Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 3/22/22: US-Russia Relations, Trump Comments, GOP Turmoil, Generational War, Food Crisis, Saudi Arabia, & Russia's Future with a Russian Activist!

Episode Date: March 22, 2022

Krystal and Saagar break down the collapse in Russia-US relations, threats of a Russian cyberattack, Trump's hawkishness towards Russia, Trump's fanatical obsession with 'Stop the Steal', Missouri Senate candidate Eric Greitens' abuse, generational warfare in the economy, Oscars cringe, food crisis incoming, Saudi Arabia humiliation, and a Russian anti-war activist live from Moscow!To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and SpotifyApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/Egor Kotkin: https://www.patreon.com/egorkotkinhttps://egorkotkin.substack.com/https://twitter.com/EgorKotkin Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Indeed we do. Of course, lots breaking in terms of the war in Ukraine. We'll bring you all of those details. We also have some new comments to bring you from our former president that are rather eyebrow-raising. Also a scandal in the Missouri Senate race. Eric Greitens, you guys might know this guy. He was governor. He had to resign before because of a previous set of scandals. Now, in a sworn affidavit, his ex-wife is saying that he abused not only her, but their son. We're bringing all those details. He is staying in right now. He is doubling down. We've got his comments. It's quite a story. Also, some new data about a sort of unfolding. We have it labeled there as generational war, intergenerational war.

You've got boomers and older generations who are doing extraordinarily well coming out of COVID. And you have millennials and younger basically continually screwed. That's the story of both of both of these generations so far. So we'll talk to you about that. Also, the worst idea for the Oscars ever proposed by Amy Schumer. And I feel like that's really saying something because we've had some very bad ideas at the Oscars that we've seen already. We're going to talk to someone I've mentioned on the show before, Igor Kotkin. Kotkin, he is a Russian. He lives in Moscow. He's going to talk to us about the view on the ground there, their reports of food stables running low and sort of panicked buying and those sorts of things.

So we'll talk to him about what exactly is going on there. And by the way, quite courageous for him to speak to us. Yeah, before we were talking, I said, listen, you know, he needs to know what the consequences could be. Like, you know. He's well aware. I won't say more about him exactly, but he's already got a target on his back. So I would just, you know, let's all pray for his safety after he appears. Yeah.

I mean, this is someone who he's, you know, proudly anti-war. He's also openly gay, which in itself can be bold and courageous. In Russia, his boyfriend's already been arrested. Of course, we know the sort of laws that they've passed there about spreading what they call fake news. So he knows all of those risks, but still thinks it's important to talk to us and talk to our audience. And he's welcome on the show. Excited to speak with him. But we wanted to start with the very latest on the ground in Ukraine, sort of escalation in terms of Russian rhetoric and continued deterioration of our relationship with them. Let's go ahead and

put this first tear sheet up on the screen. This is from Reuters. They say U.S.-Moscow ties close to rupture after Biden's war criminal remarks. We'll show you those remarks in just a second. The lead of this is that Russia's foreign ministry said on Monday they had summoned our ambassador, John Sullivan, to tell him that remarks by President Joe Biden about Russian President Vladimir Putin had pushed bilateral ties to the brink of collapse. You might say that those ties were already perhaps at the brink of collapse, but this is, again, another sign of just how bad the situation is and bad the relationship is. Their comments were such statements from the American president, unworthy of a statesman of such high rank, put Russian-American relations on the verge of rupture. Those comments specifically

Biden got asked in a kind of, you know, as he's leaving the room, a reporter shouts out at him, do you think Putin is a war criminal? At first, he misunderstood the question. And then he comes back and says, what did you say again? And he responds to the affirmative that he does think Putin is a war criminal. I'm explaining it because the audio is a little bit muffled, but let's go ahead and take a listen to that. I mean, I think you would have to say at this point, that is undeniably true, given the reports we've seen on the ground about civilian casualties and targeting of hospitals and the like. Certainly right. This may be an unpopular thing, but I don't think that the president should be so cavalier whenever we're using that type of language, whenever we're talking from an official capacity.

I think you and I are commentators, and I'm very comfortable using the phrase war criminal. And here's why. We all will remember that famous clip, I think it's Susan Rice back in 1994, twisting herself not to say the word genocide whenever it came to Rwanda. And the reason why is because those words mean something in the International Court of Law and also under U.S. treaties and obligations. So when the Biden administration is going to use that language, more what I would say is, I think it's totally justified, but I think it should be given as a concerted policy speech, specifically because when you're so cavalier with that, well, now we're risking rupture with the Kremlin. Here's the other reason, which is that can you come back from being

a war criminal? Like in terms of our relations with Russia, does that not just— WBUS did. Well, I guess you're right. I guess he resurrected himself as a painter. And Dick Cheney, I'm talking more about in terms of the eyes of the world and the U.S. administration, as in are we going to feel comfortable branding somebody a war criminal? And then in the future, let's say that Russia does come to some diplomatic solution, how are we supposed to have an off-ramp in terms of our diplomatic relations with that country? Look, I understand that this all sounds uncomfortable, but this is a nuclear armed power. This is the same reason that we have relations, and I supported Trump meeting with Kim Jong-un. I think Kim Jong-un has committed acts of genocide. I think Kim Jong-un is a war criminal in very much his own right. But whenever you have nukes, that means that you are

entitled to a certain level of diplomatic recognition. So it's not even that I object to what he's saying. It's that you need to be more considered in your language and not so glibly just make that pronouncement, which carries an immense weight in international politics, which has now invited the Kremlin to possibly sever ties with the United States, which is the worst thing I think could happen at this moment. It was sort of a very Trumpian moment. Exactly. In that it's just, you know, off the cuff, shooting from the hip, not really planned, not really strategic, not thoughtful, just sort of, you know, in response in the moment saying, you know, whatever he thinks is appropriate without really thinking through, okay, this is our plan,

this is our strategy. This is our strategy. Those sort of words should only be used after you've really considered what the consequences will be both in the short term and the long term. I think that is important to say. And I mean, the other part of this, I made the joke about George W. Bush. But there is something to, you know, U.S. hypocrisy on calling the leaders of other countries war criminals when, of course, we exempt ourselves from any sort of judgment and our leaders from any sort of judgment over the war crimes that they themselves have committed. So that's the first piece of this. The other thing that we found out yesterday, new revelations, let's go ahead and put Wall Street Journal tear sheet up on the screen, that we are sending Soviet air defense systems into Ukraine.

We apparently had a secret program over the length of the Cold War where we were—this makes sense. We were acquiring secretly Soviet weapons so that we could study them and figure out what their capabilities are. We still have a cache of these weapons, no telling how old they are, specifically what they are. But we learned yesterday from the Wall Street Journal that we are sending some of those systems over to Ukraine. Here's a little bit from that article. They say the systems, which one U.S. official said, include the SA-8, are decades old and were obtained by the U.S. that could examine the technology used by the Russian military and which Moscow has exported around the world. Those weapons are familiar to Ukraine's military, which Moscow has exported around the world. Those weapons are familiar to

Ukraine's military, which inherited this type of equipment following the breakup of the Soviet Union. So in our continued quest to figure out what can we send and how can we help them and how can we bolster them, this is the very latest move that they're making. It makes sense. This is the S-300 missile system, which is a longtime Soviet one. I actually think some NATO countries have it. I want to say it's Bulgaria, Slovakia, and Greece in terms of their leftover from the Soviet Union. It's quite an effective air defense system. I believe it's some things that we've seen deployed in Syria and elsewhere. So it's quite effective in its use. And obviously, whenever being used also against Russian weapons, there's generally a question too of interoperability with the Ukrainians and what

they already have, which are on the ground. So look, I mean, this generally fits with the theme of the U.S. weapons that are being provided under the Biden administration with bipartisan support, defensive weapons, as in javelins to shoot down aircraft, air defense system to stop, you know, air defense systems as defense, and why the MiGs, those fighter jets, were seen as an offensive capability that could be used offensively by the Ukrainians and why they would see that generally as a crossing of the line. So within that framework, I think it's okay.

More what it is is that I find the threat to cut ties the most troubling aspect of all of this just because what we need more than anything is open lines of communication. And this is not a popular stance to take. Everyone's like, oh, he's standing for Putin. That's not what we're talking about here, which is that we came to the brink once of nuclear war with the Soviet Union. And those two leaders, John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, decided that the reason why they came to the brink was their inability to talk to each other, which is why the hotline was established between those two leaders. And one of the very first things that happened when Lyndon B. Johnson assumed the office was that they installed the hotline in his office, because it was always important in order to have that line of communication open with the Russians.

And in terms of us communicating, back-channeling and more, the more open ties that we have between the two countries, even at a time when Putin is absolutely committing war crimes, then it's important, though, for the United States to balance its rhetoric and see exactly what our endgame is. You did your monologue yesterday on this, and I think it's very important. What is the endgame of the United States? I think it should be to support Ukraine. But let's say that they decide to pursue a peace, not likely currently, given Zelensky's comments, given Putin's comments, and all of that as well. But let's say a year from now or whatever that they decide to do. What are our, quote unquote, red lines? I think

we should just support Ukraine and generally what they decide, which is what we're doing right now. But let's say that their position switches in the civilian population and more. Well, I think we should just support Ukraine and generally what they decide, which is what we're doing right now. But let's say that their position switches in the civilian population and more. Well, I think we should continue to do that. Yeah, the question is always how do we create the context for peace? Right. And you don't have to say every single thing you think about Vladimir Putin right now because it doesn't necessarily serve the purpose of ultimately being able to have that dialogue and get to peace. And, you know, you don't accomplish anything by rhetorically calling him a war criminal. So I think those are all good points. In terms of what is happening on the ground, yesterday we brought you, you know, there's this

like concerted sort of narrative effort to push out into outlets from, you know, Axios, The Washington Post, New York Times, that the war is at a stalemate. And in fact, in two of three of the fronts that Russia has been pursuing, they are sort of stymied. But they do continue to make some gains. The very latest is there's been additional shelling in Kiev. There was a mall that was bombed in Kiev. Of course, this is horrendous for the residents of that city who are still there and also the ones who have fled. And then let's go ahead and put this next piece up on the screen. Russians have made significant advances into Mariupol, which is, you know, it's a key area. It's one that has been under siege for quite a while now.

