Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - BREAKING: Full Coverage of Putin's Invasion of Ukraine

Episode Date: February 24, 2022

Krystal and Saagar provide detailed, in depth coverage of Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine and how the world has responded so far in terms of the political leadership, financial markets, domestic populations, and what this means for our geopolitical future.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/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Good morning, everybody. It's Thursday. It's February 24th. We got breaking news this morning, the Russian invasion of Ukraine. So basically the entire show, Crystal, we had to scrap this morning whenever we woke up. So we've obviously got all the different elements there down at the bottom, but it's a really solemn occasion here. Yeah. We're going to try and cover it from all angles about what's happening. scenario, all-out assault on Ukraine, land, air, sea, cyber, truly just a shock and awe effort from the Russians. And we are going to cover it from every angle. We're going to talk about

what is happening this morning. Obviously, the news breaking very quickly, so we're bringing you the very latest that we can. That's right. Always with the knowledge that, especially in war reporting, things can change. Reports can be debunked later on. So doing our best to sort through all of that. We'll talk about what the expectation is from Biden and European leaders, how Republicans, including Trump, are reacting, what the markets are doing, how the public is likely to be impacted, and a little bit of a look back and a bigger picture about how we got to this place. The one part of the show that is not going to be about Ukraine is my monologue because it was written before all of this happened, but maybe it'll be nice to have some fair on a different note. But Sagar, let's start with the very latest that we

know this morning. Let's go with the latest. So last night, early morning Ukraine time, around five in the morning, Russians began invading the country from all different areas by air, by land, and by sea. There's heavy fighting all across the entire country. It is not limited to the Eastern Republics. Putin gave a speech saying that they're going to be conducting operations to clear Ukraine of Nazis. That's the justification that they're giving. The president put out a statement late last night speaking with President Zelensky. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. This is the immediate reaction there from the White House, that the prayers of the entire world are with the people of Ukraine. He calls the attack

unprovoked and unjustified by Russian military forces. President Putin has put a premeditated war that will bring catastrophic loss of life and human suffering. Russia alone is responsible for the death and destruction that this attack will bring. The United States, its allies and partners will respond in a united and a decisive way. And the world will hold Russia accountable, teasing their massive sanctions package to be hit on the Russian economy. Basically, a full-scale decoupling there of the Russian banking system from our own banking system, previewed also by the European Union this morning while they were reacting to this news basically in real time. The United Kingdom and the EU announcing a similar sanctions package. The G7 is going to be meeting sometime later today,

including President Biden with all of the different major leaders of the country. There was some late-night breaking stuff happening, almost as seen from a movie. The Ukrainian ambassador speaking at the United Nations Security Council, decrying a potential Russian invasion, handed a note, Crystal, informing him that his country was beginning to be invaded while he was speaking in New York. You almost can't make this stuff up. But at the top, I think we have to say a couple of things. I never expected a full-scale invasion like this to happen. I was deeply distrustful of U.S. military intelligence. And frankly, I think I got it wrong in terms of what happened here. I never expected Putin and

Russia in order to do something so, frankly, colossally foolish. He has fulfilled the dreams of the neocons now in Washington for all time. He is basically insured now, Crystal, as we'll be discussing throughout the entire show, a full-scale NATO deployment to the eastern flank. This is the greatest thing that could have ever happened to the U.S. defense budget. I mean, there will now be renewed justified calls. Already I'm seeing this morning the German former defense minister and others saying they're going to be re-upping their armaments. So we are looking at a whole new era of geopolitics here. And it is

entirely Putin's fault. And China sort of tacitly aligning with Russia. That's right. Basically calling for, you know, lessening of hostilities all around. So this very, you know, wishy-washy, both sides kind of a statement when clearly 100% the aggressor here is Putin and is Russia. You know, the the moment when I started to think, oh, this could be this is about more than just NATO. And this could be what the intelligence community is telling us is when he gave that long speech. And I know you're talking about that more in the monologue. I'm really digging into the history of it. Because, yes, because there were pieces of it that were the sort of realist case of the Russian security interests, concerns about NATO expansion eastward, concerns about Ukraine and even the possibility in the future of Ukraine being part of NATO.

But a lot of the speech was a nationalist speech about a sort of return to Russian glory, Russian empire, Russian imperialism, asserting itself on the global stage. And so when we saw that, that seemed to me like a real turning point and indication that there was a lot more going on here than just those sort of realist interests. And that's the only way I can wrap my head around what's been done here is that nationalism is a hell of a drug because there is no doubt, obviously, this is horrific for the people of Ukraine. People all around the world are going to suffer in certain ways. But the Russian people are going to suffer greatly as well. And we'll

get more to, you know, what the specific Western response is likely to be and how far they could go and what that would ultimately look like. But let's talk about some of the specifics of this invasion, because this went, as you said, far beyond just these Eastern separatist territories. You know, the original question was, okay, are they going to try to reclaim the entire Luhansk and Donetsk regions? Well, those battles are happening now. They're clearly trying to regain the entirety of those territories.

But you have fighting and explosions happening all over the country in an effort to take out airports in, if not every major city, pretty darn close. And so we have, you know, we have a little bit of video just to give you a sense of what was happening last night as this was all occurring. This happened live on CNN, one of their reporters having to stop his reporting from Kiev to put on his flak jacket as you hear explosions in the background. Let's take a look at that.

I think it's relatively safe at the moment. Look, I've got a... Oh, there's another one. I've got a flak jacket right here. Let me just get it on. So Matthew Chance is in live-person Kyiv, Ukraine. Matthew, we're going to stick with you. Matthew is on a roof in central Kyiv, he's telling us.

And this is a professional who's been in tough situations. He's actually been very good from the very beginning. Before, and you can see, I mean, how intense this is. And we have a map of where we have reports of fighting and shelling. This is from the New York Times, a map tracking the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And you can see there is not a region that is spared here. You know, the one city that we don't actually have reports of shelling right now is Lviv all the way in the eastern portion of the country. But you can see Kiev. You can see Odessa.

Certainly those separatist regions with a lot of Russian speakers. So we have reports of sea invasions. We have reports of shelling from the air. We have reports of cyber attack. We have reports of, I've even seen image of, you know, Russians parachuting in also invasions along with there's reports that Belarus has contributed troops. They're denying it, but there's, you know, credible reports that Belarus has helped them and has also supplied troops. And as of now, it does not look like the Ukrainian military is faring particularly well. Zelensky actually, not only has he introduced martial law, he's also said they are issuing firearms to everyone who is of fighting age, expecting these battles to come to town squares.

You have that language? Yeah, I can read it here from President Zelensky this morning. We will give weapons to anyone who wants to defend the country. Be ready to support Ukraine in the squares of our cities. Promising there also last night, you will not see our backs. You will see our faces. So they're standing tall, well, as tall as they can. But we have to be honest here about the overwhelming power that Russia has brought to bear. I pulled a video I found this morning. This is from 15 miles just

outside the ring road of the city of Kiev on a key strategic airport. For those who are just listening, bear with us. It's only about 10 seconds. But for those who are watching, this is a full-scale helicopter attack on this airport. Let's take a listen. And now, Chris Lowe, we see that air bases have been hit across the country. There was even a dogfight. I mean, these are things that have not happened in the history of warfare since like the 1970s. It's unbelievable to see these scenes. And this is what it comes down to and why I never thought Putin would be as big of a fool in order to do something like this. He is now a pariah state in the eyes of the world.

