Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 3/3/22: Ukraine Battle Updates, China Shifts, Media Warmongers, Russian Oligarch Wealth Seized, & Rep. Ro Khanna!

Episode Date: March 3, 2022

Krystal and Saagar provide a battle update between Russia and Ukraine, decisions being made by China, Russian oligarchs' wealth being taken, Trump flip flopping on Putin, media thirsting for war, economic toll of sanctions, the case for nuclear energy, and an interview with congressman Ro Khanna!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/Ro Khanna’s Book: https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781982163341  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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you like I am right now. So what are you waiting for? Go to breakingpoints.com, become a premium member today, which is available in the show notes. Enjoy the show, guys. Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. Once again, we have all angles of the Ukraine crisis covered for you. The very latest updates, as far as we can tell from the ground. Some new sort of indications of how China may be grappling with all of this, which of course is incredibly significant for the reordering of all of geopolitics, but also hopefully to try to get to an end of this war. Also some updates on what is going on with the oligarchs, some signs of splits there, also some of their luxury goods being

seized, while the Biden administration a little bit wishy-washy on if they're going to do what it takes to get the banks to actually go along with this program of sanctions. Some new comments from our former President Trump that are not particularly helpful. Also, all the very latest from across the board, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News on their worst possible Ukraine takes. So we have all of that for you. So bad. So bad. We also have Congressman Ro Khanna going to join us both to talk about his book, but also to update us on the Ukraine situation. And that indeed is where we want to start. Yeah. So let's start with Ukraine. As we guys have been seeing, we use this mapping service. Let's go and put it up there on the screen. It's

an excellent kind of summary of where things stand. So you can see there that the front line has moved a little bit closer than where it was previously. We continue to see a Russian attack on the city of Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. Now, they've made no real progress in the last two days. And we're going to get to the logistical problems that are facing that 40-mile-long convoy. But over in the east of the country, there's been some pretty significant military development. So the city of Kharkiv remains really under pretty fierce attack by the Russian military. And there's a lot of strategic objectives that they're moving from in there.

In the east, the frontline remains relatively stable, but the city of Mariupol is undergoing pretty heavy bombing and shelling. But the major Russian victory actually came yesterday after the map was made. So let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen, which is that the strategic city of Kherson in Ukraine's south falls to the Russian forces. This is the first major city. It's got a population of 300,000.

There's some limited elements of the Ukrainian government left within the city, but by and large, the Russians have militarily taken it over. It matters because it's down there in the south, near the Crimean Peninsula, and it's a strategic way in order for them to move weapons, have a staging area, a base, and all of that. So top line, as we said, by and large, it's been a pretty big, I wouldn't say a military disaster, but they have faced some big roadblocks. And anybody watching this can tell you the Russian military has not been doing a particularly good job. At the same time, Crystal, they have overwhelming firepower advantage. They have a lot of, obviously, they have the advantage in this conflict. And as time goes on, and this is what

we were warning you, in the opening days of the campaign, you're going to see heroic elements and all that, and we should never diminish what's happening. But in the long run, it's obviously on the Russian side about what's happening. And unfortunately, we're very likely to continue to see these military pushes inward. And eventually, I expect the Russians to take all of their military objectives. That being said, at a tremendous loss of life, which we'll also get to soon, and a major strategic loss, grand strategically, in terms of being cut off essentially from the entire global financial system. This fits with the sort of narrative that we've been laying out for you of things have not gone for Russia as they thought they would. First of all, I think there was a lot more resistance.

I think there was some element that truly believed they'd be like greeted as liberators. They thought they would take the city in two days. Roll over and be able to take over Kiev in a very short amount of time. That obviously hasn't happened, and they have sustained some level of loss. It's very difficult to say exactly how many, and we're going to get to that, but they are even admitting that there have been significant losses on the Russian side at this time. Now we're starting to see an escalation in tactics, potentially more civilian loss of life as cities like Mariupol are subjected to horrific shelling.

And with this particular strategic city in the south falling, the reason this matters is because it allows Russian troops to be able to advance north into central Ukraine and also over to the port city of Odessa. So it does seem like we're at a bit of a turning point where Ukrainian forces, which have resisted fiercely and very effectively, the Russians are really starting to gain the upper hand right now, as far as we can tell. And also, there are reports that they're supposed to have another set of diplomatic meetings today. But I haven't seen anyone who's truly hopeful that there's going to be a resolution. Yeah. I mean, the demands on both sides are ridiculous. You know, Russia is saying you need demilitarization. Well, that's not going to happen after you literally invaded their

country. I also have no expectation that they could stomach the Zelensky regime staying within power. So that's also obviously not going to happen at this time. On the Ukrainian side, they want an immediate ceasefire and a withdrawal of Russian troops. It's like, okay, well, that's also not going to happen at this point in terms of saving face. To give you just an idea of the problems the Russian military is facing, these are some pretty basic problems that they are having logistically, which are pretty stunning to a lot of people who are watching this from the West. Let's put this up there on the screen, which is that the armed convoy stalling is showcasing some major logistical problems that the Russian military has not been undergoing pretty basic maintenance of a lot of its equipment. One of the things that was actually pointed out by an expert in military transport tires, yes, there is such a thing, is that these Russian military convoy equipment

needs to be moved all of the time. The reason why is if you let it sit out in the sun, specifically these level of tires, these tires which are very important to moving off terrain, which is not roads, that they need to be and cannot be left sitting in the sun. And he looked at a lot of open source intelligence that ended up coming out of Ukraine, and he's watching all these tires getting shredded. There's a lot of abandoned Russian transport vehicles in the mud. And at the same time, one of the reasons why you see Russian transport equipment all massing on roads

is because if they go off-road, they're going to sink and get stuck in the mud. There's actually a specific terminology in Russian for this muddy season, quote-unquote, in the east. And part of the issue is that their lack of upkeep has made it so that a lot of their tires are getting shredded and they're just getting abandoned and stuck completely in the mud. So then they have to stick to the roads, which make you sitting ducks. Anybody knows in warfare, choke points and all this.

It just goes to show you lack of maintenance is going to have them downstream effects in the actual combat itself. But we should, again, effects in the actual combat itself. But we should, again, not underestimate the Russian military here. They have massive amount of fire power, especially whenever it comes to sea and land and cruise base missiles. And we are seeing, unfortunately, some of that. We have a little bit of a video from the city of Kharkiv. Let's go ahead and put this on the screen. I'm going to talk over this. You can see there a apartment. The building is from the Faculty of Sociology of Karazin National University, is on fire, and it was hit by some sort of Russian

munition. It was a Russian strike of some kind. It was either an airstrike or possibly a missile. It hasn't exactly been confirmed, but there's video coming out from the streets of Kharkiv, which are really just horrible. I mean, almost, it looks like Aleppo. It's like you've got ash all over the ground, and there's no civilians in the streets, and things are all on fire. And even if Russia does militarily accomplish its objectives, that's the lengths through which it's going to have to go. So I didn't know this, Crystal, but apparently this is rhyming very much with the Chechen War, which is that there was a lead general under Putin in 1999 who told him, I just need two days and I can go in there and take the city of Grozny.

Well, you know, many massacred civilians later, a massive strategic air campaign to level the city to the ground and a years-long imbroglio resulting in occupation and then installation of a friendly dictator who is himself ten times more ruthless than Putin. This is going to end up what you get. Except this time, not only do you have to level the city, the entire world is watching, and you are essentially culturally and financially cut off from the entire West and East. So, I don't know. I mean, you watch this happening. It seems clear to me they're probably going to accomplish their military objectives, but at what cost to the Russian regime, especially the Russian people? I mean, they are getting so screwed.

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I was reading someone saying basically, like, I mean, there's getting so screwed. Yeah, oh, absolutely. I was reading someone saying basically like, I mean, there's new reports this morning of all of the Western companies fleeing Russia, you know, closing down shop. And someone saying basically like, the Apple iPhone that you're holding in your hand right now

is the last one that you'll ever have. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Apple pulled out. I mean, that's obviously the least of the horrific economic costs the Russian people are going to bear. And I'm actually talking about that more in my monologue. But you're exactly right, Sagar. It really leads to a lot of questions about even within Ukraine, what is Putin's endgame here? Because if he thought he could

roll in, take Kharkiv in two days, install a puppet government, and then kind of be done, that's obviously not on the table because you have a very fierce resistance here that is not going away. So if you're going to hold on to Ukraine, that looks more like, you know, our occupation of Afghanistan or something of the sort, which is, you know, a massive drain on resources and the fighting never goes away and you're constantly having to be there. And eventually, you know, the population gets sick of it. You drain all of your sort of will, your money. You decide this wasn't really worth it in the end or it just is a continued suck on national resources.

So, you know, if he thought this was going to be easy and simple and he could just get rid of Zelensky, put in a government that was more favorable, and then call it a day. That option is obviously not on the table. And at the same time, of course, with these escalating tactics, we have escalating humanitarian crisis. We have latest numbers of refugees. Actually, the number I saw this morning, let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. This number says refugees at 600,000. But the very latest numbers I saw this morning was that more than a million people had fled Ukraine.