People are really suffering in terms of, you know, humanitarian situation, no heat, no food, no water, no electricity. They haven't been able to establish humanitarian corridors. And so Russia basically gave Ukraine this not very good faith offer of, hey, we're going to allow two safe corridors out of Mariupol, but you have to surrender. Ukraine, of course, rejected that offer. So fighting does continue there. And again, you know, you've got hundreds of thousands of people there and it is an absolutely horrific situation on the ground. So the big danger is that, yes, Russia has been frustrated in some of their efforts. They certainly haven't advanced in the timeframe that they expected.

Their initial forces on the ground are sort of running out of supplies, and it wasn't really tactically, strategically sound plan to start with. But the question is, all right, how are they going to escalate? What are they going to pull out of their arsenal to go ahead and advance their claims, which will probably be more brutal for civilians? Excellent. Yeah, and that's part of the thing we tried to emphasize yesterday. It's not that it isn't true in a colloquial sense that the Russians have been stymied and have been kind of basically caught in their inability to move forward with currently what they have. But that isn't necessarily a good thing. And when we consider what it means to win, both sides now are in a belief that they are winning, at least in some form.

With the Russians, they just have the capability to bring immense amount more power to bear. At the same time, they're not in a total war economy just yet. They still have to balance their domestic population. They have people like Igor Kotkin, who we'll be speaking to later in the show. So they also have domestic constraints, and they are the invading army, which means that they're generally at a disadvantage, supply lines, all of that. But they still have a tremendous amount of military power. And especially in terms of what we see, if this turns into a total war type of attrition, then it's certainly the benefit is on their side. So let's all just hope that

there is some sense in the Kremlin sometime soon in order to bring about peace or to fold, although that is generally pretty unlikely. Yeah. Which is just unfortunate because it just means hundreds and thousands of people are at risk. I mean, it really is not an exaggeration. The Russians underwent an immensely brutal campaign twice under Vladimir Putin in Syria and in Chechnya. We just didn't pay a lot of attention to it here in the West. But hundreds of, you know, the most brutal phase of the Syrian civil war was the end. Same too in Chechnya. And that's when the Russians were using cluster munitions on the city of Aleppo and elsewhere. And I just currently just do not see a way out of that. Although I do hope that maybe the Ukrainians can fight them to a different type of stalemate and inflict so much pain that they feel the need to negotiate.

There was that number that came out yesterday. We were looking with some great interest. There was a leaked report, supposedly leaked. I want to debunk this just in case anybody has seen it, where they said the 10,000 Russian soldiers that died were like, oh my God. This is a state media outlet in Russia. But then the state media came out and said, oh, actually we were hacked. So look, we don't know what the actual number is. U.S. intelligence says something like 7,500. Who knows? If that is true though, remember this, in the, I think 11 years of fighting of Soviets in Afghanistan, they only lost 15,000 people.

That's their number. So if it is 6,000, 7,000, they've already exceeded the entire U.S. war in Iraq in number of casualties and are now going to territory where they haven't lost that many soldiers in combat in a long, long time. Yeah, well, in Afghanistan, I mean, Afghanistan was not nearly as precious to the Soviet Union as Ukraine is to Russia. But what you had was at the same time that there was sort of an opening and allowing of the airing of grievances in society in the Soviet Union, it was the mothers of those soldiers who really became sort of the backbone of the movement to end that war. And so, you know, yes, Putin is an autocrat and, you know, does what he wants, more or less. Within Russia, certainly the population did not vote for or encourage this war. Many people were shocked at the actual invasion once it happened. But he still faces domestic political pressure and his own considerations and is certainly a

student of history and understands where those pressure points ultimately lie. You can only conceal, especially in the modern age, death and casualties and injuries for so long and the extent of the losses that are being suffered by the Russian side. You can only conceal the true nature of this war for so long. And so while he has a lot more in reserve in terms of his military capacity, bringing more forces to bear also carries a risk in terms of your population really beginning to, you know, on a large scale resist. We've obviously brought you the protests that have happened in cities across Russia already, people who are very courageously taking the street and anti-war and calling for an end to this aggression. But I think we would be, it would be fanciful to imagine that that's even a majority of the Russian population at this point, just because the, you

know, the propaganda web that he's weaved is so thick. So anyway, those are some of his domestic political considerations. Do I think we're anywhere close to that? No, I don't. And that's why this is such a devastating and dire situation, because you just can't really see right now how—I don't think the Russians are negotiating in good faith. I think they've been holding these peace talks as a way of sort of signaling that they're serious and trying to keep more sanctions from being levied on them and those sorts of things.

And the Ukrainians really believe that they're in a position to actually win and not have to concede anything at the negotiating table. And I just don't think that that is a realistic scenario. So that's where we stand right now. There we go. So that's the update in terms of what's happening there. Let's go ahead and move on here to a important and possibly troubling warning from the United States, which is that the U.S. cybersecurity advisor took the White House podium yesterday to say that there is an increasing likelihood, according to their intelligence, with the claim that they are seeing increased signs of a possible Russian cyber attack on the United States.

Let's take a listen. We are reiterating those warnings. And we're doing so based on evolving threat intelligence that the Russian government is exploring options for potential cyber attacks on critical infrastructure in the United States. So there you go. There is a warning there from the administration. Let's go ahead and put this up there. It was in the context of an official statement from President Biden. And here's what he says,

which is that from day one, my administration's work to strengthen our national cyber defenses. My administration will continue to use every tool to deter, disrupt and if necessary, respond to cyber attacks against critical infrastructure. He gives a warning there to the private sector companies to harden your cyber defenses immediately. And in the first paragraph, which is the actual warning, he says, quote, I have previously warned about the potential that Russia could conduct malicious cyber activity against the United States, including as a response to the unprecedented economic costs that we have imposed on Russia alongside our allies and partners. It's part of Russia's playbook. Today,

my administration is reiterating those warnings based on evolving intelligence that the Russian government is exploring options for potential cyber attacks. Again, you take that for what you will, but it is important. And given what we do know so far is that, you know, the U.S. intelligence warnings about what the Russians might or might not do were on par, generally true, although there was some parsing important things to be done. And the president reiterated that when he was speaking to the business roundtable, a bunch of billionaire lobbyists here in D.C. Let's take a listen. And now Putin's back against the wall. He wasn't anticipating the extent or strength of our unity. And the more his back is against the wall,

the greater the severity of the tactics he may employ. We've seen it before. He's run a lot of false flag operations. Whenever he starts talking about something he thinks NATO, Ukraine, or the United States is about to do, it means he's getting ready to do it. One of the tools he's most likely to use, in my view, in our view, is cyber, cyber attacks. They have a very sophisticated cyber capability. I've had, as they say in Southern Delaware, where they are very religious, we've had an altar call,

he and I, on this issue. We have a long conversation about if he uses it, what would be the consequence. But the point is that he has the capability. He hasn't used it yet. But it's part of his playbook. And I've warned about the potential for Russian conduct to malicious cyber activity. So there was the warning from President Biden, Crystal. Actually, we didn't have that within there just because let's just say the president rambles and it's hard enough in order to cut it correctly. He actually confirmed something we talked about yesterday, that Russia had used that hypersonic missile in Ukraine. Here's what he said, quote, as you all know, it's a consequential weapon. It's almost impossible to stop it.

There is a reason they're using it, essentially confirming that it was a strategic warning against NATO. By the way, I did misspeak. It's not faster than ICBM, but it's faster than a typical cruise missile. So I apologize to all the military geeks who got very upset. Also, it does not go a mile a minute. It goes a mile a second. So you guys are all happy. Yes, we've eaten dark roe.

Listen, the amount that we speak on this program, sometimes we're going to mangle our words. You try doing it. That's just going to happen. Okay. All right. So a couple things that I think are noteworthy here. First of all, I tried to do some investigation into exactly what the cyber attack capabilities of the Russian government are. Of course, no one knows exactly.

But it has been surprising that there haven't been cyber attacks really significantly to date because this is something that we've been expecting for a while, especially given how quickly we ramped up escalations in terms of our economic warfare. And we do know that following Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea, there were a pair of attacks in 2015 and 2016 that took out power in parts of Ukraine, albeit it was a relatively small scale. And then we've also seen the things that Russian-aligned hackers have done, the sort of like, you know, ransomware where you free somebody's system and then you demand some payment in Bitcoin or whatever. So we've seen those sorts of things from Russian-Kremlin-aligned hackers. So those are the sorts of things that may be possible and potentially beyond that. The other thing that I thought was noteworthy in both his comments and the White House statement is he made sure to point out most of America's critical infrastructure is owned and operated by the private sector. And critical infrastructure owners and operators

must accelerate efforts to lock their digital doors. This is actually a major issue, and you all are probably familiar with it as consumers. How many times have you gotten messages from this or that company that your data has been compromised? Because our legal system really doesn't penalize companies significantly

for not having adequate cybersecurity in place. So we've created, this is yet another sort of like vulnerability that has been created by deregulation and privatization. Number one, basically what the government can do here is ask private business owners like, please do your best because we're vulnerable right now. And number two, we don't have the, so, you know, it's all been privatized, so it's in the hands of the private sector. And then we don't have the regulatory regime to make sure that those critical infrastructure pieces are really secure to start with. So yet another vulnerability created by some of our neoliberal policies over the last few months. Yeah, the problem with that, exactly, so I'm not even necessarily opposed to privatization.

But whenever it comes to the actual regulatory framework, you especially have to have the ability for the state in order to guard against it when you have a critical supply line like electricity. That seems kind of important. So whenever it comes to the grid, and I'm not saying that doesn't exist. The Department of Homeland Security and these people do have units and all that, but it's generally advisory rather than mandatory. And in terms of the ability for the government in order to actually full-fledged war are, as in what can invite a traditional

conventional military response if the initial action is cybersecurity. And really, nobody knows, which is that we've tried over the last decade or so in order to come to a consensus. Pretty much what I understood is that an attack on critical infrastructure, a la taking out the electricity grid, would be treated in the same way that if you were to drop a bomb on a power grid, which is that it would then invite a similar typical, exactly, it's not just active

war, it would invite a conventional military response with a bomb, not necessarily a cyber, but the not necessarily a cyber attack, as in the end result and the effect of the attack is what would be considered. Similar in loss of life, similar in terms of financial, but that's actually where there is a lot of gray area. For example, if the hacker took over the New York Stock Exchange

and zeroed out the accounts a la like Bain in The Dark Knight Rises. Well, now what? Because now this is a really gray area, which is that, well, then it didn't technically bring down the grid. It didn't have a tangible, outright, real-world effect in terms of electricity, but it was obviously an act of financial warfare against the United States. And I'm giving you the most extreme example, but that's also something that really could happen in terms of banks' inability to process transactions. Obviously, the Russians are going to get very pissed at Visa and MasterCard and the other processors, which process like 80-something percent of payments. I mean, is that an act of

warfare? These are where things get more gray and become a lot more sketchy in terms of what exactly we can do about it. I mean, it reminds me of the little debate we had during Build Back Better of, like, what is infrastructure? Oh, that's a good point. You know, because there are certain things that it's really clear, right? Like roads, bridges, the electric grid. Like, these things are critical infrastructure. Okay, what about our communication system? Yeah, right.