I mean, he has now committed something on par with the United States invasion of Iraq. I mean, there is no justification for this. You know, actually, can we throw in that map up there on the screen yet again? Let's just emphasize this to all of the viewing public. The Russians claim that everything was about what was happening right over there in the east, for those who are just watching. Go ahead and show me how an attack all the way up near the Belarusian border, a pincer attack on the city of Kiev, attacks on the city of Mariupol, Odessa, by the port cities, has anything to do with any of that whatsoever. So look, you heard it here on this show, the most honest take you could possibly give about any of

the Western role, and we'll talk more about this in terms of NATO expansion, legitimate Russian security interests, threats. But it is clear that this is not about NATO. This is about restoring the former glory of the Soviet empire. And I have to say, Crystal, that this is one of the most catastrophic moves that Russia could have made in a long time. And the reason why, you may say, oh, it'll be successful maybe maybe the ukrainians will surrender although i've been doing and reading a lot of history about uh russian possible attacks i'm going to talk more in my monologue they have underestimated uh finland in 1939 they're like oh they'll be greatest as liberators it'll all be fine they had a catastrophic military disaster i mean you and i were texting this morning i mean you think the ukrainians the ukrainians are proud

people too they're gonna fight back they may not, but you will have now on your hands 44 million people who have now been forcibly taken over. And are you going to have a full scale insurgency? Now that is on your hands. have 40th and 50th order consequences of which can bring down the entire empire if you're not careful. And there is an incredible amount of hubris from the Russians who are also dramatically overestimating their ability to be resilient as its own sovereign state in the 21st century economy. That's not how it works. They are going to suffer a colossal disaster. I really feel for people in Russia, they're going to suffer for this. They are not going to eat properly. I'm not saying there'll be a famine or something, but the stores are going to be completely bare. I mean, they're not going to be able to travel. Their futures are over. If you enjoyed the time of being able to gallivant around the European

Union, the Schengen, that's done too. And look, this is something that was needless. It was an unprovoked, it's a colossal disaster. It's a crime. It truly is a crime against peace, which is all anybody really should want. We've seen video this morning, of course, of people fleeing Kiev. And you contrast this to, I mean, the population really stayed cool, calm, and collected through all of this. I think Zelensky deserves a lot of credit for doing everything he could to try to tamp down tensions. There were even reports that before this all happened, we were going to bring you of how disciplined the Ukrainian military had been so as to avoid providing Russia with even the fig leaf of a justification for this attack.

Russia didn't even take a fig leaf. They had no reason whatsoever, completely unprovoked, this war that they have started. And it's very clear, I mean, this is an attempt to realign the world order in real time, which is why watching what China does here is so significant as well and the way that they seem to be tacitly aligning with Russia. I mean, that's Russia's one lifeline that's going to be left in the world. And they'll buy their gas.

And it's a very significant one because, again, what is the Russian economy dependent on? It's dependent on gas. That means it's, look, we're going to talk in a little bit about what the markets are doing and how gas prices are already spiking. That's going to hit us here. That's going to hit the European continent. But the Russian economy is basically wholly dependent on gas. So if they can't sell into the world market, that's devastating for them.

But China is quite a large and significant market. So that's what they're really counting on in their attempts to, you know, reorder the world post-Cold War and move us immediately from what has been, you know, a unipolar U.S. hegemonic situation into a kind of new global strategic situation. So listen, in terms of the foolishness of this calculations, look no further than our own experience in Afghanistan or the Soviet experience in Afghanistan for that matter to understand the way that invading and occupying a sovereign nation eats away at your country, damages your own national and world standing, the way it takes your resources. Because as much as we have less of a geostrategic interest in Ukraine than the

Russians do, no one has more of an interest in Ukraine than the Ukrainians. And as you were pointing out, they have a long and fierce nationalist identity and, you know, have been fighting for their territory for a long time and have learned a lot over the past eight years during the Civil War also about how to fight and attack and hold ground as well. So even though, look, today Russians have come in with shock and awe, you know, a lot of reports of significant severe damage to the Ukrainian Navy, to, you know, any air capabilities, to their airports. There are reports of some major cities that have already been taken. These are all preliminary. So I want to put caveats on all of that. But in terms, look,

remember, we came in with shock and awe, too. Yeah, we won the war in Iraq in three weeks, right? That's what I was told. And then how did it go? How did, you know, same thing in Afghanistan. We rolled in very quickly, you know, Taliban flees. Well, guess what? That was far from the terms of the retaliation and the economic devastation, absolute foolishness from Russia.

But they decided to put, you know, their nationalist interests and their desire to reassert themselves and to regain their sort of ego and confidence on the world stage. There's reports, kind of conflicting reports that I've seen this morning about the way the Russian public is reacting. So Clint Ehrlich, who's an analyst who I've been looking to, who I think has had a fairly accurate take of what's going on and has tried really to present the Russian side of things as well, says Russian media is emphasizing that what's happening in Ukraine is a purely military operation. It's not a purely military operation. It's a special operation, so it includes Russian intelligence, law enforcement, et cetera. But he also talks about how on Russian television,

they're absolutely gleeful. Like he actually says the mood is euphoric. I don't recall American war coverage like this, even during the Iraq invasion, which is a big statement, or even when we were bombing Syria and Brian Williams is out there talking about the beauty of our missile strikes and all of that. He says, so much laughter, such big smiles. As someone who's tried hard to present the Russian perspective to Americans, I'm grossed out. On the other hand, there's reporting from the

New York Times this morning about how some of the regular Russian population, you know, is all fine and good when we're talking about, okay, we're going into the, we're recognizing the separatist regions, we're going on a quote-unquote, you know, fake peacekeeping mission there. War is another thing altogether, and that there's some unease among the Russian public about what this is going to mean for their lives. And they should be very uneasy about what this is going to look like and how it's going to reorder and completely change what was possible for them in their own lives. Yeah, I'm going to go into it more in my monologue,

but you guys should remember this. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was a colossal disaster. And actually, it was one of the things that undermined a huge amount of public trust in the Russian regime at the time, specifically because thousands of Russians were getting killed and Russian media was not allowed to cover the graves, the burial ceremonies. They basically didn't allow the moms, basically the equivalent of our gold star moms, in order to grieve in public. There was a huge public backlash against the military campaign, and it became public knowledge that the war in Afghanistan was a complete disaster regardless of the propaganda. Look, never underestimate the Russian people's

capacity for suffering. I will say that. History has taught us that very well. That being said, a foreign military adventure the likes of this one in which they were not invaded is not something that they historically have been all that okay with, and which has caused great domestic turmoil in their country. Putin has dramatically, dramatically overestimated his own hand and underestimated always the 40th order consequence of war. We thought we would be greeted as liberators in Iraq. How did that work out? I mean, Stalin thought that walking through Finland would be a cakewalk. The Russians thought that the Russo-Japanese War would be fine. They thought that the Great War would go fine. Things in Russian history do not look so well on the side of Russian aggression over the last two centuries. And I would just say I feel very bad for the

Russian people themselves. I don't think they deserve this. The Ukrainians, I mean, I cannot imagine having a country full scale taken over and drove past the airport, Reagan National Airport this morning. And I just thought through my eyes, I can't imagine it. There's a helicopter coming down here and shooting people on the streets and making sure that's not happening. Imagine coming here into Washington, D.C. to get arms from the U.S. military in order to repel an invasion. It's something that truly boggles the mind. This is a return to the geopolitics of old. And again, to your point, you know, CCTV China is running a program actually right now about how Ukraine's fate is the future of Taiwan.

So there you go. You know, they're very much looking at this as a full-scale realignment of the global order. And my greatest fear here is the escalation ladder has now – this is Putin's greatest mistake. He has reawoken a sleeping giant in Europe. I've been saying for years that the Europeans should be reigniting their defense budgets. You're going to see 4% or 5% military spending now from the German economy, from the UK. I mean, the EU and the French themselves, they are all going to rearm massively, bring military spending up. He has now created a situation where Washington basically has no choice in order but

to deploy troops into the NATO eastern flank. We are going to be almost certainly, I'm not even saying I support this, but we're going to see no question of bipartisan consensus on renewing the U.S. nuclear program, hypersonic missile development. I mean, he has single-handedly now created a situation where we are going to return to the checkpoint Charlie days of East and West Berlin. This is not necessary. And now our guys are going to be sitting there eyeball to eyeball with the Russian troops on the NATO eastern flank. And all it takes, as it did in 1960, is a single snap and the entire world can end. So I can't condemn it enough.

We can acknowledge the Western hubris and all that that helped get us into this situation, but this is Putin's fault. I really, I feel a deep sadness today, both for Russians, for Ukraine, for the fate of the world, and just a realization that we're in a whole new era. I truly hoped we would never get here. It really does feel like a tipping point and a sort of break point in terms of world history and what things are going to look like from here on out. And that's without even talking about what the UN says is potentially 5 million refugees flooding into the countries around Europe.

