Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - Krystal and Saagar Provide EXTENDED Ukraine, State of the Union Coverage!!!

Episode Date: March 1, 2022

Krystal and Saagar cover the battle happening in Ukraine as we speak, the reckless calls for a no fly zone, Hillary Clinton leading the warmongering charge, Biden discounting the possibility of nuclear war, polling on the Ukraine war, wall street protecting Russian oligarchs, more accurate historical comparisons, what to expect from the State of the Union, and more!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. of dollars doing it. To help support our mission of making all of us hate each other less, hate the corrupt ruling class more, support the show. Become a Breaking Points premium member today, where you get to watch and listen to the entire show ad-free and uncut an hour early before everyone else. You get to hear our reactions to each other's monologues. You get to participate in weekly Ask Me Anythings, and you don't need to hear our annoying voices pitching 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, everybody. Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. Of course, a lot of breaking news updates to get to this morning.

We're going to bring you the very latest as far as we can tell from the ground in Ukraine, the results of those diplomatic talks that we previewed for you yesterday. All of the complete psychopathic idiots who are pushing for a no-fly zone, aka World War III. World War III. Thankfully, the Biden administration so far resisting those calls, but the pressure is being ramped up. So we've got those details for you. Also, some profoundly unhelpful comments from Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of State, and also the way that big tech is responding to Russia's war in Ukraine in a very troubling way as well. Those details

matter a lot. Very latest in terms of reading the tea leaves in Russian propaganda media about whether a nuclear war is a real possibility, some very troubling signs there that we should all take extremely seriously. Also, the very latest on how the American people are feeling about all of this, what they think that we should do. We're going to preview tonight's State of the Union speech.

That's right. That's right. And we're very excited about our love coverage for tonight. Please join us here. It will be Sagar. It will be me, Kyle Kalinsky,

Marshall Kosloff. We'll kick things off about 8 p.m., do a little pre-show analysis. We'll stream the speech live so you can stay right here on the channel and watch it. Then we'll have post-speech analysis as well with a few special guests. So very much looking forward to that. I'm really excited for it. It's going to be fun. It's going to be a big speech regardless, just for the international community, obviously. But also, we haven't talked about domestic politics in a while, and Biden is going to be certain in order to bring it back to that. So very important, and I hope you guys tune in. It's going to be a fun night. But let's start with the update in Ukraine.

So obviously, this is very timely. We're shooting this early in the morning. So here's the latest in terms of the battle situation. Let's put this up there on the screen. Satellite imagery, open source being used. We found this one here, which shows a 40-mile-long Russian convoy, which is closing in on the capital city of Kiev. Now, it's important to note the convoy hasn't actually engaged yet in any combat activity, but this is a huge amount of firepower crystal that is being brought to bear on the Capitol. This matters because we're about to get to the diplomatic solution, but the convoy almost immediately materialized after the diplomatic talks broke down and there was no real solution. So they're bringing a lot of firepower onto the city. Now, from what we can tell so far, the major military objective of

the Russian military in Ukraine is to obviously capture all of the key centers of power. That includes the ports, but of course, the capital city, the seat of government. That's where President Zelensky is. Now, just this morning, we weren't able to cut the element because it literally just happened overnight. But in the city of Kharkiv, there was a major – so this is an MLRS rocket system that plunged into a government building, blew this thing completely apart right in the middle of kind of the city square. There's also been multiple attacks, either missile rockets, unclear exactly which one, on Ukrainian military bunkers that appear to have happened. Now, the reason that this matters is that this shows an increase in the level of firepower that the Russians are willing to employ in taking their strategic military objectives. Also, we're seeing continually more bellicose rhetoric from Russia. There are indications right now that Putin, obviously defiant in the eyes of the West.

Dmitry Peskov, who is the Kremlin's spokesperson, said this morning, who cares about the sanctions? So all indications that they're going to be employing more firepower. And unfortunately, that just seems to be the almost certain direction that this is going to go. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. We alluded to it yesterday. This is the current battle map. So you can see that the front line remains relatively similar to where we were yesterday, which is that we have the campaign against Kharkiv, which is near the border.

Obviously, we have the pincer attack on the city of Kiev, also in the south, in Mariupol. Donetsk, obviously, already had that military objective. And then down there, near the Crimean Peninsula, where you already had a significant amount of Russian forces. So as of today, the front line remains relatively the same. Another thing that we brought you yesterday, and we just wanted to bring you guys video evidence, is there appears to have been use of cluster munitions in the city of Kharkiv. Let's put this up there on the screen. You can see here, this is the use of cluster munitions, which are banned by the Geneva Conventions, long been used by the Russian military in the Syrian Civil War and now used here again. Now, the reason that they're not supposed to be used is because

they disproportionately, you know, go boom everywhere and it can kill a whole bunch of civilians. So obviously it's terrible and it's a tragic event, but that's kind of where we seem to stand right now in terms of the actual battle progress, Crystal. No heavy fighting overnight, some use of missiles, an indication of escalation to come. And unfortunately, I think that convoy spells death for a lot of people. Yeah, I mean, that convoy reportedly now 40 miles long. Initially, we were hearing three miles long. Then it was 17 miles long. Just keeps growing by the day. And I mean, this is just a sitting threat outside of the city. And I think we should not delude ourselves here that while the Ukrainian resistance has been very brave and the Ukrainian military has been quite effective and no doubt

that Putin has made some serious sort of strategic errors and miscalculations in thinking that this would go a lot quicker and a lot more easily and not require overwhelming firepower in order to achieve his key objectives, let's not delude ourselves into thinking that the Ukrainians are in a position to outright win this. People really need to check their expectations. Exactly, because Russia seems to have gone in with the intention of doing this in sort of a small way and potentially trying to avoid civilian life. Because remember, again, they've sold their soldiers and their citizens on this is a peacekeeping mission and we're going to be greeted as liberators and all of this stuff.

So on the one hand, you also have a very uneven, lopsided dynamic in terms of these sort of propaganda wars. The Ukrainians are obviously out there. They're telling us about their victories. They're telling about the Russian casualties. They're telling us about the cities that they've been able to hold. The Russians don't want to tout their military successes because they don't particularly want their public to understand just how aggressive and how violent this entire attack has been. But the Russians have a lot more tactics that they can employ, that they have employed in past wars. They have a lot more firepower, just a lot more cards to play here, and an overwhelming military dominance.

So, yes, their planning was poor. I was reading this morning they're having all these communications issues. Logistics, gas, all kinds of issues. Yeah, logistics. They don't have their Russian vehicles stranded on the side of the road. morning. They're having all these communications issues. There's reports that, yeah, logistics, they don't have their, you know, their Russian vehicles stranded on the side of the road. Troops unable to communicate with each other, which is like the very basics of warfare. They haven't been able to establish to this point air superiority and other strategic tactical error. However, let's not delude ourselves into thinking that the Ukrainians are ultimately in

a position to win this thing, because I think that, you know, long 40 mile long convoy sitting outside of the city of Kyiv tells you that the worst could very much be yet to come. And Kyiv is also being sort of besieged from multiple directions. I was just reading this morning that in Mariupol, they also have losing sort of basic utilities and starting to be in a siege situation there as well. And the last thing I always want to say on these battle updates, this is the part that it's hardest to get accurate information about, especially because, as I just said, there's sort of a propaganda disparity between the Ukrainians and the Russians. So take all of these updates with a grain of salt, but we try to bring you the information that is the most, you know, the most confirmed, the most definitive.

And I would caution all of you, too, when you're surfing social media and seeing these little, like, heroic anecdotes and those sorts of things, those are probably the things you should be most skeptical about. But the bombing in Kharkiv, there's multiple videos of this massive explosion, right, you know, blowing up this government building in the middle of Kharkiv. And there are reports of additional civilian casualties there. So it does seem like we're in a position now with the diplomacy having initially failed and Russia having suffered, Russia having suffered setbacks and disappointments over the first few days of the campaign that they may be escalating tactics in a way that could be devastating to civilian population. That's right.

So there's a guy named Michael Kaufman. He's the director of Russia Studies at the Center for Naval Analysis. He's been very helpful in these times. A great follow on Twitter if you're on that platform. Let's put this up there on the screen. He put out a very, very long thread yesterday where this is the one that we pulled for all of you. Quote, the truth is large parts of the Russian military have yet to enter this war, with many of the capabilities still unused. Not to take away from the Ukrainian great military

performance and resilience, but I see a lot of early judgments and conclusions that need moderation. And another prediction, Crystal, which would actually fit with the Russian tactics in the Syrian civil war is this, which is that convoy is a major threat. Now, we all know that it's happening. And obviously we've seen the use of these missiles and more in order to level buildings. And the threat is very much there. But what many people believe, and this fits with Russian tactics, is that they're going to surround the city or they're going to have that convoy establish a quote-unquote humanitarian corridor and be like, you all have to leave. If you don't leave, you will be declared an enemy combatant and you will be leveled and killed. And that is something that I believe that they used in the Chechen Civil War. I know for a fact they did in the Syrian Civil War.