I mean, that is a really significant portion of their population. And I do have to say it is very noteworthy how, listen, I think all of these refugees should be welcome. I saw Airbnbs putting them up for free in their properties, et cetera, et cetera. But there is a massive contrast between how these refugees have been treated and those who are, for example, coming out of Afghanistan, where we are causing the refugee crisis by effectively stealing their assets. There has been a wildly disparate treatment of those groups of people. Yeah. I mean, a million refugees is a lot. Many of them have gone to Russia, many of them going to Belarus, all around the European, you know, a million people out of 44 million. That's just the beginning of what's happening. And this isn't just a refugee crisis out of Ukraine. I was reading this morning, the brain drain out of Moscow right now is crazy. Anybody who's a dual Russian citizen is getting

the hell out of Moscow at this time. And a lot of their most westernized, educated citizens are like, screw it, I'm not going to deal with this and are flying, you know, to wherever they possibly can and are getting out. So Putin is both draining, obviously, the most well-connected people in all of Ukraine. They probably either left or, you know, left before or left right during and now in his own country as well, because those people don't want to have to live under, you know, the regime, which is basically financially cut off from the entire world. Something we also just want to underscore is just the tremendous loss of life that we are now beginning to see

on a scale that has not been seen in many years, almost since like the Vietnam War level of losses, especially from a military standpoint. So let's go ahead and put this next one up there, which is that the official number that the Russian Ministry of Defense acknowledges is 498 Russian combat deaths with 1,500 injured. Now, that's probably on the lower end. There's no way to know. The Ukrainians are claiming some like 4,500 to 5,000. I would take that with a major grain of salt. The latest I saw from them was 8,000. That just seems tremendously, tremendously high. That's double the amount of troops that we lost in the entire war in Iraq in like 20 years. So I would just be very skeptical of that number.

That being said, they're acknowledging 500. Okay, well, that's a lot of troops in such a short period of time. I put it into perspective, put my tweet up there, which is I want to go ahead and pull the numbers. Russia has lost as many troops officially in one week that it took the United States 10 months of war in Iraq to arrive at 482 combat deaths on our side. Now, as Glenn Greenwald pointed out, we had a very, very different military strategy. We basically leveled the entire Iraqi cities and the military from shock and awe campaign and that the Russians are pursuing

a much more 20th century man first and lack of air power and all that. Second, regardless, 482 young kids blown to hell and killed. And that's just the official number. Let's say it is 1,500. That's 1,500 parents who don't have kids anymore. It may not be popular to say, but I feel horrific for them.

No, you should. I mean, have you seen these videos coming out of these kids? They're like, we don't even know why we're here. I mean, listen, those things are being put out by the Ukrainians. They may be total propaganda, but I don't think it's a stretch to imagine that they didn't think that this is what they were signing up for. Did a 19 year old Russian make the decision to invade Ukraine? No, exactly. And so, you know, this is also not the war that's been sold to the Russian public, which is part of why Putin is having some trouble at home. And again, it's impossible to say how widespread that is. They put out a new poll from like a Russian

government affiliated pollster that's like, actually, Putin's approval rating went up. Hard to say that that's the case, but who knows? There's certainly some dissent, very brave dissent in the streets right now that we should absolutely applaud. But yeah, it's a horrific loss of life. And it would not be surprising if the reports of very low morale from the Russian troops are true. Yeah, I think it is true. Because what were they told? They were told this is a peacekeeping mission. You know, they were told, look, we're not the aggressors here. And then you go in and you're having to meet Ukrainians face to face. You're being given the orders to shell apartment

buildings and things of this nature. It would not be at all shocking if those reports of low morale are in fact true. It's impossible to know exactly how many lives have been lost on either side of this conflict at this point. There was an independent estimate that projected about 1,500 lives lost for the Russians and about the same for the Ukrainians. Makes about sense. Yeah, it makes sense. Again, and even this independent estimate said, like, we really don't, we really can't know precisely, but that's what people who are trying to be objective about this are projecting. And again, for one more comparison, during our 20 years of war in Afghanistan, we lost 2,500 American troops. So if the independent estimates are 1,500, we lost 2,500 total over 20 years.

And that was a horrific and catastrophic loss of life, obviously. So, you know, there are a lot of mothers who are losing their children right now on both sides of this conflict that should not be overlooked and who are not going to be happy about what's going on. Right. And look, like you said, yeah, it's propaganda, but I have to believe. I mean, what I do believe is that regardless of circumstance, losing your child on both sides of this conflict is a horrific experience. And this is something I've been trying to point out in terms of domestic Russian support. Do not underestimate what it means. Whenever somebody loses their kid, they are liable to come out and actually speak out and say something. It happened here in America. Remember Code Pink?

I mean, I forget what her name is. Cindy Sheen? Yes. Right, Cindy Sheen. She was a national figure in America, standing outside of the Waco, Texas ranch, being like, you know, I'm not going to leave here until you come out and apologize to me because my son died in Iraq.

She was all over the news. I'm not saying that's going to happen in Russia, but having read a little bit about the moms who lost Russian soldiers in Afghanistan and how they were treated terribly. The Soviet Union was not allowing them to hold official ceremonies and not allowing them to grieve in public because they didn't want to destroy morale. Those 15,000 soldiers who died, their parents made a big stink in Moscow and all throughout the country. And it had a significant impact.

It was whispered amongst, oh, so-and-so just died in Afghanistan. So-and-so just died in Afghanistan. And look, I mean, they've already come out and said, we're going to pay families, I think it's $100 a year, some sort of pension, which is nothing, you know, come on, to these people. But really, it goes to show you that when people start dying and when parents start losing their kids, if there is not a major buy-in from the population, that is going to have a domestic political effect, whether you like it or not, no matter how locked down your country's state media and all of that is. And whatever the number is, it's only been eight days, and it's going to rise. The civilian number, also, we have no idea. The United Nations right now says 227 civilians have been killed and 525 have been injured between February 24th and March 1st.

They say that is very likely, dramatically undercounts that, but that's what the UN says. Probably the best figure that's floating out there, so let's go with it because there's so much propaganda really on both sides about exactly which one it is. And even the UN is exactly the most trustworthy figure. So, you know, the bottom line, it's been a week, at least a couple hundred Russians are dead. At least, what, a couple hundred Ukrainians are dead. Civilians. And then at least probably more than a couple hundred Ukrainian soldiers are dead. And that's just in the first week. So it really is just a total, total tragedy. Yeah, it's horrific. Especially when you put it in the scale, especially of probably what's to come,

which is a brutal insurgency and a brutal takeover of a lot of these cities. I really feel for these people. Yeah, no, that's absolutely right. And you can also see that, you know, the Kremlin is taking a lot of aggressive actions within Russia to shut down any media that is at all independent, which also indicates a level of insecurity about how the population is feeling about this war and its impact on their own lives. And, you know, their sense that this was not, in fact, a sort of righteous defensive maneuver, which is what the Kremlin is trying to sell them on. That's one indication. Obviously, the people who continue to come out very bravely into the streets facing arrest and

persecution from authorities is another indication that they did not do whatever they needed to do in order to be able to get the population fully on board. And again, it's impossible to know what the sort of breakdown is of public sentiment for and against this war. But I think judging from the external signs of people by the thousands being willing to come into the streets and the Russian authorities shutting down every semblance of independent media, that tells you they are not feeling like they have done a great job winning the propaganda war. And again, in terms of, I say this every day, but I think it's really important to remember, as we're evaluating what is happening on the ground, the Russians also

are not, because of the way they've tried to sell this war to their population, they're not really able to like tout their battleground wins, battlefield wins. That's an important point. The way that the Ukrainians are. So that also creates an asymmetric sort of information environment. So just keep that in mind. But even that being said, we now see this morning some significant Russian gains where some of the Ukrainian defenses are starting to fall. Yeah. And we went ahead and put this put this up there on the screen in terms of the reports of lower morale. It all fits. I mean, it would make a lot of sense. There are some videos actually coming out of Russian troops having to go into

grocery stores in some of the cities that they conquered. All that just shows you is that if they're going and they're taking food, that means that they're probably not being well fed. You can also surmise, like I said, on the maintenance of a lot of this stuff. It's very demoralizing to have to lose equipment, abandon equipment, and even being taken prisoner. Running out of fuel, all these things. It just shows you that the higher command and the brass have not thought really about your well-being and your welfare. So, look, that could all change.

Like we said, it's only been eight days since this happened. That's extraordinarily early in the history of warfare. It's very likely this is going to drag on for years, five years or something like that. People don't want to hear that. And I'm not saying it's going to be a shooting war in all that time. But in terms of a settlement and in terms of when things get back to normal, A, they could never be. We don't know what that is. And insurgencies, it lasts a long time. I mean, the reason that that number of 482 combat deaths, we didn't really have a full-blown

insurgency in Iraq until two years in, since 2005. I mean, it can take a long time. So this is why I said at the beginning, never underestimate the follow-on and the 40th effects of war. And I think the Russians are going to find that out really the hard way in the years to come. Yeah. As much as they are more committed to Ukraine than we are, the Ukrainians are more committed to Ukraine than the Russians are. And I think there were some dramatic miscalculations here going in. Yeah, that's smart. Okay, why don't we go ahead and move on to China? Yeah. So there has been some contradictory reports and signs about exactly China's positioning in all of this. So let's take you through all of those. Let's go ahead and put

this first New York Times piece up on the screen, which is they're reporting, and again, this is based on a Western intelligence report and we don't have the evidence, so keep all of those grains of salt in mind. But they're reporting that China basically had a heads up before this invasion and kind of gave the okay as long as the Russians waited until after the Olympics. Yes. And that, of course, is exactly when the invasion actually happened. And it's funny because I was talking to a friend of mine who worked for the government last week, who's just a regular, like, civilian dude. And he's like, I called this date because I knew they wouldn't do it while the Chinese Olympics in China were going on.