We all know the type of political destabilization that that can cause, the level of humanitarian aid that is going to be required. Poland is going to be overrun now. It's really, it's just horrifying to contemplate. You can't even really wrap your head around what all of the follow-on consequences are going to be. Let's go ahead and talk a little bit more in detail about what the West's response may be. We already know, you know, Biden has said we are going to levy extreme sanctions. I was reading this morning about what some of that could look like. Now, I will say that as much as we would love for the West to be totally unified, there are reports this

morning that there's, you know, a lot of haggling behind the scenes. Italy wants a carve-out for luxury goods. Belgium wants a carve-out for diamonds. I mean, every country trying to protect their own little piece of the pie. But what we could expect is, first of all, that Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Oh, it's dead. Totally dead.

Not happening. Okay, I think that seems pretty clear. We already had one Russian bank that effectively was taken offline in terms of the global system. U.S. officials emphasized to AP that Washington could take more of Russia's banks offline with basically a push of a button. We've already had a number of individuals who are high level in the Russian government who have been directly sanctioned. You could expand that list to include more high level officials. One other avenue that's available is sectoral sanctions as an option to damage the economy that could apply

to specific Russian firms. We're talking energy, finance, technology, that would be included on the sectoral sanctions identifications list, would limit trade significantly while still allowing some transactions. And of course, the big thing that has been contemplated is cutting Russia out of the swift financial system. So that would effectively cut them off from the global economy. It would significantly damage Russia's economy. It would keep them from being able to move money bank to bank around the globe and could cut them off from international financial transactions, including international profits from their oil and gas production. And another couple of options that are on the table is denying them the ability to clear dollars with the Federal Reserve or to clear exports. That's the sort of move that we have made against, say, like Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria. Those sanctions, you know, some package of them put together would truly make Russia a pariah state. Now, I would say, listen, you can't witness this unprovoked war and not respond. That being said, we know the way that

sanctions on countries that impact civilians directly have not been particularly effective at ultimately bringing countries into line. So that's always something to keep in mind. The other piece of this that I think is really important is, I think sometimes with our, you know, American hubris, we think we get to have the last say. Right. If we levy extreme sanctions, which we're very likely to do now,

Russians have, you know, significant cyber capabilities as well. They are going to have a response. And so that's when you get into this extremely dangerous back and forth situation, like you said. It's always the most critical question in foreign affairs is, and then what? So the Russians are about to find out there, and then what, after invading Ukraine in this incredibly aggressive all-out manner? What is that going to do to them? And then we're going to have to watch and wait and see what their response is. And then you're in this tit-for-tat back and forth that no one can predict where it's ultimately going to end. So it is an extraordinarily dangerous situation for the entire planet.

It's incredibly dangerous, Crystal. I'm looking right now at the OEC data on Russia itself. It imports $238 billion worth of goods, 21st in the world out of 225 nations. Top imports are cars, package medicaments, vehicle parts, broadcasting equipment, planes, helicopters, and spacecraft. Most of that comes from China. But Germany, Belarus, the United States, and Italy are all its top trading partners. You can essentially say goodbye to a lot of the US trade, Italy and Germany as well. That is itself, I just described, $50 billion, one-fifth of all of their imports, which are now imperiled. So China can make up some of that. But to be honest, it's going to be still a complete disaster. And just to get back to

what we were saying in terms of the Western response, I mean, remember this too, which is Russiagate, which you and I condemned, has already created the conditions in which to maximally respond to this from the West. We have some tape of Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaking on this yesterday. Let's take a listen. To see in this day and age, a tyrant roll into a country. This is the same tyrant who attacked our democracy in 2016. This is the same tyrant who is opposed to democracy and wants to minimize, trivialize it, to downgrade it in the eyes of the Russian people. This is a very evil move on the part of Vladimir Putin. He's a KGB guy who happens to be probably the richest man in the world because of his exploitation of his own people that he doesn't want them to know about and uses excuses

like, it's changed. Every time you hear him say, well, they're part of us, that's who we are, they should be us. Now they're saying, well, we have to go in because they want to be part of NATO. This, my friends, is our moment. This is the Sudetenland. That's what people were saying there. Yeah, classic. Everything has to be the Sudetenland. I mean, look, I know that it's a horrific situation, but not everything is Hitler.

And unfortunately, we don't seem to be able to understand that. And there still remains a significant role for the United States in order to decide how it's going to respond. Because like you said, you think the Russians are going to sit by and let their economy get crippled? No, we're going to see some sort of escalation. We could see also, don't forget this, we have troops right up near Belarus and all throughout the Baltics, Romania as well. We could see, you know, confrontations there, North Sea and the Baltic Sea. We have military overflight there all the time, just like we did during the Cold War. Elsewhere in Syria and elsewhere where Russians have forward deployed troops, we also have people. There could be real problems there. Don't put it outside the realm of possibility in terms of how

the Great War responds. Well, because, and this is why I so object to the casual use of Chamberlain and Munich and Hitler and Sudetenland. It's because if Putin is literally Hitler. Yeah, then it's time to go. Then go to war. I mean, that's the next logical step. And so if you're Pelosi or, you know, or if Biden used that kind of rhetoric, and I think Biden, I have to give him credit for strong rhetoric, but not saying these sorts of insane things. And always ruling out U.S. troops involved. And consistently from the beginning, and that is really important, saying even in the most extreme situations of having to rescue our

own people, we are not going to do it. And that matters a lot because you open the door a crack and all of these generals and deep state types, I mean, you think they don't want to push us back into actual boots on the ground engagement because that's the logical next step from what Pelosi and Gingrich, I mean, we've heard so many people

on both sides of the aisle using this type of language. And there is only one conclusion to come to if you really think that Putin is Hitler, and that is that, okay, it's time to go to war. That is not something that we want. That's not something the American public wants. And that is something that should be put completely off the table. And just again, to underscore what a volatile and dangerous situation we're in now, Putin already issuing threats about what they will do in response to any action. He shared a message saying, for those who may be tempted to intervene in ongoing events from the outside. He stated, anyone who tries to interfere with us and even more so to create threats to our country, to our people, should know that Russia's response will be

immediate and will lead you to such consequences as you have never experienced in your history. He continued, Russia is ready for any developments of events. All necessary decisions in this regard have been made. I hope that I will be heard. Some interpreted this just as, you know, direct engagement in Ukraine, but he does not restrict it at all to that. So he threatened nuclear consequences as well, reminding the world of his nuclear arsenal crystal. Exactly. And of course, we saw those nuclear readiness tests just a few days ago while tensions were escalating and he was building up to this full-scale invasion. I do want to say one thing that is a little bit heartening is we do

have now, of course, we have the people who are in charge, the bipartisan pro-war consensus, but we do have now a bipartisan anti-war or at least reluctant caucus that even before we got to this point had been trying to exert their influence a little bit here. Let's go ahead and put B3 up on the screen. There was a bipartisan group that wrote a letter. I mean, they shouldn't even have to do this. But this included AOC. It included Louie Gohmert. I mean, Matt Gaetz is on here.

You know, Rashida Tlaib is on here. So it really is across the board. They're urging President Biden to the place where Biden and the White House are actually contemplating putting troops on the ground in Ukraine. But clearly you've got a significant number of members of Congress who see that as a live possibility, enough that they want to preempt that conversation by saying at the very least, we have to authorize this through Congress. We have to follow constitutional procedures, which is something that presidents have now been skirting administration after administration. So that's both important to see that there is a bipartisan demand that you have to follow these procedures, but it's also troubling that obviously they understand where this could potentially lead. Now, what we're more likely to see than our own boots directly on the ground as you were laying out, Sagar, is, you know,

something, again, akin to Afghanistan, where we were training the insurgents and we were not directly in, but we were both overtly and covertly training, arming, and very, very much involved in the insurgency there. And I think that is something that we are highly likely to see and already, in fact, are really seeing it. And even if it's not us, you think the Poles won't do it, the Estonians, the Lithuanians, the Latvians, I mean, so many more of these people. We can't forget they have legitimate beef and they've also been occupied also by the Russians and they're probably the most maximal whenever it comes to what they would like to see. That's what Putin has underestimated. He truly has awoken a sleeping giant here in the West.