It would make a lot of military sense. It's basically a threat to surrender or die. It's a similar one that even the U.S. military had done that before in Fallujah. So these are things, a longstanding way of saying, look, if you're a civilian and you don't, if you don't want to stand tall, that's fine. Here's your corridor.

You will be safe here. Your safety is guaranteed. Otherwise, it's weapons-free inside of this area. Unfortunately, I mean, given the heroic stance, look, I mean, I'm not saying, I personally probably would, I don't know what I would do in a similar situation. But a lot of these Ukrainians are going to be making and standing tall. That's what the Ukrainian government is also telling them to do. That is probably, we're going to see the bloodiest part of this war. Don't forget, the Poles put up a heroic resistance against the Nazis too.

You know, so did a lot of people. The Belgians in World War I. I mean, but we know how ultimately the military campaign shakes out. So I hate to say it, but, you know, all indications are that a tremendous loss of life is on the horizon. Certainly could be headed in that direction. Let's also update you on yesterday while we were doing the show, there were talks between a Russian and their demands were. Ukraine seeking an immediate ceasefire, fair enough. And Russian withdrawal, also fair enough. In first direct talks during Putin's ongoing invasion.

Even while that meeting was taking place, there were reports of, you know, continued fighting and continued Russian shelling. We know that Zelensky went into this meeting. He was not personally there present, but the delegation's meeting saying, we're not expecting much here because it is, even though it was seen as progress that the Russians were willing to meet without any preconditions and that agreement coming after a phone call with Xi Jinping, which is also interesting, there still seemed to be, you know, a belligerence on the part of the Russians and an unwillingness to give in any way. And certainly their calls, the Ukrainian calls for immediate ceasefire and immediate withdrawal, not heated here. They met for about three hours and then they returned to their respective areas. Now, I did see a report this morning that they are planning to have further diplomatic talks over the next couple of days, but I couldn't find any additional details. I don't think they've set time, place,

details for those meetings, so we will see. In addition to those diplomatic efforts, we also saw Putin and Macron also spoke for about 90 minutes. Let's go ahead and put this tweet up on the screen. So this details some of the Russian demands here. They want recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea. So for the Ukrainians to basically give up on Crimea. They want demilitarization and denazification of the Ukrainian state. So that could mean a whole lot of things, but effectively means Ukrainians can't have any arms or weapons, which after you've just been invaded by your next door neighbor, I think they're not going to take too kindly to. And this denazification thing, you know, look, we've talked to you about the Azov battalion. I'm not saying there's no Nazis

in Ukraine. Every country has some bad people, some fringe radical nutjobs in their midst. But the Russians have used denazification to basically mean anybody that they don't like who may be more aligned with the West who they don't want in there. Including the Jewish president. Zelensky. So that also seems to be a non-starter. Ensuring their neutral status. I mean, that was something that the Ukrainians, and Max points this out here, said they were open to neutrality, but hard to see how they agree to the rest after all that has happened. That was the piece that Russia could have gotten on the way in. I mean, I think if Russia had played their cards right, they could have gotten an agreement that, okay, fine. I truly believe. Ukraine is never going to be part of NATO. I truly believe they could have gotten an agreement that, okay, fine. I truly believe. Ukraine is never going to be part of NATO. I truly believe they could have gotten that. Okay, fine. We'll do a deal between, you know, Russia and the EU and Ukraine that enshrines a neutral status.

I think those things were achievable and on the table at the beginning. Now, it's hard to see how that is ever going to be possible. And to that end, let's go ahead and put this next piece up on the screen. Ukraine, and I personally think this was a foolish move. It's another sort of like poking the bear kind of a move. Ukraine is officially seeking to join the EU. There were pictures of, I think he's holding his like EU application there in that picture. EU's chief executive, Ursula von der Leyen, told Euronews, indeed, over time, quote, they belong to us. They are one of us and we want them in. So if you're the Russians,

you know, looking for a neutral Ukraine, this just seems like, again, another escalation that your adversary is going to view this and they're going to consider their own escalatory tactics in response. So I don't see what end this served other than to further inflame the situation. Look, we're not in the EU, but if I were the EU, do not do this. This would be a disaster and an escalatory move. It also would entitle them to significant types of defense, which would make you a completely unneutral body. And I'll talk about this in my monologue, but many EU countries, a huge portion of the EU is in NATO. So it's not

like we don't also have a military interest in the outcome here. I just want to underscore this. And I've continued to make this point. Why Putin's move is so colossally foolish. Ukraine, yeah, they're going to give up their military, their militarization and arms after you invaded their country. Okay, yeah, they're going to give up their military, their militarization

and arms after you invaded their country. Okay, good luck. You want neutrality? Now they're applying for the EU status. Finland, their neighbor, had an emergency meeting

last night in order to vote, in order to join NATO. And NATO is now talking, says that they could admit them within 24 hours. By the way, I would be completely

against that. We don't need any more NATO countries against the Russian border. But that's not stopping Finland from trying. I'm seeking more. And now you are seeing the same thing. Romania, Poland, elsewhere. I think British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is in Poland today. I mean, the complete solidification along the Russian border of former Soviet states who are looking at this and freaking out, seeking both arms and now NATO membership or EU membership or Sweden shipping anti-tank

missiles to this conflict. Norway is sending lethal aid to Ukraine. Even crazier is this. Switzerland, which was neutral against the Nazis, is now cutting off Russia from its financial system. Switzerland, which has long been the haven, financial haven, for Russian oligarchs. And Monaco as well. Monaco. Another place that is like playground of the oligarchs and where they have like to park their asses. It takes skill to get the Swiss to not be neutral. Okay. I mean, I have no, this is, they have no idea what they have like to park their asses. It takes skill to get the Swiss to not be neutral, okay?

I mean, I have no, this is, they have no idea what they have awoken in Europe. And when you have the entire continent now up against you, that's an incredibly dangerous situation. We'll talk about this too in nuclear war, but I mean, the ramifications of escalation on this are stunning. And overnight we are seeing the complete financial cancellation.

And I don't mean any like, you know, like any cult. But basically, they've been financially canceled from the entire global financial system. We learned yesterday that Shell is exiting. It's something majority. I think it's a minority stake in one of the major gas companies in Russia. We already brought you the news that BP was exiting. It's Rosneft's stake there, which is something like 20 percent, and they're resigning from the board. They are being cut off by Disney apparently.

Even Disney is not going to release films over there. I mean you are seeing a complete bifurcation. It's almost like – the Iron Curtain is like halfway down at this point. And they thought that they had sort of sanction-proofed their economy because they saw what we had done with regard to Iran. They had watched some of the tactics that we had used around the world. And they understood in a way that I don't think that we have totally processed the risks that come with globalization, the sort of financial leverage you hand to all of your trading partners when you depend on them for this or that good or

trading relationship. And so what their strategy was is to, number one, have very low levels of debt, and number two, to store up these foreign reserve currencies. And so when we were going to cut them off of SWIFT, they sort of felt like, oh, we can handle that. And China has their own sort of burgeoning competitor to SWIFT that isn't used extensively, but still provides some kind of an alternative. But when we said, oh, and by the way, we're going to freeze your foreign reserves and sanction your central bank. That's when things got really real. Yeah, I don't think they ever expected that. Yes.

And I want to say, I mean, these types of – this is economic warfare. I mean, we have said we are not going to fight you with boots on the ground. We're not putting troops into Ukraine. We've been very clear about that. We're going to bring you – yeah, thank God for that. We're going to bring you the Biden administration standing very strong against a no-fly zone because of the military engagement and the sparking of World War III that that could lead to. But we are engaged in a wholesale economic war, which is going to be devastating, not just for Putin and his oligarchs, but for the

entire Russian population. And, you know, I think that,igarchs, but for the entire Russian population. And, you know, I think that, first of all, we have to question the morality of that and the suffering. There will be loss of life because of those, you know, a blunt use of economic warfare against the entire population. We're already seeing the very early signs of what, you know, just the disruptions of daily life. We showed you yesterday the bank runs. There's also a video of suddenly the, I think Apple Pay and Google Pay wouldn't work on the metro system. They can't use it on the metro anymore. So there's, you know, huge lines at the subway system. And this is just the beginning. You have to use cash, right. This is just the beginning signs of what this is ultimately going to entail for the Russian population. We also have

to say, you know, these sanctions, oftentimes they're more of a sort of political show than an actual strategic tool that yields results. The Russians are already saying basically like, we don't care, do your worst. We'll see. Yeah. And we've seen other regimes where not only does it not bring them down, it hardens their population against us. It gives their authoritarian leaders the ability to say, your problems aren't with us. Your problems are with the U.S. and these other Western countries that are making your life miserable. So there's a lot to be said about that. There were two other little updates I wanted to give you guys. Number one, yesterday I said the EU was supplying fighter jets. It does not look like that worked out. The countries that were supposed to be sending the fighter jets were like, nah, I don't think we no, Poland and Romania were like, that's not.