You know, we were making fun of that at the time, but it actually seems to be a real thing. I think it may have been actually legit. I mean, and that brings China into kind of a level of complicity and makes some of their actions after the fact make sense. The fact that they've helped to bolster the Russian wheat market. Let's put the next element up on the screen. There's a U.N. Security Council. There was a U.N. General Assembly vote. And one of the countries that

continues to abstain is China. Now, I guess that's better than them, you know, voting against the resolution to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but they're trying to keep hands off. However, their very latest comments from China sort of signal a bit of a shift potentially in how they're viewing all of this, because I think they also have to feel like, like Putin, this isn't going exactly the way that they expected it would go. The Western countries are more unified. There's been more consequences to bear on Russia. The military campaign itself is not going all that well. So let's put this next piece up on the screen. China is signaling that they are ready to play a role in finding a ceasefire in Ukraine. And this is the strong

language here. This is the strongest they used. They deplored, quote, the outbreak of conflict. Those are their strongest comments yet on Russia's invasion. And of course, this really matters. They also said that they were extremely concerned about the harm to civilians that came after a phone call between the Chinese foreign minister and their Ukrainian counterpart. So there are conversations that are happening back and forth here. They also added they respected the territorial integrity of all countries without directly indicating whether Beijing accepted Russia's claim to the Crimean Peninsula or shared its recognition of separatists in the Donbass

region of eastern Ukraine. So there seems to be a bit of a tonal shift here. And it matters, obviously, massively, because China is Russia's biggest ally in this fight. In terms of the geopolitics, part of what, you know, this looked like going in is this sort of realignment of Russia allied with China, with the West on the other side. And so any signs of a sort of schism in how China is approaching this and thinking about this, well, they're the ones who are really in position to put a lot of pressure on Russia. There's one more piece that may give some insight into why they feel like this is not, you know, furthering their interest. If you're the Chinese, this is from Foreign Policy. Our producer James found this piece. Putin's war has killed China's Eurasian railway dreams.

So a key part of the Belt and Road Initiative is something they've dubbed the Iron Silk Road. This is a railway corridor that crosses all of Eurasia, runs through Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus. And effectively, if you have this railway going through all of these countries, they could be massively impacted by European sanctions on Russia, because almost half of the roots in this initiative, which is really, again, a sort of key priority, which has been held up and, you know, really used as propaganda with the Chinese population as well. Half of those roots pass through Russia. So they have their own financial and strategic considerations here that they feel like are maybe this whole Russia invading Ukraine thing is not going the way that they also had wanted it to go.

Yeah, it's very important that you put it that way. The Belt and Road Initiative is central to the communist parties staying in power and selling the economic vision to the Chinese people. So when you look at this, what you see is a catastrophe for the Chinese to lose even a part of that. Then geopolitically, for them to be aligned with Russia in this way, it's a huge problem. Because if you think Russia getting cut off from the global financial system is bad, imagine China getting cut off from the global financial system. I doubt many of these companies and others would be willing to do that, given how much of the size of the market actually is. Yeah, that would cause them to really have to choose about what's happening. That being said, even a 10% drop would be catastrophe for the

Chinese economy and for the entire global financial system. So when they're looking at what's happening with Russia, they have to play this very, very hard diplomatically because obviously they can't abandon the Russians, but abstaining in the Security Council on their behalf with Iraq, India, and I forget what the other country was that went ahead and did so, that was a big gesture because they combined that with that statement deploring the outbreak of the conflict, which obviously you can read both ways. But in terms of the actual relations between Moscow and Beijing in this, I think it's no question that Beijing obviously wanted Russia not to do this until after the Olympics, but has also looked at this with great alarm. Beijing has

long believed that they can pursue kind of strategic autonomy in terms of what they get to do in their country and that the West would mostly frown, but they could get away with whatever they want. And I mean, they're mostly correct with that. And it has been true. But when they saw what happened in terms of the global backlash to Ukraine, and this is why there's a lot of takes out there like, oh, I think China is going to move on Taiwan. I actually think this sets that back significantly. I would say it reduces the likelihood. If you're watching the geopolitical cancellation, quote unquote, of all of Russia, if you're China, you're 10 times more vulnerable to that. And if you have even 20 something percent

of that backlash, that will crater your entire domestic economy. And if you think the Russian oligarchs are reliant on outside banks and all that, wait until you meet the Chinese oligarchs. These people are probably 10 times shadier, more corrupt, and have a lot more to lose, and are themselves also an important power broker within that country. So I think what we're watching with the global financial system cutting off Russia, the kind of cultural pushback, is something Beijing cannot risk and actually needs to not happen for their economic expansion goals. A key part of, for example, the Belt and Road Initiative and their Made in China 2025 plan is the ability to import massive amounts of natural gas and oil. Well, what's the easiest thing to cut off? Well, it's energy resources. The same thing whenever it comes to their trading routes. Part of the whole reason they even want Taiwan and the Taiwan Straits in the first place is to control the rules of the game for 40-something percent of the world shipping. Same in the Straits of Malacca and all of their ability to project power in the sea. This is what it all comes down to, global trade. And if they get cut off from the

trading system, they're screwed. I mean, they truly will crater, and a lot of their power and ability to project power is gone. The way that they look at soft power is the same thing in terms of Africa and a lot of the deals that they have in terms of financing all of this. They're not even close to being able to have a truly autarkic system in China. So I would look at this, and I would say what's happening is a catastrophe. There's going to actually be and probably will invite diplomatic backlash on Beijing, specifically because of what has happened here. Combine that with the entire world rightfully blames them for not lying about COVID in the beginning, and you have a big problem

on your hands. I mean, the Pew Research polling shows that favorable views of China fell like 50 some percent across the entire world, east and west after COVID. Combine that with this, they're now on par with Russia, not as much of a pariah state, but very much have the, like in terms of domestic political will to cut them off. It exists if they do something in Taiwan. Yeah. And so the reason this is so incredibly critical is because they are the people who could really put pressure on. Yeah. And they are. Yes. And it seems like they are. Again, you always want to take these things with a grain of salt. But if they are truly shifting, you know, hopefully that could force Putin to look for an off ramp here instead of looking to continue to escalate, looking at other, you know, hopefully that could force Putin to look for an off ramp here instead of looking to continue to escalate, looking at other potential areas that he would want to expand into.

That's the hope. And, you know, again, there are diplomatic talks that are happening today. I don't think anybody expects much to come out of that. But somebody has to move off of their current positions if you're going to have any resolution to this conflict in anything approaching the near term. And if China can bring pressure to bear on Russia, that would be a tiny sliver of hope that you could see an opening there. Some of the other pressure that's being brought to bear, let's talk about the latest situation with the oligarchs here. So let's go ahead and throw this first piece up on the screen. So the Germans have seized a Russian billionaire's super yacht. This ship, are they called ships?

Is that what they call them? I think it's a yacht. I don't really know. Is there a difference between a yacht and a ship? I don't really know. There's some naval people screaming into their cars right now. I truly have no idea. Okay. All right. I know people get very picky about these distinctions. Anyway, this giant super yacht, one of the largest in the world, was seized in Germany. We've had new indications from the U.S. government that they want to even

expand their list of which oligarchs are sanctioned. We've also had reports from the UK because a lot of their money and toys are stashed there as well, that they're going to get more serious about cracking down. This is another interesting thing that we've been tracking here is a little bit of schisms in the Russian oligarch community with regards to their orientation towards the Kremlin. So put this next piece up on the screen. We had told you before that this particular Russian billionaire, Roman Abramovich, who owned the Chelsea Football Club, initially he was stepping back from that ownership.