Massive European defense budgets are coming. Do not be surprised. Given the bipartisan consensus, we'll talk a little bit more in the next block about some of the breaks within the GOP, but it's going to be, I mean, the tide of public opinion and especially of pressure in Washington is going to lead to a huge increase in our own domestic defense. I am not going to be surprised to see U.S. troops be deployed almost immediately to NATO's eastern flank and to shore all of that up. There's going to be a change in the U.S. nuclear posture. There is going to be a change in the U.S. naval posture. We have long actually been pivoting much more towards Asia, the North Sea and around Iceland and all of that, submarine alley. All of that is coming back. And this is something, again,

that is what brought us on the brink of nuclear war in the first place. And that is my great, great fear. And this is where Congress needs to exercise some restraint. And it's always in these most emotional times that it's hardest to say, look, it's what's happening. Horrible. It's a crime. Not Hitler, though. And that's exactly the same lesson. We have to remember the lessons of escalation because if you let emotion cloud your judgment, millions will be dead within moments. I mean, we have not faced a geopolitical situation like this in a long time, especially whenever nuclear weapons were involved. And Putin's cavalier

threats around nukes are really terrifying. Another thing I want to emphasize in terms of the realignment that you were talking about earlier, because this is all breaking this morning, is that the Chinese actually just called and blamed the United States for igniting this crisis. So they're very much seizing themselves upon the sides of the Russians, turning themselves into some sort of Axis power. And I say all this, I don't want war with anybody. But it is clear that when they're going to take maximal action like this, that they are going to green light some sort of response from Washington, which then creates a response

on their end. And if they're going to act so belligerently as we once did in Iraq, they're going to find out that you are going to have big consequences in the world stage, on public opinion, the European Union. I mean, to see British leaders and German leaders, who I frankly have always thought are weak and side players who turned themselves that way for a long time, they're reigniting in rhetoric we haven't seen, I've only read about in history books. And this is just such a horrible situation. And Washington is really going to have to decide. And I do implore and commend these congressmen who said, look, anything you do has

to have a robust debate in Congress, which is what we deserve. We had that in 1940 whenever it came to the actual declarations of war and how to confront Hitler. It's how we had a big debate in this country in 1914 before World War I. We didn't have that debate, which we deserved, whenever it came to the war in Iraq. And on this one, we deserve a robust one on how we're going to respond. We're going to be dealing with this for many years to come, Crystal. Yeah, and there are no easy decisions here. You know, how much do you hurt the Russian civilians? What do you plan for in terms of counterattacks?

What is this going to do to, you know, the refugee crisis? What is this going to do to prices in Europe, to prices here? It's going to be a rocky and difficult road here. And we'll be feeling our way through what is truly a new world realignment. Sagar, let's take a look at how the Republicans have been truly divided about how they want to deal with all of this. Yeah, this has been a fascinating kind of thing to watch. I'm curious to see how the Ukraine actual invasion will change things. But Trump can't help but Trump himself. So here's the statement that he put out. Go ahead and put this

up there on the screen. Quote, Putin is playing Biden like a drum. It's not a pretty thing to watch. There's kind of been a really gross cheering on, Crystal, by a lot of segments of the American right that I've observed in which they kind of relish seeing the world order crumble in order to own the libs and be like, see, this didn't happen under Trump. I mean, look, that's empirically true. But also, you know, I would say that in a time like this, you can criticize the president, fine, which I do plenty. But, you know, I think like cheering, actively cheering on Putin. And again, I hate how much this sounds like some Russiagate stuff. Like you can parse

it between like, okay, you know, what Trump says about Putin or what, you know, pursuing better relations with Russia, that's not treason or whatever. Also praising Putin in this, it's also not treason. I mean, it's kind of gross in terms of what you're doing. And that's where I would put the current domestic political situation. In terms of what he said specifically, it's frankly the most Trump response of all time. This was an interview he gave to Buck Sexton just a couple of days ago. Let's put it up there on the screen, which is he says, quote, Putin is now saying it's independent. A large section of Ukraine, I said, quote, how smart is that? He's going to go in and be a peacekeeper.

We could use that on our southern border. He's a guy who's very savvy. I think the funniest thing, Crystal, let's go ahead and put this next tear sheet up there on the screen, which kind of describes the big Republican dynamic. It's that Trump apparently said that Ukraine is great, quote, from a real estate standpoint for Putin. So he's always, always be closing. He's always thinking in that mindset. It really is disgraceful to, and he continued, I mean, it really is disgraceful to, it's not treason. It's not, you know, impeachable or whatever. basically like praising and cheering on a guy who is just aggressively like initiating a war that is going to have massive consequences especially for the ukrainian people result in death and

destruction but also for our own people here part of the reason america first now that resonated with me was because the seminal moment of my life was the belligerent u.s invasion of iraq it was terrible this is the same thing We should be condemning it and being feeling exactly the same way in our hatred of what is happening. That doesn't mean that you have to greenlight war. And I don't like Joe Biden either, you know, criticize him plenty here on the show. But to see all of it devolve into the culture war is actually deeply, deeply sad. That being said, on the actual specifics, there is a huge debate about what's happening on Capitol Hill. Throw that Politico tear sheet back up there on the screen, please,

because what they go into is that Republicans are descending into foreign policy factionalism over Russia and Ukraine. So Senator Josh Hawley had actually come out and basically taken similar position to what we had said, Crystal, saying, look, I don't think that Ukraine should be a part of NATO, recognizing the role of NATO expansion. He obviously departs from you. He said that he's like, look, I think this distracts from our number one geopolitical threat, which is China. I frankly agree with that. But what it is is that the difference is that the other side of the GOP, and frankly, the more at least representative side from a pure what they believe in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, Tom Cotton, all of that, is kind of maximally neocon. I mean, we saw Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham, of course, unhinged, unrestricted neocon who probably still apologizes for the war in Iraq, floating some sort of U.S. must be involved, all of this.

Mitch McConnell, similarly, remember that we saw that he praised Biden for sending troops abroad. I wouldn't be surprised if he said that we should greenlight some sort of Cold War or whatever in terms of Ukraine insurgency. So that is the big split. Obviously, Tucker Carlson on the side of Josh Hawley with the Republican base. It's hard to find a way that this all works because what people misunderstand – I just almost pulled a George W. Bush there. Misunderstand? Yeah.

What people don't seem to understand is that the Republican base does not have any theory of geopolitics. They love the culture war, and that's pretty much it. And so when I see people be like, the base wants to stay out or the base wants to stay in, the base is with whatever Trump says. So I think it very much is the default to look at Biden. He's a fool. All of that. I mean, if you were to come down to a U.S. invasion, everybody's probably against it. But people who are trying to say like this is what the base wants or not, I don't think people have any deep theories on it. And I could see the base getting, you know, if the conditions

were correct, I could see the base being persuaded that we should be boots on the ground. If Trump did that. If Trump was like, Biden is weak and we should send troops, they would all be. We saw this in Afghanistan. These are some of the same people who cheered on war in Iraq for a very long time. You know, our public has...

People are fickle. People are fickle. People are very nationalistic. And, you know, they don't— People are fickle. People are fickle. People are very nationalistic. And, you know, they don't like to see us sort of like humiliated on the world stage, which this has to be seen as a global humiliation. And so, you know, it is going to be very interesting to see how Trump responds, how the Republican Party responds. What I've seen so far, even among like the same individual, is something that is really incoherent. That's both sort of like, you know, anti-intervention, but also Biden's not being strong enough. But also, you know, and I think the one consistent thread that you will hear from all of these people is it didn't happen under Trump. Without laying out like what he did that was different, that was better or what Biden did that was wrong, just it didn't happen under Trump. So we got to go back to Trump. I think that'll be the most consistent. That's going to be the

answer that you hear, which isn't, you know, particularly thoughtful or nuanced, but that'll be, that'll be the common thread. I've been trying to think about why that holds them all together. Not under Trump. You know, I mean, here's the thing too. Trump departed from the Obama administration policy of arming the Ukrainians. People forget that. He's the one who sent them lethal aid. This was a huge debate in Washington in 2015. I mean, he got impeached over his— Yes, right.

Over the fact that— And then by not sending. So it's like, okay. By not sending. And then, you know, and he had a different position on Nord Stream. Right. I actually think it maybe is less about those individual decisions. And Trump was very hostile to NATO. And, you know, I mean, I personally think that one thing, you know,

I have lots of issues with Trump. I think that one thing is the correct posture. No, I agree. Why do we still have NATO? I mean, again, I think what we saw from the big Putin speech is that this was about a lot more than NATO. And even, you know, sort of saying putting Ukraine completely off the table and having a different posture towards NATO probably wouldn't have been enough to stop this from happening. But in terms of the orientation of Trump and how that may have changed Putin's thinking or put him off till now, probably the animus towards NATO was maybe the biggest factor. That's just my guess. I mean, look, I think NATO has a role. I don't think the expanded NATO was a good idea. That being said, that's what it is now. And there's no

changing that. Well, you know, I really thought it was interesting in Putin's speech when, who knows if this is true or not, but when he's talked about, I said to President Clinton, okay, well. Right, in 1990. Yeah, how about we're a member of NATO? Right. Basically just proving, like, you say this isn't about us anymore, but this feels like it's still about us. No one can prove that. I've never, I read Clinton's biography.