No, we're not. We're not doing that. So that didn't come out of selfish interest. Apparently, Crystal, they were like, look, we're in. We're on the border, too. And we also exactly. And then the other thing, just in terms of tracking the Russia China relationship is in Beijing yesterday, their foreign ministry spokesman said at a regular press briefing that Russia and China are strategic partners, but not allies. I also said, of course, China would not interfere in the Ukraine crisis. But there was some reading into that language of strategic partners versus allies, especially given that very recently they were signing statements about the limitless nature of their partnership. So this seems to be China kind of taking a little bit of a step back to see how this all plays out. Yeah. I mean, China basically does not want to be

geopolitically isolated in the same way that Russia now finds itself completely cut off from the global financial system. And if they float them in the same way, they're not going to be received as kindly. You know, it's interesting. In the Iranian context, there were a lot of our U.S. allies who continued to buy stuff from Iran even when they were sanctioned, South Korea, China, many other countries. This is so universally despised and basically being cut off. You see the Japanese siding with us. You see many of the Asian Western allies siding with us that if China were to wholesale back the Russian economy, they would have consequences in Asia, not just inside of, you know, in terms of their relations with the West. So, yeah, they've miscalculated significantly and are trying to push themselves back. Diplomatically, I think the main thing we can point to is that literally the entire world seems unified against Russia.

That can be a good thing. It can also lead to a significant amount of tension, and it could back Putin into a corner, which we'll get to in our nuclear war segment. Yes, indeed. Let's go ahead and move on to the idiotic calls in the United States and in the media for World War III. And actually, unfortunately, not just in the United States. We've been very praiseworthy of President Zelensky. But on this one, we have to depart significantly. Let's put this up there on the screen.

Yesterday, President Zelensky issued a statement to U.S. media, and this was very calculated, to Axios, which is a Washington-based outlet, where he pushed the president on a no-fly zone. So Zelensky said in a statement that he wants a no-fly zone over, quote, significant parts of the country, says that Ukraine can, quote, beat the aggressors if the Western allies, quote, do their part. Now, here's what he says. The sanctions are heading in the right direction. In addition to disconnecting the Russian central bank and providing more stingers and anti-tank weapons, we need the West to impose a no-fly zone over significant parts of Ukraine. Ukraine can beat the aggressor. We are proving this to the world. Look, as we said in our first block, there is no discounting the heroic resistance of the Ukrainian military. That being said, you are asking us to declare war on Russia and shoot planes out of the sky. And if it's not us, Germany is also in NATO. Any NATO country which engages

Russian military in a direct action like this, that's war. And if it's war, it's probably going to go nuclear. So it's just simply completely off the table. And unfortunately, this is again, it was where the sympathy towards Ukraine is hijacking the brains of people who are in media, trusted figures. Let's put this up there on the screen. So Richard Engel, you know, the top NBC News foreign analyst says this, quote, perhaps the biggest risk calculation moral dilemma of the war so far. A massive Russian convoy is about 30 miles from Kiev. The U.S. NATO could likely destroy it, but that would be direct involvement against Russia and risk everything. Does the West watch in silence as it rolls?

How dare you point, how dare you phrase it that way? That's completely outrageous. And I never thought you would hear me giving praise to the Pod Save America guys. But Tommy Veeder, who was, I believe he worked in the Obama administration, the NSC, he replies, the way you tweet about whether the U.S. and NATO should engage in a full-on war against a nuclear-armed superpower is shockingly glib. It's not as simple as watching silence as it rolls or not. The stakes are risking nuclear annihilation. Yes, that's correct. Look, it's sad watching this convoy. It breaks the heart. We watched it in Syria. We watched half a million people die.

Guess what? The situation was complicated. It's not like we had great allies to work with who were on the ground. Iraq, the same thing, except we were perpetrators of some of that violence. I mean, we have seen these things happen. It is deeply sad. Should we try to do something about it? Yes, within reason. Sanctions are already, you know, quite a significant step in the right direction. But they never ask the question of, okay, then what? I mean, to see the cavalier nature in which he advocates for a nuclear exchange between the United States and Russia. Again, these two countries hold 90% of the nukes on planet Earth. It's completely bonkers. It's like, you know, you could turn this on him and say, you know, what is the biggest moral dilemma of cavalierly launching yourself into World War III.

Also, I do want to say this. It was a terrifying development overnight. We got the first U.S. elected official, Senator Roger Wicker, to advocate explicitly for a no-fly zone. Yeah, but that's important, right? That shows you that you have now a sitting United States Senator, Roger Wicker,

declaring explicitly he seeks a war with the Russian government. And you watch all of this unfold. Luckily, public opinion is knighted against it. We'll get to that specifically. But this is still incredibly dangerous. This level of hubris can lead you right into not just a shooting war, a nuclear war. Well, and there's a few things I want to say about this. First of all, you know, we have praised the actions of President Zelensky, both in terms of trying to avert doing everything he could within his power to avert this conflict, and in terms of just his personal

bravery staying in Kiev and not fleeing when he had the chance to, even though he knows that Russian, one of the Russians' goal is to assassinate him and remove him as head of state. However, the minute I saw the overwhelming liberal thirst around this guy, I started to get very uncomfortable. You should be. Because then what happens, I mean, we've seen this play out with Andrew Cuomo. We've seen it play out with any number of sort of political celebs who liberals become obsessed with, and they elevate to this platform.

And then what happens? He advocates for something here that would be a disaster. But because you've got a bunch of like thirsty liberals who are now in love with this guy, it has a different standing than it might have if you were just evaluating the situation from a neutral, non-thirsty perspective. So that is one thing. That's the sort of risk on one side. The risk on the other side that we'll talk about more when we get to the public polling so far is, yes, the public is against military action in Ukraine. However, since this conflict has started, the numbers have moved significantly. And in particular, the Republican base has become far more hawkish. So in the build

up, the Republican Party, and we covered this, was very, they're kind of all over the place. I mean, there were people, there were politicians across the spectrum. Some of them were saying, why do we even care about this at all? And sort of taking, almost taking Russia's side in this, you know, Trump saying like Putin's a genius and all this stuff, Tucker's monologues. That was one faction. You had people who were on the more haw was one faction. You had people who were on the more hawkish direction. You had people who were basically like, we agree with what Biden is doing. Well, now the most recent polling has 80% of Republicans saying that Biden is, quote, not doing enough. Okay, now that's very vague, all right? That doesn't say specifically.

Yeah, what does that mean? So what does that mean? And the danger here is that you end up with a situation, we've seen bipartisan pro-war consensus many times in the past, where there are both liberal politicians, the Eric Swalwells and the Adam Schiff's of the world, and Republican politicians, the Roger Wickers and the Adam Kinzigers of the world, who find it in their political benefit to push hawkish, escalatory behavior, including insanity like no-fly zones. So that's why there is a real danger here. I also saw, you know, we've been seeing some of the blue check Twitter mobs saying like, ah, nuclear war. They're not serious, it's just a bluff, let's like stop clushing our pearls about nuclear war. No. Take it very, very, very seriously. Even if you consider it like a 0.1% chance, that is too freaking high of a chance when you're talking about nuclear war. I also saw an

intelligence leak yesterday that was in that same direction of, you know, American intelligence agencies assess that Putin has no intention of actually sparking a nuclear war. Okay, maybe right now. Right. I mean, yeah. But guess what, y'all? I still don't trust you. I don't care if you got a few things right about this conflict. I still do not trust you. And that bears all the hallmarks of a deep state trying to leak against Biden and push him into actions that he has so far nobly resisted taking. And here's another indication which I am so freaked out about. So General, former General Philip Breedlove, who was the U.S. commander of U.S. forces in Europe and the Supreme Allied commander of NATO not that long ago, had a sit down with

Foreign Policy Magazine. And he was asked explicitly, would you impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine? He said, yes. He acknowledges it is an act of war. Nevertheless, he is a proponent of it. Let's put this up there on the screen. So he goes and acknowledges this is an act of war against Russia. So the interviewer asked, in spite of all of that, you said you would actually support the idea of a no-fly zone. Here's what the general says. Are we going to sit and watch while a world power invades and destroys and subjugates a sovereign nation? Are we just going to watch? A friend recently said, this is like biblical times. The whole Coliseum is watching lions and Christians. They're pulling for the Christians, but they just watch. So the question is, is the West going to tolerate Russia doing this to Ukraine?

Quote, what if the Russians do what they did in eastern Syria, and they drop barrel bombs and make rubble of cities and terrorize citizens and force them on the road and make them refugees across Europe? Where is the line that Russia crosses as inhumanity such that the rest of the world reacts? Well, here's the question. Is all of that, which would be a horrific outcome and would be a tragedy, just as it was in Syria, would it be worth a nuclear exchange between the United States and Russia? This is the insanity and the hubris within these

people. I can't believe this man was once responsible for confronting the quote-unquote Russian threat while he was the supreme allied commander of NATO forces. And if you think he does not have contacts and is not representing a significant chunk of the military establishment who is sitting in, I think it's Brussels or wherever it is right now, in terms of the U.S. command, you're crazy. This is a real point of view. Luckily in this country, our forces are subject to the orders of civilian control and the president remains sane. And Jen Psaki reiterated this at the White House podium yesterday. Let's take a listen. President Zelensky is urging President Biden and NATO to impose this no-fly zone. You've said that this would significantly escalate the situation. So just to be clear, is this a no-go for right now, or is this completely off the table, something that you would not consider?