Now he's saying he's selling it all together and will use the proceeds to benefit, quote, all victims of the war in Ukraine. So clearly there's not just direct government pressure. There's also a lot of sort of social, cultural, public pressure being brought to bear on these individuals. I have no problem with that whatsoever. However, the other side of this, and this gets a little bit tricky, but this is really important, is of course all of these global financial institutions,

they're the ones that handle the money. They're the ones that finance the super yachts, that finance the private jets. And so you can't just go after the oligarchs. You have to make sure that, you know, these global financial institutions are also playing ball. And that gets very uncomfortable for governments like ours that are in bed with these very same banks. So one instance of this, let's put the Financial Times tear sheet up on the screen, is Credit Suisse. They have asked investors to destroy documents linked to oligarch and tycoon yacht loans, which is a little suspicious. They've asked hedge funds and other investors, this is a quote from them,

to destroy documents relating to its richest clients, yachts and private jets in an attempt to stop information leaking about a unit of the bank that has made loans to oligarchs who were later sanctioned. Investors this week received letters from the Swiss bank requesting they destroy the documents

relating to a securitization of loans backed by jets, yachts, real estate and or other financial assets. That's according to three people whose firm received the request. This story actually goes even a level deeper. Credit Suisse had massive losses because of previous rounds of oligarch sanctions because they were sort of a key player in the financing of the oligarch jet and yacht market. And so what they did to help to lower their own losses as they bundled these all together, they turn them into a security and then they sold them off to these hedge funds to try to limit their own risk. So that's why these hedge funds had these documents detailing all of these

sort of like oligarch yacht and private jet loans. And that's why they're being told, OK, let's not really highlight the fact. Let's keep any other leaks from coming out about just how involved we are with this dirty money. So that's piece number one. Piece number two. And this is from our great friends at The Daily Poster, David Sirota and co. So they're at the same time that they're asking these investors to destroy documents. The Biden administration is potentially taking a sort of giving Credit Suisse a pass on an exemption that they need in order to be able to be involved in pension funds. So, again, this gets to our government

and other governments around the world going to be willing to actually hold these financial institutions to account in order to effectively sanction these oligarchs. And there's some indications that they're going to kind of give Credit Suisse a pass, allow them to have an exemption that allows them to continue to profit in the pension

retirement fund industry, even though they have been convicted of fraud and should be kicked out of that market. So again, the reason this is significant is because it's an indication of whether or not the Biden administration is going to really do what it takes to go after these finances and this dirty money. Yeah, no, that's why it matters the most on all of this. And it's actually very interesting to consider the architecture of the West's financial system. For as much as we like to think that we're clean and we have all these banking regulations, here's the truth. We invited these Russians over here.

Why? Because we wanted their money. Yeah. You think all of Europe opened its doors and was like, come on in. We got banks. Oh, you want to hang out in Monaco? It's all good. Oh, you like this?

Oh, we'll take your credit whenever it comes to this. Oh, the Swiss have your back? Oh, great. Sounds good. We accept the check, Mr. Abramovich. Welcome to Chelsea. You know, this is exactly the problem, which is that for years we were willing to play footsie. The entire West, and I'm using the royal we, was willing to play footsie with this Russian money because they had a ton of it. And this is the thing, too, about Russia.

They're just – they're not even that big of a – they don't even're from all over the world, use the Western financial system to wash their cash and to use their dirty money to purchase influence and to live lavish lifestyles. I mean the Chinese own half of New York along with the Russians. That's where half of it is. The Brazilians, Latin American oligarchs, they own all of Miami. In terms of London, London is literally known as a Russian hub for oligarchs. And part of the reason why even some of the British crackdown on the oligarchs rhetorically might be there, in terms of what I've been reading,

in terms of the actual enforcement, it would cause like an actual recession in terms of the housing market for the highest of the high-end real estate in the city of London. You can't have a high-end real estate recession, It's like little Moscow. Yeah, I know. It's like little Moscow in certain city of London. You can't have a high-end real estate recession, God forbid. Yeah, I know. It's like little Moscow in certain parts of high Kensington and some of these areas in London. Same in the south of France. I mean, if you even go there to see anybody who is not

from Saudi Arabia or a despot regime is out of the ordinary. So I think that's what it really reveals to me is just how corrupt and how much corrupt money is in the global financial system and is readily allowed that we don't even get to see until this happens. I have no sympathy for these people. Screw them. Take their yachts.

Make their lives miserable. They're not good. But the fact that it was even here in the first place, that reveals a lot about us. A lot of us. Yeah. A lot of us were willing to just cash those checks and not ask any questions. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. And I think the previous report that we brought you yesterday from the Daily Poster is also an important piece of this. And just to remind you of those details, because Wall Street has made our financial system so opaque, so that a lot of these luxury

condominium, multimillion dollar condos that are being snatched up in places like Manhattan, like you can't even tell who the owner is because there's such a series of shell companies and it's so incredibly opaque. And so when, you know, the Biden administration says we're going to sanction these oligarchs, it makes it very difficult to actually do that because if you don't know what they own, then you can't really sanction them. So the fact that Wall Street has made those, the financial system so lacking in transparency makes it more difficult to kind of exact any pain on the ruling elite class. I'm going to be talking in my monologue about how I think those types of

sanctions are what we should be leaning into and that the history of leaning into broad sanctions that devastate the entire public is not one that has resulted in, you know, the outcomes that we would like to see, not to mention the immoral dimension of that. But the financial system has completely hobbled our ability to go after people who have dirty money, effectively. Here's another one, Crystal, just came out of the Times of London this morning, which is that building the sanctions case against Abramovich and many of these other Russians in London, quote, may take months because the Foreign Office and the National Crime Agency has to have, quote, reasonable grounds for designating the oligarchs, which requires them to then go through and subpoena their banks and have to look at all this.

So, you know, it's just another example, right, of how difficult it's going to actually be given the architecture of this money. And when you allow it in the first place to worm its way into your financial system and into your society, it is so incredibly difficult to root out. This is why even letting them in in the first place

was a colossal and a gigantic mistake. I'm not just talking about the Russians. I'm talking about all oligarchs of the Third World. I have a solution to this. I think we should just seize all of the super yachts and the private jets, and that way we can just take care of it. Then there's no hypocrisy.

There's no saying our oligarchs are better than those oligarchs. Let's just get all of the super yachts off the map and then we'll be cool. As long as they seize Jeff Bezos' rocket as well, then I'm cool. Okay, I'm down. I'm definitely down with that. The rockets and the private jets. But leave SpaceX alone. And the super yachts.

Yes, I'm good with all of that. Okay. All right. We also wanted to bring you the very latest comments from former President Trump. And the reason that this matters is because, as we've been reporting, public opinion is very much in flux right now about how they think about this crisis, how involved they want to be, how much more they want to do, and even whether they want to get directly militarily involved. Obviously, the most significant factor in shaping Republican-based public opinion is Donald Trump. And that's why his comments here are significant and, I would say, extremely troubling. Let's take a listen to what he has to say. This is a holocaust. This is a horrible thing that's happening. You're witnessing it and you're

seeing it on television every night. Who can believe that they're taking army tanks and they're taking missiles and shooting them into buildings? Do you hit their oil sector? That's a far cry, Crystal, from the original turn of phrase that Trump used. Why don't you remind us, Doug? On the screen where he said that Putin was a genius and very savvy. This is the problem with Trump. You know, words matter. And when you also I would love to see, you know, where is the Jewish community in condemning this comparison? You know,

we should actually be very careful in our language. If this is the Holocaust, then you are implying what we are implying and a genocidal campaign that must be stopped. The whole never again campaign that would kick in a very significant military response from the United States for that to happen. Do not use these words lightly, just as, you know, and the hypocrisy is that many of these people, because they politically align with Trump, are not willing to call him out on this. This type of rhetoric is dangerous. If you are saying that that's what's happening here, then that implies a level of military response, which the United States and the West is not currently undergoing. Also calling Putin a genius and savvy is bad. It's like, this is the problem with the variants of Trump and why whenever you're all over the place, I love the

people too, who are like, oh, this never would have happened under Trump. Maybe, maybe, but this level of back and forth and all of that goes to show you that if he's willing to call it a Holocaust, here's what's going to happen if he was still president. What's happening? They're going to use those words inside of the deep state and the administration,

and the neocons will say, Mr. President, you said it was a Holocaust. So that means we've got to respond with X, Y, and Z from a military strategy. He's going to be like, oh, okay, or allow that to happen or not rein those people in. And it just goes to show to me that he has no grand conception of what's happening here, being purely reactive. Sometimes that's good. I genuinely believe that. But when it comes to this, that's terrible.

When it comes to potential World War III, that is horrendous. And you should not, people, what did we learn from the biggest idiocy of Stop the Steal? A lot of people believe every single thing that this man has to say. Yeah. And that's a problem. Whenever you're going to use words like Holocaust

and whenever that is put into the minds of people, downstream effects are then going to be the most hawkish political options. This is why I did a whole monologue saying, don't compare this to Munich and to Hitler. Not everything is Hitler. And whenever you use this type of language, both on the other side too, saying he's a genius and a savvy is going to invite actual sympathy to what's happening. It is possible to say very nuanced thing. What's happening with the invasion is really bad. The West also played a role in rising tensions.

However, that doesn't invite a maximalist response. What's happening to the Ukraine is very sad. It's not a holocaust. Yes, it should be responded to. It also should not lead to an outright nuclear exchange between the United States and Russia. Why is that so? There's a vast landscape between Putin is a genius and it's a holocaust.

There's a whole ground in the middle where you can occupy and actually make a little bit of sense and be a little bit useful here. I mean, this is where, yeah, it's unfortunate that so much rests on the utterances and the mood of this one man. This is one of those times where I'm kind of like, it was wrong for them to kick him off Twitter,

but I'm kind of glad he's not on Twitter right now. But we do see in real time, the GOP base completely changing how they're thinking about this. I mean, they're the ones now, 80% say, we're not doing enough. Right, because they think Biden is weak. And look, I agree with you on a personal level,

but you know, in terms of- Yes, but I have to say, I would way rather have Biden in there right now who showed some restraint on Afghanistan and wasn't pressured into, you know, going back in or staying in by the deep state there than either Trump or the other person that we've been highlighting is Hillary Clinton. My God. Thank God she's not in there as commander in chief right now. That woman is not the president. I mean, like every day she floats some other horrible idea like, hey, let's let's just casually have cyber warfare. You know, let's casually have McCarthyism at home. It's anyway, I'm very glad that neither of those two individuals is commander in chief right now, even as I have all kinds of issues and lack in confidence in Biden as well. It's a low bar to meet, but I certainly prefer him to those alternatives

because you see the level of irresponsibility here, the lack of care with language when it really, really counts. So yeah, we called it out when it was Pelosi making the Nazi comparisons. And with him, it's even more significant because I don't think Nancy Pelosi is swinging a whole lot of Democratic-based public opinion at this point. But he really is the one that people look to to see where they should fall on an issue. And how hard is it?