He never mentioned that. It's possible. Look, who knows, you know, with Putin, whether he's lying or not. And here's the other thing that we always have to keep in mind is, you know, for us, we're looking at this, we're like, we don't even want Ukraine and NATO, really. So like, what are you so freaked out about? But in the same way that we perceive our adversaries every move as aggressive and intentional, they, of course, view it the same way from our perspective. Oh, look, and they have a long, long history, going back over a thousand years,

of being suspicious of the West, of being paranoid of any sort of machinations. And rightfully so. Yeah, not necessarily wrong. I think you're probably right. I think that the Trump posture towards NATO and being very critical, rightfully, in my opinion, I long supported this,

admonishing the Europeans for not fulfilling their defense obligations, frankly, was the correct posture. And I think it's also funny, in a way, this is a major vindication of that posture. You people, at the end of the day, primary deterrence was up to you. If there's a war on the European continent, you're the people on the front line. And yet you spend 1.5% of your GDP, you have way more of a threat against Russia than America ever will. And the Germans would always say, oh, you don't understand. It's a different situation now. I mean, look, who looks like an idiot now? And it's your country. You guys decide. You're only 1,000 miles away from Kiev or whatever. And I think that this is a vindication of that policy. But also you're correct, which is that his posture towards NATO very likely made it so that he didn't seem to be a real possibility.

At the same time, I just don't know with Putin. I mean, it was never in the cards to let Ukraine into NATO, at least in the last year or so. Nothing changed on that front. That's true. It could also be, you know, we're in a very weak position right now coming out of the pandemic. You know, the nation is completely divided. We had an extraordinarily high death rate from COVID compared to the rest of the world. We can't agree on like the basics of society. You've got 80% of the public that says we're on the wrong track.

Biden doesn't exactly, you know, score great marks when it comes to projecting strength, competence, capability, all of those things. Very true. And so it could just be, you know, partly kind of timing coming out of the pandemic and seeing this very weakened America and deciding part of which is Biden's fault, part of which is Trump's fault, and deciding that, you know, now's the time to strike. I don't think, listen, we will never know. But we do know that the Republican line will be, it didn't happen under Trump, and they won't have to provide any specifics as to why.

Given what we're about to talk about, that's going to be a very compelling pitch in 2024. So why don't we get to that in terms of markets and energy prices? Yeah, so let's talk about that. Listen, the markets are in free fall basically across the globe as a result of this. We can take a look at the very latest numbers. We've got oil over $100 a barrel. That is the first time that has happened since 2014. You guys already know what you're paying at the pump. This is going to have significant impacts on, and of course, oil isn't just about what you pay at the pump. Oil is critical input for almost everything in our society. So when you see oil go up, you see prices for basically everything rise at a time when inflation is already very high. So that is

critical. The numbers that I looked at this morning, you had the European markets. This is from CNBC that fell sharply at the open. You had Germany's market down 3.6%, leading regional losses. Shares in Asia Pacific plummeted across the board, led by a 3.2% decline in Hong Kong. We've got stock futures cratering stateside. Futures on Dow Jones average indicating a loss of more than 600 points at the open. Actually, it's 800 now. I just looked. 800 now, the very latest. Thank you for that update. Russian ruble sank to an all-time low against the dollar. And then you have those safe harbors or perceived safe harbors, of course, all spiking massively.

Spot gold jumped to its highest level in more than a year. Wheat futures spiked to their highest level since 2012. Soybean futures notched an all-time high. So, you know, this is going—we already were in a shaky place economically, obviously, in terms of inflation, in terms of oil costs, and in terms of the markets, which were, you know, already in correction territory in some instances. And obviously, this is everybody's worst case scenario. I think a lot of Wall Street did not, like us, think that we would see actual all-out war, full-scale invasion. So there's going to be huge fallout from that. You couple that with, obviously, refugee crisis. You couple that with just total uncertainty,

with what's the Fed going to do now in terms of rate changes? How are they going to adjust their posture? And this looks like a whole lot of pain. Oh, man. I mean, 800 point down, the ruble at its lowest. I do want to say that the Russians have actually been preparing this for a long time, and they have a huge amount of currency reserves. So even though we would cut them off from the Federal Reserve System, they've apparently been amassing a large war chest, and they'll be able to withstand the sanctions regime for about a year. But it's going to last a whole lot longer than that. And, you know, in terms of the major response as well, this is going to cause significant turmoil here at home. I mean, President Biden made that clear. And that, in my opinion, is the greatest threat to his presidency yet, which is if gas hits $5 a gallon across this country, people are going to freak out. I mean,

it's already $5 over in California. Here, they talked about tapping the strategic oil reserve. I mean, there ain't nothing you can do in order to prevent something going above $100, $120 a barrel. That's going to be a disaster. And at the same time, I mean, also I'm seeing a lot of consternation around both Keystone Pipeline, about discussion of U.S. fracking. I mean, we're going to be seeing significant drilling exploration across the American West and the Midwest as well. The Biden administration is going to pay a big political price on that, in my opinion. Whether you agree or not, I mean, it's a compelling point.

I personally was very for the pipeline. It's a disaster for people who care about climate change because obviously now, yes, they're going to be greenlining all kinds of new projects and to dig more fossil fuels out of the ground. There's just no doubt about it. There's no way around it. We have to at this point. It is a disaster. The domestic economy is going to crash. I mean, heating prices also, it's still cold. I mean, if we have a cold freeze in March or something like that, that's going to be catastrophe.

Natural gas prices. Another thing I do want to emphasize is that a huge, huge portion of nitrogen was coming out of China and Russia. And if we see a crackdown on the exports from that happens, nitrogen is a key ingredient for fertilizer. And the increase in nitrogen price is what was causing fertilized price to go up, which was causing food price pressure. So if we see even more of that, food, which at this point you can barely even imagine, could actually go up by 40, 50%. I mean, we have not seen this level of global disruption to the US economy in a long time. And I callously said in the last show that the worst thing that would happen is the global energy. And I'm sorry. I apologize to the Ukrainians. I didn't mean it

because there is going to be a big loss of life. But look, this is a US show. I'm trying to tell you how it's going to impact your life and cause major domestic turmoil. I don't think necessarily Crystal will have lines at the gas station, but it's a possibility. I mean, and the parallels to the Carter administration keep piling up in my mind. Runaway inflation, gas crisis, Soviets actually invaded Afghanistan in 1979. All of this was sparked by the idea that we had a weak West in the administration. It led to the rise of Reagan.

I have no idea what will come next, but I really do feel as if we're in this absolute moment of critical change. The U.S. economy – and you're doing your own monologue on this even though it was written before the Ukraine invasion, which is that the way people feel about work has changed. The way people felt their employers changed. The macroeconomic conditions through which people were buying SUVs and stuff, that's changed. I mean the way that we consume as a country is going to change dramatically. I mean, our imports, exports, everything is now.

And the divides in our country had already been both cultural divides, also economic divides. We had already been so pulled apart that, you know, we're not in a position to take socially and culturally the kind of stress and strain that we're about to experience. Ken Klippenstein had a piece I wanted to highlight that I think is also really significant in The Intercept. We don't have a tear sheet from this, but I'll read a little bit to you. The headline is, Saudi-Russia collusion is helping to drive up gas prices and worsening the Ukraine crisis. A spat between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Biden is pushing gas prices and worsening the Ukraine crisis. A spat between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin

Salman and Biden is pushing gas prices ever higher. It started under Obama. He says, as Russia ordered troops into Ukraine on Monday, gas prices soared to their highest levels in over seven years. While the media focused on the conflict in Ukraine, a major cause of the gas price spike has gone overlooked. Moscow's partnership with Saudi Arabia has grown dramatically in recent years, granting the two largest oil producers in the world the unprecedented ability to collude in oil export decisions. So you have, you know, Russia being backed up by the Chinese, and you also have this Russian collusion that's been ongoing for a while now. That sounds very Russiagate-y, but with Saudi Arabia. Yes, with the Saudis.