Well, the President has been very clear that he is not intending to send U.S. troops to fight a war with Russia. And I think what's important to note here is that is essentially what this would be a step toward, because a no-fly zone would require implementation. It would require deploying U.S. military to enforce, which would be a direct conflict, potentially a direct conflict and potentially a war with Russia, which is something we are not planning to be a part of. Thank you. You know, Biden's brain and all of that, he may be old, but he's actually, this is the one area where his age may help. He's so old, he remembers the Cuban Missile Crisis and the literal Cold War when Brezhnev was the premier and a war seemed possible.

So maybe in that respect, it's a good thing to have somebody who at least remembers the consequences of this. We are about to get to a warmonger in our own right who once promised a no-fly zone over Syria and would have led to similar results. Yes, indeed. And I actually think it's worth reading because Breedlove, what's remarkable about his comments is he knows exactly what it means. Yeah, he knows what he's saying. Like, you might imagine Kinziger or Wicker or some of these other people who are like

mouthing off that they don't really understand the implications. But I want to read to you because he lays it out more clearly than almost anyone else I've said. He says, I'm a proponent of it, but let me tell you why it probably won't happen. It's an act of war. There are a lot of people who don't understand no-fly zones. You don't just say, that's a no-fly zone. You have to enforce a no-fly zone, which means you have to be willing to use force against those who break the no-fly zones. You don't just say, that's a no-fly zone. You have to enforce a no-fly zone, which means you have to be willing to use force against those who break the no-fly zone.

The second thing, which nobody understands, is if you put a no-fly zone in the eastern part of Ukraine, for instance, and we're going to fly coalition or NATO aircraft into that no-fly zone, then we have to take out all the weapons that can fire into our no-fly zone and cause harm to our aircraft. So you have to go on the offensive to take out the weapons that could harm your aircraft. So that means bombing enemy radars and missile systems on the other side of the border. And you know what that means, right? That is tantamount to war. So he understands all of this, including that piece, which I hadn't even thought of.

I did not even know that was part of a no-fly zone. Yeah, so he gets all of this, including that piece, which I hadn't even thought of. I did not even know that was part of a no-fly zone. Yeah, so he gets all of this even more clearly than— Because he probably wrote the plans, Chris. Right. And he's still like, but yeah, I think we should do it. Oh my god. What? This is completely buggers.

There was another thing that I wanted to show you this morning or tell you about this morning that just shows you the like sociopathy of some of these people. There's actually a piece in the Huffington Post right now titled Could a Small Nuclear War Reverse Global Warfare? Yeah, I think that one's

from 2011 to be fair. Okay, all right. I just saw it this morning. It's still scary, yes. It's like, well, COVID helped lower carbon emissions. Was that a good thing? Okay, I mean,

you can go ahead and ask that. I think, I don't know if this is a myth or not, but they say that Genghis Khan killed so many people that you can actually see the carbon levels drop in the ice. I mean, is that a good way to deal with it? No, it's not, okay? I mean, complete, total craziness about what's happening.

Why don't we get to- Let's get to some more craziness, shall we? Some more craziness about what's happening. Why don't we get to— Let's get to some more craziness, shall we? Some more craziness. Okay, this is an amazing collaboration between the folks over at MSNBC and exactly who we need to hear from at this time, one Hillary Rodham Clinton. We've put together a little bit of her commentary here for you to get a taste. Part of it is her, you know, banging the drum about how we have to call out anyone who has like a wrong think and is unpatriotic on their views on Ukraine and Russia. I'm sure we would easily fall into that category, Sager. And then also just sort of casually calling for cyber warfare, which also can be considered an act of war.

Let's take a listen to what she has to say. We have to also make sure that within our own country, we are calling out those people who are giving aid and comfort to Vladimir Putin, who are talking about what a genius he is, what a smart move it is, who are unfortunately being broadcast by Russian media, not only inside Russia, but in Europe to demonstrate the division within our own country. I think that people who love freedom, people who understand that our way of life depends upon supporting those who believe in freedom as well. Could be engaged in cyber support for those in the streets in Russia. We did some of that during the Arab Spring when I was Secretary of State.

I think we could be also attacking a lot of the government institutions and, again, the oligarchs and their, you know, their way of life through cyber attacks. And it will be difficult to get actual physical support, but I think we should be looking at that. Oh, my God. I mean, she's advocating for a cyber attack by the United States government on the Russian government, an explicit acknowledged one. And this was something which I think we did cover at the time, but which the deep state offered President Biden as a quote unquote response. Look, I actually sat through some classes in my program at Georgetown on cyber. This was some of the early days of just like thinking about it. And there was a lot of talk there.

When and how exactly do these cyber attacks constitute an act of war? And it's a very gray area. And a lot of it, it's the eye of the beholder. For example, I think U.S. doctrine is if you take down a critical security grid like the energy grid, or if you take down nuclear weapon system launching or something like that, that enough is considered an act of war to launch kinetic force. What does the Russian doctrine say? I bet I haven't read it, but I'm relatively certain that an attack on a Russian government institution, especially one against the Russian military, would be considered an act of war by them. And that's what she's advocating for. And do you think, because she tries to make this distinction of like, we're going to push good citizens who have the capabilities to do this.

Do you think that the Russian government would distinguish between like civilians encouraged by the U.S. government? We don't distinguish when we have Russian mobs who steal our IP or whatever. Yeah, I mean, just look at the way that the language in Russiagate about these actors that were

affiliated with the Russian government or connections to the Russian government, etc. So we don't either make that distinction. The other part of this, though, Sagar, that's really important is there's now all this pressure on the tech companies to censor Russian state media. And I mean, and Hillary Clinton, obviously making that case here as well. And some of these tech companies are already taking action. Let's go ahead and throw this next piece up on the screen, which is you have Twitter. They're adding labels to tweets that share links to Russian state-affiliated media websites.

And they're taking steps to significantly reduce the circulation of this content on Twitter. Interesting that they don't even say what those steps are, which is like so par for the course. Don't know how that works. But anyway, they're trying to label all of the Russian propaganda from RT and Sputnik in places like that and also to somehow significantly reduce the circulation. You have Meta. Let's put this next piece up on the screen. Meta is just straight up restricting access to RT and Sputnik on its platforms across the EU. This seems to be at the behest of the EU who have taken steps to sort of through geocoding to eliminate their population's ability to look at these websites whatsoever. And Sagar, you made a great point

on Twitter. Let's go ahead and take a look at this, which is, you know, in addition to the hypocrisy, which I'll get to in a moment, a friend points out that the West is cutting itself off from Russian media precisely when their domestic media is becoming the most bellicose. Misjudging lacking knowledge of the Russian media mood increases risk of miscalculation by the West. in a minute where Pravda has this, you know, inflammatory rhetoric about nuclear war saying, box into a corner surrounded by Western armies and blockaded with sanctions, the little red buttons may seem the only viable alternative to a humiliating defeat, potentially revealing some of the thinking within the Kremlin and Putin's inner circle. It's really valuable to know that stuff and it would not be good for us not to have access to that information. And that's, you know, that's just one piece of it.

The other piece of it is, okay, how are you going to draw these lines? So is the, we brought you, you know, during the Canadian trucker thing, we talked to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Is that state-funded media? Yes, actually it is. BBC. PBS, NPR. I mean, where, so where is that line? Not to mention our corporate media.

They may technically be removed from government. Jen Psaki right now is being aggressively courted by both CNN and MSNBC and some of the networks. So she goes and gets her prime time, takes over for Rachel Maddow at MSNBC, which is a real thing that could happen, by the way, guys. Is that state media? she was on last night. Is that state media? Because she's surely going to still be doing full on propaganda on behalf of the Biden administration. Simone Sanders admitted that she was going to continue to tow the Biden line as a supposedly independent employee of MSNBC. So, you know, the lines that are being drawn here are extraordinarily arbitrary. Right. And look, I have no defense of Russian media. I think a lot

of them look like clowns. That being said, like, you know, whenever it comes to the enemy, if this is a quote unquote war, and I don't want to use that language cavalierly, but if we are going to continue to escalate tensions, we need to know what they are saying. One of the reasons why that we established the hotline between the U.S. president and the Soviet premier was specifically to cut out as many middlemen as possible and to have direct lines of communication. So whenever I see that Pravda op-ed written in English, and it was very specifically written in English in order to convey Russian nuclear deterrence, to make fun of the West, and to lay out an agenda, and it was very specifically written in English in order to convey Russian nuclear deterrence, to make fun of the West, and to lay out an agenda. And we're also going to talk about

a leaked document that also appeared in English in Russian state media. These are very important documents for us to read. I do the same thing. Whenever I was in graduate school, we used to read Chinese nuclear doctrine. And the reason why is because they publish in English. Why? They want us to read it. They want us to know what they are thinking. And they're like, hey, this is how we think about nukes. Yeah, we say we won't do a first strike, but, you know, in terms of what that actually means.

