Speaker 1: opinion piece yesterday. There Cover Today insinuates that Trump's Vladimir
Speaker 1: stop was basically the same as Biden's don't with no
Speaker 1: teeth behind it, which was, and the Wall Street Journal similar.
Speaker 1: Here's a little more Trump when you.
Speaker 7: Say, crimea that was handed over during a president named
Speaker 7: Barack Hussein Obama that had nothing to do with me.
Speaker 7: Crimea that was eleven years ago with Obama and they
Speaker 7: made a decision. There wasn't a bullet fire, there was
Speaker 7: no fighting, there was no anything. They just handed it over.
Speaker 7: Now they say, well, can you get it back? I
Speaker 7: think that's going to be a very difficult thing to do.
Speaker 7: That was given by Barack Obama when he was president,
Speaker 7: not by Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Not why sure what he had to throw in the
Speaker 1: Hussein with Obama noticed that, Yeah, at this point, but
Speaker 1: Bob Woodward, his book that I read about the Biden presidency,
Speaker 1: said Joe Biden, when Joe Biden was try trying to
Speaker 1: talk Putin out of invading, like the day before he invaded,
Speaker 1: and he became it became obvious that Putin was going
Speaker 1: no matter what Biden said. Biden got off the phone,
Speaker 1: hung up the phone and said, ef ing Barak. It's
Speaker 1: his fault. He didn't do anything when Putin took crime in.
Speaker 1: It caused all of this. So Biden's belief was Obama
Speaker 1: not pushing Obiden got a hold of or Obama got
Speaker 1: Hood a hold of whatever the name of the president
Speaker 1: was at the time, back then in Ukraine and said,
Speaker 1: don't do anything. We're not backing you. Don't do anything.
Speaker 1: We'll take care of this basically, and then nothing ever happened,
Speaker 1: right very Obama. Yeah, Well, Trump wasn't wrong in what
Speaker 1: he said there. Yeah, we're gonna get to that in
Speaker 1: a little bit with David Ignatius Washington Post piece, which
Speaker 1: I think you're going to agree with. Let's roll through
Speaker 1: the rest of the Trump and then we'll be done.
Speaker 7: What concessions has Russia offered up thus far?
Speaker 1: To get to the point where you're closer to peace.
Speaker 7: Stopping them or stopping taking the whole country. Pretty big concession.
Speaker 1: I don't know what I think of that. Russia's concession
Speaker 1: is not taking the whole country.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what is the inducement for that, whether carrot or stick.
Speaker 1: That's the part that mystifies me a little bit.
Speaker 3: If I'm Vladimir Putin, I'm thinking all I'm getting is
Speaker 3: Vladimir don't and I'm gobblin up territory.
Speaker 1: Not very fast, and it's bloody, but I don't mind
Speaker 1: young men going off to their death for the Russian motherland.
Speaker 1: I'm on the front foot here. We're making progress. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna keep going. Thank you. Ah man, you gotta find
Speaker 1: a different way to couch it. It just doesn't let's
Speaker 1: play the last trump one there.
Speaker 7: I have no allegiance to anybody. I have allegiance to
Speaker 7: saving lives, and I want to save a lot of lives,
Speaker 7: a lot of young people's, mostly young people. It's the war,
Speaker 7: it's so and if we can do that also, as
Speaker 7: you know, I get started because the money that's been
Speaker 7: spent on this war is insane. It's a killing field.
Speaker 7: Five thousand soldiers a week on average. Can we want
Speaker 7: to stop that.
Speaker 1: I heard some of the numbers yesterday. Russia's approaching a
Speaker 1: million men take it off the battlefield dead or injured
Speaker 1: since they started nine hundred and seventy thousand. A million men,
Speaker 1: I mean, we have hundreds of thousands more fled the country.
Speaker 1: For what it's worth, we have giant monuments in Washington,
Speaker 1: d c. For tiny fractions of that in various wars
Speaker 1: we've been involved in because we think it's so horrific
Speaker 1: with a much bigger population, right, I mean, it's just well,
Speaker 1: it's a different culture for sure. God, I'd say the
Speaker 1: history of Russia being willing to lose lots and lots
Speaker 1: of young men. It's just astounding. Russia has lost one
Speaker 1: hundred thousand men from the battlefield this year. It is April.