Right, with the Saudis to punish us with higher gas prices. And so, you know, this adds to the difficult terrain that we will be facing here domestically. Oh, yeah. I think we're in for real domestic turmoil here. And the administration can warn all it wants, but we need to frack, drill. I mean, there is going to be a huge boom in the U.S. energy sector. And unfortunately, that just means everybody's going to have to pay even more than they already do. Increased food price, decreased stock price, which means they give in on financialization of our economy. There's going to be less cash sloshing about. Interest rates could go up. Inflation is already high. Russia, look, remember also is a huge player in the global financial system. Europe is really going to suffer. Russian oligarchs spent a huge amount of money in the UK. They're going to be cut off. I mean, I'm not saying we're in for a global economic depression necessarily, but we're in for some strife which is not going away and will continue to be the case for a long time. So I would say, if anything, that's a major takeaway for how it's probably going to affect you, which is you should probably expect more to pay more at the pump in the years to come. picture that this is a very compelling reason for why we should have invested a lot in renewables

a long time ago so that we weren't so dependent on these petro-states. There's a lot of ways to get to energy independence, but there's no doubt that this is going to be a lot of pain going forward. Somebody tweeted this morning, I couldn't agree with it more, like, we need to build, we need like a new deal for nuclear power plants across this country, across Europe as well. We need to go full scale on all of this. Now is the time. People on the left who are worried about nuclear energy need to get over it. Sorry guys, get over it.

I think there's a generational thing there. People who really have these searing memories and experiences of nuclear disasters. Three Mile Island was a long time ago. We're not the Russians. Fukushima also was a freak event that the Japanese screwed up. The nuclear power plants of 2022, not even close. We need to see a full-blown change in the way that the Federal Energy Commission regulates and greenlights some of this stuff. We have power plants which are awaiting years. Now is the time.

I mean, frack drill, fine in the short term. It's the time to build all across the country, all across Europe, because you see the consequences of allowing yourself now to be so reliant on this. That is exactly. Just like we talk about offshoring our manufacturing capacity to China. This is the same thing. Reasons why we need to be able to be independent and, you know, have our own resources here at home. I want to put up some of the polling before the invasion to kind of lay down a marker of what the public was thinking about the Ukrainian crisis. And I think, you know, we'll watch how these numbers change. Let's go ahead and put this AP poll up, which again, this is before the invasion. But this just came out yesterday.

So tensions were already very high. And at that point, you had only 26 percent saying that the U.S. should have a major role in the conflict. Fifty-two percent said a minor role. Twenty percent said none at all. You had a little bit of a Republican-Democratic divide where Republicans were less interested in having a major role, but it wasn't that large. I actually thought it might be more. And then the other piece that I wanted to—and some of the quotes here were quite interesting. They interviewed individual respondents to the poll, and some of them were saying basically

like, listen, why don't you focus on what's going on in my neighborhood? You've got one who said, they want to send millions of dollars of ours to stop a war that we have nothing to do with. I'm sorry they're involved in a mess, but it's not our problem. I just feel like there's a war going on in the United States every day in Chicago, and it was really scary, and I feel like no one helps us. That was the orientation before the invasion. We'll see how it changes. I think it will change significantly. One other thing I wanted to highlight, though, in terms of the numbers here and part of why we're in a weak position and part of why you had so much skepticism among the American public about what they were being told by the news media is that among Americans, only 23% said they had a great deal of confidence in intelligence agencies. And an

equal amount, 24%, said they had hardly any at all. 52% are sort of like, eh, maybe, say they have some confidence. But, you know, I do think, again, we want to be totally clear this day and what the atrocities that are being committed are 100 percent the fault of Putin and his administration in Russia. But it is interesting to see the way some of our own foreign policy misadventures have weakened us and helped to create the context for this moment. I mean, even in Putin's speech, he threw WMDs in our face and said, you know, I mean, he was he tried to pretend like, oh, we're worried about the Ukrainians WMDs. What that really was, was a wink and a nod to, hey, you all invaded Iraq on some BS pretenses and made up this whole fiction about WMDs. So, hey, why can't we do the same? You're not wrong. I mean, that's part of the problem, right? Which is that our own foreign military adventurism of Iraq and in Afghanistan was a colossal disaster, egg on our face, diminished our global power production.

The question is, why would you want to repeat the shit that we did? Well, you know. This didn't go well for us, guys. FYI. I mean, being a sort of crusader country in the world has not worked out well for us trying to, you know, make other states and remake other states in our image. So if that's Putin's goal here, yeah, good luck with that. I don't think that's going to go very well for you either. That's a good point, you know, because this is the bigger issue here at hand. I've said it so many times now, I know I'm repeating myself, but you are underestimating what it means to start a massive war like this. And you may have, quote, military success in the short term, but you just wait and see about what's coming in terms of

also the Ukrainian military, but really the change in the global posture. Do not underestimate the power of the allied West. I mean, they ruled the world for a long time for a reason. And, you know, like I said, truly clearly how the eastward expansion of NATO was a disaster, was a predictable disaster. You know, even the trying to bring Ukraine into agreements with the EU, this has all predictably provoked Russia. And so it was, you know, we saw what they did in Georgia. We saw what they did in Crimea. And still, we did not, you know, really change our posture. So that's, we all understand that. In terms of this immediate crisis, I do think it's impossible to say whether war could have ultimately been prevented. I think Zelensky did

everything he possibly could. I really commend him. He really did. I mean, he was trying to calm his own population. He was trying to be level-headed, flying around doing diplomacy, and even saying, hey, listen, if NATO's the problem, we can talk about NATO. Perhaps it's a dream is what he said. Perhaps it's a dream. Floating, hey, we could do a referendum that puts NATO off the table because it's written into their constitution. I think they would have to do something like a referendum to totally put it off the table. Floating that, which again, if Putin's

real issue here was just NATO, he could have, if he was looking for an out, he could have taken those things as a win back to the Russian people as, see, I stood up, we asserted ourselves, we got these pledges, we're going to get them, you know, codified. I do think that, you know, the U.S. should have done more in terms of also being willing to negotiate in the way that Zelensky was. Do I think it ultimately would have averted this outcome knowing now what we know? Highly doubtful. I agree with you. Highly doubtful. I was thinking about it and I was like, you know, I said this repeatedly.

I said we should give them what they want in rhetoric so we can make it clear that if they do invade, that it's clearly about something else. Yes. That being said, look. It would clarify the dynamic now and make it tougher for China to be taking the position they are in. It would make it a lot tougher for China and for the others in order to take the position that they're taking.

At the same time, everybody knew Ukraine was not going to be part of NATO. I mean, at this point, there's just no way that anybody in the West was actually going to make that happen. Even the Biden administration, you know, tacitly saying this. So I don't want to say that it was like a foregone conclusion that they were and they weren't. Although we did invite them in 2008 and that was a dramatic, gigantic mistake, which we made. Can't erase that. And sparked the escalatory pattern that leads us to this moment. What I would say is this. Paranoid Russians, leaders, is a constant throughout history. We know this.

What we don't know is that what does the alternative history look like in which we don't amplify the legitimate fears that can be paired then with paranoid delusions and craziness that spark an invasion? We will not know the answer to that question. You know, George Kennan, he was asked in 1998 about NATO expansion. Here's what he said. I'm going to read his full quote. George Kennan, for those who don't know, he was the architect of the containment strategy, the foremost U.S.-Russia expert, and really, I think, one of the most brilliant minds to ever live in the history of American foreign policy. Here's what he said. I think it is the beginning of a new Cold

War. I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the founding fathers of this country turn over in their graves. We have signed up to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way. NATO expansion was simply a light-hearted action by a Senate that has no interest in foreign affairs. What bothers me is how superficial and ill-informed the whole Senate debate was. I was particularly bothered by references to Russia as a country dying to attack Western Europe. Don't people understand? Our differences in the Cold

War were with the Soviet Communist regime. We are now turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove the Soviet regime. Russia's democracy is a far advance, if not farther, as any of these countries that we've just signed up to defend from Russia. Of course there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia. And then the NATO's expanders will say what we always told you, that this is how the Russians are, but this is just wrong. Very prescient words written by George Kennan in 1998. Are we responsible for this? No, absolutely not. We did not invade Russia. Did we create the conditions that allowed a Vladimir Putin who had the ideology to re-expand the Russian empire to then have a domestic agenda and have enough

of a good point in order to sell it to the public, yeah, I think we played a role in that. And we are going to pay the consequences now for that for many years to come. It's something I've read a lot about the Munich, obviously. And one of the interesting things that was happening about the Munich debate at the time is the immense difficulty that the West had in separating the legitimate point that Germany had whenever it came to the horrific treatment of Germany under the Treaty of Versailles and then the actual expansion madness of the Nazi regime. And separating that is really hard. That's part of the reason why the Munich Agreement came in the first place, because the domestic populations of the West said, you know what? It's true.