And I was like, wow, well, that's really important for, you know, anybody to understand. This is the same principle. And so, I mean, for example, yesterday I posted that Pravda thing as an example on Instagram of being like, hey, we need to watch out about nukes. It had the link to that. I mean, did that get downranked? Almost certainly. I have no way of knowing. But I'm using it as a piece of commentary. So same thing on Twitter. I mean, if I'm going to be sharing, hey, here's what the Russians are thinking right now. Why would then that not be amplified to a lot of people? I understand the risk. The risk is that when you live in a free and open society, yes, you are going to have malign state actors be able to use that freedom and openness in order to try and manipulate your domestic population. You just simply have to have enough faith, which I personally do, in the ability in order to suss things out. So I think it's obviously a complicated problem about how exactly you treat state media and what they're allowed to do and more. But on this particular one, having a total disconnect from how the Russians are thinking. You know, what I really want to read

is kind of a man on the street interview or something with people all across Russia and be like, how are you feeling about all this? What's happening? The more journalism, the more info that we were to get out there, even the state interviews. Okay, well, what are they saying and what are they not saying? These are all very important. This is what we used to do in the Cold War. And yet we're forgetting a lot of our lessons to try and check on, even in a state media apparatus like Russia. We need to know what they're thinking. We need to know what they're saying in their own language.

And I'll give you one other really important example, which is when Putin gave that long speech that laid out before the Ukrainian invasion, before they invaded Ukraine, where he lays out basically this sort of blood and soil, like, this is our people, and this is, you know, we gifted you this country, and you don't really exist without us. Russian Empire, yeah. And then talked some about the, some of them, legitimate security risks, and gave this whole big picture, long essay about their thinking about this whole thing. We used the RT dubbed version of that.

That's right. And that's actually, I mean, that's significant because you want to see their translation, their version of the translation because some of these things can be, you know, translated in different ways and different words have different contexts, different meaning.

So, okay, so then if tech companies censor this, then we can't actually show you the direct translation from Russian state media of what they're telling us Putin is saying in the speech. So and that was that was one of the real turning points in this whole situation. I mean, that's when both you and I were like, whoa, this is you know, this goes way beyond NATO. This isn't just about these immediate security concerns. This is like big picture ideology and extraordinarily dangerous situation. So anyway, all of that is a long way of saying that if you live in a democracy and you believe in a democracy, you have to have enough faith in your people that you think that they can like see an article from Pravda or Sputnik and not be completely, you know, instantly brainwashed by it. That you're able to evaluate information.

You're able to understand the credibility of a potential source. And that, yeah, sometimes it's messy and sometimes people do fall for lies and propaganda. But you know what? They also fall for lies and propaganda. But you know what? They also fall for lies and propaganda from the Western media every day too. Yeah, that's really well said. I think it's so interesting and important point. It's very unpopular to say at this time, right? To be like, hey, maybe we should pump the brakes.

We got to think about the ramifications. This is part of my friend used that analogy of cancellation. He was getting dunked on. I think it was actually apt because what it comes down to is not the principle of saying it's a culture war, but the cascading effect of like, BP is cut off from Russia.

Now Disney's pulling out of Russia. Now Switzerland is a band in neutrality. Finland is coming NATO. You're like, oh my God, I can't even wrap my head around this. Like, where is this going? And now we're like, okay, we're going to cut off Russian media. Well, okay, I could see the principle as to why.

But how about all these other considerations? Oh, we're way far past that. And when you have that kind of a psychosis that begins to take hold of a lot of people, there are ramifications which can be massive as to our holes and our lack of understanding. People believe, and I do too, that communication and understanding is the key to what 95% of the world's problems. And anything that puts up barriers between us on these things, I think is the absolute worst way to go about it. Indeed. Okay. Speaking of that, nuclear war, which is something that I obviously am probably the most worried about. Yesterday I said it was around 1%, maybe higher than 1%.

And look, I think that probably is still true. That being said, that's really high, actually, and this is still very scary. Now, President Biden was asked about this yesterday at the White House by a reporter. He's trying to calm people down. Here's what he said. Mr. President, should Americans be worried about nuclear war? No. So what happened is he says no, doesn't really address it more so than that. Jen Psaki says also from the podium, we are trying to de-escalate.

We seek no flies. No, there is no no-fly zone. We are not engaging with Russia. They say that U.S. nuclear posture has not changed. Look, really what it is is that we need to not just look at our country, but theirs and how they are thinking about nuclear weapons. You alluded to this in the last block, but I think this is really important. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. And a friend of mine flagged this for me. So this is from Pravda, and it was written in English.

Now, the reason why it's very important is that this is a perfect view into kind of the most hawkish view within the Kremlin. And here's what he says in terms of the red button. And also it was very key to me. They highlighted this passage, Crystal. They wanted this to be shared. Oh, I didn't realize this was their highlighting. Their highlight. Their highlight. There was a specific decision in order to highlight this specific idea. They asked this question. Is Mr. Putin putting his nuclear forces on high alert a distraction? Is he bluffing? Here's what this columnist writes in

Pravda. Unlike his predecessor, Mr. Putin is unlikely to surrender Russia again, he's talking about Mikhail Gorbachev, to liberal ideologies and Wall Street capitalists, boxed into a corner surrounded by Western armies blockaded with sanctions. The little red buttons may seem the only viable alternative to a humiliating defeat and becoming another economically plundered satellite of the West, as happened to those countries who recently suffered the same fate in the Middle East. Wow. I mean, really think about that. And this entire thing is actually worth reading because what he says here is, in terms of the goals for Russia, here's his conclusion. An entirely possible scenario is that Russia will itself end the war through

negotiations, yet not before, listen to this clearly, destroying the limited capabilities of the Ukrainian army and causing severe damage to its infrastructure, electricity, water, food supply chain, leaving an already economically declining West to pay for rebuilding while sending a very clear message to NATO and those countries allowing it to happen to keep away from Russia's borders, which incidentally is what all of this was about in the first place. The alternative scenario is frightening. Again, a threatening of nuclear war.

And he says this, in conclusion, the Russian response will have shocked both NATO and Western politicians as any bullies. They will now retire to lick their wounded pride, stick their tongues out, as will the indoctrinated denizens of Western social media. With the three-second attention span of a goldfish, Ukraine is soon forgotten as the next climate extinction scare emerges or iPhone announces its new upgrade. Man, sometimes they know us pretty well.

Yeah, but you know, they act like they're still communists or something. Yeah, I know. I mean, you all are the most, it's just like state capitalism, like crony capitalism with your oligarchs. It's not like you have some principled anti-capitalist stance anymore. As usual, they have no ground really to stand on. But they are good critics, and they always were, of the West. Now, the reason why we spent time and reading you this, he is saying we're going to level Ukraine

militarily. Then you're going to pay for it in terms of reconstruction. And also don't screw with us because we will nuke you. And if you think that there's a, you know, a humiliating defeat, what does that mean? I mean, this is, again, I think this is a very clear view into Putinism itself. I can't tell you about connections or whatever, but having observed this also in China, they have this thing called Global Times, which is considered the most hawkish English outlet, which is supposed to view kind of the most extreme version of thought within the Politburo. And then they have other outlets on the other side. We're bringing you this just to say this is a legitimate view within Russia and specifically within what is allowed to come out in English at this crisis. And that's important for us to read. And we need to understand that they're not bluffing whenever it comes to the use of nuclear weapons. And I want to understand that they're not bluffing whenever it comes to the use of nuclear weapons. And I want to say another thing, too. I recommended that book, The Bomb,

by Fred Kaplan yesterday. I've continued to work my way through it. There is no such thing as a small nuclear war. We have understood this since the 1950s, when they were like, hey, you should use nukes in Laos or in Vietnam. And Eisenhower was like, what, are you crazy? He's like, no, we're not doing that. And there was an explicit admission by Robert McNamara in the Kennedy administration that any exchange of nuclear weapons leads to almost full-scale nuclear holocaust of the entire human race, if not just at least the Russian public and the American public, the deaths of hundreds and hundreds of millions of people.

And when you have this cavalier attitude inside of the Kremlin, and let's not whitewash, we have a cavalier attitude in the United States. We have elected politicians, Adam Kissinger and Roger Wicker, advocating then for a no-fly zone. These are real consequences, the likes of which we have not seen, I don't know, 40 years, 50 years. Berlin crisis and the Cuban Missile Crisis are probably as close as it gets. Yeah, it's as serious as it gets. And even that second piece, like, okay, if we don't do the nuclear war, it's the, if we can't have Ukraine, nobody can. Exactly.

Like, basically, we're going to destroy this place. And let's also, I mean, let's not forget what Putin himself has said about the consequences, the likes of which mankind has never seen or whatever rhetoric. He said that whenever he put his nuclear forces on high alert. On high alert. I mean, these are serious actions of a person who has proven himself capable of taking actions. I mean, this invasion of Ukraine was an insane thing to do from just like the interests of Russia and the people there and the consequences that they're going to suffer. So I think you should take what he's saying very seriously. I don't think that you should assume that it's a bluff at all. And then these little glimpses that we have into

what Russian state media is saying as well provide a little bit of a window. Yesterday we brought you the Russian state TV presenter who was basically saying, like, it's not worth being in the world if Russia's not in it. So this extremely nihilistic, like, you know, we're willing to just take this whole place down if we don't get what we want out of this situation or if we feel too humiliated by it. I mean, that language comes up a lot too, this idea of being humiliated by the West. And I think, you know, some of the things that we're seeing now and the efforts to completely cut them off in the global financial system plays into those fears of them being this sort of like hobbled, humiliated state once again. Yeah, I think that's right. And Crystal, you found this piece, a mistakenly

published article in Ria Novosti. I'm sorry if I'm saying these incorrectly. Let's put this up there on the screen. It was titled The Resolution of the Ukraine Question. And it was a mistakenly published article giving us an insight into the neo-imperialist thinking. Now, what he points to in this mistakenly published article, which was published 8 a.m. on February 26, it actually mistakenly celebrated a Russian victory because they thought that the state was gonna collapse in two days.