Right? What about telecoms? What about social media platforms, which is where a lot of us communicate, and that's sort of like the modern-day public square. What about that? So it's very hard to draw a clear line of where critical infrastructure begins and ends. And anytime you have those gray areas in war, it invites people like Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, you know, Vindman, Alexander Vindman, and all these people who have really prominent platforms who have been looking to push us to do more and to escalate and to invite World War II.

Well, if our infrastructure, however you define that, is hit in a way that Americans feel really attacked by, then you give them an edge in terms of making their argument that, hey, we ought to be shipping in fighter jets and we ought to be enforcing a no-fly zone or we ought to be taking out Russian capabilities in Belarus and these other insane things that they are already floating. So, and it gives, you know, Zelensky, who has been held up understandably as a hero during wartime and who has been aggressively pursuing, pushing the case that we should be doing more and escalating further and inviting World War II. It also gives him more of a leg to stand on in terms of prosecuting that case. So that's why when Hillary Clinton casually suggested, hey, we should engage in some cyber attacks on Russia, why we were like, hold on a second. That's a terrible idea. But that same response could be invited from our side if Russia engages in those types of attacks against us. Yeah.

Something to be very, very wary of. A hundred percent. And this is all just, this is why this era, was why we spent a lot of time on it when I was in school, because the gray area is exactly where miscalculation happens and war can escalate. And unfortunately, we may find ourselves in that area. So let's all just, you know, keep an eye on what's happening and also looking at the exact definitions

that the Biden administration has used. Here they use attack. That's good. And now whenever they start to use war and other things, that can invite conventional military response. And that's when we should all start having the debate and really trying to parse exactly how the government is thinking about it. Yeah, indeed. Okay, let's go ahead and move on to the former president, which is this, it's kind of hilarious, which is Trump continues to show us that he has a completely rudderless worldview, which is just absolutely, in some ways, it can be good.

In this ways, it bad. So he appeared on Fox Business Network with Stuart Varney for a long interview, and he was pressed on what exactly he was going to do differently if he was the president in Ukraine. And the results may not surprise you, but they will shock you. Let's take a listen. Well, let me press you again on what extra military help you would give to the Ukrainians. You say you want to do more than just the MiG jets or the javelins. What more? Well, I think the drones are just as effective as anything nowadays. I mean, they make drones today. We make, we have drones that are just as effective as just about anything in the air, anything you can do in the air.

And you can do drones, plus they give back tremendous amounts of information. And the information leads missiles right to whatever the hell target they are. And you don't have to shoot them from Ukraine, so therefore you're being neutral. It's so ridiculous. Look, Stuart, when he goes in and he kills thousands of people, are we going to just sit by and watch? This country will be, in 100 years from now, they'll be talking about what a travesty,

what a horrible thing this is. Okay, so if I understand what he's saying there, he's saying, well, A, he's using a very conventional war talking point. Are we just going to sit by and watch? It's actually more complicated than that, Mr. President. A man used to have his finger on the nuclear button. But second, did he say, and I want to make sure I heard this correctly, that we could use drones not fired from Ukraine? So essentially what he's saying is that U.S. drones, possibly flying in NATO airspace, would then launch weapons against the Russian military, which would, of course, be an act of war. This is on par with the idiocy that we saw from him and Sean Hannity, that we should simply use our planes but paint Chinese flags on them in order to saw from him and Sean Hannity, that we should simply use our planes

but paint Chinese flags on them in order to confuse the Russians and say, oh, and then invite them to go ahead and bomb China, because apparently that's how dumb that these people think that we are. Look, you know, on the one hand, you could look at it as funny. On the other, the guy was literally president and he's very likely to be our next president. So on that side, I'm a little bit troubled about what he has to say. It's very troubling. And, you know, there are two people that I'm really grateful aren't president right now, and that is Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, because both of them have had some really terrible ideas about what we should be doing right now. And I mean, Stuart Varney, credit to him, he, because this is the thing with Trump, he asked the question, Trump doesn't answer, oh, we should do more and then pivots to some other,

whatever thing he wants to talk about. And then he had to go back to this like three or four times to finally elicit some kind of direct response. And by the way, if your idea is like, well, we should be providing drones, they're already providing drones. So it's not clear that he understands what's already been done. It's not clear that he has good ideas about if we were going to escalate further. And I do think that this rhetoric of, like, are we just going to sit by and do nothing, that was exactly what Richard Engel said at NBC that he was rightly dragged for because, you know, the alternative then of sitting by and doing nothing, it's a very casual way of phrasing this because the alternative of escalating further obviously leads you to direct confrontation with a nuclear power and potentially World War III. So Trump is just seizing on this, you know, this sort of Republican partisan sense of Biden should do more and he's not strong enough and he's not being a leader. But when he's pressed it all about the details, he basically has nothing to say.

And that's, you know, it's a very revealing moment. Oh, absolutely. This is why, let's go ahead and piss off all the MAGA people. I have no confidence that Trump would have ever withdrawn from Afghanistan. Everybody says, oh, he was going to do it better and more strongly. Yeah, I watched him four years in office. And every single time he got bamboozled by the generals who told him, oh, just a little bit longer. Or, oh, well, if you withdraw, it'll be a total disaster.

And he was cowed. And here it's the same thing. He shows that at the end of the day, all Trump cares about is the pressure from the media. And whenever pressure against the media is on the wrong side of public opinion, he says, screw you. But whenever it's on the right side or possibly in a very gray area side of public opinion, he's very much willing to insert himself and side with them. And so that's what we find here. He has no more in terms of principles whenever it comes to international politics. Sometimes that was good. It was great whenever it came to Kim Jong-un. He was like, why can't I meet

with him? Or whenever he wanted to meet the Ayatollah, he's like, yeah, I'll meet him. He's like, sure, I'll meet him anytime. Great. Those are good things. They broke the Washington consensus. But here, when the Washington consensus is with the media side, and he has no appearing, no understanding of what exactly that would mean, he could get us into a war if he becomes president again. So it's a good reminder of he's telling us very clearly what exactly he would do. That means he would empower the Vindmans of his administration, whether he likes it or not, and as much as he claims to be against neocons.

I mean, the man hired John Bolton. Like, what more do you really need to know, right? Because he was strong. Yeah, exactly. He liked that he had him by his side and it made people think that he was crazy or something like that. I mean, the other thing that he threatened here is to use nuclear submarines to menace Russia until to convince them to, which again, like, that's a significant escalation that has potential consequences. And all of that seems to be completely lost on him. He also does sort of debunk the liberal Russiagate brainworms idea, though, that he was so like Putin's boyfriend, Bill Maher, just said that he's like his bus friend. He's Putin's puppet and all this stuff. I mean, his actual policy under his administration towards Russia was more hawkish than Biden's administration policy up to this moment.

He shipped those missiles to Ukraine, remember? Obama refused to do it. He did it. to Ukraine, remember? Obama refused to do it. He did it. He did it. The first year of his administration. That's exactly right. He did that. Some of those arms, you know, reportedly did go to the Azov battalion.

You could certainly criticize him for that. I certainly would. But instead, they went in this, like, really stupid direction of the Russiagate stuff, which was just nonsense. He also didn't allow the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to go forward, and that was reversed under the Biden administration. So anyway, there's a lot going on with those comments. Lots going on. Same, actually, credit against Stewart about the election and the claim that the election was stolen. And he

basically asked it the perfect way. He's like, is this really what you want 2022 and 2024 to be about? Let's take a listen. Well, wait a second. Wait a second. If we go into 2022, the elections and 2024, and you're still looking back to the election of 2020 and saying that you really won, I don't think that's very good for you or the Republican Party. You want to comment on that? Well, yeah, I actually think it is good for me. And I think if we don't put out all of the crooked things, that we know what they are, that you won't win in 22 and you won't win in 24 if we don't get to it.

So I think it's the opposite, actually. And I talk nothing about, nobody talks more about the future you think that 2022 you think that 2022 and 2024 are all about the 2020 election no no no i think for us to win the election we have to know how they cheated because otherwise they'll cheat again and we do know how they cheated and the republicans and Democrats should, but they won't. Republicans have to do something about it or they're going to be very disappointed. And nobody talks more about the future than I do. But you have to learn from history also, and you can't let it happen again. So that's the perfect way to phrase that question, which is like, really, this is what you

want to talk about. But that is what he wants to talk about. At the end of the day, his only test for whether you're a Republican or not is do you believe the election was stolen? That's it. Now, does that sound like something rooted in principle? And look, maybe I sound like a boomer, but when I look and I see that, I see exactly how the Republican Party lost in Georgia. Also, they're probably going to win in the midterm elections, but if the entire 2024 election, the central pitch from Trump is the election was stolen, why would anybody vote for that? At the same time, even if they do, let's say all the cultural grievance, people are willing to look past that. It would animate a lot of people on the other side, as it did with Democrats in Georgia, to come out and vote. It reminds me of, I think it was the day before the election,

the Trump campaign surrogate was on rising, Steve Cortez. And he was arguing with me about Charlottesville, about very fine people. And I stopped him and I was like, Steve, it's two days to the election. I was like, this is really what you want to talk about? Really? Like, even if you think I'm lying, it doesn't matter. And I don't, you know, I don't even care. At that point, it was like four years before that. I was like, we are in the middle of a pandemic. There's an economic crisis. You're running for reelection for president of the United States. I'm like, this is what the hell that you want to die on? You want to litigate Charlottesville very fine people again? That's actually the truth. That's all that drives these people. And that's why they're so utterly useless whenever they do come into power. So I give Varney less credit than you do on this particular pressing of Trump. Because the thing is, if you actually genuinely believe the nonsense that the presidential