Speaker 1: It's just it's stunning. Anyway, So some of the North Koreans,
Speaker 1: by the way, which is its own story, did you
Speaker 1: watch that video came out yesterday? No, Eight Ukrainian commandos
Speaker 1: killed twenty five North Koreans in their trench. They had
Speaker 1: GoPros on their heads and you could watch it and
Speaker 1: it's just like those poor freaking North Korean dudes and
Speaker 1: they don't even know where they are, certainly don't know
Speaker 1: why they're fighting, and why would they. That's one interesting
Speaker 1: thing about this war is the peace process as opposed
Speaker 1: to the Middle East or I'm reading about past Middle
Speaker 1: East peace process, where you've got, you know, you've got
Speaker 1: to massage your own people so much because they're so
Speaker 1: into the war. There's nobody in Russia happy that this
Speaker 1: is going on. Happier in hell to have this end.
Speaker 1: Putin doesn't need to calm a population that wants to
Speaker 1: keep going because of everything Ukraine has done to us.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's just they'd be happy to have
Speaker 1: it come to an end.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a reason he's passed all of those draconian
Speaker 3: laws about against breathing a word in opposition of the war,
Speaker 3: because he knows where the public sentiment lies.
Speaker 1: Anyway, I was kind of surprised by this writing in
Speaker 1: the Washington Post today from David Ignatius. There's movement, if
Speaker 1: not yet agreement, towards the Essential Land for Peace formula
Speaker 1: that would frame any pact. Under a US plan, that's
Speaker 1: the basis for discussions. Russia would continue to administer the
Speaker 1: five regions that occupies though Ukraine wouldn't formally seed sovereignty
Speaker 1: in any of them in the United States, because on
Speaker 1: the other side, Zelensky does have to satisfy his population, who,
Speaker 1: according to Poles, pretty willing to fight to the death
Speaker 1: to keep Ukraine together, and and he can't have anything
Speaker 1: formally seeding sovereignty and keep people happy. I don't think
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of the book I'm reading about the late
Speaker 1: seventies pe process under Carter and with Began and Sadat,
Speaker 1: and they actually they wrote up two different UN resolutions
Speaker 1: which was unknown at the time, one for the Egyptian people,
Speaker 1: one for the Israeli people to feed to their own people,
Speaker 1: ah to make them feel like they didn't get jobbed right. Right.
Speaker 3: As I've pointed out many times, you must look at
Speaker 3: country's foreign relations through the lens of their domestic situation,
Speaker 3: because that's what it's all about.
Speaker 1: Obviously, just like the US, so Russia would continue to
Speaker 1: hold the five regions that it's taken, Ukraine wouldn't formally
Speaker 1: seed sovereignty. The United States might implicitly recognize Russia's hold
Speaker 1: on CRIMEA, Ukraine wouldn't. Security guarantees would be finessed too.
Speaker 1: Ukraine wouldn't join NATO, but it would keep the language
Speaker 1: in its constitution declaring that goal. Russia would accept Ukraine's
Speaker 1: right to a post war robust security guarantee, which would
Speaker 1: be understood by all to mean European troops. European troops
Speaker 1: in Ukraine. And there's no mention in the document of
Speaker 1: Russia's old demand for a neutral, de militarized zone in Ukraine,
Speaker 1: so that's gone by the wayside. Europe would provide the
Speaker 1: military side of the security guarantee. The US plan also
Speaker 1: envisages an American role on the ground through its operation
Speaker 1: in the whole nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, which
Speaker 1: supply power to both sides. So we would be involved
Speaker 1: in the power plant, which remember Trump brought that up
Speaker 1: a while back, because that would be as David Ignatius
Speaker 1: says here, this would be an American trip wire. If
Speaker 1: Russia tried to take the power plant, you'd be crossing
Speaker 1: the line with US. And the same holds true for
Speaker 1: the proposal that the US share profits from the minerals
Speaker 1: another natural resources. It's an economic power play and gives
Speaker 1: America a stake in the post war piece that Russia
Speaker 1: would have to watch out for So that was a
Speaker 1: pretty clever thing that they came up with, and it
Speaker 1: might be the absolutely vomit worthy, unpalatable best thing you
Speaker 1: can get.