But the theme is, is that operation is a defeat for the West project to defeat Russia, that Putin sees the moment to return Ukraine to its historical Slavic union with Russia and Belarus, and that NATO candidacy is a symptom of the problem, not the main cause. Some of the quotations that he includes, the author calls this, quote, a new era, says that Russia is restoring its historic unity, the tragedy of 1991, the terrible catastrophe of our history, that unnatural aberration has been overcome. He concedes it's a civil war in which brothers still shoot at each other even though they are divided only by their membership, but there will no longer be a Ukraine which is anti-Russia. So Putin has had to act now in this thinking. We can say without a drop of exaggeration, Vladimir Putin took upon himself a historic responsibility by deciding not to leave the resolution of the Ukraine question to future generations. He says this, the main issue

was the complex of a divided nation and complex of national humiliation when the Russian house began to lose part of its foundation and then was forced to reconcile itself to the existence of two states of not one, but two peoples. So again, this long thread that we had cut here, you can go ahead and cut out of this control room. What's important though, and the reason we did and showed it to you, is that this is the mindset which drove the Ukraine campaign in the first place. And that is going to inform all the downstream decisions. How do you respond to sanctions? How do you respond to the continued escalation? Are they going to escalate the campaign in Kiev? Yes, almost certainly, if you read these things. If they view it as one country with the same people and brothers and all of that, which is must restore the Slav Union,

we're dealing with the Tsardom of the 1800s. And if that is the case, then that's going to inform their nuclear doctrine as well. You put this all together, you have a very scary picture here that I fear that we completely underestimate both, and as many Westerners have, the capacity of the Russian people for suffering, their ability to double down, and their own thinking in the use of nuclear weapons, which could annihilate the human race. important to underscore what they say because they have to justify to their population the aggressive and violent tactics used against ordinary Ukrainians here. Because again, I mean, these are very closely related peoples. There's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of travel. There's a lot of families on both sides of the border. Ordinary Russians, no people in Ukraine have spent childhoods perhaps in Ukraine or somewhere. So they have to justify to their population why they are attacking the

Ukrainian population. And so the line here that they use to try to do that is saying, it's a civil war in which brothers still shoot at each other, even though they were divided only by their membership of the Russian and the Ukrainian armies. But there will now no longer be a Ukraine, which is anti-Russia. So it's a sort of like, well, the means justified the end. And the closing also is really significant for their potential thinking, which is they say Russia has not only was about a lot more than NATO. Yeah. And even about a lot more than NATO and even about a lot more than Ukraine. This shows you a sort of maximalist thinking about what this action means, which

again also could give you some insight into the possibility of further action if they feel like they're humiliated or if they feel like they haven't achieved their aims of this reorientation of the globe based on their aggressive actions in Ukraine. That's really important. Yeah. It's really terrifying there. But luckily, the people seem to have at least some heads on their shoulders right now. Yeah, it's a pretty good picture right now. All right. We've gotten some new polling out, post-RRussian invasion polling to give you a sense of how the American people are feeling about all of this. The good news is that there is actually a lot of if you take Biden out of it, the minute you ask about how is Biden doing on this, there's a partisan reaction. But if you ask overall about what we should do, there's a good bit of unity, which you can take as a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your perspective. Let's put the CNN tear sheet up on the screen.

So most Americans want the U.S. to do more to stop Russia, but most also oppose direct military action. So on the very vague question of, like, should we do more, they're like, yes. But when it's like, should we put boots on the ground? They're like, no. 83% of Americans say they favor increased economic sanctions against Russia in response to the invasion. Just 17% are opposed. A smaller majority, 62%, also want to see the U.S. do more to stop Russian military action in Ukraine, with 38% saying the country has already done enough. Again, this is very vague. They're like, yeah, we should do more on economics. We should do more to stop Russian military action. But when you actually get into it and ask, there is a majority opposed

to direct military action, even if sanctions fail to work. So even in the event sanctions don't deter Russian behavior at all, which frankly, sadly, they're probably unlikely to do, only 42%, even in that scenario where sanctions fail, were in favor of direct military action. So far, even though the public is pretty much in line with where the Biden administration is and the actions that they have taken so far. He still does not get high approval ratings from the public. Only 42% said that they trust Biden at least moderately to make the right decisions regarding the situation in Ukraine. That is about where his overall approval rating is. And again, you have partisan divide here in terms of how people are looking at Biden's response specifically, even on the big picture questions.

There's actually a lot of partisan unity. And there was one other piece that was interesting to me here is that even though on those big questions you don't have a lot of partisan differences, there are generational differences. Yeah, that was what I was going to call it. Young Americans are less hawkish than older Americans is the best way to put it. So Americans under age 45 were 11 percentage points less likely than older Americans to support increased sanctions. So they were less likely to say, hey, we need to throw more economic sanctions at them. And they were 10 points less likely to say the U.S. should do more against Russia, although all age groups were against

military action. So interesting generational divides. Yeah, the generational gap is fascinating, like the 11-point drop in terms of what's happening. I also found the increase, the way that people are looking at this, I can already attest to it having filled up the tank recently, which is that most Americans say they should consider the impact of gas prices. I also just saw this morning, Crystal, that wheat prices are skyrocketing right now because 10% to 12% of the world's wheat comes out of Russia. Derek Thompson was telling us yesterday. Also sunflower oil, another one. I think it's like 75%.

There are all kinds of massive disruptions that I think are coming to everyday American life. I think $4.50 a gallon is of almost certainty at this point, even with the release of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. And if this heats up for a long time, you can continue to see cascading effects in terms of stock valuations, how this is going to affect the global financial system, markets, consumer goods very much on our end. So it's not nothing. I mean, we're going to see a disruption to daily life. And I think that when we do, that's going to change these figures and make it even more likely to say that the West

needs to either give something up or whatever. Yeah. The other point of this is also to consider where we started from, which is also interesting. Put that up there on the screen. So we brought you this AP poll. This was published, I think, right the day before the invasion itself. Most in the US oppose a major role in Russia's strife. So what was important there is that just 26%, the day before the invasion, said that we should have a major role in the conflict. 52% said a minor role. 20% said none at all. But if you pair that with how the invasion is gone, and now many people saying, oh, well, we should do more, or we should do something, now things have shifted a little bit. So it also goes to show you how fickle public opinion can be.

Well, this is what makes me nervous, is because, yes, right now they're saying, you know, no military involvement, even if sanctions should fail. But you've had a dramatic shift thanks to what has been effectively a media propaganda campaign in the way that the public is viewing this conflict. And there is a dramatic increase in appetite for whatever do more means. And again, I mean, I've made it pretty clear how I think about the economic sanctions. I think in a lot of times what these overwhelming economic sanctions really do is not to benefit bad guys and you're making them pay. It's more about political theater than it is about an actually effective tool to achieve your stated goals. That's just based on the historical record. So I, on the one hand, that's why I said it's mixed that you have such sort of bipartisan

agreement of 83% of Americans saying they want more in terms of economic sanctions and 62% saying they want more to stop Russian military action in Ukraine. Right now, those sentiments are squishy and undefined. But when you have that, you know, that sort of instinct and that desire fed by media propaganda campaign to do more, to be harder, to be more hawkish. How hard is it then to make the case that Adam Kinzinger and Senator Wicker are making of like, yeah, we got to do no-fly zone. That's the more that we need to do. So that's why I find these numbers troubling. And the dramatic shift in public opinion that has occurred in a very short period of time is also very worrisome to me, again, as someone who would

like to avert nuclear war. I would like to also avert just, you know, to limit the amount of civilian suffering, both among the Ukrainian people and also among the Russian people, to as little as possible. So there's another piece there that I think is interesting. Let's put this next poll up on the screen. This is from Quinnipiac. They say, do you think the steps Biden has taken to punish Russia for the invasion of Ukraine have been enough? And so you've got three percent overall. These are the totals. Three percent that say too tough.