election was stolen, well, that is a big deal. Of course, you are going to fixate on that. I mean, you know, and so I think people are trying to strike this middle ground. You see this a lot on Fox. You see it with like the Glenn Youngkins of the world of wanting to be like, well, let's focus on election integrity without which kind of gives a nod, a wink and a nod to the stop the steal nonsense, but doesn't go all the way there. Or you see this line where they don't want to, they're too afraid and too cowardly to actually say, the election was not stolen. Shut the F up and let's move on. Instead, they want to say, well, is this really what you want to focus your time on without actually going

there and saying, this is ridiculous. You're just straight up lying. You're fleecing your own followers. You're distracting the country, this is bad, stop. So I give him less credit on his direction here. But the rest of your analysis is 100% correct. And we're already seeing, even though, yes, Republicans are poised to do well in the midterms through no doing of their own. Mitch McConnell has 100% the right strategy of like, don't say anything, don't do anything, don't run on anything, just let the Democrats hang themselves. That's going to work out very well for them, likely. But you already see the signs of how this is going to damage them. We're about to talk about Eric Greitens, who is, you know, scandal plagued and reportedly Trump was very close to backing because of Stop

the Steal. You see this down in Alabama, Trump backing Mo Brooks just because of the same stuff. You see in Pennsylvania, there was a Republican candidate who already had to drop out of the race due to domestic violence allegations who had been backed by Trump, again, because of Stop the Steal. So there is a little bit of a Tea Party era dynamic, or you could think of like a Roy Moore type dynamic of them lining up behind candidates who might be like the only person possible who could lose the seat in that state because they're willing to say the thing on stop the steal. And it is sad because there were elements of Trump's campaign in 2016 that there was something real to, you know, the talk about trade obviously struck a nerve.

Right. Sort of upended Washington consensus. That was really important. Talking about shipping jobs overseas, deindustrialization. Like, those were important conversations, and that's not who this is anymore. And ending the wars. I mean, that was another important part of it. Drain the swamp and ending corruption.

I mean, all of this is laughable now when you look at what the actual record of, like, tax cuts for the rich and continuing the wars that you's likely to focus on is going to be even worse because he's just completely obsessed with this nonsense that is so far from relevant from the lives of any American Republican, Democrat, or independent. Yeah, well, the blackest pill you can take is to realize you can do all of that and still probably will win. And we just wanted to give you an update on his social media network. Let's put this up there on the screen. He hasn't posted on his new Truth Social website since it actually soft launched on February 21st. So not sure exactly what he's waiting for.

Hold on, I have a personal update on this because you guys will remember as a little journalistic endeavor, I signed up for Truth Social and even though you told me I should delete the app from my phone, which I'm sure I should do, I did not actually remember to do that. So it's still on my phone, and I just checked.

It says I'm still 240,541st in line. That's my wait list number in order to actually get onto this damn network, not that I really am interested in being there anyway. So going really, really well, seems like. I mentioned Eric Greitens. Let's get to what is going on here. You guys might remember this dude. Right now he's running for Senate in Missouri in the Republican primary. He's the former governor of the state.

And he previously resigned in scandal. The thing that you likely remember is that he was accused of blindfolding and tying up a woman he was having an affair with and taking a picture of her naked to use as blackmail to keep her from talking about the affair. Yeah. While he was a governor. While he was governor. That's probably what you remember is those allegations. But I actually think what he really resigned over. While he was governor. That's probably what you remember is those allegations. But I actually think what he really resigned over was that there was an investigation into corruption and campaign finance lawbreaking within the Republican-held Missouri legislature that was very likely to lead to his impeachment. So not only are there horrific claims of violence and abuse and blackmail out there, but at the time he also resigns because he's about to be impeached over corruption and misuse of a nonprofit donor list for campaign fundraising and those sorts of things. So

that's Eric Greidens. So a little bit of time passes. He decides this is his moment to make a comeback. He leans into, you know, all of the right sort of MAGA-based rhetoric about stop the steal. He's very aggressive about hating Mitch McConnell and these sorts of things. And now we have new revelations, which are even more, or I should say allegations, which are even more shocking than the last allegations. And this is based on a sworn affidavit from his ex-wife about his abusive behavior during the course of their marriage. Let's go ahead and put this AP tear sheet up on the screen. The headline here reads, ex-wife accuses top Missouri GOP Senate candidate of abuse. I'm going to read you a bit of what she says here. So just hang with me because I want you to have the details of what she is alleging. She says in this sworn

affidavit, prior to our divorce during an argument in late April 2018, Eric knocked me down and confiscated my cell phone wallet and keys so that I was unable to call for help or extricate myself She also says, One of her sons came home from a visit with his dad with, quote, At another point, Eric Greitens purchased a gun, she says, but refused to tell her where it was. He threatened to kill himself unless I provided specific public political support. This was during his last series of scandals. The behavior was so alarming, she wrote, on three separate occasions, multiple people other than myself were worried enough to intervene to limit Eric's access to firearms. I started sleeping in my children's room simply to keep them safe.

In another incident, Greitens made a reference to the fact he had the children and she didn't, sort of implicit threat there. While trying to persuade her to delete emails she had sent to the family therapist seeking help, Eric threatened to accuse me of child abuse. If I did not delete the emails and convince the therapist to delete them. He threatened to come to the airport and have me arrested for kidnapping and child abuse, his wife and of his kids to extreme threatening behavior and manipulation. So extraordinary claims here being made. Again, this is part of their divorce settlement and court filings. This is a sworn affidavit from his ex-wife. And, you know, the reality is, prior to these revelations,

Greitens was actually leading in the polls and likely to be the Republican nominee. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. This is according to a Trafalgar Group poll, which has been fairly accurate for Republicans and was more accurate than we expected in the presidential election. They had Greitens at 30.5 percent, Eric Schmidt in second at 23 percent, and Vicky Hartzler, who has been endorsed by Josh Hawley,

who's sort of like a relatively longtime rival of Greitens, no love lost between the two of them, is at 16 percent. And as we referenced before, let's go ahead and put Politico up on the screen. Trump was reportedly maybe about to endorse this guy. Now, this is a report from Politico. They say that Eric Greitens sort of trashing McConnell led to Trump being interested in maybe endorsing him. This in spite of the fact that previously he had made some reportedly made some disparaging comments about Greitens because of the prior scandal. And I just have to read you the kicker on this article, which is just from like two weeks ago.

They talked to some sort of like Republican analyst pundit type. At the very end of the article, she says, I'm like, what are you going to attack Greitens on? Everything he's ever done is out there and been out there. So I'm not sure their theory is good. I'm not sure they can take him down. What are you going to tell people about him that they don't already know? Come on. I think that the reason this pairs so well, who we just previously talked about, is that it's not an exaggeration to say that Gritens built his entire post-scandal career on Stop the Steal. This guy was constantly on Twitter, on Steve Bannon's show, talking about the election was stolen, we're going to challenge the results. He's one of the most naked political operatives. I've known about Greitens for a long time. opportunist and political psychopath willing to say anything that needs to be said to curry favor with the donors, with the billionaire class, and anything basically in order to get

elected. There's a reason that he's widely hated in his own home state. But I think it's very noteworthy that Trump was willing to look past a lot of that because Greitens understood that the key to Trump's heart was stop the steal and saying screw you to Mitch McConnell. And that's exactly what he's leaning into now. Which is also, by the way, about stop the steal. Exactly. It's more about stop the steal. And actually, I wouldn't be surprised if Trump still does endorse him.

Maybe it's just such a bad look that it's not possible. But just look at how much Greitens is bending over backwards in order to make sure that he can curry Trump's favor. Let's go ahead and skip forward to C5 and let's take a listen. Well, Steve, the reason why shots are being fired at us is that I was the first guy in the country to come out and say that when I'm elected to the United States Senate as an America first senator, that I'm voting against Mitch McConnell. And what we found out today is that in your audience has seen this. You've seen the lies against President Trump. You saw the lies against Brett Kavanaugh. What we found out today is that rhinos are now working to make more false allegations. Just this past week, literally all the way up

until yesterday morning, this past week, I was with my boys for an entire week. We had a beautiful time. My most important job is being a great father to my boys. And we found out, we just learned that my ex-wife was in Washington, D.C., meeting with political operatives. And just this morning, they launched a series of false allegations against us. And the fact is, these are completely baseless. And just like, you know, just like the fact that we saw before a Soros funded prosecutor came after us. Now they've been charged with seven felonies. She was found guilty of over 70 instances of perjury. The truth will come out.

And what I can tell you, Steve, is as early as tomorrow morning, the story about how the political operatives worked with Mitch McConnell's supporters to bring this out is all coming to light. Well, it is today morning and and I haven't seen that yet. Wow, apparently he follows me on Twitter. I just realized that.

Creepy. That's kind of creepy. Sorry, Eric. That guy makes my skin crawl, for real. Anyway, whenever I look at all of what's happening here, it's a very important lesson, too, also in terms of the MAGA machine. I mean, Steve Bannon has been willing to platform this guy for months on War Room.

To be fair, he platforms a lot of cranks like Josh Mandel and many other people because they all want to reach his audience. But he has been de facto pushed and endorsed by a lot of people for completely just sucking up to Trump based on Stop the Steal. That's all it takes. You can be accused of some terrible behavior by several different women. And look, I obviously believe in due process and all that, but the guy has a proven track record and admitted adulterer. Let's go ahead and put Josh Hawley's tweet up there on the screen, just showing you he has no love, even in the state of Missouri. He said, quote, if you hit a woman or a child, you belong in handcuffs, not the United States Senate.