We're going to tell you about, you know, Sager's about to tell you about the media as well. How hard is it to switch from we should do more to convince those do more people to that do more is a no-fly zone or that do more is more arming in a way that is even more provocative than what we've already done. It's not that hard once you already have people bought into the idea of we're not doing enough and this is a holocaust. That justifies all kinds of escalation that we don't want to see.

I unfortunately see this so clearly, which is that what I saw in Afghanistan was that a bunch of people who claim to be America first are actually just reactive, emotional people willing to be played by the media and the neocons. Because they hate Joe Biden so much, it short circuits their brain into what an actual foreign policy of what they claim to want looks like.

This is going to be the same thing, which is that it's going to come down to the narrative of Biden is weak. And when weakness is implied, like I said, I even agree with you on a personal level. But when weakness is implied, that means you should do more and you should be strong. And then the people who have a professional ability to translate being strong with warmongering can hijack, use that rhetoric in order to then justify series of escalatory actions which will lead to a nuclear exchange with Russia. Also, I think everybody continues to make fun of us, Crystal, as being like, you keep saying that this is going to lead to nuclear war. What's your evidence for that? My evidence is actually that NATO, former NATO commander that we brought all of you, Philip Breedlove, he actually laid it out. A no-fly zone does not just mean, oh, there's a Russian jet over Ukraine. You should shoot it down. Well, when you shoot that down, then they're going to fire back. And where they fire back from is Russia. And as part of a no-fly zone, to enforce that, to protect the safety of our planes, we would then have to bomb their

anti-aircraft defense. And then they would have to ensure that their anti-aircraft defense doesn't get bombed. So they would have to bomb our station in a forward-deployed NATO country. Oh, look, you just hit the NATO tripwire. And now we are at, oh, what, a 50% likelihood of nuclear war. That's how quickly that can happen. Two planes getting shot down and then a retaliatory action. Yeah. That's five days away from a full blown consideration of an actual nuclear exchange between the U.S. and Russia. Well, and here's the thing about nuclear war is you don't even want to have a 1% chance. Yes, I know.

So are we sitting here saying it's definitely going to happen? No. But you want to avoid even a tiny little percentage possibility that you end up in that situation, which is why that's the real reason. I think that's the other thing is why does this conflict matter so much? Why do we devote so much attention to it? Why are we following all of the ins and outs? That's the real reason why is because this is how much – this is the closest we have come to that kind of nuclear precipice in decades. It's so close, too.

It's so much closer than people think. That's it. And so that's why we have a direct interest in every little thing that happens here that we can possibly figure out. Because even if it's a tiny percentage chance, that is something that we need to pay very close attention to and be very, very deeply concerned about and do everything we can to avoid it. I've been reading as much as I can to try and give everybody historical parallels here. Like the world was so close to nuclear war in the Berlin crisis of 1961 and then the October Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. I mean it came down to pure luck, as Robert McNamara has said, in terms of the Cuba Missile Crisis. And in terms of the planes, this is a good example. An American fighter pilot of a U-2, or sorry, of one of the spy aircraft was shot down over Cuba. And there was significant consideration within the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They're like, we've got to respond.

We've got to shoot them down. We've got to go into that. That would have led to a nuclear exchange within 24 hours of that happening. I'm just trying to outline that for people. Same in the Berlin crisis in 1961 with the Berlin Wall going up, and there was a significant escalation where there was an idea and a consideration. They're like, if a tank crosses West Berlin, they're like, the nukes start flying within 20 minutes, 30 minutes. Don't underestimate. Even the slightest little actions can and have led to the outright break of a nuclear war. And I don't want to, you know, I think I said this in our last show. The unthinkable becomes thinkable quickly in times of madness. Well, especially, well, this is definitely a time of madness.

I mean, there is a mass hysteria that is taking hold that has, you know, everybody banning anything that has anything to do with Russia. Vandalizing Russian-seeming businesses and, I mean, all of that here in D.C., actually a great bar, Russia House. Shout out to Russia House. Yeah. Which is I mean, this this type of hysteria and just blatant xenophobia also leads to horrendous places. But the other thing I was thinking about is the sort of the incentive and the media environment is so much worse now because you have the defense industrial complex, the military industrial complex so much larger and more powerful. You know, every year they grow more powerful. Of course, their stock, while the stock market has not been doing well overall, their stocks are way up. They have a vested interest in continuing to push escalating conflicts. And then, you know, on the other side of this, the media only cheers in one direction.

Like, you know, politically, you're going to be rewarded every time for doing more and taking more hawkish actions. And oftentimes you're politically really hurt by, you know, taking the de-escalatory tactics, because sometimes that requires putting ego aside. That requires sort of acknowledging the limits of our power to something that, you know, it's easy to kind of rail against and say, no, we got to be the bad guy. We got to be the big guys. We got to be the bullies on the block. We got to be the world police. So that's also why this is a dangerous situation and why I do take comfort in the fact that we saw Biden resist some of that pressure with the Afghan withdrawal. laid out, which is that the media rewards hawkishness and sleeplessly is willing to just walk you right into World War III under the guise of compassion. First, let's put up

Gayle King from CBS News pressing Kamala Harris. Why aren't you doing more? Put that up there on the screen. In terms of Russia's aggression. I hear you on that, but those images are heartbreaking to watch. We see innocent civilians being killed. We see children being killed. And the administration has made it clear there will be no boots on the ground. What will it take? Will anything change that? Will we stand by and watch innocent people continue to be killed here? Well, Gayle, you're absolutely right. It's heart-wrenching. It's heartbreaking. The image of a missile that struck just right next to a children's playground. The Ukrainians who are, as civilians, taking up defense of their nation out of pride

and also an understanding of what is at stake in terms of their vitality and their independence. So it is heart-wrenching, to be sure. But I will tell you, the president is clear. We are clear. We are not going to put U.S. troops in Ukraine to fight the Russians, not on the ground, not in the air. And what are we really just going to stand by and do nothing? And then what are we going to stand by and allow a nuclear war to erupt between our two nations? The lack of consideration by some of these people who are at the highest levels of the news media is stunning. You need to understand what you're saying. And it's not a coincidence that that exact same sentiment was expressed by NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel. You know, something Glenn Greenwald has been pointing out is the outright shamelessness with which these people who are quote-unquote reporters are willing to just admit

that they are outright activists and are allowing their emotion to get the better of them. Richard Engel apparently bragged about how getting into Iraq was the greatest thing that ever happened to his career. You know, Clarissa Ward, who actually praised some of her reporting on Afghanistan, well, apparently she's admitted on a podcast that she sent an email to Ben Rhodes during the bombing of Aleppo saying something like, I hope that, you know, you guys can sleep well at night because Aleppo is bombed to the ground. Well, hold on a second. Hold on. You're a reporter. You should not be advocating for that type of response.

Also, let's take the Syrian example. And I'll admit, at the time, I was a lot more hawkish, and I blame a lot of the media environment that I was consuming, which is, let's consider what Hillary Clinton and the establishment wanted to do at that time. They wanted to institute a no-fly zone over Syria at the time when Russian active jets were flying around this place and dropping cluster munitions on people. I think that's terrible. What's going to happen, though? We're going to shoot down a Russian plane? You just ended up in the exact same scenario that I outlined in our previous block about a nuclear exchange.

The thoughtlessness, which you're going to stand by and do nothing. You cannot have that mindset when you are dealing with a nuclear power. When we talk about North Korea, it's the same thing. What, the world's just going to stand by and let Kim Jong-un starve his own people? It's not that easy, man. He's got an ICBM. He could destroy Los Angeles. We have to consider that.

This is why nuclear power changes the whole game of how we must consider politics. And unfortunately, it is a guarantee for a lot of these regimes that if you have one, you can basically do whatever you want. I mean, that's the truth. Yeah. In terms of this technology. Well, and the thing that is so nefarious about the framing, both of Richard Engel that we covered before and also Gayle King of basically like, oh, you're just going to let innocent people get slaughtered. This is how you end up with people who are supposedly liberal or progressive humanitarians being the most hawkish people on the planet i mean this is how you end up with the hillary clinton mindset

of like we have to do something we have to interview innocent people are getting killed and and lord knows like it is horrific watching what is going on on the ground right now and tracking the loss of human life and the civilians who are being killed and the families that are sheltering underground, like we see all of that. It is horrible. But if you escalate, those life losses just become even greater. There's even more suffering. And, you know, if there's one thing that we've proved through our military adventurism, it's that we're not particularly good at accomplishing the goals that we set out to in the first place. So that's why I find this framing

so really nefarious because you end up turning people who should be on the side of de-escalation, who should be looking at that bigger picture, you end up pushing them to think that the good and righteous and civilized society thing to do is to call for like a no-fly

zone and to intervene in a more aggressive way yes seems so casual that's exactly that's exactly right and listen i mean the vice president's answer was fine there but i wish they would make it a little more clear and lay out the terms a little bit more starkly of what exactly you are suggesting here yeah they should push back. Be like, wait, so you want a World War Three with Russia? Is that what you're asking me? We should use that sort of language so people really get what is going on and what that is ultimately all about.