I'm kind of in that three percent, I guess. Fifty seven percent who say not tough enough. And about twenty nine percent who say about right. So, again, you have this population wide majority position of we got to do more. We got to be harsher. We got to be tougher. And this was really interesting to me, Sagar, given the sort of all over the place stance of Republican leaders and I think also of the Republican base leading into the invasion. A lot of language about like, why do we care about this? And Putin has a point and, you know, we and sort of like this weird respect for him, too. Now you have the Republican base leading the charge in the not tough enough direction. So only two percent say that Biden is being too tough. Eighty% say not tough enough and 11% say about right. And you've seen this

in the sort of confused rhetoric coming out sometimes of the very same people over on Fox News of like saying basically, why do we care about this? But on, you know, in the next breath, like Biden's weak and we've got to do more. So the Republican base has reverted to their sort of like typical hawkish inclinations, I would say. Yeah, I think you're right. And I would say one of the most important things Trump could do for this country is to come out against a no-fly zone and against war with Russia. He needs to come out explicitly and say some of the things that he said when he was in the White House. He said, hey, look, you know, it's actually OK to have diplomacy, all of this. Instead, he wants to dunk on Biden and be like, this never would have happened.

Actually, I'm the reason NATO is so strong. I'm the one who shipped lethal aid to Ukraine. Look, like I said during the vaccination, one of the most important things he could do is to come out early and quash any calls of, oh, Biden is looking weak and all of that. I don't think he'll actually do it. Almost certainly not. But look, you know, Trump, if you're listening, it would be a great thing in order for the country to avoid war. He could make a huge difference here because I think opinions on this conflict and what should be done are still very squishy. And there are really nefarious forces out there from Hillary Clinton to, you know,

Eric Swalwell to Adam Kinzinger who are trying to push us in what is an extremely dangerous and devastating situation. So anybody who wants to be a part of solidifying public opinion in the opposite direction, please get involved.

Please join us. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, you all know that Jumanji mean, what year is it? It's a question I found myself seriously considering while trying to break all of this down for you. Together, we've already disregarded Munich in 1939 and the policy of appeasement as not particularly useful in our analysis of the Ukraine situation. But there are other historical parallels which are important and which I think could actually help all of you make sense of the rapidly changing world that we're in right now. I'm going to start with the most recent parallels and then go back from there. Immediately when Putin invaded Ukraine, what came to mind for me was the Soviet premier

Brezhnev's invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. There are several interesting parallels on both sides of the conflict. On the Russian side, it was an aggressive move that was made at the zenith of Soviet military power, but at a time when it was clear their economic system was stagnating. It was meant to project their power to the globe that you should not screw with the Soviet Union. Well, what ended up happening was a decade-long military imbroglio where 15,000 Soviet soldiers died and Soviet power was diminished worldwide, where the domestic Russian population actually rose up against a costly and unjust war that massacred civilians. On this side of the Atlantic, of course, things were also pretty similar at the outbreak of that invasion of Afghanistan. Jimmy Carter was president. He was weak and unpopular.

But where that coincides is this. Brezhnev's invasion completely changed the bipartisan approach to Soviet Union at the time, known as detente. In effect, living in peace with the Soviet Union. The invasion was a great gift to the Cold War hawks in Washington and changed the bipartisan consensus

with the election of Ronald Reagan to something called rollback. Now, where the explicit aim in rollback of American power was to confront Soviet power wherever it was and roll back its influence. A Russian invasion which empowers hawks and realigns global top politics towards a more aggressive stance. Does that sound familiar? An invasion which the military is a disaster and which could lead to big consequences domestically in Russia. Yeah, I think 1979 is a pretty spot-on analysis. If you were to ask me,

it's probably the historical episode that rhymes with this one the most with where we are today, with some important caveats. Afghanistan is not Ukraine. Here, we're talking about Europe. So of course, a more dire scenario might actually even be more apt to look at. So, let's keep going with the historical analogies. It's possible it's a mix of 1979 and Japan in 1940. We briefly touched on this

yesterday. The Japanese Empire throughout the 1930s was undergoing a massive expansion through wars of territorial conquest, starting with Manchuria and China and expanding all throughout the Pacific. In 1940, Japan, as an ally of Nazi Germany, took advantage of the fall of France and invaded French Indochina, now known as Vietnam. The U.S. State Department, seeking to bolster its ally, decided to institute an oil embargo on Japan at the time. This was a big problem for Japan because they import about 80% of its oil from the U.S. at the time, and they needed that oil to continue their territorial conquest across Asia, including the Philippines and the Dutch East Indies. So Japan

decided that the oil embargo was such an existential threat to their ability to carry out the war effort, they would then carry out a first strike on the U.S. at Pearl Harbor. Now, the important thing to consider in this parallel is this. The U.S. did not seek war with the Empire of Japan at that time, and in fact, undercounted how significant of a decision it was making when it cut Japan off from its oil supply. The decision to embargo Japan from oil was not even made by President Roosevelt. He was merely notified of it with no consideration at the

top levels of the United States government. That action directly led to war, and it shows us the danger of how massive financial warfare, akin to the sanctions that we see in Russia right now, can go hot extremely quickly. And let's go further down the chain of what else is possible, the last and most terrifying possibility. This is 1914 all over again. A point I made yesterday, and I continue to think is very important to understand, is we are in the very, very, very beginning of this crisis. The July crisis of 1914, which led to the outbreak of the First World War, it lasted a whole month. If you consider it in that context, this could be the beginnings of what's going to happen, the opening salvo in a very, very long war. And if it is July 1914,

then here are the parallels that we see for today. First and foremost, the alliance system. Obviously, with NATO membership in the Baltic states and Eastern Europe, where there is a literal nuclear tripwire if Russia invades or attacks those countries. But more troublingly, in my opinion, is the role of the European Union right now, which announced over the weekend that they intended, although it's up in the air right now, to deliver fighter jets to the Ukrainian military for its use in war against Russia. Furthermore, in the EU's announcement, the Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen said the Ukraine belongs in the European Union because, quote, they are one of us and we want them in.

This was immediately followed up by President Zelensky of Ukraine, who officially signed the papers yesterday, requesting immediate membership within the European Union. This move, if accepted, is far from symbolic. It would increase the amount of Western military aid that Ukraine is entitled to, but even more so, the intersecting alliance system starts to rhyme with 1914. Think about this. Ukraine is part of

the EU. Then the EU commits itself fully to their military defense. Well, when parts of the EU could then become embroiled in a war with Russia. Well, many member states of the EU will have to follow, right? Did I mention the large portion of the EU is in NATO, which means if they go to war, that means we're going to war. Beyond the alliance system are the pleas to, from the sympathetic country, for Ukraine, to higher action for everybody. Zelensky begged Biden yesterday to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine, telling him he would win the war if the West, quote, could do their part. In effect, Zelensky is asking the United States to declare war on Russia, shoot down Russian aircraft, and start World War III, increase the chance of a

nuclear confrontation between the U.S. and Russia. That's madness. Absolute madness. But in times of madness, the unthinkable become thinkable. Nobody in July 1914 thought that a Serbian territorial dispute would become a great war. And yet, compare Zelensky's plea to this telegram from the Prince of Serbia to the Tsar of Russia. Quote, It is impossible for us to defend ourselves. We supplicate your majesty to give us your aid as soon as possible. The highly prized goodwill of your majesty makes us hope firmly that our appeal will be heard by his generous Slav heart. Yeah, as we all know, the Tsar gave in and he guaranteed Serbia's security. He ended up paying the price with his life and the lives of hundreds of thousands of his own soldiers. I'll end with a quote that I read yesterday,

but which is so immensely important from Robert McNamara. He was a secretary of defense during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Quote, I want to say, and this is very important, in the end, we lucked out. It was luck that prevented nuclear war. We came that close to nuclear war at the end. Rational individuals. Kennedy was rational. Khrushchev was rational. prevented nuclear war. We came that close to nuclear war at the end. Rational individuals. Kennedy was rational. Khrushchev was rational. Castro was rational. I just think that that quote is so incredibly important for people to understand and to

also to think about. 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, the Ukraine crisis coming on the heels of the pandemic has just made it startlingly clear how vulnerable our own country is right now. Buffeted by supply shocks, beset by inflation, thwarted by financial elites and politicians in every effort to create resiliency and national self-reliance. How did we end up in such a precarious place? Well, friend of the show and executive editor for The American Prospect,

David Dayen, he knows exactly who to blame. Mainstream economists, people like Larry Summers, who teamed up with Wall Street and corporate interests to push what David describes as a financier-above-all approach. In a biting new piece for the New York Times, David compares the economy that our Wall Street and economic elites built to a shoddily constructed bridge. He writes, if engineers constructed a bridge this prone to collapse, they'd be fired. But with our accountability-free elites, being an economist means never having to say you're sorry. Russia's war on Ukraine in alignment with China should be a wake-up call for all of us about the folly of putting short-term profits above literally every other thing. After all, these elites that David's talking about, they have made us dependent on

Russian gas and the Chinese for pretty much everything else. And so through the prism of this conflict, let's just consider a few ways that the financier above all approach has left us completely exposed. Our first obvious vulnerability is our continued dependence on fossil fuels. Ken Klippenstein has been reporting for The Intercept on how an alliance between Saudi and Russia has been pushing gas prices up for us. that malignant regimes can easily hold an economic gun to our head, threatening ordinary Americans with price increases and job losses, not to mention threatening elected leaders with political disaster. It is a crime that the U.S. did not decades ago embark on a serious effort to dramatically reduce our dependence on fossil fuels through the development of renewables, including nuclear energy. And in fact, there is only one reason that that has not happened.