Speaker 3: Sometimes things end that way, sometimes the world goes that way.
Speaker 1: Now, just to see it, it's frustrating, and that's your point,
Speaker 1: I guess. But it didn't have to be this way.
Speaker 1: Ukraine could have been provided armament that would have helped
Speaker 1: them push Russia back further earlier, and it would be
Speaker 1: a completely different negotiating situation. Correct.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I haven't appreciated some of the things
Speaker 3: Trump has done and said, but he was handed a terrible,
Speaker 3: terrible situation by the feckless, senile mummy Joe Biden and
Speaker 3: his administration, which made his maneuvering room considerably tighter.
Speaker 1: Well, I'll just leave that there for now. One thing
Speaker 1: is in a that I'm really interested in.
Speaker 3: I hope I live long enough to see it is
Speaker 3: the Russian Empire, whether it was under the Tsars or
Speaker 3: the Soviet Union or the current deal under potent who's
Speaker 3: attempting to reassemble the Great Russian Empire. It's been held
Speaker 3: together with brutality and bribes for like, you know, the
Speaker 3: last century and a.
Speaker 1: Half thousand years.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, I'm more familiar with the last century
Speaker 3: and a half. But anyway, what happens when Putin goes
Speaker 3: will be really really interesting to watch because, yeah, you've
Speaker 3: got Ukraine, which is ethnically different. Mostly they do have
Speaker 3: Russian folks there, in Russian speaking folks. Everybody's got a
Speaker 3: cousin in both countries. It's a close association, but not
Speaker 3: close enough that Ukraine doesn't in overwhelming numbers, want to
Speaker 3: be a completely independent country. Same can be said for
Speaker 3: a lot of so called Russian provinces that they're Muslims.
Speaker 3: They're absolutely not ethnic Russian. They hate Putin, They're just
Speaker 3: again being held together by brutality and bribes. And where
Speaker 3: all that goes, I mean, Russia will continue to be
Speaker 3: unstable for the rest of our lives and your kids
Speaker 3: and grandkids too.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I've been more on the side of MSNBC's take
Speaker 1: on this particular story for a while. You're a liberal,
Speaker 1: it's an interesting position. So would the left be into
Speaker 1: this war if it had started under a Republicans? What
Speaker 1: I and I remember the left last time the left
Speaker 1: was so into I mean yesterday on MSNBC with a
Speaker 1: lot of great guests. They were actually talking about US
Speaker 1: ground troops to push Russia out. I mean, that's how
Speaker 1: far they were going. Democrats, Yeah, your question is a
Speaker 1: super interesting one. First, Blush, I'd say no, they'd be
Speaker 1: staunchly against it if a Republican had been in office.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm under. They're just knee jerk tribalists. And anyway,
Speaker 1: a lot of the talk of this is Trump being
Speaker 1: Neville Chamberlain appeasing Hitler. Well, the big difference was Hitler
Speaker 1: had built the biggest war machine in all of Europe,
Speaker 1: and everybody knew he had the most powerful military in Europe.
Speaker 1: Russia does not. They have been decimated, so they're not
Speaker 1: going to march across Europe if they're appeased, right, right,
Speaker 1: do you think ugly as hell? Before we take a break?
Speaker 1: Do you think you do it a piece deal and
Speaker 1: then Russia violates it at some point and tries to
Speaker 1: take more.
Speaker 3: Eventually, one hundred percent of Putin lives another five years.
Speaker 1: But you think he'd wait out Trump to the next person. Ah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and or make this sort of small incursions kind
Speaker 3: of sowing seeds for bigger incursions down the road.
Speaker 1: But yeah, he'd start on that project right away. I
Speaker 1: keep forgetting to talk about the pope. And we've got
Speaker 1: a bunch of other stuff too. We're gonna break down
Speaker 1: the second round to the draft, but.
Speaker 3: Stay with us.
Speaker 1: One clip. We didn't play Trump yesterday. He's asked about
Speaker 1: you know, what are you what pressure are you putting
Speaker 1: on Russia? And he said things you don't know about. Basically,
Speaker 1: he said, we're doing things you don't know today. And
Speaker 1: I don't know if this has anything to do with it.