Same thing whenever it comes to Andrea Mitchell. She was like, she criticized Biden's response on Ukraine, again, for not wanting to do more. Let's take a listen. And he could have done a much better job of explaining why we care, of broadening that conversation about democracy versus autocracies, and describing what we face with Vladimir Putin, describing what the irrationality is of his positions about Ukraine, why we should care about this country so much. So you had the pageantry, you had the flags, you had the colors, the Ukrainian ambassador, but not explaining why we're not on the ground there

because we may have to get involved in a counterinsurgency outside the borders. Why we're not on the ground there. Why we're not on the ground there. Why we're not on the ground there. This, again, this is what they want. They're thirsting for it. These people are crazy in the way that they set this all up. And you found this one, I mean, from Michael McFaul. This is insanity. Put this up there on the screen. The former U.S. ambassador to Russia. There are no more innocent, neutral Russians anymore. Everyone has to make a choice, support or oppose this war. The only way to end it is if hundreds, thousands, not thousands protest. Putin can't arrest all of you. He also tweeted just

yesterday, Crystal, that arguments against moderates who do not want to invade Ukraine or start a war remind him of MLK's frustrations with white moderates while he sat in jail in Birmingham. Oh, my God. So he is now trying to justify a literal world war with Russia, invoking the name of Martin Luther King Jr. going against the white moderate. That's how much these people's brains have been rotted by this situation. It is a truly appalling, appalling sentiment to say there are no more innocent, neutral Russians anymore. What that justifies is horrific.

I mean, that justifies genocide. When you say— Okay, in our history, I mean, we put Japanese people in camps. Is that what you're saying? Is that what you're saying? There are no innocent or neutral Russians. And this is some of the hysteria that I referred to earlier. Now they're banning Paralympic athletes from competing?

Like, what? I'm going to talk about in my monologue this oncology network to try to benefit cancer patients is pulling out of any Russian affiliation. Like, what do people who are struggling with cancer, suffering from cancer, have to do with what Putin's decision was here? Imagine if that same logic was applied to all of us during the Iraq war. Oh, there's no innocent or neutral Americans during the, you know, the crimes we committed in the Iraq war or with Guantanamo or any of our other many sins that we have committed. This is really horrific. And it ends up justifying dehumanization and terrible ends. And by the way, you will never get out of a conflict this way because ultimately, look

to his point of you need some of the Russian people on your side putting pressure, internal pressure that makes this uncomfortable as well. You think this is the way to get there? By smearing and sliming them all is basically like complicit in the crimes of Vladimir Putin? Insanity.

Absolutely insane. Zeynep Tafiki, is that how you say her name? Yeah, I think that's her name. She said, there's so much complicity in Western countries by taking Russia's

great corrupt money too. All the bankers, luxury real estate sellers, yacht makers, business people. There was no secret to where the money has been coming from. And yet we let it flow. That might be a better target, in my opinion, which goes to what we were talking about with the oligarchs here. So, you know, to make these blanket statements is just leading to a blatantly xenophobic hysteria. People like Eric Swalwell calling for all Russian students to be kicked out of the country. I saw calls to seize assets of all Russians and take their property and pour out your Russian vodka, destroy any sort of Russian cultural affiliation.

It's scary how quickly a sizable chunk of the public can be convinced that just blanket bigotry and xenophobia is the polite civilized society thing to do. Yeah, absolutely. And the coup de grace of the dumbest response so far comes from Sean Hannity. Let's take a listen. You know, if we can see on satellite imagery where the convoy is, I don't know. Maybe some smart country. Maybe NATO might take some of their fighter jets. Or maybe they can use some drone strikes and take out the whole damn convoy. And then nobody takes credit for it. So then Putin won't know who to hit back. Well, he's threatening nuclear weapons. Hannity, you're talking about nuclear war.

I'm not talking about nuclear war, nor would I support one American boot on the ground here. Yeah, that's exactly the idiocy that we've been talking about this whole show. Yeah, let's just bomb the convoy and they won't be able to figure it out because they're so dumb. Yeah, they'll have no idea who's behind. Who could be behind it? I wonder. Maybe NATO. Maybe we just won't talk about it. That is one of the most colossally stupid things that I've ever heard. And yet when you pair that with Trump saying this is a holocaust, that's the type of low IQ garbage now which is being beamed into the ears of boomers all across this country. And they're going to be like, oh, you know, that's a pretty good point.

Well, this is the issue. Look, I mean, I'm not saying those people don't think for themselves. I'm sure many people also thought it was as dumb as I did. But when you listen and this type of rhetoric heats up, it can lead to serious consequences. Obviously, the Russians would know it was us or any NATO country. Or a NATO ally. And the whole principle of NATO is that if they do it, we have to also defend them. So it doesn't matter which country it is.

And just because we didn't take – do you think if the Russians bombed America and they didn't take credit for it, that we wouldn't immediately which country it is. And just because we didn't take, you think if the Russians bombed America and they didn't take credit for it, that we wouldn't immediately know who it was, especially drones. There are not that many countries that have that ability in order to do something like that. So, I don't know. It's truly terrifying.

I mean, this is how touchy things are. We actually wisely canceled just nuclear missile tests. Yeah, I was very happy with that. That were pre-scheduled for this weekend just to not cause any undue alarm or potential for misconception about what our intentions were there. That's how touchy this is. So to think you're going to be able to casually bomb with American drones this convoy and get away with it and that that's not going to escalate

and spark broader tensions and spark a reaction from the Russians, this is insane. And this is why I keep warning against, you know, the large part of the population that says we need to do more. Those are the people who are susceptible to this messaging. And the media, and we've just shown you examples from NBC. We've shown you examples from CNN. We've shown you examples from the former ambassador to Russia and from Fox News. They only push in one direction. There is not a single voice on any of these channels that's saying we need to take a step back, we need to figure out how we give an off ramp to Putin. We need to figure out how we take the tensions down. What does that look like? Hey, maybe these sanctions that are blanketing the Russian public, maybe they're going to turn the public against us and provoke a further escalation instead of doing what we want them to do, which is to bring Russia to the table. You will never, never hear those voices. And not only

that, a lot of those voices will be completely like treated as treasonous. They'll be, you know, they'll have their podcasts pulled down and be kicked down to the public square. So that's why this is so volatile is because the media only ever pushes you in one direction. And politicians know that they will likely benefit from a positive media environment that bolsters their popularity. If they take the most aggressive, toughest, most hawkish actions, they will benefit from that. And they will pay a massive price across the board from all of these outlets if they do anything to step back down that ladder of escalation. So that's why these media clips are so incredibly important. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, guys, we have to do something. We must make them

pay. That is the sentiment undergirding our response right now to Putin's war in Ukraine. And I have to tell you, I totally get it. Seeing the images of apartment buildings blown up, civilians maimed, civilians killed, an ominous 40-mile-long military convoy looming outside of Kyiv, the completely natural human response is we cannot allow these horrible deeds to go unpunished. That's to say nothing of the potentially broader threat

that Putin's actions here in Ukraine represent. Will he stop at Kyiv? Will he leave NATO countries unmolested? Will he be satisfied until his own imperial ambitions are realized? But as I watch our response, I fear we have casually embarked on a course of action that is unlikely to deter further war and instead may rush us towards it. Specifically, in our quest to do something, we have embarked on a program of unprecedented sanctions that will not only hurt Putin and his oligarchs, but will decimate the entire Russian economy. Not only did we kick major banks out of SWIFT,

but for the first time in history, we have sanctioned a G20 central bank. We are directly attempting to force a complete collapse of the ruble. In other words, we have, with very little debate, committed ourselves to all-out economic warfare. And if history serves as a guide, that economic warfare will be just as brutal and just as devastating for our opponent as conventional warfare would be. It's just instead of civilians dying from bombs and bullets, it will be famine that sends innocent people to their graves. We must consider carefully the morality of those human costs. But to really analyze what we're doing from a tactical perspective, we need to first be specific about what our goals are here. It may be unpopular to say, but I actually don't really care about punishing the oligarchs or Putin or making sure anyone pays a price. I care about peace, ending the war in

Ukraine, and even more importantly, averting a broader war preventing nuclear annihilation. Those are the stakes, and that is what I care about. And unfortunately, the historical record on broad punishing sanctions makes it pretty clear. they are more likely to push leaders to war than to bring about peace. First of all, let's have a little bit of context. There's a lot of speculation right now that Putin might be ill, either mentally or physically, that he might have become paranoid and detached from reality during these long years of COVID quarantine. Any or all of that might be true, but you don't actually have to assume a terminally ill or clinically insane Putin to expect that he might lash out in ways that would seem insane if he's pushed. Now, we've talked here about the political science concept of gambling for resurrection. That is a fancy way of saying that people backed into a corner will take big risks,

including doing seemingly crazy things. Putin is down big at the poker table here. Is he going to cut his losses and walk away? That's unlikely. Instead, he is likely to double down, placing big bets with a slim chance of payoff and the desperate hope that he can still come out on top. The more that we back him into a corner, the more likely that outcome becomes. And that's not crazy. It's just typically irrational human nature. Add on top of that a massive ego and nationalistic fervor of the type reflected in comments coming out of Russian state media. Consider what we brought you before, Pravda, publishing this op-ed stating that, quote, the little red buttons may seem the only viable alternative to a humiliating defeat. That type of nihilistic doomsday analysis should be enough to persuade you that the threat is in fact credible.