We kind of screwed them. I get where they're coming from. We took away their arms. We took away their ability to have a proud nation. We plunged them into depression. We make them pay us once a month. I get why this could happen. They did everything they could to avert war at the time.

I wish we had seen more of that action from the Biden administration in the future, but it is not Biden's fault. Putin has invaded this country and many of the consequences are now going to be on him. I still will advocate as long as we can, or hopefully forever, against any sort of sparked crisis, tension, war, et cetera, because I do not want to see Americans die in the East for no good reason. But I read these words of Kennan. I think that the hubris of America's foreign policy comes back to bite us, but also the paranoid delusions of the Russian state who very much overestimate their abilities in order to weather this crisis. And actually, that's what scares me most, which is that when the consequences become really clear for the Russians and for Putin and in this current mindset, what's the next step look

like? That's the big question. And then what? Because I think the other reason why we struggle sometimes to understand the actions of other leaders is because our country is so driven just by money and profit margins and the economy. And clearly there are a lot of other calculations that went into this from the Russian perspective. And, you know, we were arrogant and we were hubristic and we effectively humiliated them over these many years. And so, again, I always want to be clear, like, this is his fault. And the death and the destruction and the damage to his own people, to the Ukrainian people, to the world economy, you know, that falls at his doorstep. But there was another path that could have led in a very different direction, that could have led Russia to ally with us as,

you know, we need their cooperation on any number of things, including climate change, if that's something that you care about, including serving as a bulwark against China, if that's something you care about. And now we have a very different world order that we're facing down that is, yeah, there's going to be a lot of pain for the Russians, but this is extraordinarily bad. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, I've done two historical monologues so far, looking back at parallels to tell us how we got here. First was a view into the creation and expansion of NATO, how that expansion played into the worst fears of a defeated Russia after the Cold War, and how the hubris of U.S. foreign policy elites itself

is responsible partially for the rise in paranoid worldview of Vladimir Putin. Second was about the Munich crisis of 1938, how the comparisons of Russian invasion of Ukraine are not comparable in any way to Hitler's demand of the Sudetenland, how Munich analogies themselves tie the brain up away from thinking in more important possibilities, and how the real lesson is that Munich happened in the first place because a war-weary public in the West did not trust its foreign policy elite to keep them out of war, just like we are today. Today, all of those available are going to be in the description. But it is fair to say that those monologues were meant to push back against hubris of the West. So today, I'd like to turn the tables and look across the Atlantic to the hubris of Vladimir Putin. So today, I'd like to turn the tables and look across the Atlantic

to the hubris of Vladimir Putin. The Putin speech, which we broke down in our last show, was fascinating. It was an hour-long diatribe, part history lesson, part aggression, part grievance, justifying sending troops into Ukraine now for a full-scale invasion. But what revealed within it is a mindset

which is both ahistorical and downright 19th century that many people are not appreciating. I've said in the past on this show, Putin is trying to recreate the former Soviet empire. He said its fall was a great tragedy. But the speech actually reveals a deeper element to this thinking which shows I was completely wrong. Putin is not trying to recreate the Soviet empire. It's much worse. He wants to recreate the Russian empire. It's much worse. He wants to recreate the Russian empire. The official translation of

Putin's speech by the Kremlin was him saying that Lenin himself was a fool for breaking up former parts of the Russian empire, like Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Ukraine, in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk of 1917. Per Putin, it was, quote, crazy to appease the ethnic subgroups of the Baltic states, as well as Ukraine. And moreover, why was it necessary, per Putin, quote, to make such generous gifts beyond the wildest dreams of the most zealous nationalists and give the republics the right to secede from the state without any conditions? That's a direct quote. In other words, what Putin is saying is that many countries which are now in NATO today, like Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, and of course Ukraine, which is not in NATO, but are still all illegitimate entities.

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk itself is actually fascinating. It was a capitulation by Lenin and Trotsky in 1917 to the German Kaiser, where they ceded territory to the German Empire in exchange for a piece of the Eastern Front. Now, this allowed Lenin and Trotsky to stop having to fight the war and instead focus on winning the civil war that was raging in Russia at the time. The treaty itself was nullified after the Germans lost the war in 1918, but they created the independent entities of those countries which exist today in large part. This matters because even after the Soviet Union took over those countries again in 1945, those states were admitted as independent states in the USSR rather than absorbed as

part of the full Soviet Empire. Thus, when the Soviet Union fell apart, those states regained independence and they are known as they are today. Some of them are in the NATO alliance and thus entitled to the collective defense agreement of the West. Now, why does any of this matter to the Ukraine crisis? It matters because this entire crisis, Putin has said, this is about Ukraine and NATO. I and many others would even agree that admitting Ukraine into NATO and that NATO expansion eastward was legitimately antagonizing to Russia's security interests and historical influence in

the region. But in that speech and the current events, the grand design that Putin is showing is not a restoration of Russia's legitimate security interests and not having the U.S. nuclear umbrella so close to its border. No, no, no, no, no. He believes these countries have no right to exist in the first place. In fact, the Putin speech in the current invasion is remarkable because it explicitly excoriates the previous creator of the Soviet regime, Vladimir Lenin. His history lesson as to the illegitimacy of these countries was given before delving into any specific area on NATO, on Ukraine, and grievance with the West. That's why I'm spending so much time on it. Part of the problem we have right now is clear, is that both sides were kind of muddying the waters and lying. The United States and the West and NATO were saying, well, we stand with Ukraine, but at the end of the day, we all

will privately admit Ukraine will never be a part of NATO. So why didn't we just say it? If Putin was telling the truth, and if the Russians were standing by the legitimate grievance, then they wouldn't do anything. And if they invade, as they did now, then we would say, obviously, it's about something else. That latter part is the issue too. It's clear from the speech and now the current actions that what is central to Putin's pitch to the Russian people, and that he would not have started out this way if he did not actually want to restore the former Russian empire and his annex as much as he can over total control of his domain, and he has never said so, but he is telling us now with his actions. And that is the clear and present danger to where we are right now. I would remind Putin to look as somebody who

cares a lot about history. The Russo-Japanese War of 1904, the Great War of 1914, the Afghanistan invasion of 1979, the Finland invasion of 1939. Many Russian leaders before him have used the hubris that they had in order to invade foreign countries. And in that hubris, they found destruction. The Russo-Japanese War destroyed the Russian economy and set the stage for the destruction of the Tsar. The Great War obviously ended up in the Bolshevik Revolution. Finland, 1939, the Russians lost thousands of troops in something that was needless and was an obviously arrogant act. Afghanistan, 1979, spelled the fall of the Soviet Union. And for a guy who loves history, Putin should remember that Russian leaders of the last two centuries who lost these foreign, launched these foreign adventures, it ends up in the destruction of their regime.