It's time for Eric Greitens to leave this race. He's not going anywhere. I wouldn't be surprised if he still wins the primary. And if Trump does not stand on an election stage and say, go ahead and vote for this guy. Although it will be popcorn-inducing if he does have to serve with Hawley in the U.S. Senate. I mean, Hawley tried to take that investigation. He was behind a lot of that whenever he was the attorney general of the state of Missouri. have, you know, the backing of other political figures in the state and have money behind them. But if he does win the Republican nomination,

I think there's a good chance he loses. I mean, if Roy Moore can lose in Alabama, Missouri is not nearly as red as Alabama. And frankly, you know, we've interviewed Lucas Koontz on this show. He's running for the Democratic nomination. And I think he's running a very effective campaign. It's, you know, really like rip roaring populist leaning into the right issues. So and polling even before this scandal, Republicans were nervous about Gritens being the nominee because the polling had the Lucas Kuntz and the other Democrats really close with him already, even without these latest allegations. So I do think that there's a good chance that if Greitens is the Republican nominee, he could lose. He could manage to lose in the fall, even though that should be, you know, it should be an absolute gimme for the Republicans. And, you know, his thing with Bannon,

it's so predictable. They all think that they're Trump and they can get away with this shit. And Trump was never accused of violence against women, let me be clear, not conflating the allegations against Trump, although there were some serious ones there too. But they all think that they can just say, oh, it's the liberals and it's political operatives and it's Mitch McConnell's people and it's all a conspiracy. That may work with some portion of the diehard MAGA base. But with the broader, like your normie Missouri voter, I don't think so. I think that's a good point. And it's just reminded of Todd Akin who lost in that squeaker of a race back in 2012. Legitimate rape.

Legitimate rape, exactly, with those comments, which put Claire McCaskill in the Senate for another six years. So it is certainly possible. Well, here's the other thing you may look for, because Claire McCaskill helped to make Todd Akin the nominee. Democrats spend money to bolster Akin in a very clever way. You know, basically, like, I think the ads painted his other opponents as not sufficiently conservative enough or something like that. Not Tea Party faithful. That was the, you know, that was the political moment at the time. So they're spending helps to bolster Todd Akin knowing that he has damaged goods in terms of a candidate. McCaskill should have been dead in the water. I mean, she really shouldn't have had a prayer in that race whatsoever.

And she managed to pull off the victory because they got the candidate that they wanted. And so, yeah, this is what you get when your whole political project collapses down to personal loyalty to one particular figure and his choice conspiracy theories of the day. Yeah, exactly right. Okay, let's go ahead and move on. This is a really interesting story. We wanted to try and find an angle to cover this, and this is the way that we could put it all together, which is that the generational divide in wealth and resources here in the United States just continues to absolutely boggle the mind. And I don't really see a way that this ends in a good way. Let's put this up there on the screen. This is from the Wall Street Journal, which did this new analysis. Older Americans flush with housing and stock portfolio wealth are poised to revive spending this year.

The subhead is consumers age 65 and older are boosting their spending as Omicron fades. So total household spending has actually sharply fallen in the spring of 2020. However, consumers age 65 and over are increasing their spending very slowly and more so than any other age groups over the last two years, according to Visa Incorporated's Index of Credit and Debit Card Spending Momentum, which measures the number of people boosting or cutting their spending. So what's important to note is that all three groups, 65 and over, 45 to 65, 25 to 45, generally considered in the higher echelon of consumers, their spending all dropped to commiserate levels back in 2020. However, older Americans had always been above in terms of their spending and now are actually increasing

at a higher rate than everybody else. And what they say in particular is that because this current recession was unusual in that stock and housing values boomed all the while that spending was going down, that those are exactly the assets of which the boomer class has far more than everybody else. And when you consider it in terms of share of population, it gets even more stunning. The number of Americans who are 65 or older increased by more than a third in the decade through 2019. They accounted for nearly 17% of the US population in 2020, a share which will rise to 20% by 2030. And the reason that matters is when you have a disproportionate amount of wealth, and it's not to say that they shouldn't have more because obviously they've had more earning

potential, but when you have 10x more than previous generations, and especially when you have the other generation unable to even attain this, I don't see how this can end well, Crystal. You have the older Americans in this country holding all the cards. People have been contacting me, friends who are in a financial situation to purchase property. They're willing to put down 20 percent, but they are unable to compete because many of the boomers that are also buying property, who are downsizing, actually, and while these people are trying to get their first house, they're offering straight cash. I mean, how are you supposed to compete? And the reason they're able to do so is because of their stock portfolios or because they'd sold a previous property and are cash flush in a way that the younger generations just simply have no complete ability to compete whatsoever. Yeah, listen, if you are already an asset owner, you are doing phenomenal.

And if you are a wage earner, you are doing phenomenal. And if you are a wage earner, you are getting screwed. And since, and we're about to get to some of this data, since millennials have been significantly delayed as compared to prior generations and in being able to acquire any assets, you know, most importantly, a home, that means that they are completely left out in the cold. And that's not an accident. That is the structure of our system. I mean, the Federal Reserve has all the capabilities in the world to basically bolster asset markets, which they did extremely aggressively during the coronavirus pandemic, just as they did,

of course, during the financial crash as well. And so asset prices, stock prices, home prices, private equity coming in and buying up homes as well, going through the roof while inflation is giving everyone a pay cut and making them lose money day to day to day. And so you have this, just as we have this massive inequality split in the country, you have this massive generational inequality split of older generations, which were able to acquire assets in a reasonable timeframe in their lives, are now benefiting from that. And if you're a wage earner, you are on a treadmill and you are falling further and further behind. 100%. And let's go ahead and put this millennial tear sheet up there on the

screen, which is, this has been kind of a curation of millennial data. Let me go ahead and read this. When you look at how quickly Americans hit major milestones, sorted by year of birth, the millennials are easier to spot. The marriage rate for Americans born between 1981 and 1985 did not top 50% until they were between 30 and 32. The oldest baby boomers hit that 50% mark at age of 22. When it comes to children, the age at which most Americans have a child living at home has also riven during the millennial era. It's a 31 or 32 for the 1981 to 1985 crew. The oldest group of boomers hit that at 25 to 26.

Most stark is home ownership. It took until 33 to 35 for most older millennials to become homeowners. The oldest group of boomers hit that milestone at 28 or 29. Think about a five to seven year gap in the inability to procure asset wealth. This is the single worst thing that can happen to you from a financial perspective that compounds over time, leaves you intergenerational wealth, and the ability also in order to take loans based upon the underlying value of your assets. These are things that are completely denied to the common American, which, millennial American, which requires them to take debt in the form of credit cards, overspend, and also just frankly not live as nice of a life. And the

interesting part too is that whenever you look here, the millennials are the most educated generation on record. However, whenever it comes to their ability to earn income and attain assets, they are far behind everybody else. So look, marriage, children, a lot of that is culture. Let's not get it wrong. Religiosity and other has dramatically declined in this country and a drop was almost certainly going to happen. However, and education delays, and education also delays that. However, if you ask people, why are you not getting married? They say money. They're saying one of the main reason is I can't afford it. The average wedding in this country costs $20,000.

If you ask people, why are you not buying a house? It's not that they don't want one. It's that they can't afford one. So I've always said this. Let's see how much of it we can fix based on economic prospects. And then if the level playing field is there and they still don't want to have kids or get married, fine. Be my guest. But women will tell you, in terms of all the survey they've seen, that they want 2.2 kids per household, and they're only having 1.7. And the reason why is economic

constraints. Some of it is child care on the higher income side, and some of it is I simply can't afford it. I can't afford the diapers. I can't afford all the attendant costs, school, et cetera. So why don't we fix that part? And then if we need to have a cultural conversation, we can have it. Well, and on the education piece, there's a couple other factors here as well because they cite an analyst here that says about 20 percent of that decline in homeownership among young adults is directly attributable to their increased student loan debts. So costs have gone up insanely in terms of what it takes and what it costs to have to earn a bachelor's, you know, a basic college education. And that debt is prohibiting a lot of millennials from being able to get their first home. And then the other piece is, you know, on one hand, you look and you're

like, oh, it's good that they're the most educated generation. But you also have this college arms race where now in order to get a, you know, decent, stable job, you have to have a college education that, you know, previous generations may not have needed a college education to do the same work. And so it's not just, you know, it's not an unequivocal good thing that you have that college education arms race because it does also set, you know, I know a lot of highly educated women who spent a long time going to school and they spent a long time like establishing themselves in their career. And then they look up and they're in their mid to late thirties and they want to have kids and, you know, the clock is ticking and they're in their mid to late 30s and they want to have kids and, you know, the clock

is ticking and they're having trouble finding the right person and there's all this pressure on them. So, yeah, a lot of these things, these trends that you see are not choices. And that's without even mentioning that, you know, this is a generation that graduated into the financial crash. And research consistently shows that when you enter the job market during a recession, that impacts your job trajectory, your career trajectory, and your earnings trajectory your entire life. So, you know, that's why millennials have been consistently behind on all of these life milestones. And the fact that they're unable to enter the class of asset owners puts them on a wildly different track than what their parents and grandparents were on. And also there's other factors like, you know, prior generations, you got a job.

It was stable. You got health care. You got benefits. You got a pension. Like, you were there. You job, it was stable, you got health care, you got benefits, you got a pension, like you were there, you knew what it was, and you were sort of settled for life. With this generation, it's gig work, it's precarious, nothing is guaranteed anymore. What's interesting too is that they cite an economist study from 2010 of the long-term large negative effects of graduating in a worse economy and the long-term consequences that can have on you as an earner for your entire life. So simply just graduating

in 2008 was enough to offset some of your wages and earning potential by 10 to 20 percent depending on what exactly our education and skill attainment was. Compare that to the boomers who had the prosperous years of the late 80s and the entire 90s. I mean, you'd have to be an idiot in the 90s to not make money in the stock market. Like, you could put a dollar in there and you were still going to make like $15. Yes, the dot-com bubble, but that didn't erase all of the gains of the early 90s and the late 80s especially, this is not something that people who are our age have ever had access to. We have never had the ability to even compete

on that playing field. So all of this is a long way of saying is that some sort of corrective has to happen. I don't know what it's going to look like, but the reason we put generational war in there is I just see increasing animosity between the two sides, and there needs to be some give and somewhere in the government in terms of an agreement on what exactly the end result is going to be.

Yeah, and Gen Z I think is going to look a lot more like the millennial trajectory than the older generation trajectory. So they're just not old enough yet to have all that data. Okay, cringe warning alert. Yes, the fun block, the media block. Here we go. Yeah. Okay. Amy Schumer has just offered up what might be the worst idea in Oscars history. I don't think that's really hyperbole. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. She wanted to get Zelensky to appear at the Oscars. She says, I actually pitched, I wanted to find a way to have Zelensky satellite in or make a tape or something. Just because there are so many eyes on the Oscars, I'm not afraid to go there.