That Putin would actually contemplate total destruction to avoid painful humiliation at the hands of the West. In fact, with his wild miscalculations in a wholesale invasion of Ukraine, he has already proven that that is the case. History also provides terrifying cautionary tales about the actual response to sanctions versus what we wish cast the response would be. In fact, the last time we sanctioned a great power was in the buildup to World War II. The use of sanctions had been pioneered and codified by the League of Nations, which required automatic collective embargoes of any nation starting an aggressive war. The aim of this pact was, of course, noble. Liberals believed that the very threat of financial warfare would be enough to deter hostile actors from aggression. Instead, those sanctions, that their nations impervious to the threatened financial attacks. We've already discussed a few times how sanctions taken casually with little debate by the U.S. government emboldened Japanese hardliners who viewed U.S. sanctions as an overt

and aggressive act of war, pushing the government into what was clearly an irrational move, striking our forces at Pearl Harbor and drawing us off the sidelines and into the war. The threatened imposition of sanctions on Germany may have had even more perverse results. According to Farrell, quote, The Nazi leadership saw the threat of foreign sanctions as further justifying its hegemonic ambitions. The more territory it influenced or controlled, the less vulnerable it would be to the Jews and Bolsheviks whom it believed were orchestrating the international campaign against Germany. In other words, far from limiting Germany's actions, Farrell argues that sanctions were a factor pushing Hitler towards additional territorial conquest. In fact, we've already seen some echoes of this behavior from Russia, which has been under

some measure of sanctions since 2014. And take this with a million grains of salt. But reportedly, one intelligence analysis indicated that Putin expressed extreme anger over Western sanctions put in place in response to his attack on Ukraine and, quote, felt that the sanctions had escalated the situation faster than he expected and beyond what he considered to be appropriate. But we don't have to trust the CIA, or CNN for that matter, to see that Western leaders issued a joint statement last Saturday announcing swift and central bank sanctions, and that the very next day, Putin raised the nuclear alert to high. We might see sanctions as something less than warfare, a peaceful means of pursuing noble objectives. It is very clear

that the Russian government sees them as a direct act of war. And the more that Putin is attacked and backed into a corner economically, the more likely he is to strike out militarily in response. At this point, if you want peace and not retribution or some other goal, what we should be looking at first and foremost is how to give Putin an off ramp, how to provide some sort of path that's not just face-saving, but actually meaningfully addresses the parts of its concerns which are valid in hopes of avoiding a broader conflagration. That might feel terrible. It might feel and in reality be the case that you are rewarding bad behavior, but it is the only viable path to an end of this conflict. This is not an easy thing

for a declining superpower such as ourselves to do because the truth is the sanctions serve an important domestic political purpose as well. They are a signal to our population that we are still the all-powerful unipolar players shaping world events to suit our ends. That's another problem with sanctions. Domestically, there is only an on-ramp. There is never an exit. The politics of removing sanctions once they've been levied are disastrous. We remove some sanctions from Iran only to have them restated under Trump. Remove some sanctions from Cuba only to also have this put back in place under Trump. In Afghanistan, our electorate is pretty much silent as our sanctions trigger a horrific famine and complete humanitarian crisis. But you can bet

if we unfroze the Afghan government's assets, Democrats and Republicans would push to the mic to decry our supposed funding of terrorists. Sanctions on Russia first levied in 2014 have only escalated, layering new sanctions on top of old ones and never going in reverse. In fact, current public sentiment is on the side of, quote, doing more, whatever that means. A Quinnipiac poll found that 57% of Americans believe our current historically devastating sanctions are, quote, not tough enough. Only 3% say they're too tough and 29% say they're about right. In a potentially hopeful sign, however, Americans do remain committed to avoiding military conflict. What we need people to understand is that economic war, it's still war.

There may not be tanks in the streets, but make no mistake, the actions we've already taken constitute a hostile act of aggression. The consequences are deadly, and our attacks pose an existential threat to the Russian nation. Removal from SWIFT, central bank sections, seizing of assets, not to mention cultural humiliations like blocking Russian planes from our airspace, banning Russian media, banning Russian athletes, and even firing a prominent Russian conductor from his post with the Munich Philharmonic. A network dedicated to caring for cancer patients

even proudly announced they were pulling out of all Russian collaborations. Seriously, what the hell? How does punishing people who might be terminally ill serve anything other than a venal desire for revenge? France's foreign minister made the goal of all of this totally clear. We will provoke the collapse of the Russian economy. Do you think we would respond to that type of threat by declaring defeat and slinking to the negotiating table? Not a chance. We would escalate and we would

vow to make our enemy pay. Being tough, it might feel good. It might feel righteous. But starving innocent Russian civilians, some of whom have bravely taken to the streets to protest this war, is not justice, nor is it wise. In the end, our economic warfare is immoral, but more importantly, it is insanely dangerous. Maybe Putin is not the only crazy one here. And Sagar, there is a public appetite fueled by the media always to be hawkish. 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? If you watched our awesome State of the Union live coverage, you'll all be briefly familiar with my monologue today.

I thought it was well, mostly fine. A laundry list of the traditional checkboxes that any generic Democratic president would make. A missed opportunity, in my opinion, to use the Ukraine crisis to unify the country around a single message. No war abroad, war against fear and scarcity here at home. Central to both of those aims was something conspicuously absent from that speech. Nuclear power. Biden spent a significant portion of the speech allaying the concerns of Americans over higher gas prices, noting that he, in concert with U.S. allies, would release 60 million barrels of oil from the various strategic petroleum reserves across the world. I applaud that action. And yet, what happened to the oil price? It soared after the Biden

announcement. Besides that news, with some analysts now predicting that we could still hit as high as $150 a barrel despite the announcement. An average gas price across this country of $4 a gallon or even $5 a gallon is very much a possibility as this crisis continues to drag on. Effectively, every cent increase in the price of gas is a tax on working class Americans. It is a bomb dropped on the average American's household finances. And if you combine that with higher food costs, which we are all going to have from the massive spike in wheat prices due to this crisis, we see a full-fledged financial war on working people right here at home. And this war was an avoidable one, born of idiotic green ideology, which excludes nuclear power and wholesale

corruption pushed by the fossil fuel industry. Both seemingly have a vested interest in keeping America more vulnerable, higher energy prices, and keeping the status quo through their respective idiocies. But while we were arguing amongst ourselves, our adversary was watching and grinning. Russia produces a tremendous amount of oil and natural gas, much more than they could ever need. And yet, Putin has dramatically expanded nuclear power in his own country over the last decade. Why? Because he wanted a reliable source of domestic energy and to instead sell all of his surplus as much as possible to Europe and the rest of the world. All of Russia's natural gas.

You never get high on your own supply, as the drug dealers say. And he hooked Western Europe on his supply. They were hooked because they succumbed to their Green Faction, which demanded that Germany decommission its own nuclear power plants. And that's great and all, if you have something to replace it with. But unfortunately for the Germans, that something is called Russian natural gas. And then, when a war erupts on the European continent, what happens? Well, what happens is that the German consumers are screwed, and the German government had to bend over backwards to accommodate Russia until the invasion actually began. They are now scrambling to expand their LNG infrastructure

for more imports. And hilariously enough, they are now thinking about delaying the decommissioning of those nuclear power plants because they are in such dire straits economically. We can never let this happen here. Our reliance on global energy markets is a noose around our neck as a country,

both economically and from a national security standpoint. And yet, during Biden's speech, when he made many of the same directional points I'm making, he conspicuously left out a source of clean, reliable, cheap power. Let's take a listen. To all Americans, I'll be honest with you, as I always promised I would be. A Russian dictator invading a foreign country has cost around the world. And I'm taking robust action to make sure the pain of our sanctions is targeted at Russian economy and that we use every tool at our disposal to protect American businesses and consumers. Tonight, I can announce the United States has worked with 30 other countries to release 60 million barrels of oil from reserves around the world. America will lead that effort, releasing 30 million barrels of our own strategic petroleum reserve.

And we stand ready to do more if necessary, united with our allies. These steps will help blunt gas prices here at home. But I know news about what's happening can seem alarming to all Americans. But I want you to know we're going to be okay. We're going to be okay. Are we? Because he continues to say that we can have solar,

wind, and quote, so much more. So much more is the whole ballgame, folks. Wind and solar are really not that great uses of power. As Biden's own government admits, solar and wind power only produce their maximum power potential, a respective 25% and 35% of the time. Nuclear power, on the other hand, is at 93%. Nuclear power produces just 4% to 5% of the carbon emissions of a natural gas-powered power plant. It actually releases less radiation into the environment than any other known energy source, than even solar, wind, natural gas, and coal. If you care about the environment, you need to be pro-nuclear.