That's the key lesson to me, Crystal, if you look back at the history. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sager's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, guys, I'm looking at some of the domestic context here, the backdrop of which all of this conflict overseas is playing out. And it's obviously become an obvious truism. The pandemic revealed the incredibly divided realities for different sets of workers here at home. White-collar professional managerial class types were sent home to work safe in their comfortable abodes. Billionaires boarded their yachts or fled to their private islands, while the working class was either fired and financially screwed or deemed essential, given a little pat on the head and forced to get back out there for

the same low wages, only now with the added benefit of risking their lives in order to keep society rolling and serve the whims of the affluent. But the pandemic also put every existing divide already here in our society on an accelerator. This can be seen most clearly, of course, among our billionaire class. The ranks of the billionaire class expanded greatly during the pandemic, minting 500 new members worldwide thanks to disaster capitalism. Overall billionaire wealth surged 70%, adding $2.1 trillion in wealth just here in the U.S., and that added wealth alone is enough to cover 60 percent of Build Back Better for the entire decade. But with the pandemic receding, we're getting an idea of the way these news gulfs in wealth, dignity, and lifestyle could

be solidified and even expanded. Friend of the show Derek Thompson is out with a fascinating look at the data behind the move to making remote work and hybrid work permanent. Derek writes that stadiums are packed, travel is back, restaurant reservations are surging, but office occupancy is moribund. Even movie theaters, a business sometimes written off as, quote, doomed, have recovered almost twice as much as offices. Other articles have painted a similar portrait, writing about the way that shifts in work patterns have decimated downtown small businesses, reliant on office workers as customers. Now, look, I am fully supportive of this shift to remote and hybrid work. I think it's great that the pandemic allowed white-collar workers to have more time with their families, rebalance their

lives, reclaim more leisure time and an identity away from the office. But we should not miss that these same gains have not been realized for the broad working class. After all, the real divide in this country is between those people who are treated as full human beings and those who are treated as cogs to be plugged into the capitalist machinery and discarded when they become inconvenient or dare to demand some dignity. And so when the full humanity of the professional class is more fully realized, it only makes the inhumane treatment of the working class more glaring and ultimately more intolerable. Derek predicts another impact of remote work, which will be a wonderful lifestyle improvement for the class that benefits from it, the end of the five-day workweek.

Already many professionals with the cash and the flexibility to do it treat regular weekends like their holidays, planning getaways and fulfilling their work responsibilities from Airbnbs and lovely locales. And while Derek argues this four-day workweek might trickle down to other classes of workers, personally, I sincerely doubt it. After all, one glaring difference between office workers and even lower-paid college-educated professionals is that the latter have to actually be in a physical place. You can do your BS consulting job or your legal work from basically anywhere. Nurses, though, have to actually be in the hospital. Teachers have to actually be at the school. And of course, servers, Uber drivers, and warehouse workers have to

actually be in their designated spots to cater to this affluent professional class. Custodians still have to be at the office buildings they're tasked with cleaning, even if the cubicles they're vacuuming are now vacant. And their bosses, They don't care whatsoever about what these workers' personal preferences are. But it's not just the indignity of watching New Horizons open up for the affluent while yourself, you're remaining stuck. It's not even just the continued cultural division of the country as one class avails itself of new travel and leisure opportunities while the rest keep going to the same jobs in the same way, only with a little more precarity and a little more surveillance and a little less dignity day by day by day. That's to say nothing of the paychecks, which are further and further stretched

by wages that don't keep up with inflation. We're only going to see more of that. Because another lifestyle change open to PMC remote workers is putting pressure on a lot of working-class people directly. Once they are more or less untethered from the office, the PMC can move wherever they want, bringing the high housing prices of the cities they fled along with them. This is already happening, causing pain and friction and despair, sort of nationwide gentrification that is forcing people to abandon the dream of home ownership or flee their hometowns altogether. Such is the case in Spokane, Washington. The once sleepy town had dreamed of being a destination for new residents with a lot of disposable income. Now, many longtime residents are putting don't move here bumper stickers onto

their cars. In the past two years alone, housing prices in Spokane have jumped 60%. According to the Times, the median income there was sufficient to afford two-thirds of the houses on the market just a few years ago. Now, the mayor of the town's own adult son and new wife are stuck living in mom's basement, unsure if they can afford to live in their hometown. In fact, housing prices nationwide have spiked by insane amounts. Zillow is now predicting a continued massive price spike for this year as well, more than 17% for the entire year of 2022, with a peak of year-over-year growth at 21.6% expected in May. There's a lot of reasons for that. We've covered some of them before,

including the malign influence of private equity. But the increased affluence of the PMC during the pandemic is certainly a part of that story. And as they untether from offices, keep their coastal city salaries, but move to cheaper parts of the country, they only stand to benefit more. Not to mention the gulf created between those who already own homes and benefit from the massive pricing spikes, and those who are watching the dream of home ownership get further and further out of their grasp every single year and are instead stuck on the treadmill of renting from landlords, which are increasingly, again, rapacious private equity giants. And honestly, these changes I'm sketching out, they're just the tip of the iceberg. How will already neglected public transit atrophy once professionals are no longer taking trains and buses to work? How will local culture be quashed by new residents with no loyalty to the local small business community and lots of comfort with

Starbucks and Amazon and companies like that? How will local school systems suffer when new residents have no attachment to the local public schools and instead prefer pricey private options? How will downtowns be transformed when office lunch spots and dry cleaners and the like are all abandoned? It's impossible to wrap your head around what that could all look like going forward. Now, it would be wonderful if a rising tide for the PMC would actually lift all boats, but that has just literally never happened. I genuinely do not think it's an overstatement to say that the only concrete and durable gains made for the working class throughout history here have been through the labor movement. The only way that the broader working class will benefit from the gains of the upper middle class

are through militant collective struggle. And that's why we focus so much on the fights at Starbucks and John Deere and Amazon and so many more. They're so incredibly essential. Walmart is not going to be willing to hand out a flexible four-day work week to the folks who are manning the registers and stocking the shelves unless they are forced to do so. Without organized labor power, the gains at the top will only further contribute to a coming apart of America. On one side will be a fully justified burning resentment. And on the other side will be increasing contempt for the supposedly backwards lifestyles of those who are rooted in one place, working long hours and struggling to make it. After all, how else can you in the lucky class justify this massive gulf in basic humanity without internalizing that you are somehow more worthy, somehow more deserving?

Those underlying dynamics already define so much of our politics of virtue signaling, censorship, and populist rage. But as bad as things seem, we have already caught glimpses of how they could get so much worse. And Sagar, even though, look, this was written before the invasion and obviously there's a little difference. Still actually. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,

become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Guys, thank you so much for tuning in today. You know, this is a very different show than we've really done since we've started Breaking Points. This is why we do what we do. Texting at 5 a.m., figuring out what we're doing and our great team pulling in elements at the last minute and putting in extra time as well. And it is why we do what we do. You know, we feel really grateful to you guys

to allowing us to be here and placing your trust. I mean, that's really the thing, placing your trust in us to help try to interpret what are gigantic trends and seismic shifts that we're all trying to sort through in real time. Definitely. And I want to say, you know, look, I got this one wrong. I never expected this

and I think I take full responsibility for that. I mean, I don't think we really expected this situation to play out. Given the track record of U.S. intelligence, I did not believe it. That track record, by the way, I'm going to continue to question just because they're right once out of 20 times

does not mean they always are. Let's also say they weren't totally right. I mean, you know, I actually think that they did a lot of damage and provided a kind of propaganda win to the Russians when they made these very specific predictions that the get totally off the hook here. But listen, guys, what we've always said is sometimes we're going to get things wrong. And our pledge to you is always to try to be upfront and honest and just sort through these things as best as we possibly can. Especially in real time. It's a dynamic situation. I really just thank everybody who sticks with us and who supports our work. I truly do this work, and so do you, for times like this.

Waking up early, not that it's a burden, but being like, okay, people are out there. They're waking up, and they're scared, and they want to know what the hell is going on. And it's up to us. Millions of people put their trust in us in order to bring them the news. And it means a lot, especially in a dynamic situation like this. I'm thinking about some of my friends who are actually in Ukraine right now as journalists, and I really hope that they stay safe and continue to bring us the information that we can so we can give it to you. So look, it's a terrible, terrible time, but I'm proud of the show that we did today. And look, admitting it whenever we call it wrong, that's what we do here. So be it. It's okay. We'll

continue to wake up and do a show tomorrow. Maybe I'll do a monologue that everybody loves about how sorry we're drunk. People always enjoy that. They always do well, so people seem to enjoy them. We take our responsibility to you guys very seriously. We take it very seriously. That's the bottom line. Thank you to everybody who supports us. Thank you to our premium members, everybody else.

We're going to have our content for you over the weekend. We'll monitor the situation as close as possible. Thoughts with everybody who's in Kiev and in the country of Ukraine right now. Truly feel for you right now. Yeah. We really do. Absolutely, guys. Enjoy your now, truly feel for you right now. Yeah. Really do. Absolutely, guys. Enjoy your weekend.

We'll see you back here next week. This is an iHeart Podcast.