D.C.'s complete political capture by the oil and gas industry. Oil giants have spent massively over the years to fund climate denial, even as their own models revealed the impending toll of climate change as far back as the 70s. To this day, their lobbying and big money almost wholly determines our energy policy. We saw this all play out in real time with regards to Build Back Better and its climate provisions. In fact, a Greenpeace UK activist tricked an Exxon lobbyist into revealing on camera exactly what their strategy would be to kill any efforts at a serious shift away from fossil fuels. In it, in this video you're about to watch, the lobbyist brags about talking

to Joe Manchin's office every day. Who's the crucial guys for you? Well, Senator Capito, who is the, who chairs the Senate, who's the ranking member on environment and public works. Joe Manchin, I talk to his office every week. He is the kingmaker on this because he's a Democrat from West Virginia, which is a very conservative state. So he is and he's not shy about sort of staking his claim early and completely changing the debate. So so so on the Democrat side, we look for the moderates on these issues. This Exxon lobbyist also admits that their support for a carbon tax is mere greenwashing and that they are only supporting it because they know it will never come to pass. Even with their tactics exposed, big oil was still successful. Build back better and its investments in renewables are completely dead,

thanks largely to the aforementioned Senator Manchin and those other moderates in Congress. Just the latest win, though, for the oil giants who only benefit when gas prices spike and working class people suffer, handing a cudgel for Russia to use against our population and keeping us allied with monsters like the Saudi regime. Money and financiers, above all else, winning the day. But our vulnerabilities go far beyond spiking oil prices. These financiers and their allies have also created huge choke points that lead to economic misery. We ship jobs and critical supply lines overseas, primarily, of course, to Russia's lone major ally in this madness, China. We have also allowed massive consolidation to render our economy rickety and likely to break under any significant strain.

And all for what? According to Dayen, the tradeoff was clear. Sacrifice resiliency, wage security, and community for the promise of a $5 pack of tube socks. We have sacrificed any semblance of self-sufficiency and degraded our industrial capacity all on the altar of profits and cheap prices. And in the end, we didn't even get that. I don't know if you've noticed, prices have shot up thanks to the failures of this precariously architected mess. All of that means that we enter again into this confrontation with Russia with our population already stretched the breaking point, struggling to afford the basics at the mercy of global shipping routes and the whims of Chinese leadership. But the capture of our political class is so complete that it even impacts the tools we have at our disposal

to respond to Russia's imperial adventures in Ukraine. Our partners over at The Daily Poster are up with a piece explaining how our ability to sanction Russian oligarchs is hampered by Wall Street influence. Tomorrow, we're going to post an interview with David Sirota that has all of the details there. But the TLDR is this. You can't sanction oligarch assets if you don't know what assets those oligarchs own.

And Wall Street has used its influence to make the financial system in the U.S. extremely opaque. This means that economic royalists have neutered the kind of scalpel that you would ideally use in this situation. The ideal tools for right now would exact pain on Russia's political and financial elites without devastating ordinary Russians who are not to blame for Putin's war. Declaring economic war on ordinary Russians, though, is not only immoral, it is also dangerous. Right now, some significant segment of the Russian population is opposed to this war. History shows that inflicting mass suffering on that population is only likely to strengthen the hand of the Kremlin, allowing Putin and his allies to cover for their own failures by blaming the West with some legitimacy for the misery of the population.

So Wall Street's maneuvering in an effort to protect money launderers and have as little transparency as possible has made that outcome much more likely. But if you zoom out even a little bit further, it is clear the reason we're in a conflict with Russia at all owes in large part to the capitalist market obsession that has dominated our domestic and foreign policy for decades. Our supreme dedication to capitalism, of course, led us to a long and dangerous Cold War with the Soviet Union, including a massive nuclear buildup on both sides. But even more approximately, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, we helped to force brutal market reforms on Russia and push them to prioritize opening markets over building democratic institutions. Writing at Project Syndicate, Katerina Pistor, she argues that Boris Yeltsin was pushed into

a program of economic shock therapy, including market liberalization and rapid privatization by Russian reformers and their Western advisors. From their perspective, having to deal with any sort of democratic process would only slow the quote-unquote progress and would also delay the ability of Western capitalists to be able to profit from the opening up of Russia. By choosing capitalism, she writes, over democracy as the foundation for the post-Cold War world, the West jeopardized stability, prosperity, and as we now see again in Ukraine, peace and democracy, and not only in Eastern Europe. The free market radicalism of our bipartisan political class and Wall Street ghouls is a serious national security threat, crippling us at home, handing weapons to the worst actors in the world,

and guess what, guys? No matter how much money you have, there is no escaping a nuclear holocaust. I cannot help but realize the way that all of these factors have come together. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. 8 p.m., we got some special guests for you. It's going to be Sagar, me, Kyle, and Marshall. We've got all kinds of things pulled to show you and talk about. Obviously, this speech has probably changed dramatically from what they originally wanted it to be. And, in fact, we have a Washington Post hair sheet here we can show you. They're basically saying this is not the speech that Biden originally wanted to give.

He wanted to use the State of the Union to pivot to his agenda. Then Russia started a land war. Things change. Very dynamic. I mean, it is interesting because they start these speeches months in advance working on drafts. And according to this article, they say it's not a wholesale rewrite of the address, which will be delivered at 9 p.m. Eastern. But the new version will reflect the way the crisis has added urgency to Biden's running theme of defending democracies, according to one advisor who spoke on the condition of anonymity. There are a couple

other specifics in this article that are relevant in terms of the economic domestic agenda. Because honestly, since Build Back Better collapsed, even with Build Back Better, I have never known what Joe Biden's economic priorities are. What do you actually want? What are your priorities? What are you fighting for? We still don't really know. But anyway, they say he's going to call on Congress

to increase the maximum Pell Grant award by $2,000. Ooh, big deal. That also won't pass. Raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, something they have no plan in order to actually do. Create a national paid family leave program. Maybe you could get that through on a standalone vote. Possible. I don't know. They said he will also address how any new plans would be paid for. And this part, you know,

sort of raised my eyebrows, which is they said one person familiar with it said the speech appeared designed to appeal to moderate Democrats, independents, and never Trump Republicans. Okay. All right. Good luck. It's not going to be anything in it for us. The one thing he's going to have to focus on is going to be inflation. Let's put this up there. So they said yesterday, Jen Psaki, the president will use the word inflation tomorrow, saying it's a major concern and he's going to focus on efforts to reduce costs.

So we'll see. It's not all rosy news, though, per the Huffington Post. Biden's going to be focusing on deficit reduction. Let's put this up there on the screen. And they are ditching officially the Build Back Better brand. I mean, look, that was obviously going to die. It was very clear. I honestly don't think a single thing he says on domestic politics matters tonight. I just don't. Given Ukraine, I don't see it. I will say so the headline of that Huffington Post piece made me want to puke about

like, he's going to shift to deficit reduction. The details were a little less bad because the deficit reduction he's talking about is like taxing rich people in corporations. I don't know why he didn't sell it as that. Because that is popular. But, you know, he wants to use this like deficit hawk framing, which is irritating.

There was one good thing also in the Washington Post tear sheet. They said an early draft of the speech included support for an effort to restrict members of Congress from trading individual stocks. We'll see if that makes it in. That would be interesting. And that would be significant. And Biden, apparently, the entire time he was in the Senate, had this rule personally for himself. He did not buy and trade stocks. That was like a commitment he made when he was elected at 29 years old that he kept his entire time in the Senate.

So he has some credibility on this issue. But listen, obviously, the big news is going to be about what he says with regards to Russia and Ukraine and foreign policy. And this is ultimately going to be a very different speech in a very different context than what we originally expected. Also, a little update for you on the trucker protest. Yeah. Yeah. Didn't happen. Well, OK, I don't want to say they didn't happen, but we are here in Dc there's no sign of there ain't no takeover way boa constrictors shut down they did so in spite of the fact that there were the big con the supposedly big convoy that got a lot of attention they actually fully disbanded because there were only five trucks left in it to join other potential theoretical convoys that are out there so i don't want to

say there's nobody involved but there was clearly a massive, like, national security state freakout over... Yeah, the National Guard, all of that. Over this. Didn't end up. Resurrecting the Capitol fence. Didn't work out. Calling up the National Guard, all of this stuff. Like, you know, total freakout over something that doesn't look to have amounted to much,

so we'll keep our eye on that as well. Great. Well, I hope they're all well-fed and they're doing well while they're here and doing literally nothing, and we're all paying for it, so that's great. Well, I hope they're all well fed and they're doing well while they're here and doing literally nothing. And we're all paying for it. So that's great. Oh, did you see on my way in, I saw some random like military vehicles in the street this morning. Yeah, same thing. I saw trucks all along the highway, that type of stuff.

Par for the course, nation's capital. Yep. There you go. We'll see you guys tonight. It's going to be fun. Yeah, we want to see you tonight, 8 p.m. So join us then. Thanks for watching us today.

That's right. Oh, we're going to have a special guest tonight. Tune in for that. It's going to be fun. Indeed. All right. I think that's it. Yep.

See you this evening, guys. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

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