But it's not me producing the Oscars saga. There is so much to say about this. First of all, you've got like, you know, the whole Zelensky thirst direction of liberals who have, this is their new icon and they'll hear nothing, you know, nothing bad about him, nothing about some other side, you know, corruption and these other things, the banning of political parties, all of that sort of stuff that's going on. So there's the Zelensky thirst part of this. And then there's the like out of touch, rich, white woman celebrity angle of it that is just like, you know this guy's fighting a war right now, right?

What makes you think that he has time or mind share to give to your little Hollywood party here? Yeah, I actually would submit that the worst thing that could happen to the Ukrainian cause is to itself become allied with the Hollywood elite. That's not what you want in this country considering how hated they are. And that's why I would find this objectionable, which is that, and somebody sent me a hilarious tweet on this. They were like, imagine learning about the war in Ukraine from the Oscars.

I think we have that tweet, guys. We can throw it up on the screen. Let's. We can throw E3 up on the screen. Give this person credit. Give this person from Ben Dreyfuss E3, please. Yeah, imagine being the person who learned about the war in Ukraine from watching the Oscars. And it's like, and then what? Like, and what are you going to do? Which is that, look, everybody hates virtue signaling from the Hollywood elite.

And that's why their ratings are at an all-time low. Put B that, look, everybody hates virtue signaling from the Hollywood elite. And that's why their ratings are at an all-time low. Put B2 up there, please. Just last year, they plunged to the all-time low, dropping an additional 58% from the previous all-time low there. We're talking about less than nine, yeah, less than 10 million people. That's like one 11th of the entire country and even less so of the U.S. adult population. Nobody wants to be lectured and talked down to on any subject from a bunch of people who did business for years with the Harvey Weinsteins of the world. That's why Ricky Gervais gave the best speech. I think it was at the Golden Globes, which doesn't even air apparently on TV anymore.

All of this is just a way of saying is that inserting our culture war and signaling onto this, it's just the worst thing that you can do for the Ukrainians. As you said, it's not like the Ukraine. Zelensky has better things to do. Addressing Congress,

yeah, that's great. Addressing a bunch of idiot celebrities, that's not doing anything. The other piece of this? Like I said, it's going to push, it's only going to backfire on the Ukrainian cause. The other part of this is Like I said, it's going to push, it's only going to backfire on the Ukrainian cause. The other part of this is like their own narcissism and sense of self-importance that you would think that this would be like something that he should do or a good use of his time.

That's what I think, yeah. There's also something to like your total lack of connection with what war actually is. Like, it's not, you know, it's not some sort of, like, glamorous cause for celebrities to, like, let's just bring this guy in who's literally in the middle of a war right now in Kiev to inform the people or to virtue signal in the ways that we would like. So, anyway, this landed like a stone. And clearly she floated this little idea to somebody at the Oscars and they were like, hmm, no. Yeah, she was met with wide ridicule on all of this. I just am, I think-

From all corners, by the way. Yeah, from all corners. From the right, from the left. This was a real bipartisan coming together moment. Even apparently the people who are within it. I think it just goes to show us that when we have these people and we allow foreign affairs to begin to get dictated by our culture war, it's the worst

thing that can happen. I've watched this with great interest. I've talked previously about people who had the pipeline of COVID maximalists, as in strap N95s to every kid's face, are now the most strident Ukrainian, you know, pro-Ukraine, Ukraine flag. I see it in my own neighborhood. The Dr. Fauci signs remain in the yard, but the Ukraine flag flies over. And look, fine, it's a free country. I'm not denigrating these people. More what I'm saying is that when you allow these things to have a cultural through line of those two things, then you are stopping yourself from thinking unidimensionally about one thing. And that's why I see the Oscars and the entertainment industrial complex kind of embracing all of this as dangerous. I saw Netflix has found Zelensky's sitcom or whatever and has now put it

on their platform. Look, okay, probably a good business decision. It's more that this is not a game, and it's not a joke. It's a war, and wars are brutal, and they are complicated, and we need to support them in the way that they want, but also we need to pursue our own interests. And turning people into the lions and the church hills and all this stuff. That's really not something that you want to do from a domestic political perspective in somebody else's conflict. Yeah. I mean, and we've seen already this direction

of just like uncritical support for the Ukrainian cause, whatever that means, leads to very, you know, desire for very hawkish actions, leads to this like Russophobia hysteria that we've been tracking. Eric Swalwell saying that all the Russian kids should be kicked out of college. And remember, we talked to Anna Kochin about the Guggenheim protest of the artists throwing the airplanes, wanting them to close the skies. That's the direction that some of this leads to. I was about to say, I would not be shocked if we see a close the skies speech or sign at the Oscars. At the Oscars.

Well, I am excited about the Oscars, though, for one reason, which is great friend of the show, David Sirota, might get an Oscar. No big deal. For best picture, no big deal. For Don't Look Up, which I really enjoyed and you guys should watch, so we'll be cheering for him. He already won, what was it, the, like, Writers Guild Award? They won it over Aaron Sorkin, by the way, which is amazing for, like, Best Screenplay or something like that. So that's the one reason that I care this much. Sorry, Aaron.

Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, guys, bread. Who has it and who doesn't has actually been one of the most central determinants of war, peace, progress, and culture in human history, and I actually don't think that that's an overstatement. After all, grains form the basis of money, nation-states, and taxation. They create the conditions for inequality, oppressive hierarchies, and slavery, but also for They create the conditions for inequality, oppressive hierarchies, and slavery, but also for the flourishing of human beings into the rich cultures and enable the technological marvels that we benefit from today. It is no accident, then, that some of the most famous political moments in all of human history are triggered by that humble loaf. A Roman

poet once opined that the best way to placate the masses and prevent revolt was to provide bread and circuses. This political maxim was actually practiced at the time with gladiator-type entertainment and an actual direct distribution of grain. Marie Antoinette, when informed that her subjects were starving and had no bread, was famously quoted as saying, Let them eat cake. It turns out she didn't actually say that, but it is certainly true that bread riots were a central spark to the French Revolution. Women famously marched on Versailles with makeshift weapons, things like kitchen knives, demanding bread and an end to famine. A failed crop and greedy elites having combined into a revolutionary fervor. And in that extraordinary political text, the Bible, bread also plays a starring role in several crucial stories.

Jesus, of course, is said to miraculously feed thousands with just a few loaves of bread. He also proclaims himself to literally be bread, that crucial source of sustenance and plenty, saying, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never hunger. Now, bread has never gone out of fashion, though. Its centrality to human existence continues to the present day. The revolutions of the Arab Spring were in part sparked by bread prices. Let's take a look at this. Bread prices were actually up 37% in Egypt, as one example, before the fall of President Mubarak. Matt Stoller points this out in his recent big breakdown. Also, modern-day Machiavellian and generally evil practitioner of the dark arts Henry Kissinger himself understands how central bread is to political control, saying, Control oil and you control nations. Control food and you control the people.

You should take the time to watch Matt on food prices, by the way. He gives a truly excellent explanation of how monopolies in ag and shipping are destroying family farms and creating higher food prices for you. So with all of this as background, recent headlines paint a really dire portrait. Like this one, for example, Ukraine war threatens to cause a global food crisis. According to this article, a crucial portion of the world's wheat, corn, and barley is trapped in Russia and Ukraine because of the war, while an even larger portion of the world's fertilizers is stuck in Russia and Belarus. The result is that global food and fertilizer prices are soaring. Since the invasion last month, wheat prices have increased by 21 percent, barley by 33 percent, and some fertilizers by 40 percent. Russia and Ukraine

are the breadbasket of the world. 30% of all wheat exports come from these two nations, not to mention 17% of corn and 32% of barley. To make matters worse, Russia is also the largest exporter of fertilizer, meaning that the production of farmers around the world will be impacted by what is happening in Ukraine right now and our response to Russia's invasion. All of this has combined into what the executive director of the World Food Program is labeling the worst food crisis since the end of World War II. This is a disaster for working class people all around the globe. But of course, it will be particularly devastating and life-threatening for the very poor

and for countries like Armenia, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia that import nearly all of their wheat from Russia and Ukraine. It's also not hard to imagine how the global knock-on effects of hunger, war, and revolution from increased bread prices could even surpass the brutality and death of the current horrific conflict. In fact, some of these protests have actually already started. In Iraq, the war in Ukraine has helped to trigger protests over food prices. One retired teacher told Al Jazeera, quote, the rise in prices is strangling us, whether it is bread or other food products. In Sudan, violent unrest has been exacerbated by the increase in costs. In Morocco, protests over price spikes were actually going on even before

the war started, which brings me to the scariest part of this, because it's actually not just war that is fueling price spikes right now. Part of the reason that the war disruptions are proving so devastating is because countries all over the world were already struggling with their crops thanks to the climate crisis. Let's take a look at these headlines.

Baracos domestic crop production was already devastated by a severe drought. Our own farmers in California and elsewhere have been struggling with the same. Meanwhile, in China, severe flooding has compromised their wheat crop. China's agriculture minister actually said this year's seedling situation can be said to be the worst in history. So this world we're experiencing right now, a spiking food prices and unrest, might just be a preview of what is to come as climate extremes become more and more common. And our political leaders,

who could do a lot to ease the pain of this particular moment and prevent a tumultuous future, would do well to learn some of the lessons of Marie Antoinette. Failed crops combined with venal elites have proven to be fertile grounds for revolution. I really think that this issue of food prices, it's very hard. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, it's a common theme these days among the American right to say that Joe Biden has humiliated the United States on the world stage. Up until this point, I think that some of that was hyperbole.