And if you care about having an energy source that can run in the good times and the bad at high capacity, then you should also be pro-nuclear. In fact, nuclear power is the only power source where legacy costs are not externalized. In other words, where the production of the energy itself produces costs for the community, a la greenhouse gases and other negative externalities. As for the so-called toxic waste, solar power actually creates 300 times more heavily toxic waste per unit of energy than nuclear power plants. So, why are people anti-nuclear? Number one, there are two decades worth of investment in wind and solar, and a lot of people just don't want to admit that those sources, while fine and good in some respects, are not the future in any measurable way alone. Number two, people, and specifically boomers, are still very scared of Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. Yet, if you even assume a Chernobyl-level event,

the worst possible accident in a nuclear power plant is still less destructive than many of the major industrial events in the last city. A chemical leak, for example, in Bhopal, India, killed tens of thousands of people. We did not stop using industrial chemicals. We tightened safety standards. 26,000 people, for example, died in China when a dam broke. We don't stop using dams. As for nuclear waste, we've actually already solved the problem. The current U.S. waste isolation plant in Carlsbad, New Mexico could accommodate the entire world's nuclear waste for the next 1,000 years. Yes, you heard me correctly. The day that Russia invaded Ukraine, we called on this show for a nuclear new deal. And I stand by it even stronger

right now. In the short term, we need to bring price pressure down, drill, frack, and alleviate concerns at the pump for people's bills. But in the long run, we have a moral and strategic imperative to secure our country with the most efficient, clean, and sustainable energy source that is around. If you believe maximalist rhetoric about climate change, I've got an answer for you. And if you believe that America needs to be stronger and more resilient, here's your answer too. It is time to build some nuclear power plants for the future of America, the future of the West, and the future of the planet. It's just amazing to me, Crystal, that they left nuclear out. And it's because of a very

strong... And if you want to hear my reaction to Sager's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Joining us now to give us an update on the situation with Ukraine and Russia from his perspective is Congressman Ro Khanna of California. Great to see you, sir. Good to see you, sir. Great to be back on. I also want to say we're going to get to this in a minute, but you've also just penned a new book. Let's go ahead and put the book jacket up on screen there.

Dignity in a Digital Age, Making Tech Work for All of Us. So excited to talk about that as well. But Congressman Khanna, if you could just lay out for us, what do you think the most important U.S. interests in the Russia invasion of Ukraine are right now? And how do you think that President Biden has done thus far? Most important interest is to save human lives, stand up for human rights, and to avoid a world war. Obviously, Putin's aggression is totally unconscionable. He is hitting civilian targets in arguable war crimes.

And we need to stand with the Ukrainian people. But we also don't want a no-fly zone, which is basically a shooting war with Russia. And we have to figure out how we put pressure on Putin ultimately, but continue the talks, which President Zelensky has called for, so that there can be some ceasefire and so that there aren't this catastrophic loss of human life. We have to continue to try for that. I think President Biden has actually been fairly restrained in not responding to Putin tit for tat, not rushing to these things like they don't fly zone. So, so far, I think he's handled that well.

So, Congressman, what role are you and in Congress going to have to play in this conflict? Some of the things that we've seen in previous American conflicts, which you've been in the forefront of, is an abdication of responsibility by the legislative branch. Can you at least pledge here, as long as many of your colleagues do, that you will be taking an active role in order to make sure that the legislative branch's voice is heard if there is an escalation? Yes, absolutely. I support the administration in increasing weapons to the Ukrainian people so they have a fighting chance to stand up for their freedom in the face of this assault. I support also increasing humanitarian aid, but absolutely everything ought to be properly authorized through Congress. And if there were ever a escalation on something like a no-fly zone, that would require congressional approval, and I don't support that.

Mm-hmm. What does it look like? How do we have any hope of bringing this conflict to an end? Because I can see the ladder of escalation very clearly in what that looks like. It's hard for me to see what the off-ramp potentially looks like. So just lay out for us how you're thinking about that. Well, first, I think this war has been far more costly to Putin than he expected. I mean, the Ukrainians have put up a bigger resistance. They're fighting with great spirit.

It's been much harder for him to take Kiev. The convoy out there has been stuck. He's losing soldiers. There have been more protests in Russia. So the hope is that the crushing sanctions combined with the unity of NATO and the United States will force Putin to the bargaining table. The question is when, and the question is how many lives will be lost before then. But ultimately, we need a ceasefire and we need a settlement. But Putin has to fear enough of a consequence

for him to do that. Now, it'd be more helpful if China and India also turned away from Russia. It doesn't help that they are not condemning Russia. Congressman, so we've seen the sort of stick from the Biden administration with sanctions that are punishing, you know, not just to Putin and the oligarchs, but to the broader Russian population. What does a potential carrot look like, though? Because I don't think there's any sort of negotiated settlement without giving him something. Well, he has to first be willing to stop the violence, to have a ceasefire. And then Zelensky, as I understand it, has been willing to negotiate and willing to come to some compromise. And I think we can follow Zelensky's lead. But the reality here is

this is not about previous policy. It's not about NATO policy. I mean, Putin has a paper that is worth reading. He believes Ukraine's part of greater Russia and he's attacking to make it part of Russia. And what we really need to do is clearly say it's unjustified, clearly say that he needs to stop and that there needs to be a ceasefire. And then I would follow Zelensky's lead in the negotiation.

Yeah. Congressman, you're also here to talk about this book. I know it's a bit of a hard pivot here, but let's put it up there on the screen again, just so people can understand what it is. Why did you decide to write this book at this time about dignity in the digital age and technology? I know you're the congressman from Silicon Valley itself, so you've been thinking a little bit about this. I have. I actually worked on some of these issues with Crystal. She may not remember well before she was famous on Breaking Point. The idea is that, you know, we have $11 trillion of economic activity in my district, but so much of rural America, black and brown communities, they aren't participating in modern wealth generation. They're going to be 25 million digital jobs.

Nine of the 10 richest companies are tech companies. A lot of the billionaires are tech billionaires. We've got to get digital economic opportunity into rural America, into the heartland, like Intel going to Ohio. And many of these jobs are manufacturing, retail, construction jobs, and most of them don't require a college degree. And so it's about decentralizing economic opportunity in this country and not concentrating it in the cost. So this isn't a kind of like hashtag learn to code kind of a message. So what could we do to help decentralize that the economics, you know, of the fastest growing sectors in the country? And do you think that there's a lot of talk about the pandemic and the way it's reshaping work life and the number of people who are sort of moving out of the big cities.

Do you think that that helps to sort of further your agenda here? Absolutely. First of all, it's absolutely not learn to code. The book starts with the story of Alex Hughes is making refrigerators and dishwashers and has some technology that he's grasped to make them smart. But the reality is actually in Silicon Valley, they talk about no code, low code, which means that these new technology jobs don't require much coding. It's just understanding basic technology to do manufacturing, retail, and these kind of occupations. And the COVID realignment gives a lot of opportunity because people realize, you know what? You don't have to move to Silicon Valley or Palo Alto. People can stay in Pennsylvania or West Virginia or Kentucky or Ohio and be close to their families.

And they can still work and they can be productive. And I think that would be very good for the country. Well, see, that's the interesting part, though. I mean, isn't it kind of bad for your district, though, to have work from home and to not have a lot of people who are living? I mean, what is it, 10 percent or something of the city ended up leaving during COVID? I don't know how much has come back. My own sister left San Francisco as a result of the pandemic and wanted to get out and pay cheaper rent. Somehow she ended up moving to New York.

But, like, as personally as to defend, like, in terms of representing your district, isn't that not necessarily the best thing? Actually, not necessarily. Here's why I can represent it. Because I represent San Jose, Silicon Valley area, a little south of San Francisco. We have 10 jobs for every housing unit. The national average is 1.5 jobs for every housing unit. So our big challenge is that our housing prices are through the roof and homelessness in part. And most people say, yeah, we can't sustain 10 jobs for a housing dividend.

We need some of these jobs decentralized. So what I'm advocating is actually what a lot of people in my district want, a better equilibrium. Well, Congressman, we recommend everybody check out the book. As Sagar said, I know you've been thinking about these things for a long time because we've had conversations about it for quite a number of years. We always appreciate you taking the time to engage with us here. Thank you, Congressman. Thank you, sir. Always love being on. Thank you for having me. Our pleasure. All right, guys, we really appreciate you joining us. I mean, it's been a crazy week. We had the live stream, we had Russia, the first full week of an actual war. I just want to say thank you to all the premium members and the subscribers. I mean, the State of the Union

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to pay our crew, studio, travel, all of that stuff, in order to make sure that this all was able to be put on for a real live news event in the middle of a crisis. And that's what it means in order to run and support this operation. It cannot be done without all of your support. So thank you all so much for supporting us in this time of crisis. And I think that it's a real preview of what's to come. We're living through some crazy times. And now, because of your support, we have the nimble ability to respond in real time, to have an editing capacity. We now have a significant number of partnerships.

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And if you can't help, we deeply appreciate it. Yeah, we're thinking about all the time how we can just make sure that you're getting a product that takes, you know, a comprehensive look at the world that isn't dependent on these giant tech companies that we're just talking to Congressman Khanna about. And we are so grateful the way that you guys have shown up for us. Thank you for supporting us this week and every week and enjoy your weekend, guys. There you go. We'll be back here next week. See you next week. The OGs of Uncensored Motherhood are back and badder than ever.

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