Speaker 1: Oh Whitkoff arrives in Moscow as one of the very
Speaker 1: top Russian generals who is in charge of the battle
Speaker 1: plan for Ukraine. Blows up. His car blows up. I've
Speaker 1: seen the picture. I mean his car just disintegrated him
Speaker 1: in it. Probably a clogged fuel filter right right, He
Speaker 1: must have had one of those lithium batteries you're not
Speaker 1: supposed to have or something. The check engine light was on.
Speaker 1: He ignored it right here, blowe right, need to do
Speaker 1: brake pads. And so I don't know if that has
Speaker 1: anything to do with any of the things were you
Speaker 1: don't know about behind the scenes putting pressure on Russia.
Speaker 1: But one other generals blew up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, speaking of warfare, one of the biggest hawks against
Speaker 3: Iran in Washington is a big bald headed democrat. Plus
Speaker 3: conservative professor tells us how to save Harvard. Apparently there
Speaker 3: is a conservative professor and he wrote something stay with us.
Speaker 1: I've been keeping track of how many days in a
Speaker 1: row the Pope's death leads the evening newscast and so
Speaker 1: far every day since Saturday since.
Speaker 3: The idiot David Muir and his idiot newscast on ABC
Speaker 3: last night devoted like six minutes to it.
Speaker 1: Right and they're traveling there and gonna be live from there.
Speaker 1: The funeral is tomorrow. Trump is on the way to
Speaker 1: Italy right now with a lot of other world leaders,
Speaker 1: So it's gonna be at least a full week of
Speaker 1: it being the lead story. And it's not like we're
Speaker 1: during a news lull right at all. And it's still
Speaker 1: the lead story, which is kind of interesting to me.
Speaker 1: You said their audience is old. That's true, they're centered
Speaker 1: in New York, higher per percentage of Catholics in the Northeast.
Speaker 1: All that stuff is true. I'm still I'm still kind
Speaker 1: of surprised by it. Well, and it's it's like uncontroversial
Speaker 1: and easy. It's like a killer storm is crossing the Midwest.
Speaker 1: There's that. I missed that part. That's the thing. Cheryl
Speaker 1: Atkinson after she left say CBS News says, those stories
Speaker 1: are because there's no pushback weather stuff like this. They're
Speaker 1: just nobody pushes back, so it's just easy and still
Speaker 1: line people standing in line for seven, ten, twelve hours
Speaker 1: to walk by the dead pope and see them with
Speaker 1: their families or whatever. They're in Rome. And that's that's
Speaker 1: its own interesting thing. Do you have any opinion on
Speaker 1: who the next pope is?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 1: Zero zero, don't care. I do, And this is what
Speaker 1: I'm hoping for. I think this would be good for
Speaker 1: First of all, I've always been fascinated by the idea
Speaker 1: of all of these in theory selfless men, and they're
Speaker 1: all men, because that's the deal, selfless men, choosing someone
Speaker 1: to be the biggest job you could ever have in
Speaker 1: your life. And in theory, you know, not having any
Speaker 1: ambition toward it, it's just like you know, trying to
Speaker 1: let God speak to you and make a decision that way,
Speaker 1: what's best for the Catholic Church, what's best best for
Speaker 1: And I wonder how much of that is true, and
Speaker 1: how much ambition slips in and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: I've always been fascinated by that. I would love to know.
Speaker 1: Do you ever read the Da Vinci Code. There's your
Speaker 1: answer right there. Ah, that's funny. I loved that book.
Speaker 1: I don't know how accurate it is. I'm hoping. I
Speaker 1: think it would be good for the world to have
Speaker 1: the first African pope, somebody from that that's a god
Speaker 1: forsaken continent. I think some African pope because the pope
Speaker 1: gets so much attention, as we've seen this week, being
Speaker 1: able to call attention to the wars, just all the
Speaker 1: problems they've got in Africa. I think that'd be helpful
Speaker 1: for the point's interesting take. Yeah, I don't care, not
Speaker 1: because I don't think anybody should care. I just don't
Speaker 1: have the bandwidth. There are other things I'm more interested in.
Speaker 3: I wish the Catholic world good luck and choosing a
Speaker 3: great new pope, a lot of good stuff.
Speaker 1: Next Hour. If you don't get Next Hour, you got
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