I, of course, supported the Biden withdrawal from Afghanistan. And in terms of deterring Putin, I think it's an take me seriously when I contend that right now, in our relationship with Saudi Arabia, Biden actually is humiliating us on the world stage and diminishing American power. Yesterday was an important day in U.S.-Saudi relations. in the pocket of the Saudi regime. As we touched on with our previous guests, the Biden administration earlier this month transferred Patriot missiles to Saudi Arabia after an urgent request by the kingdom to supposedly fend off attacks from Houthi Iranian-backed militias. Now, this was done by the administration with zero, I repeat, zero commitment by the Saudis to pump more oil and immediately alleviate prices of gas here in the United States. In fact, per the Wall Street Journal, the decision to transfer the missiles to Saudi Arabia was done with the hope that the transfer would ease the tensions between the two

countries after the Emirati government and the Saudi government refused to even speak with President Biden on the phone. So yeah, you got that right. The Saudis are not giving us what we want. They slap our president in the face by refusing to take his phone call and then leak that to the press. And then how do we respond? We give them exactly what they want, depleting our own supply of Patriot missile systems in the Middle East to transfer to them for their defense. And guess what? It gets even better. The very day that the transfer of the U.S. systems was revealed, guess what these people do? The Saudis say they will, quote, bear no responsibility for the rise

in oil prices, blaming the fluctuations in price on attacks by the Houthis. And you know, those are the ones that we just gave them missiles in order to protect against. The announcement stunned energy analysts, as it was seen by a direct attempt by the Saudis to inject uncertainty into the global oil market and to hike the price further, turning the screws on the United States and all of the consumers of gas across the West. At this point, shouldn't we all be asking the question, what exactly is the point of having a client state in the Middle East if they don't do what we ask them to do? The Saudis have for years gotten their keek and eat it too. 15 out of the 19 9-11 hijackers were their citizens, not to mention the leader of Al-Qaeda and the mastermind

of the 9-11 terror plot. And you know, the direct ideology through which radical Islam is born. So, despite that, they escaped scrutiny in America due to their relationship with the Biden administration and for the Bush administration. And yet for years, they have increased their demands on the West with the justification from their defenders here in Washington, they are representing our interests. And because they represent our interests, we're supposed to ignore the fact that literally about a week ago, they held their largest mass execution ever, beheading 81 individuals in an act of religious persecution. Now, I suppose you might be able to say that if they actually did what we wanted, we wanted them to do, then yeah, we could look the other way at their barbarism,

at their funding and their exporting of dangerous and deadly ideologies. But they don't. They don't even ask. They don't even do what we ask them to do. So why should we ignore it? Not only do they not do what we ask, but they are now actively trying to destroy the U.S. economy and hurt the U.S. consumer. And yet our president begs them like a dog by offering up a treat in exchange for goodwill. That clearly only goes one way. This is perhaps the weakest thing Biden has done yet as president. It is a time instead to play a very different game. You might say, hey, Saudi Arabia is a free country. It can do what it wants. Yeah, you're right. But their threats are hollow. Yeah, they can have a big impact on our domestic economy, but they are a Western client state through and through.

73% of Saudi Arabian arms imports come right here from the good old USA. Second is the United Kingdom at 13%, meaning that the vast majority of their weapons and arms come from the Anglosphere and can be turned off like that. As to their threats of ditching the petrodollar, that's a joke. Saudi can talk a big game when it comes to pricing things from the rial to won, but here's what they don't tell you. Saudi Arabia pegs its currency to the U.S. dollar, and has since 1986. And as they write in their own propaganda outlets right in front of you, they literally need the dollar to conduct foreign trade transactions because the vast majority of their imports and exports are needed in stable dollars. Right now, 62% of the kingdom's foreign currency reserves are, you guessed it, the United States dollar.

Or how about what they actually do with their money? As usual, a lot of it is right here in the United States. The Saudi sovereign wealth fund is nearly $1 trillion. It includes sizable stakes in video game companies like Electronic Arts or Activision Blizzard, Citibank now, Boeing, Facebook, Disney, Bank of America. You guys get the idea? We are talking about hundreds of billions of dollars in cash invested right here in the USA, directly tied to the Saudi kingdom. It can all be cut off like that. What's the rub, though? You already know. All that money? That blood money. It's a down payment on the U.S. political elite to ensure that the outcome you see before you is the outcome that occurs,

that they can continue to be the most backwards country on the planet Earth and still get preferential treatment. Missile systems, no scrutiny in the West. They have some of the most high-powered lobbyists here in Washington who have worked for years to keep the kingdom away from any real scrutiny. And that is why just two months ago, the U.S. Senate voted 67 to 30 to reject a bipartisan resolution introduced in the chamber to block arms sales to Saudi Arabia from the Biden administration. Some of you might think this is a hypocritical monologue. Yesterday, I discussed India, why sanctions or public pressure against them would backfire and would hurt the U.S. strategically.

Here's the difference between those two countries. India is a great nation. So is China, for that matter. They are civilizations that built themselves up, that have an intellectual and economic base. Saudi Arabia is a desert backwater with a leadership that would literally not exist without the United States. They have no domestic capacity except for pumping oil. And then they tried to purchase their way out of it from our U.S. political system. The time is to come that we recognize them for what they are and to bring them to heel with the immense pressure that we have over them. They have been free riding off the United States for a long time.

And if Biden had any backbone whatsoever, we would never let Riyadh ever get away with this. I can assure you they are laughing at us over there or more specifically on their yachts in the French Riviera, drinking fine wines in violation of their own religion that they impose on their population, and staring at fake Leonardo da Vinci paintings that they paid half a billion dollars for just because they actually can. I think that's really what drives me crazy. The Leonardo thing is hilarious.

I recommend the documentary, Lost Leonardo. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagar's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Joining us now directly from Moscow is Igor Kotkin. Igor, it's so great to see you. We've been talking a lot by Twitter. I've been reading some of your posts on Medium. We can actually throw one of those up on the screen.

It's been really helpful to get your perspective. This one says what the West gets wrong in their reaction against Russia. It's been really valuable for me personally to have your perspective as someone on the ground there who is anti-war, but has a very nuanced view of, you know, the West, of Russia, of the role that ideology and history plays in all of this. But to start, I'd love for you just to introduce yourself a little bit to our audience, people who, by the way, want to follow more of your work. You've just started a sub stack and a Patreon, so we have those links down in the description. Just tell us who you are, what your view is of what's going on, and a little bit of background.

So my name is Yegor Kotkin. I'm a socialist writer from Russia, yes. And I was following American politics for a while right now because, so that happened historically, our politics, Russian politics and American politics was intertwined about 30 years ago in ways that are not obvious but very profound, because basically the same receipts that neoliberal receipts of the Clinton administration that were implemented in the United States also, I assume with good intentions, were implemented in Russia as well. And we have basically the same fallout in Russia, and in many ways our politics, our culture, our problems are very similar to Americans with the correction that we have a much poorer country and much weaker democratic institutes. So in a way, Russia right now is a preview of what you will have if the current political course, neoliberal course, will play out itself in America.

So because we can see that your institutions also being weakened by the growing power of oligarchy. Yeah, that's very interesting. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. That's very important for me to share because we are right now in the situation that basically was created 30 years ago. And when we're talking about this current war and everything around it, we have to understand that basically the history of the moment was already written. It's right now played out. And the history started in the 90s because all the people that right now make decisions in Russia, it's increasingly a small circle of the people around Putin and Putin itself,

they were conditioned to power and to the way they think in the 90s. And first it was, of course, I can lay down a short history, a few milestones starting from 1992. Yeah, go ahead. The biggest mistake, historical mistakes that I see in hindsight was, of course, implementation of the shock therapy on Russia in 1992 instead of, say, Marshall Plan. I mean, you can see the difference of the approach to the country, how it works. On the example of Germany, we have shock therapy on Germany after World War I.

It ended in the revanchism in Germany, Weimar Republic, and then Nazism, and led to World War II. So two world wars were started by same country. And then after the Second World War, instead of punishing Germans further, the politics changed completely differently. And it was Marshall Plan. It was basically help to German people to rebuild their country. And now Germany is the biggest peacekeeper in Europe and probably one of the biggest peacekeepers in the world. So you can't explain this some essentialist thing like German character, because German character in the first half of the century was militaristic and very violent.

In the second half of the century, same people, different character, because they were put by bigger power in completely different conditions. So you have in Russia the same thing happened in the 90s, when basically Russia was put in a position not as hard but close to the Weimar Republic, it was basically punished by the shock therapy. Like it was, I don't know, it was kind of, they were trying to help, of course. They think it was like helping by punishing Russia through shock therapy. But you had basically turned it into ultra-nationalism.

It was not as, let's say, hard as it was in Germany in 1920, so it took longer, but the same processes are working. So in 1992 it was shock therapy. It started Russian inequality, fastly rising inequality. In 1995, a Russian oligarchy class was created. It was created with explicit purpose to help losing popularity Boris Yeltsin to win communist opponent on the presidential elections. So they created a class of big property owners who are supposed to support with the power of Yeltsin. They did it.

But when the second term of Yeltsin was over, they thought, who will protect the interests further? So the third milestone was 1999, when the oligarchs created to help Yeltsin's regime explicitly chose his successor. It was Putin. Yes. And the next part, of course, growing inequality led to hard political grip. So in every election you see this conflict when there is a candidate of power and candidate of people who criticize them for corruption. So then growing inequality calls to growing strength on the political system.

So basically they didn't intend probably dictatorial power in Russia, but they needed it so it would keep the country's political power, but grow inequality in Russia, which has now completely went wrong. So, Igor, this is an important story that I wanted people to hear, because it's one that, from the West, people don't seem to really understand it, into how exactly that happened. I want to also be clear, you were against the war. You know, you're somebody who is risking yourself even by speaking to us against the regime. From the perspective of the U.S. response to Russia at this time, given your understanding of the oligarchy of Putin and now living in Moscow yourself, how do you see the Western response being received by the population? Is it having the intended effect that we are trying, which is to basically punish the Russian people and the Russian oligarchs and back some sort of uprising against Putin? In terms of your day-to-day conversations,

what do you see happening on the ground there right now? Well, on the ground, people, of course, see mostly what Russian propaganda showed them. And it shows the economic assault from the West. And basically, the whole propaganda that was mostly, how do you say, we were told that we live in Weimar Republic before the moment. But now we really live in the conditions of Weimar Republic when the West is acting like winners and trying to punish Russia for its existence. So basically, all the propaganda of Putin right now is being justified in the eyes of

normal people. Normal people see this sudden and fast economic assault on Russia when companies withdraw from Russia and make people unemployed. So prices are going up. It's not extremely high, but it's noticeable. But all of it, all of it, you can say in a way that Putin was laying down the conditions for this moment for a whole 20 years. For a whole 20 years, he was taking control over

political system on the one hand and on another hand, he was saying Russian propaganda that the West intended to destroy Russia at this moment. So right now, we have the situation when West actually tried to destroy Russian economy

and we have no internal instruments to challenge Putin in any way so he's completely out of touch not only the most population of Russia but with the broader Circle of his support this famous one percent uh highest uh ranked families highest earned families highest-ranking families, the highest-earning families in Russia, they are not controlling Putin as well. So we have no means to influence Russian politics from the inside, and we're all under economic assault from the outside, so we have no time for this. So in a sense, what you're saying is that the

economic sanctions which have been imposed, the indiscriminate ones that have hurt the Russian population, have in a sense validated the argument that Putin has been making to the population that, hey, the West is out to get us, the West is out to destroy Russia. And now you have... It became a self-fulfilling prophecy, actually. Right, right. And so one thing I wanted to ask you about, Igor, is, you know, there's a lot of focus on the oligarchs. Of course, you know, that term only gets applied to Russians, it seems like. We have our own oligarchs here that don't seem to get the same treatment. But there's a lot of focus on, hey, if we sanction the oligarchs, they're the ones who are closest to Putin. They're the ones who actually could be

in a position to put pressure on him. There has been the sanctions after 2014 were sort of less significant. It was like, well, we'll put your name on a list. But there wasn't this concerted effort to we're going to go after your yachts. We're going to keep kick you out of your like fancy London apartments. There's a little bit more of that going on. Do you think that that has any chance to succeed? Yeah, thank you. That's why I started with this historic reference, because even if they want to put pressure on Putin, the reason why Putin's regime was created was prevent them, communists and leftists,

from getting back in power in Russia. And right now, when we have this level of inequality, in 2020, by Credit Suisse data, it was 51 percent of richest Russians control 57 percent of our common share of economy. So 1 percent over half of the economy. So 1% over half of economy. And if, even if they try, even if they want, even if they succeed to change Putin, overthrow Putin, even if it will be the softest coup possible, it will be hard coup. What's next? All the parties, all the political forces that were criticizing growing inequality in Russia, they will attack them. And they understand it. They are afraid of Bolshevism.

They are afraid of this scary word Bolsheviks. You don't hear it from Russia, but the only context I hear it in Russia, actually, when sometimes in some conversation, rich people among themselves or TV, they say that basically they're afraid that Bolsheviks will come back and take everything from them. I mean, Bolsheviks won't come back. But the idea that they will be punished because it's impossible to rob the country for 30 years straight

and don't have a population that demands an answer for them and some accountability from them, it's impossible. So they're afraid of it. They understand that how little they have with Putin, they'll still be billionaires, they'll still be billionaires, they'll still be flying all around the world, they'll still be living much better than 99 percent of the Russian population. They understand it. And if Putin's grip on power shatters, they are very likely to lose everything. Not only their property, but also their

freedom. And they understand it. So that's why you have to put it in the context and look back in the 1996 when there was a close election between Boris Yeltsin, a liberal candidate, and Gennady Zhiganov, a communist candidate. I mean, I'm not a fan of the Russian Communist Party, but even this, even them determining power is a scary proposition for oligarchy.

So my question to you, Igor, then, is, is there any domestic pressure right now, real one, to end the war? We see here in the West the TV anchor, courageous people like yourselves who are willing to speak out, tens of thousands of protesters that have been arrested. But on a realistic basis, how do you think that the Russian population feels right now about the war? On the realistic basics, I have to talk with my mother and I have to not to talk with my mother Но для реалистических основ я должен поговорить с матерью, и я должен не говорить с матерью о войне. Потому что она говорит мне, что я переводил венскую пропаганду. Потому что, вы видите, 20 лет пропаганда русская создала почти эмоциональную, почти личную отношение между Путиным и большинством русской популяции. almost personal relationship between Putin and majority of Russian population. So when I'm saying

that basically saying the softest possible stuff, not the hard stuff about what's going on in Ukraine, she responds to me that Putin, Putin she knows, couldn't do that. That Shoigu, he's a minister, minister of defense, secretary of defense, he couldn't do that. Those people couldn't do this. Therefore, this must be lies. So that's people who are conditioned to basically have this private relationship, parasocial relationship with Putin's regime. So they can't believe it. What are the propaganda channels saying? What are they saying right now about what is actually happening in Ukraine? Because I know it's special military operation. You're not allowed to say the words invasion. You're not allowed to say the words war. So what are they telling the population is actually happening on the ground in Ukraine right now? Well, basically, I don't follow closely Russian propaganda.

It's too toxic. But my mom, basically, the't follow closely Russian propaganda. It's too toxic. But my mom was basically the main source of Russian propaganda. So basically, I told you the story. She believed that it was an attempt to help people of Donbass region because they were bombed by Ukrainian government. So Russia intended peacekeeping missions, and now it's being punished by the West for the attempt of peacekeeping in Ukraine. That's the story that my mother tells me.

That's a story that she learned from the state TV. Any of the reports of military losses and deaths of Russian soldiers, I mean, nobody knows exactly what the numbers are there, but is any of that filtering its way home? Last time I heard, it was publicized about 500 deaths. It was a week or two ago, and since then I didn't hear any updates. But, of course, it's hard to make out of it because Ukrainians also keep their casualties close to themselves. So it was around the same time when Ukrainians acknowledged their casualties, the Russian

minister of defense acknowledged our casualties, it's called 500 dead. And since then there was no update that I'm aware of. Official updates that I'm aware of. Igor, let me ask you this. Is there a situation that Putin could say at home to accept some sort of peace deal? As in, given the propaganda right now, if Putin were to say, we demilitarized Ukraine, they agreed on NATO, it's over, we've signed a peace deal. Do you see that as possible, given the state of Russian propaganda,

or are they preparing the people for a years-long war campaign at home? I think, no, we won't prepare for that. I've been as critical of Putin as it gets. I didn't expect, as many of the people the actual invasion. And I completely acknowledge that I was in denial because all the pucks were before us. But I was in denial about that as most people. We weren't prepared for that.

And I can tell assuredly that all the people who are against this special operation or for it, there will be unanimous sigh of relief when it stops. Interesting. For different reasons, but I'm pretty sure there will be unanimous sigh of relief because it's hitting hard people who are against invasion. It's hitting hard people who are pro-support Donbass,

but still they understand that casualties are growing up and the whole war against us, that's not what people who even bought into this whole narrative about help of Donbass, that's not what they expected. They didn't expect it will come with such price. So I believe that the end of this fighting will be met with approval, major approval in Russian people. That's good news. That's not bad. But not really, because we have a system which for 20 years was built with explicit purpose

not to be influenced by any major sentiment in Russia. It close to totalitarian state in that sense. So right now it's much more important what is going on in the full circle. Basically, I don't believe in a role person in history is powerful. I believe in historical materials and that history conditions by global processes but sometimes due this global processes you have this this pockets of power when one

person put in this power in this pocket of this vacuum of power means a lot because the conditions that were created that one person might, namely Putin's situation, means a lot because he was put in these conditions. These conditions. And Igor, last question for you. Speak to the political climate in terms of, you know, we've been tracking the laws that have been passed incredibly draconian against being able to speak out against the war we've been following, the arrests that have been going on. I know your boyfriend was one of those who was arrested at an anti-war protest. So what is that climate like? And frankly, you know, are you concerned about

speaking to us and what could the potential repercussions be for you directly? Well, the infamous law about fake news that basically criminalized open critique of the military operation in Ukraine, it was the most totalitarian law that we had, like, I don't know, since Soviet times. And it was heard loudly and clear around whole Russia. It's actually a funny story. My boyfriend largely in a political, and I am a political person, but we both get calls from our mothers the day after this law was implemented

with warning, don't say much about this thing in Ukraine. So my mother, she knows that I'm political So she wanted me because of that my boyfriend's mother she She wasn't ever political before so yet she called him and said the same thing So it was a loud clearly by the people of Russia and it cost many of the prominent Russian independent liberal outlets to close basically in one day, after decades, sometimes 30 years of work. So because it's a really harsh law.

So right now Russia live under like military, in the informational space we live under military conditions in the informational space, we live under military conditions right now. Right. Well, Igor, you're a tremendously brave man in order to join us. Thank you so much for giving us this perspective. If anything happens to you, I can assure you that we will be doing everything in our power here at the show in order to bring attention to that.

I actually would like to add some historical proposition from this what i'm starting to say about uh germany conditions one way after uh first world war and uh another complete another way after second world war i think we can't do much about what's going on right now uh literally no one can even best uh you know throwing this tantrum with sanctions, basically acknowledging they're powerless in this situation. But we must think what to do next, and what to do next shouldn't be the organization of Russia, shouldn't be turning Russia into the worst conditions in the actual Weimar Republic, but some kind of martial plan to help Russia and Ukraine, both when this situation over, when this political situation changes,

when they will be open to change political situation, not to punish this part of the world, not to try to build an iron curtain and forget about that, because it will be impossible to forget. And the question I would ask Western political leaders right now, what do you think how

this situation right now, your actions will play out in 10 years? They have no answer. And we have the answer from history. Look at the history in 1920s, you'll know that it will bite back and much harder. So you can't cut Russia loose even if you try so yes when the war over when the political situation allows some

changes uh russia and ukraine should be met uh the world with help with support, with money, with institutions, with everything, you can help to rebuild. Not to another shock therapy or iron curtain. It won't work. And we already, right now, we see that it doesn't work. Yeah, I think those are very wise words. We were nervous about you talking to us, but you insisted that you wanted to do it. And we are extremely, extremely grateful for your time and your analysis today, Igor. I'm going to see what happens next.

We are all going to see what happens next. And guys, like I said before, Igor set up a Patreon and a Substack. I've found his insights on what's going on really invaluable. So if you want to support him, if you want to follow him, go ahead and do that. We'll have the links in the description. Igor, great to see you. Great to speak with you. Thanks, Igor.

Thank you very much for the invitation. Our pleasure. Wow. You know, just, I don't know if I'd put myself in that situation, facing arrest like that, but he's a strong man, strong in his convictions,

really interesting perspective. It's so valuable to talk to somebody who's literally on the ground and facing arrest and can give us a perspective that you're probably just not going to hear anywhere else. And just thank you all so much for supporting us. Look, what Igor is facing is not even close to anything in the United States, but we are facing a crazy, censorious environment here too. So thank you all for your support. It enables us to be able to bring attention

to people like him and all of that. So thanks very much. Love you guys. We'll see you soon. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Helen gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Catherine Townsend.

I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there. Each week I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, The murderer is still out there. BIN News This Hour podcast. Updated hourly to bring you the latest stories shaping the black community. From breaking headlines to cultural milestones, the Black Information Network delivers the facts, the voices, and the perspectives that matter 24-7 because our stories deserve to be heard.

Listen to the BIN News This Hour podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop. It's Black Music Month, and We Need to Talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics,

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